Lagoon, it's what fun is.

We went to Lagoon back in June for my sister's birthday and I never posted pictures so here they are. Oakley loves lagoon, although he calls it "The Goon". He had a great time and we loved being with all the cousins. He even went on some of the bigger rides and loved them.

 

 

 

 

 

Picture Purge

Why does the summer have to feel so busy all the time? Isn't it suppose to be a time to relax? Oh wait, that's if you don't have kids. There hasn't been much relaxing for us, between outings with the cousins, holidays, birthdays, playing, reffing, and coaching volleyball, and everything in between. I just need to post a ton of pictures that I want documented from my phone. I finally figured out how to get them to the computer from my new phone. So here is my picture purge: (WARNING, there really are a ton)

 Oak and I had fun tracing each other one day. Notice how big my right arm is. Muscle woman! And he even wrote my name on it. (He added a few too many zigzags to the 'z')

 My mother's day gifts: New Oakley sunglasses, and a homemade brunch from the hubby. I loved them both!

 

 We have a new park just up the street from our house that is so fun. Oakley loves climbing on the big spider web ropes. He also loves the splash park.

 

  He has become quite the dare devil and loves climbing on everything.

  We love outings with cousin Kayla and aunt Katy. Oak and Kayla are so cute with each other.

 We were able to go to a friends birthday party at the pool. Oak loves the water.

 

For some reason his face hurt one day and he thought he needed a bandaid on it. Whatever. 

 Cutie patootie Ty and our friends at our playgroup.

 

 We've been bowling with the cousins, and I(Liz) got to play in the Adult Open National Volleyball tournament that was here in Salt Lake. It was so much fun! Here's my fun team.

 

 And of course little Ty is not so little anymore. He is constantly moving. You can totally see his personality in these four pictures. "Mmmm, there's something in my mouth. Oh what is this? A block! Oh, hi mom! What's that in your hand? I better grab it."

Oak loves his brother. He always wants to hold him now, and Ty lets him for a minute or too.

Tyson and his cousin Parker are 5 months apart. It's fun to compare them and see how much they grow. The first pic is from May and the second picture is two months later. I think Parker may catch up to Ty some day. They are going to be best buds.

Potty Training 101

Truthfully, I have never looked forward to this part of motherhood. You can read all the books in the world and get advice from every mother on the block, but still never feel an ounce prepared for potty training. I think Oakley was ready a few months back but his mom wasn't. Having a newborn and trying to potty train didn't seem very fun to me, and then once Ty wasn't a newborn I just kept coming up with excuses to push back the inevitable potty training business. It wasn't until my sister said that she had set a date to potty train her almost three year old daughter that I decided to train Oakley the same week so they could go through the whole thing together and hopefully help each other. Well this date was last Tuesday. It really was perfect because I was busy the few weeks before getting ready for the Adult Nationals volleyball tournament that was here in Salt Lake and once all of that was over, I could focus just on Oakley.

We had been preparing Oakley for a few weeks saying things like "In a few days/weeks you get to wear big boy underwear and no more diapers. Won't that be fun?" and "When you go on the potty you can have treats and prizes. That will be so fun!" Oakley will get excited for almost anything that we're excited about so we pumped him up for the opening day.

Monday night I took him to pick out his own big boy underwear and some fun little prizes for when he would go on the potty. He chose Avenger and Spiderman underwear. So Tuesday morning we just went for it. He chose to wear the Hulk underwear and he said if he gets Hulk wet he'd come and crush him. It worked pretty well. Every 20 minutes a timer would go off and I'd make him sit on the potty. Every time he sat he got a jelly bean. If he went pee, he got a sucker, and if he pooped he would get a prize from a bucket that I had. He also got to put stickers on a chart depending on what he did. When the chart was full he'd get a BIG prize. He didn't put up any fuss and loved getting the jelly beans and putting stickers on his chart. He hadn't had any accidents or successes for about half the day. Finally he looked at me and said he didn't want to poop. I asked him if he had to and he said yes. So we put him on the potty and he had the funniest surprised look on his face when he started peeing. He was so excited and I think I jumped up and down. He was so proud of himself, and he finally got a sucker. He went a few more times that day and even pooped once in the potty. That night his friend came over and he had a few accidents cause he was having too much fun playing, but that's ok, I couldn't have asked for a better first day.

The next day was a different story. After four accidents in a row I didn't know what to do. I just kept making him sit and he wouldn't go, and we went through all the underwear that we had. It was time to do laundry. I was pretty frustrated at the end of that second day, so I found a book that I had gotten from the library called Pottywise from the same authors of Babywise which I loved. I scimmed through and read a few things and it suggested rewarding for being dry not for sitting on the potty. So the next day I explaind to Oakley that he didn't get a jelly bean for sitting on the potty anymore, he would get one if he was dry when I asked him if he was or not. This turned out to work really well. He only had 1/2 an accident all day long. Friday was more of the same. He did so well and didn't have any accidents until I took him to the park. He still hadn't perfected the pooping part, so our time there was cut short. We're still working on that part, but I am exstatic to say that he hasn't had a wet accident since Thursday. That's four whole days, and he even made it through three hours of church, a few car rides, and a play group today. I am so proud of this kid. Now we just need to perfect the messes. He's almost got it, so it shouldn't be too long.

This is a picture of his first success in the potty. He was so proud of himself.

Here he is guzzling down the juice and waiting for it to come out.

Here he is with his BIG prize from filling out his whole sticker chart. It only took him 4 days I think.

He is so big now and he loves showing everyone the different characters that are on his big boy pants. Good job Oak! 

Our little family of birds

There are many things that I like about our house, and many more things that I don't like about our house, but one of the things I really like is our big tree in the front yard. It is the best tree ever. It has a different color for every season. The blossoms in the spring are white, the leaves are green and not too big, and in the fall it is no doubt the most beautiful tree on the street. It is bright red and orange. It is great for shade in the summer, and all the neighborhood kids love to climb in it, and Oakley loves the swing that we have hanging from it.

A while back I noticed that there was a nest just up about 7 feet from the ground right smack dab in the middle, so I made Wes climb up and see if there was anything in it. There wasn't, so we figured it was from last year and we just hadn't noticed it. Well a few weeks ago Oakley wanted to try climbing the tree, so I helped him up there. I showed him the nest and told him to look inside. He said there were eggs. I wasn't sure if he was lying or not. He knows that eggs go in nests so I thought he was just saying that. I pulled myself up into the tree, feeling not so young and agile anymore, and lo and behold, there were some bright blue eggs.

 Aren't they the most perfect little eggs? We were so excited. So we've been checking up on them here and there and last week we looked in and found this:

 Four little chicks sleeping in their nice warm nest. At first I didn't think they were alive, but then I saw them breathing and their little bodies were moving up and down. We hurried and snapped this picture and let them be. We didn't want to get attacked by the mamma bird.

They are growing and growing and now they are getting more feathers. Soon we'll look out and they won't be there, they will have flown the coop. I'm sure Oakley will be sad when this happens, cause he really loves checking on them.

Last night I finally spotted the momma bird and got this picture and this video of her feeding the babies. It is pretty cool. I hope you enjoy.

A day at the Park with a nice camera

It has been so nice outside lately that we've had to take advantage of it. Almost every day we've gone to a different park. One day that we went I took along UOVA's really nice camera and snapped some fun shots of the kids. I am in love with this camera. It makes me feel like a professional photographer even though I'm not. I don't think I could take a bad picture with it if I tried. Anyway, here are some of the fun pictures.