And So It Begins

Today James and I embarked on the adventure I have been dreading the most about motherhood...*dramatic pause*...potty training. Yep. I have avoided it long enough under the guise of waiting for James to be "ready".  Fact is, James would be happy to stay in diapers for years to come.  He couldn't care less that he's a late bloomer in this area.  He is, however, ready...and probably has been for some time now.

What with vacations and moving into our house, this summer has been too crazy to take on potty training on top of it all.  But we're here now, and we're settled, and frankly, I've run out of excuses.

Our first day in this new world had ups and downs, but fortunately mostly ups.  This morning we pulled out the Thomas the Tank Engine underwear and went for it.  We set a timer for regular intervals, starting at 10 minutes and gradually adding time.  We settled in at every 20 minutes, stretching up to 30 at the very end of the day.  It seemed to work pretty well.  We only had one accident, and there were even several times where James told me of his own accord that he had to go before the timer went off.

He filled up his sticker chart (which he has been working on since our very first feeble attempts at potty training many months ago) and earned himself a new book which he can read all by himself!

Sarah was pretty proud of her big brother, too:

All in all, it was a good first day.

Let's hope day two (and day three and day four...) goes just as well!

Hooray for summer...

...and corn on the cob! :)

Today was Sarah's first experience with corn on the cob, and we're pretty sure she liked it.

 
James, did too. :)

We're alive!

Can you believe it?  I'm actually posting on our blog!  I'm pretty certain I have never gone quite that long without updating before.  We have had a BUSY summer.  It's been full of trips and family and moving into our first home!  I haven't been able to get good pictures of the house yet, but I will definitely get to that soon.

One of my biggest excuses for not posting on the blog is the ridiculously bad luck we've had with computers and technology lately.  Our computers all decided to die at the same time.  Even Paul's old laptop that we always used as a back up decided to give up the ghost.

Even now, the only reason I have a computer to blog from is that a coworker of Paul's was kind enough (brave enough?) to let us borrow a desktop of his that he wasn't using.  We still have to figure out our situation, but until then, here's a cute video of my daughter who is growing up way too fast: (Please excuse her nasty face and shirt.  She had just eaten lunch and managed to get it everywhere.)

Isn't she cute? :)  Hopefully you can see past that disgusting shirt to that adorable face.  You'll be happy to know that the stain from that lunch came out completely in the laundry.  Thank you, Shout! :)

J-A-M-E-S

In the last few days, James has become very interested in writing and spelling his name.  If you ask him how to spell his name, he'll proudly say "J-A-M-E-S".

Yesterday, he was playing with letter magnets on the fridge and he said, "Look I spelled James!" I looked over and he had put A-M-E-S together.  He was just missing the J!  After I helped him find the J he spelled his name on the fridge all day long.

Today, he decided he wanted to draw.  He drew for a while and then brought the picture over to show me.  He drew Lightning McQueen (so cute!  I'm so glad his faces are starting to smile instead of frown!) and sure enough, he wrote JAMES:

Sorry for the poor quality picture.  The crayon color was too light to be picked up by our scanner.  The 'J' is backwards, but it's totally legible!  He wrote it with no coaching or prompts from me.  I'm so proud of my boy!

What's this? A Sunny Day?

Here in Oregon we are finally starting to see some sunny days mixed in with the dreary rain.  Today's high is forecast to be 71 degrees!  As soon as I saw that, I knew we needed to get outside for some much needed vitamin D. :)  We packed up a picnic lunch, bought some sidewalk chalk and bubbles, and headed to the park  with our good friends Claudia and Claire.

I was sure to slather on the sunscreen and cover my kids' heads.  They are true Pacific Northwesterners, and they don't know what to do with themselves when the sun comes out.  

 James and Claire had a wonderful time running around and playing on the playground.

What a goofy grin!  I think he was having fun, don't you? ;)

Sarah was content to stay on the blanket with me and Claudia and play with the sidewalk chalk.

Ah, what a glorious day!  Beautiful sunshine, kids having fun, food to eat, and good friends!

Counting

James is learning new things every day.  He has recently made leaps and bounds of progress on his letters and numbers.  He now recognizes all his letters and has started associating sounds with about 1/3 of them.  He also can count things pretty reliably up to 20 (although he still skips 15 off and on).  

Within the last month or so he basically taught himself to recognize the digits 1 through 9 using the laptop toy he got for Christmas a couple years ago (thanks again Grandma and Grandpa Peterson!).  He was trying to answer questions about how many of various shapes were on the screen.  He would count them (correctly) but then he didn't know how to find the number to press on the keyboard.  I showed him that the numbers were in green along the top row of the keyboard, and demonstrated that if he started counting from the left from 1, he could find the number he was looking for.  I really only showed him this a couple times before he got the hang of it.  After that, it was only a matter of days before he connected the number with it's corresponding digit.  I had no idea he knew his numbers until one day he pointed a number out correctly on one of his toys.  I started quizzing him on them, and he got them all right!  He is one incredible boy, and he amazes us every day.

Here's a video of James doing some counting:

The SD card on the camera filled up right in the middle, so I had to take a break and clear it off before I could finish.  Here's the second part where he identifies his numbers even when they are out of order:

Next, I'll try and get a video of him showing his letters and their sounds. :)  I realized it has been a while since I updated the blog about this type of thing, and I want to fix that!

Easter Morning

The Easter Bunny visited our house yesterday, and he left tracks! :)  Here's a video of what Sarah and James woke up to yesterday (it's a bit long):

And here are our beautiful children dressed up for church: