Summer 2014

The summer wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the zoo!!

The kids got to walk in the Pioneer Day Parade downtown with out stake. It was a long morning of waiting around in the hot sun and then  walking about a half a mile. Lizzy and I watched in the crowd to take pictures.  

 

Snow cones to help those hot summer days and friends over for play dates.

Mom and Dad came for a weekend visit and we had an amazing time with them! They took the kids to the park on Saturday and there was some kind of free carnival there with all kinds of games and prizes. So the kids all came home with stuffed animals and other fun treasures.  It was a fast trip, but we loved having them here!

 

Trish and I went to see Tim McGraw. It had been so long since I had been to a concert. Tim was amazing!!! Minus the drunk couple in front of us making out the whole time, it was great. Oh, and we couldn’t find out car afterwards, but it was worth it!!

 

Tons of sprinkler time on the trampoline to help those hot summer days! And this is what I wake up to most mornings…Parker and Biscuit snuggling at the foot of my bed and Parker falling asleep in a lot of odd places.

Parker and Lizzy love playing together. David accidently put on one of Parker’s shirts thinking it was his and Maggie and Lizzy and now sharing a room. Leaving David and Parker with a lot of room for all their  toys in their new boys room!

Lots of outside time with all the fun toys. David’s company had a fun night where they rented out the Living Planet Aquarium, so we got to have dinner there and then got to see all the neat stuff they have there!

Too many fireworks and poppers to count. David tried out mowing the lawn and figured out it is hard work!!

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Lizzy enjoying  the fireworks and Maggie just cheesing for the camera.

 

It was an incredibly fun and busy summer. 3 weeks in Arkansas and then both of our parents coming out here really took up the majority of the summer and it was amazing!! I loved sleeping in and not having to do anything all day if we didn’t want to.  I loved the kids would go play for hours a day in the sprinkler.  Thank goodness also for friends in the neighborhood for us to have play time with!! That might have been the biggest life saver for me.  We also did some swimming this summer a few times with some friends and family.  I tried to do fun things with the kids each week, but also let the have lots of down time. I know I needed it before this school year with 2 of them with homework and tests! I really enjoyed the summer up until about a week ago and I got really sick.  The kids also started fighting even more with each other than usual. I think we are all ready for a new schedule and routine.  But I know that in a few months I will probably be counting down until next summer vacation!!

Parker and Potty Training

So this summer, after the Torgersons left I was at Target with Parker and Maggie and I asked Parker if he wanted to wear big boy underwear. To my complete shock he replied, “YES!” So we bought him some underwear. I had just talked to my sister Pam in Arkansas the day before and she had potty trained her daughter, Ellie, who is 9 months younger than Parker and I got a small need to try it out on Parker.  Just keep in mind that Maggie and David were not the easiest to potty train. David was 4 & 1/2 about and Maggie was about 2 and 1/2.  David had one horrible week of terrible accidents until he went to my sister, Trish’s house for a sleepover and I told him if he had a poopy accident there he wouldn’t be able to go back for another sleepover…sadly he had an accident. Luckily though it scared him enough that he has never had an accident since then! Maggie was somewhat easy to potty train and she was the one wanting to be potty trained, so I did it. After that it was accidents, so many accidents for YEARS!! I was defeated after the 2 of them and I wasn’t planning on trying with Parker until next year, but then I had the urge to give it a try and wow did it pay off!! He has been amazing!! He has not worn a diaper since July 26th.  It took him about 5 days to get brave enough to go poopy on the potty, so that was fun! We went through a ton of underwear that first week, but I then told him the toilet wanted his poopy and did it in a silly voice for him. Parker got a kick out of it and since then has been great at both on the potty.  I thought it was a myth that you could potty train your child without so much torture, but luckily it is not and I am so happy to only have one child in diapers.

Just to give y’all an idea of how much we had to change Parker…I get my diapers on Amazon and they would come every month on the same day. I would get 196 diapers a month for both Parker and Lizzy and most months I would end up having to buy extras before my next shipment came.  Wipes were also going very quickly as well! I was going through about 1000 a month! It was THAT insane with this child. On a good day he would only have 3 poopy diapers.  Talk about a money saver, now that we aren’t buying diapers and wipes for him! In the past month that he has been potty trained I think we have used about a half a thing of wipes for Lizzy and haven’t even came close to going through the almost 200 diapers.  It is heaven!!

I am so glad to have Parker potty trained and he really is doing an amazing job.  Not a fan of having to know where the bathroom is at any place that we go, because I am 90% sure that Parker will need to go potty at each place we go to, BUT it is so much better than all those dang dirty diapers!! Way to go Parker on being such a big boy!!