Hannah's Creations

Hannah likes to make piles, and they usually start where the dog is at.  So if the dog moves the pile will either move with the dog to his new resting place OR she will create a new pile.

Getting Bigger

The belly is getting bigger!  Time is really flying by.  I hope when the 3rd trimester rolls around the momentum keeps on going.  

My Favorite Holiday

Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday!  I was excited to send out valentines this year to grandparents and I wanted to make cookies to give to neighbors.  Well...Stu was going to make my favorite sugar cookies and as a family we could go deliver them.

Here are some picture from our Valentines Day:

Hannah in her Valentine PJ's from her Aunt Leah

Hannah in her Valentine outfit-also from Aunt Leah

My mother in law's bday is on Valentines.  So when we were out there in January we got this picture of all the grandkids to give her for her birthday.

Lydia, Hannah and Owen

Little Cutie

 Hannah helping dad make the sugar cookies

 We decided to not do gifts this year, but my sweet husband surprised me with a delivery of flowers and a beautiful note.

These are the flowers a few days later. They were beautiful!!

Potty Training

In my perfect world, potty training would be a breeze and Hannah would get the idea quickly and we would all float down a magic rainbow.  
Potty training didn't quite go the way I hoped it would.  It wasn't terrible but it was quite hard.  I read and read and read blogs, books and pinterest posts for months on potty training.  Is she ready?  Do I have everything I need?  Am I ready to commit?  Have I stocked up on food for us since we can't leave the house...EVER :)  Seriously, this is all going through my head.  I know I am not the first nor will I be the last person to potty train, but I wanted to be prepared.
We had been talking about potty training for a long time and when the day arrived, we got up-had a good breakfast and went right into it.  She went a few times, but most was in her underwear.  My mom had made some training panties for me and I think she thought they were like a diaper because every time she had them on, she wet. But when we went no bottoms, and she seemed to make it to the potty.  I had a timer set to go off to remind us to sit on the potty, but that was hard to gauge, I felt like we were going to the potty ALL the time.  How long does it take liquid to travel to the bladder?  Should have looked that up. Trail and error on Day 1, but we made it through.

 I decided to do a "BEAR" Theme party for potty training.  We had bear snacks also.  She really didn't seem to care about the thought that went in, but to me-it made it more fun.

 She had different stickers for each day so she could see her accomplishments.  Interestingly, she seemed to like the stickers the most.  I tried treats when she went and she could have cared less.  I even tried $ for her to put in her piggy bank-but stickers were the ticket when she peed.  She got so excited to pick one and to put on the board.  

 We are loading up on salty things so we will drink more to start the process

 Her new 'teddy'

 Coloring Frozen printouts

 This is how we rolled with dinner Day 1.  Pizza in the bathroom.  Classy

End of Day 1.  6 times in the potty.  Pretty good

Day 2 I hear can be hard.  I was expecting it and went in knowing this.  I think the thing that was the hardest for me was that she is 2 1/2 and I need to remember that, but how many times can I say "don't pee in your pants" where you want to pull your hair out.  Can't they just get it already!  And the running to the potty when the timer went off.  And Hannah screaming because she didn't want to get on the potty.  I don't want this to be a nightmare experience for her, but consistency is the key too.  So many variables!  Why can't this be black and white? 

 Day 2 I brought out the princess stuff.  I had princess panties and stickers for the Potty Chart.  I also had 2 sets of princess for her princess castle that she earned if she got 2 stickers from going potty.  She seemed to like this and it was going okay.  She did earned 1 set of her princess for her castle by going potty.  I was going to give her the second set since she went 6 times again, but she kinda forgot, so I held onto it for Day 3 to help keep the motivation going. I have to remember..progress is always good.  Still working on #2 in the potty.  I hear that may take some time...

 Moved her table into the living room so we were closer to the potty

 "What mom??"

After day 2

From here on out till this post, we have made some progress.  The most important being #2.  I hope it clicked for her and she will always be so excited to go #2 in the potty.  She just giggled and giggled when she saw what she did.  I was sooo proud of her.  I hadn't even promoted her so it was a surprise for us both.  Accidents will happen (as I have found out) and at some point we do need to leave the house to get groceries.  I am sick of Mac and Cheese.  I hope to get her use to the BIG potty so that when we do venture out, she will not be scared to use a big potty in a store.  Nap and nighttime training will come later.  I can only seem to handle one thing at a time. 

Big pat for mom!  Hannah did good, but I think mom needed a sticker chart too to feel like she accomplished something.  Could my reward be a maid to come clean up the devastation I let my daughter do to my house and to deep clean the floors where she peed?

What a cute baby

We had our "BIG" ultrasound and everything looks good with the baby.  We were excited to take Hannah and she may have been too for the first 5 min.  This ultrasound takes a lot longer since they are checking all sorts of things, so she got quite bored and Stu had to entertain her.

Baby decided to be face down almost the entire time.  But once the tech finished everything he went back to see if we could get just one face picture and we did!  Aren't they a beauty??  We even got to see the baby open and close its mouth and stick out their tongue.  It TOTALLY made the ultrasound for me.