Here I Go Again

This is definitely my least favorite parenting job thusfar, Potty Training! Yuck!

Cleaning up pee-pee slashes from the potty, poopy underwear, and all the stress of watching and making sure they go and asking 10 million times a day if they need to.

Andrew is finally at that point. He has seemed ready for a while, but very unwilling. I was going to start in August....which is next week, but the oportunity arose when he refused to let me put on his diaper the other day, so I just left it off and we started this task. Tuesday night, I had him sit while watching tv on his potty seat and he finally went an hour or so later. So yesterday, we started going bare-bottomed and he went in the afternoon after I sat with him like the night before and then he started going on his own when he needed to by the evening. Today he has done really well...besides pooping, he has been going to the potty on his own all afternoon.

Now I've started with the underwear to see if he will tell me and take them off to go. We will see! Oh the fun! Not! But oh, how nice it will be to not change anymore diapers for a while though!!!

Haircuts

It was time again for Andrew to get a haircut and I decided Lillian could get one too since it had been a while for her. They were excited to get it cut and show their buddy, Tyler, that it is no big deal since he is scared of it. Now Andrew and Tyler have matching dos! Here are the kids when we got home from their haircuts.

By the way, I totally recommend Kid's Cuts on Mays Street! Snip-its is good, but we always have to wait there and it is more expensive. This place is older, but the kids like sitting in the car or on the airplane to get their hair cut!

Crystal Beach

We had our summer vacation this past week in Crystal Beach with Dad, Jamie, Katy, & Clay. We all rented a house on the beach and enjoyed the sand,sun, and water. The kids loved the beach. They were in and out of the water all the time and loved playing with all their beach toys.

We also enjoyed a delicious seafood dinner at Stingerees restaurant besides all the good cooking at the house.

We also made a couple of journeys on the ferry over to Galveston. We saw the dolphins jumping and the kids became pros of riding the ferry. While over there, we checked out the giftshops and went to the Aquarium at Moody Gardens.

My friend Kristi, came to visit for the day on Saturday since she lives in Houston and I haven't seen her since she came to see me last summer. It was nice to catch up and visit and Lillian really loved playing in the sand with her.

Memorial Park with Friends

One of Lillian's best school buddies, Henry, wanted to play today, so we met up at Memorial Park. It was nice with all the shade by the water. With a breeze blowing, we could manage the heat okay and the kids had a blast playing, exploring, and throwing rocks into the water. The actual round rock that Round Rock is named for is at the park...but on down from where we were, so maybe next time I'll walk further down and see it.

I'm sure the kids will sleep well tonight with all the running around they did. They had an awesome time! I know Lillian misses her school buddies, so it is always great to see them when we can!

Growing and Moving Up

The kids are growing and growing and because Andrew can be a bit destructive, (We call him Terminator.), we decided to get Lillian a big kid booster for the car.

A couple of weeks back, Andrew was pull on the backing cloth of his carseat and pulled it loose and broke the styrofoam out of it on one side, so I figured it probably wasn't that safe anymore. There wasn't really a way to fix it. That carseat was Lillian's before he got big enough to move out of the babyseat, so it at least served us a good 3 years.

So, we found a nice pink booster seat for Lillian today and she was very excited. She keeps saying, "I love my new seat!" Even when we went in the gym, she was stopping everyone to tell them that she got a new seat! And I figured with how much cheaper booster seats are, I could get her a pink one just for her and will get Andrew his own eventually. He got handed down Lillian's old carseat.

So here are my big kids in the car!

Independence Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day! We had a nice relaxing morning followed by a very busy afternoon. We just hung out at the house all morning and Brandon made a yummy brunch. He even made some Scooby Doo waffles with my Scooby Doo waffle iron.

Then after naps, we loaded up the car and headed to Seguin. Brandon's uncle Jimmy had his 60th birthday, so the Hajek side of the family had a big party for him. His daughter, Misty was also in from Canada to celebrate, so we got to visit with her. It was the first time I met her even though we talk on facebook quite a bit. The kids enjoyed running around and playing with the other kids, especially cousin Zachary.

Then after a yummy bbq dinner, we packed back up and headed to Austin and decided to check out the city of Austin fireworks. We parked in Zilker and walked over to find a spot in the grass. The kids were excited and loved it. In the past years, they have always been sleeping or about to fall asleep by this time, so they actually enjoyed them this year. About halfway through the show, they were ready to go home though.

Dressed for the 4th

Lillian giving a kiss to Cousin Zachary

Andrew and Zachary running around the stage at the hall

Lillan and me waiting on the fireworks

Lillian took a picture of me and B

Watching the fireworks

Andrew loved it!

Swimming Kids

We enrolled the kids in swimming lessons this summer through the city of Round Rock. I had done the Mommy and me class with Lillian through them back when Lillian was 7 months old, but have skipped the past couple of summers having them both at an age where I needed to be in the pool with them.

So this year, Lillian was old enough for the preschool class and she really enjoyed it! She loves being a part of a class and doing all the activities. I could see her from over where I was doing Andrew's class and she was smiling and having fun the whole time. I'm deciding whether or not to enroll her now in the advanced preschool class where they do a little more with them and teach them a few actual strokes. We'll see.

Andrew is my little scardy cat. The first 2 days of class, he had claws into my shoulders so scared of it! But by the 3 day, he was kicking and loving it. I'm so glad we took this class. Even if he didn't learn much, he at least got more used to the water and isn't so scared anymore.

The class got cancelled one day due to rain, so it was supposed to be made up on Friday, but Friday had rain again, so it got moved to today (Saturday). It actually worked to our advantage because Brandon worked yesterday, so today he was off and could come take some pictures of the last day of class. And I don't think people realized class would be today since it was cancelled yesterday, so in Lillian's class that usually had about 12 kids, there were only 3 including her and only Andrew and one little girl in our class, so we almost had the pool to ourselves!










Lillian kicking on the boogie board with her teacher.












Andrew kicking to the boat










Lillian's class












Kicking Andrew