McKelle! - balance bike, sharing song & coloring

The weather has started to cool down a little bit so we've been outside riding bikes again. I encouraged McKelle to try the balance bike again because her legs are longer now. She's doing great. She'd walk/ride it all the way down the street and back. Then she'd practice balancing by lifting both legs up off the ground for a half second, while the bike was not moving, then proudly say, "I did it! Emory I balanced!" Little cutie!

A few Sundays ago, McKelle was singing, "sharing our toys is fun to do, fun to do, to do, to do." I joined her a few times and commented what a fun new song she learned. Later that day while watching a movie and eating popcorn, she asked if she could have one of my popcorn, even though she had her own bowl in her hand. I teased her and said, "no, it's my popcorn." To which she responded, "but sharing is fun to do." I smiled and we shared popcorn together.  There were a few other incidences similar to this one over the next few days. :)

McKelle has also brought home some coloring pages after church that were colored really well. The first few Sundays I didn't think much about them because I seriously thought her teacher just colored them for her. It wasn't until we went to a restaurant last week and I watched her color the menu that I realized it was her coloring the pages all along! She's really good! She does a fantastic job of staying in the lines and coloring the whole area. I was genuinely impressed!

Harrison is 3 months & laughing and rolling over

Harrison already seems soo big! He is such a smily baby, just like his brother and sister. Last Friday I heard him laugh for the first time and it melted my heart! I was tickling his neck and he just started giggling. He did it again that night when Emory was cooing and smiling at him. It was precious!

During the day, he takes his naps laying on his belly. As soon as he starts sucking on his pacy, he goes out like a light. When he woke up from his morning nap today, he was facing up laying on his back! I was obviously a little surprised to see him that way. After his afternoon nap that day, he was starting to wake up so I snuck in his room and video tapes him rolling over again! It was very exciting. What seemed to motivate the rolling over was gas :) silly boy.

Another thing he's been doing is sucking on his thumb! I love hate it. It's so cute but I don't want a thumb sucker. Theres been a few times when he looses his pacy and fusses for a little bit and by the time I go in and check on him, he has his thumb in his mouth. I gently pull it out and replace it with the pacy. This kid has a serious suck though. There was one day I took him out of bed and noticed a bruise on his forearm. I couldn't figure out how it happened until I realized it was from him sucking on his own arm!

Emory's primary program

A few weeks before Emory's primary program we started to practice and memorize his line, which was "Jesus is a teacher to teaches about God. He loves his mother Mary, his prophets and our bishop." I thought we'd just start by practicing the first sentence but after repeating it like three times he asked what the rest was, which I read to him like once, and then out of no where, he knew the whole thing! He has a great memory.

On the way to church the day of the program, he mentioned how Rodney was going to give him a dollar if he was good. I didn't know at the time but that's his teacher's name. I told Emory no he just needed to be good because that will make Jesus happy to which he replied, "it's too late mom."

During the Sacrament, I told Emory I wanted him to listen with his heart for when he felt Jesus in his heart during the program and that he would have to come down when it was all done and tell me when it was. I said, "is it okay to wave at Mom and Dad?" He said, "yes!" I said, "No, but you can smile really big to us!" When he got on stage he gave us both a big, big smile, which never left. He sat so reverently the whole program and delivered his line so well. I was so proud and very impressed. When it was over he walked down and showed me the dollar in his pocket. I laughed and said, "No. Emory your teacher doesn't need to give you a dollar. Give it back and I'll give you a dollar," which he reminded me about for two days until I finally gave him one. He also shared that he felt Jesus in his heart at the beginning of the program and I said, "that's when I felt him too!" It was a special moment.

After church someone came up to me and said, "Darcee, I was so disappointed after church today." After asking why she said, "I woke up so excited for the Primary Program and thought, 'I can't wait to see what that little Bowen boy does today.' But, he was soo good up there!" We both laughed and I said, "it's amazing what a dollar will do!"

Potty Training McKelle

I have been trying to potty train McKelle since February of this year and I think we're finally done with the training! It's been a looong road. When I first started in February, she did great the first day, I don't even think she had a single accident and was outside playing like normal by the end of the day. However, day two, she had to pooped and it threw everything off. I knew she had to poop but wouldn't sit on the potty and ended up just pooping on the tile. But afterwards, didn't have any peeing accidents and did great for a day or two, until she had to poop again. By this time it had been a few days since she'd pooped so when she finally did go, she cried because it was a little painful from being so hard. I think it kind of traumatized her because after her nap, she wouldn't even let me take off her pants! So, I decided, well she decided, potty training was not going to happen any more. We tried pull ups but she would just pee in them like a diaper so it was pointless.

We went back and forth between underwear and diapers probably three or four times over several months. Then, I think it was just out of the blue one day she said, "I need to poop" and went on the potty! I made a big deal about it and made her an ice cream chart. It took a few weeks but she filled it up and we went and got ice cream to celebrate. I was thinking, "okay she's gone on the potty like ten times now, so she's potty trained!" But she would still poop in her diaper at night or naps. She was wearing underwear and would keep them dry, it was just the pooping thing that she was still trying to figure out.

However, after several longs months, I'm proud to announce that it has been about two weeks now and she has not been pooping in her diaper and instead has been pooping on the potty!! I'm so proud of her listening to her body and figuring it all out. It took a while for sure but the lesson was finally learned. I also learned not to push it. They figure it out when they're ready. I just had a skewed expectation because Emory was soo easy and picked it up soo fast! I now have experienced both ends of the spectrum :)

Learning festival

My brother, Dustin, and his wife, Rachel, just told us they're moving to Washington state in a few weeks. I was really sad because I have just loved having him close to us for the last year or two. I love that my kids have fun memories with "uncle Primmy." The last weekend before they left we wen to a learning festival in Scottsdale with the kiddos. It was busier than I imagined but turned out to be fun. McKelle had a really good time playing on soft gymnastic like toys and exploring different desert animals with me. I loved the baby owl the most. Emory was in a weir mood and kept saying, "I'm bored." But he liked climbing through a police RV and motorcycle. Cute little Harrison slept through it all :)

After the festival, Rachel went to my Relief Society Super Saturday. I'm so glad she did! She was a huge help in painting and finishing two out of three of my crafts, which were much more work than I expected!

Emory's a master builder of Legos

Last Christmas we gave Emory a huge bucket of Lego bricks, which we got from one of Jeremy's coworkers. It came with a book or two that has different ideas of things you can build. Lately, Emory has really impressed me with his ability to follow the pictures of instructions and has made several small cars and trucks. He really enjoys it and I love that it fosters his engineering mind.

Emory loses his first tooth

Over the summer, I randomly noticed Emory's bottom middle tooth was a little discolored. When I asked him what happened to it, he gave me several different stories. I sent a picture of the tooth to my brother, Deric, who is in dental school and my brother in law, Brad, who is an oral surgeon. Both said I should have a dentist check it out. We went to the dentist on Wednesday and he said it was deteriorating from the inside out, probably from being hit on something. I'm guessing it was from him trying to separate legos with his teeth! He said it could break off while eating but more than likely will just fall out on it's own. He wasn't too concerned though since it is the first baby tooth you loose anyways around age 5 or 6.

Two days later, Dustin and Emory were messing around and Emory hit his mouth on Dustin's foot. Emory was crying big time and came over with blood all in his mouth. His tooth broke in half! The top part fell right off and the bottom was still in his gums. I got an emergency appointment at the dentist and quickly rushed over. We were on our way when Jeremy suggested I just wait and call Brad. Before heading back home, I pulled into a parking lot and climbed in the back seat with Emory to try and send pictures of the tooth to Brad.

Poor little Emory. In all this chaos, he was a bit overlooked. With his big alligator tears on his check I asked him how he was doing. He softly and genuinely asked me, "Am I going to die?" I said, "No honey. Why do you think you're going to die?" He responded, "Because I think I swallowed the tooth." After reassuring him that it was no problem and wouldn't hurt him one bit, I explained that we'll need to go to the dentist and have him take a look at the tooth again. I said he'll probably have to pull the tooth out so it won't hurt him anymore and he'll give him some medicine to help him feel better. Then, he said the sweetest thing that made my Mommy heart just melt. He said, "Mom, thanks for giving me all of this love." I could have died. I felt so bad for him. Everything happened so quickly and no one took the time to explain anything to him or see how he was doing. After that conversation, I could just see him breath and relax back to his normal self. Poor guy just needed is worries and concerns validated just like anyone else would.

We ended up going back to the dentist that afternoon and he did pull the tooth. They put numbing gel on before giving him a numbing shot. Then just wiggled and pulled it out. Emory was a champ the whole time, the dentist was very impressed. He was so brave.

The best part was Emory got to learn about the tooth fairy who gave him $1 that night. He used his money to buy a pretty cool nurf gun a few days later. After that, he quickly became very interested in money! Over the weekend he somehow convinced Dustin to give him another dollar and the weekend after that he convinced his Primary teacher to give him another dollar if he was good during the Primary program! Little business man!

McKelle's first day of Preschool

McKelle started Mrs Jaimee's Preschool today! Emory started school a few weeks ago and McKelle couldn't understand why she wasn't in school yet. Over the summer I told her she had to be potty trained to go to preschool so over the last few weeks she kept saying, "I potty trained!" She just couldn't understand why she needed to wait.  So, needless to say, she was very excited when the first day of school finally came!

When I picked her up after school, she was so excited to tell me that they learned about bodies and bones and she showed me her special jewel she got to pick out of the treasure box. It's going to be a fun year for her!