Christmas Time!

We have had such a great Christmas week. It has been nice to be here in Texas enjoying the weather and also getting settled. We are getting things in order, like getting addresses changed and making sure we switch our Car Insurance. It has been a lot of work but it is something that we wont have to do for, well, a little while...

We have had such a blast spending time with my parents, and Kaitlyn is doing great adjusting to this new lifestyle.

Every now and then we play a little too much and she doesn't get the sleep she probably needs and we all feel it the next day when she is not as happy... but for the most part, she has been doing awesome and loving all this space at my parents house, compared to our last apartment.

For Christmas Kaitlyn got a new Baby that looked just like the one that she has now, So clean and new!!

She seemed to not know what to do with both. But has played equally with each one.

Also a stroller and bed and a diaper bag for her "twin" babies.

She got a Bike!

And a Big girl bed with new bedding!!
Which she does a lot better in than I thought she would. She stays in her bed until it is time to wake up. The 1st night was a little more rough. She woke up at midnight and at 5am. But since then she goes to sleep almost better than before (very excited to lay down in her bed... like it is a treat) and stays in there till morning. She loves it so much and sometimes through out the day she wants to go upstairs and just play on it.


And of course a few other fun things...


Making Gingerbread cookies with Grandma


Playing the Piano
I have noticed almost everywhere we go, there is a Piano, Aunt Kaceys, Aunt Vikys, Both Grandmas, she just must think every house has one. And she loves it.

Video of her rolling out the cookie dough

Goodbye Utah...

This last week has been crazy. We packed up our little life in Provo and moved to Texas. The Wednesday before we left, it snowed a ton so we decided to take Kaitlyn outside and let her play in the snow and build a snow man. She had so much fun!
We are really going to miss our last Apartment Complex. It was such a fun place to spend the last 15 months.

Alma made the snowman pregnant... So I had to take a picture with it!

Packing up our apartment was not as hard as I thought it would be with a 2 year old.
She did awesome and kept herself entertained.
Here we made a box fort for her and she just played in it for awhile with her new house.
Not sure why she is sucking on the Mom figure... but I thought it was a cute picture.

Alma drove the truck all the way to Texas and Kaitlyn and I were lucky enough to fly to Texas, with a layover in Denver. Since she just turned two 2 weeks before we had to buy her a seat... which she loved. She looked so cute in her little seat all ready to go.

As crazy as moving is... we were able to find sometime to say good bye to good friends before we left.
The night before we left we went to Salt Lake and saw some of Almas friends from College. It was great to get to see them one more time.
After dinner, we decided, since I had never been to Temple square at Christmas... that we would go look at the lights.

Great friends!

And Shannon and Owen had us over for the best dinner ever the Sunday before we left and it was so great to catch up and talk about life and of course, babies.
Shannon is exactly 8 weeks ahead of me with a little boy. It was so fun to show off our preggo bellies!
She is super cute!!

We are going to miss them big time... especially watching LOST together on our little love seat!

We are now in Texas and finally settled, unpacked and feeling a little bit of the stress from moving melt away and starting to enjoy the Christmas season... especially at 77 degrees.

Some of the things that happen during our days at home...

Since we Potty Trained, this is the new "hang out" place in our house...

Every now and then she just likes to go in there with her toys and play.

I heard her saying, "Mommy... Mommy..."
and when I came this is what I found.

All her "peeps" taking a nap.

(I love how all their little heads are peeking out)

One morning she woke up and when I asked her what she wanted for breakfast, she said "Peanut Butter"

I tried to put it on toast, which she didn't want. Just a spoon and the jar.

She sat and ate it for over 30 mins.

...& this is the look I got when I asked if she was all done.

Her new umbrella from Aunt Viky!

Thanks again!

Last Saturday night we had our Ward Christmas Party.

Alma and I are were on the committee so we helped with this Big Party.

Decorations, 5 Turkeys, 5 Hams, Mashed Potatoes, Fresh Green Beans, rolls and salad and yummy Punch.

Our committee was awesome and everyone did so much to make this go easy.

It was such yummy food!!!

There was entertainment

(talent show)

and a Nativity Presentation

(Kaitlyn was one of the Angels)

Here is the stage with lights and a tree and the piano

The tables

Kaitlyn spent the whole time running around with these girls.
It was soooo fun to see, we are REALLY going to miss our friends here.





I think this picture below is the cutest picture ever!!!
They were all holding hands running around, I didn't even have to ask them to do this:

Here is the Bishopric

They all played a different instrument and sang

It was great!

Their presentation of Luke 2

In her Angel costume...

Meeting Santa

She was a little scared... didn't want to sit on his lap

Better than last year though, at least there were no tears this time!

Here is a video of Kaitlyn on stage

she loves to be on stage

The congregation was singing Silent Night and she was so cute twirling around

We love this ward so much and we are going to miss it more than ever!

Kaitlyns 2nd Birthday!!

We had a get together with Kaitlyns friends from our Apartment Complex and my sister-in-law helped me make invitations.

There was also a cute flower on the front too

Here she is on her Birthday Morning,

Right after opening her Birthday gift!

...and I think she likes it!

Being silly with Dad

Helping me make frosting for the cake...

We had a light lunch, Homemade Pizza Rolls, Pigs in the Blanket, Muddie Buddies, Capri Suns and a Fruit Salad with a Strawberry Marshmallow Cream dip...

Blowing out her Candles

Eating her Cake

All of Kaitlyns (and my) good friends that we are going to miss sooooo much.

Later that night we went to Cafe Rio and then came back and opened Presents and ate more Cake...

A Harmonica

Briella came over to celebrate too

Here are a few videos of her excitment when she realized it was her Birthday.

Here she is too excited to speak!!!

Still excited about her Birthday!

One of the Hardest things I have ever done!

Well, we did it!

Here is our story about Potty training, if you feel like reading it all.

The day we got home from the ultrasound of baby #2, Kaitlyn decided she wanted to go on the potty. She successfully went #2 and I thought why not keep going from there. We had already bought this Potty (pictured below) little panties, and stickers and of course Dum-Dum Suckers, her favorite.

So we just went for it.

That first day I rolled up my nice rug and we just learned that we "go"... a lot.

It was a tough 1st day but not too bad, knowing that I shouldn't expect much.

After the first couple days we just kept at it.

She after a couple days of being naked, just would stop playing and "go"

I thought this is great, so I put panties on her and then she would consistantly "go" in her panties.

5 steps backwards, I felt.

I am not going to lie, I wanted to quit 100 times, and I called my Mom and Sisters almost in tears because it was getting so hard.

They kept telling me that she was actually doing great and I was 75-80% done.

We knew the Thanksgiving holiday was coming and we were kept thinking it would be too hard to be away from home and try to potty train, and we almost quit, right about the time I was going to throw in the towel, she had a bunch of accidents that Saturday and Sunday before we left, she came up to me and said, "Go Potty Mommy?" and then she went.

I am so glad she did this because we were about to quit!!!

I talked to my mom about traveling and my worries about her regressing, and she assured me that it would be ok and it might even help her, since she is not at home.
While at Almas Parents house, she did ok. Not great, but we actually felt pretty proud of her, and then at Almas sisters house she was progressing more.

I think her cousins helped a lot. When she saw Branson, (Kaceys 3 year old) go potty, on the Big Potty, she was done with the little potty.

And all of Almas sisters kids were a great help, making the Potty seem like the coolest thing in the world!! And after they would go they would say, "Kaitlyns TURN!"

From Thursday on, she has been going on the Big potty and since Saturday morning it was like it all clicked and since then we have not had 1 accident.

NOT ONE!!!!!

She even slept in the same room as us and one night she woke up at 4am and said, Gotta go Potty Mom, and so I took her and she went.

She did great considering we were at my sister-in-laws house and traveling home and going to church and being in Nursery.

She even was a little sick and had to go #2 a couple times during church and she would always tell us and then we would take her.

I am feeling so grateful for my family who supported us through this. It was seriously one of the hardest things I have ever done, But I finally feel like, we are done with daytime Potty training. It is like it just all clicked with her and she can hold it now almost 2 hours and as soon as she sits on the potty she goes. She does great with #2 also which I was expecting to take a little longer.

It is great progression from even 4-5 days ago.

And now, looking back, it doesnt even seem like it was that hard. Tomorrow is the 3 week mark of starting and it was totally worth it.

Once we move we will work on nights, we started to kind of introduce it at the beginning, but since she is still in a crib we are going to wait till after the move so it isnt too much all at once.

Here is her awesome little Potty that we don't need anymore!!

Here is my big girl who is a ROCKSTAR!

We are so proud of you Kate!!