Garynation

(this picture has nothing to do with this post, I just thought it had to be shared!) So, a while back I wrote about how Marielle was up a lot at night . Well, since then (Novemeber 29 I wrote that post) Marielle has been up at night at least twice, every single night. If not more. I have been devastated about it. She also wasn’t napping well (about 45 minutes a day) and I was REALLY devastated about that. Friends said she’s done napping, she doesn’t need it, etc. and I just couldn’t believe it. She’s 2 1/2, and I thought naps would be around for another year or more. And when she is done with naps, my plan was for her to have some quiet time during the day in her room by herself or something. But at 2 1/2, she’s not quite ready to entertain herself. I can’t just send her to her room and tell her to be quiet and read a book. She’s too little for that. I really like my naptime/downtime during the day. I get SO MUCH done at that time. Last week I had to bring Aliza to the doctor for her...

I have 2 little girls. We have TONS of hand-me down clothes and many, many clothes our families have bought for us. Most of them pink and pastels and girlie colors and lace and frilly collars and tu-tu’s etc. I’m kinda sorry to say it, but my favorite….has to be a plain white onesie. I don’t know why, but even Aliza, at 15 months, looks so cute in her plain white onesie!! Also, they are cheap enough that it doesn’t matter how dirty they get. Tuesday night, I gave her a fork and let her try and feed herself. She tried, and tried, and tried. She tried so hard, but only got a few bites in her mouth by herself. You may or may not know that Jon is left handed and I am right handed. So we are really interested in watching the kids and seeing what “hand” they are going to be. I know that hand dominance may not be truly known until kids are sometimes 5 years old, but I know that when I gave Aliza a fork to feed herself, she primarily used her left hand. Watch this video and you’ll see; she...

First off, thanks for the all advice I got from some of you that read these words I write. I love to get feedback and comments from Garynation. This blog is a little hobby that I found, and something I really have found to love. You can’t imagine the feeling I get when I hear someone reads it or laughs at what I write – it warms my heart!! Anyway, I have to say that potty training is going REALLY well. We still haven’t really got out much, but this week I plan to. I realized that even though I thought I was crazy when I started this, I picked the coldest week we’ve had yet to HAVE to stay inside – kudos to me!! It has kept us warm and now I think Marielle is ready to hit the road and test her little bladder. At the time I published my last potty training post , Marielle hadn’t yet gone #2 on the potty. That same night she did. She cried the whole time and was scared. She got over it and I was hoping that she would be ready to keep doing that every time. We’ve still had a few #2 accid...

Uncle Jared and Aunt Paige came over last weekend to watch the Saints lose…Marielle and Aliza had a ball with Uncle Jared, as usual.

What I was thinking last Friday, I’ll never know. But I woke up and just put Marielle in panties and said we are potty training today. I had been thinking about doing it, but was scared to jump in to the potty training world. I knew it would be hard, but I was hopeful. I have heard some good, easy success stories from friends, and I took the hint that school was ready for her to be potty trained too. I thought Marielle would be able to get it pretty easily. And she did!!! The first 2 days. Then she started to realize that even though she got a “present”, she had to stop what she was doing and go to the potty. That’s the part she doesn’t like. Let me start from the beginning. Friday, when I first put the panties on her, she thought it was fun. The first accident scared her and she burst into tears in a puddle of pee-pee on one of our leather chairs. I ran to the potty, cleaned her up and the chair and hoped she understood what was going on. She had about 3 more accidents that morning, ...

Don’t get me wrong, this Christmas was great. It was lots of fun with the girls, Santa was a whole new thing to them and Marielle was really starting to get it. But I’m a little upset with myself because I didn’t document it like I wish I would have. I have pictures, but they aren’t great and I really need to work on it. I haven’t been taking as many pictures lately and documenting like I want to. I’m missing stuff!! So much is happening with the girls everyday, it takes a lot of work to take pics and record the cute things they do. I take a lot of pictures with my phone, but those are low quality. But I do take a lot of little videos on there – those are fun to watch most of the time! Here are the pics I did get from Christmas 2010.   The new kitchen from my mom for her house. A new table for the girls to sit at. They both love it! The loot at my mom’s. Aliza’s new raincoat – too cute!! These next 2 pics are Marielle Santa gifts… She got a few games, some panties (for...