A Firetruck Party!

Well you by now you probably know that Andrew had a firetruck party for his birthday. Heck--I think half of Gladstone knows he had a firetruck party. He's told everyone he sees about it for the last week! We have tons of pictures to sort through, but here's a little sample of the fun he had! It was indeed a Happy Birthday for the little guy--or as he says it a "Happy Burpy!"

Andrew got to sit in the big truck!

Andrew, Brooke, Katelyn, Preston, & Abby

Make a wish!

Mmmm...Tastes yummy!

Jumping Right In

Well, we have had an exciting weekend. Our little guy jumped right into... toilet training! (You thought I was going to say the pool, right?) I wish!

Saturday night Andrew asked to sit on the potty right before his bath. So I said what the heck and ran to get his potty seat out of the garage. It's only been like a month since I bought it! (Nothing like procrastination, or maybe I was waiting for the perfect opportunity!) I got it all set up and he was so excited. He wasn't sure about it at first but after a couple trips in and out of the tub he eventually had success! Hooray! He was so proud! We danced, we sang, we ate chocolate and we had to go find daddy so that we could "show daddy". It was a huge night in Andrew's world. My favorite part of the whole evening--I was trying to help Andrew with his "aim", and when I went to show him how to aim at something other than the wall, he yelled "MINE" and pushed my hand away!

The good news--is we have been on the potty for the last 2 days and have had several successful moments... of course the big bowl of choco (M&M's) sitting on the counter could have something to do with that success.

Could this be the end of diapers coming? We can only hope! At $55 a month for diapers we could certainly use the savings. Maybe we can get a couple more gallons of gas.

What a night

What a crazy night last night! They had been forecasting thunderstorms for last night all week long. At 5 I turned on the TV to hear the weather man comparing the setup for last nights storms to a series of storms that came through in 1974--The deadliest set of storms EVER! In fact they even put us in a PDS Tornado Watch--that means particularly damaging storms, something they only do on rare occasions, swell!

If you know me at all you know I hate storms, and with Marc out of town it was even worse. Now I have not only myself and the dogs to worry about but Andrew too--how to keep him safe, how to stay calm...

The good news was I had a few hours to prepare (the storms weren't coming until after 11), so after a short freak out and panic attach prepare I did!! I put Andrew down to sleep for the night and went to town creating our own comfy tornado shelter in the basement. After our last close call there were some definite lessons learned. I pulled up a phone list of essential numbers (last time the power went out these were all on the computer). I cleared off all the counters, including Marc's workbench--happy hunting when you get home! I created a snack cabinet in the basement, and stocked piled it with flashlights and batteries.

I created a little fort for Andrew, and put up the Aerobed for myself.

Andrew's little corner--with dog bed ready to throw on top of him just in case!

I even wrapped the dogs kennels in layers of blankets (in case of breaking glass).

OK...so maybe I'm a little crazy and neurotic...but I was ready for this storm!

At 10:30 they gave us a warning that the storm was about 15 minutes away so I took Andrew out of his bed, laid him down in the basement, took up a post next to the weather radio, and waited....and waited...and waited. Apparently the safety shield that resides over our house and has protected us from the many close call we've Had in the past few years did it's thing again. Literally 10 minutes before the storm was to hit, it split in half, going right around us! Oh happy day!

My handy dandy weather radio. Notice that none of the lights are going off like they had been all night...Hooray!

The most amazing part of this to me was that Andrew slept through the whole thing including me carrying him up and down the stairs. What a kid...what a night!

Swim lessons

Yesterday was Andrew's first water baby swim lesson, and let's just say it was less than wonderful. My poor little guy spent the entire time sobbing, and holding onto my neck for dear life while saying "a no, a no, a no, a done, a done, mommy a done, mommy a done" and signing "all done" which for Andrew looks like a baby bird flapping its wings. I stayed in the water for 20 minutes hoping that it would get better--but no luck, so we left early. It was the saddest sight. We went to the toddler pool this morning, to see if that would be better--it wasn't. After an hour and a half he finally dipped his toes into the spray jets that are outside of the pool, but no way was he having anything to do with that pool! We are going to the store tomorrow to pick out a couple of special toys to take with us to the "big pool". Here's hoping that will help, otherwise with 7 more lessons to go...it's going to be a long summer! Wish us luck!

Andrew's Bath

a funny little story... Yesterday I was doing dishes while Andrew was finishing his breakfast of vanilla yogurt with fresh blueberries. He was talking in his non stop way that he always does these days. As I'm listening to him I hear him say over and over, "I bath and a lotion". I acknowledged that yes we take a bath and put on lotion and kept on with my dishes, but he kept saying it. So I looked over at him to figure out what he was talking about and it was all to clear. He was rubbing his yogurt all over himself. When I asked him what he was doing he said oh so proudly "a lotion mommy". Needless to say while a bath had not been on our morning schedule, it was now!