Potty training - round 2

James is in the potty training process. We are wearing underwear at home and pull-ups when we go out. He is learning to sit on the toilet under much protest at times since it means he has to stop playing for a few minutes. He does like to play with the toilet paper and put it in the toilet so that makes the toilet "stay" a few minutes longer. He say "poo-poo" when he has already went in any form so we are trying to have him give us a little more warning to get to the bathroom. Lily has been doing great by staying dry at night. We had a few accidents this week but we have also been working on her going to sleep by herself in her big girl bed. She got pretty upset both nights that she had the accidents but all dry last night - hooray - and all night in her own bed without Mommy and Daddy! We have started an at-home preschool curriculum with Lily (and James whenever he decides to stop playing with his cars and trucks for a few seconds!) on the days that mom doesn't work. At first, Lily wasn't sure if she wanted to participate but she is doing better since she has figured out that she can use things like glue, scissors and markers for some of the activities. We are doing a weather chart each day and today she ran in from playing outside after we did our lesson and exclaimed, "Mom, it's windy!". So we pulled out the chart and wrote it on the chart. It was fun to see her so excited about her observation (Grandpa W. would be proud!) Poor Buster was neutered on Wednesday so he is stuck wearing one of those silly looking collars that keeps dogs from licking their incisions. He is doing better each day but runs into things like door frames and walls since he has no side vision. It is pretty funny to watch him get around but it is better than getting an infection. Can't believe that Thanksgiving is just around the corner.
Funny things that the kids said this week: Lily walked into the house yesterday and smelled food cooking. She said, "Mmm...That smells delicious!". Mommy asked James who turned on the dome light in the backseat (knowing that Lily had) and James looked seriously at her and said, "Not me." It has started already! :)

Busy times

One of the latest developments in our household is Lily's new "big girl" bed. She literally broke her toddler bed several weeks ago so it was time to get a new one. She still has her tinkerbell sheets just in a twin bed size. She seems to really like it and is actually sleeping in it longer each night all by herself. James is now starting to use the big boy potty sometimes. No actual "deposits" at home but his preschool teachers said that he used it once to go potty one time - hurray! He is talking up a storm these days!
The weather has been somewhat unpredictable. We had our first snow storm last week but no schools cancelled so it wasn't that bad. We were used to it from our Indiana snowstorms and it was very similar to those. The fall night skies have been absolutely breath-taking with hues of purple, red and even magnificent sun rays across the sky one night. It is so cool to see an unobstructed view of these in the desert!