Swimming lessons...

Caleb and I have been doing the parent / child swimming lessons at the local YMCA. We really enjoy it, they are twice a week and only 10 bucks a month. They don't have them in August because of school starting back, but we will most likely start again in September. It gives us something to do and wears him out for bed time!! It is really more of a water adjustment class but there are kids that are swimming unassisted by their parent with just a swim belt on, he is getting alot better about kicking to get where he wants to go. He can also 'lide' as Caleb says it, off of the big slide into the water and jump in and I catch him. Then when there is 5 minutes left of class all the kids get to play in the splash area. This would be Caleb's favorite part! Anyway hope you enjoyed the pics!

Fun times...raising a boy!

Well tonight was a fun...make that interesting evening. We were having dinner after Caleb's last swim lesson for a little while, he ate really good so I gave him some raisins. Caleb loves raisins and has been eating them for a long time. Well, we were cleaning up and he was finishing his raisins when Brandon looked at him just in time to watch him stick one up his nose! Thinking we could get it out before it got stuck we tried everything from tweezers to trying to get him to 'blow it out'. Nothing worked and he was SCREAMING!!!! Not happy about us trying to get it out. So we packed our lil man up in the car (mind you he was FILTHY, I just let him eat in his t-shirt and underwear with no bib because bath time was right after dinner) and headed to the minor emergency room. Luckily no one else was there so we only waited about 10 minutes, then we go and he gets weighed (28.9 lbs) then go into the room and visit with the nurse etc. By this time it has been about an hour since he originally stuck it up his nose. Well she leaves the room and goes to get the Dr. no sooner did the door shut and Caleb made sneezed and guess what fell out! The raisin...so we told the nurse and they were nice enough to give us our money back...SO no more raisins for a little while...or anything else small enough to fit up his nose!!

More Summer Fun!

July has been a busy month around our house! Caleb has continued his swim lessons twice a week at the YMCA, its with me and its really more of a water adjustment class, but he wears a swim belt and learns how to kick and paddle. He enjoys it and at the end of class they get to play in the indoor splash pool with lots of spray things. It wears him out for bed time too!!

We made a trip to Wewoka a few weeks ago to swim with Lala and Papa (Brandons parents). We had fun swimming and grilling hamburgers and hotdogs!

July 5th we went to Choctaw, one of my roommate's from College has a little girl who was turning one! They live in Texas currently but came 'home' to Oklahoma to have a party for Kate! Caleb was much more interested in climbing the big ladder and going down the slide than anything else but we had a good time!

Better late than never...4th of July!

Well we had a fun fourth of July, I just never got around to posting anything or any pictures of it...so here goes. We started off the day by going with my parents to watch the Edmond 4th of July parade and let me tell you that is the LONGEST parade I have EVER heard of! It was fun and we were there to watch my nephew Jared ride a horse in it so it was all good but we did get there at 10 (we thought thats when it started) turns out it started like at 8:45, we left at 11:20 after seeing my nephew and it still wasn't over!! Where I grew up it was like a 20 minute parade and you were done! Oh well, it was fun!

Next we headed home for nap time after we all ate at Ihop. Caleb took a nap and we got ready for what we thought would be a late night...well it turns out the rain canceled the fireworks that night so we just hung out at home and then went out on the front porch and watched the fireworks from there. We were actually disappointed that we didn't get to go to a big fireworks show, at Disney world when we watched them Caleb loved them and the noise didn't scare him at all. Oh well there is always next year! Here are a few pics from the front yard standing in the light rain and watching what we could see from there.

Family Adventure...

Brandon loves history and old stuff, and I am learning how neat it is to learn about history and to see old historical sites and after being on vacation and visiting old plantation homes and learning that my cousin who lives there hadn't even visited them...we decided to find out what was around Oklahoma to visit! So, a few weeks ago we went on a family adventure, Caleb is such a good traveler, we loaded him in the car and took off to Ponca City to see the Marland Mansion. It was a beautiful mansion built by an oil baron back in 1927. We both enjoyed just walking around and looking. The home was really cool to look at and the huge estate and grounds around it were very fun for Caleb to run free. We had so much fun we decided to visit somewhere every month that we hadn't been to. Anything that has some kind of historical significance or just somewhere we haven't been and would like to visit so we started making a list of future family adventures! We want Caleb to grow up and we ourselves want to visit places and learn what makes Oklahoma so great! Here are a few more pictures of the first of many adventures!

Potty Training....

Well monday July 13th we started potty training. For a long time Caleb has been showing signs of being ready to potty train. He is very aware of what he is doing, so we decided to give it a shot and see what happens. After reading lots of books, internet articles and this take on potty training http://www.mycharmingkids.net/ I decided to take the plunge!

So, Monday morning we got up and got ready and headed to wal mart for some supplies, juice, stickers for prizes, big boy undies (thomas the train undies and others), fun soap for Caleb, flushable wipes, carpet cleaner and pull ups. Then we headed to the library and I let Caleb pick out a few books then I picked out some that had to do with potty training. We came home and had lunch then it was nap time. When he woke up it was time to begin (I read it was good to start after a nap so neither I nor him was totally wore out). We put the big boy undies on and off we went, cold turkey so to speak. I kept giving him LOTS of liquids so he had many opportunites to succeed. By the end of the night we had a few half successes, where he started to go then he would fininsh in the potty and we went through 11 of the 12 pair of underwear. We went to the potty to 'try' every 15 minutes or so, I was worn out, and so was Caleb, he slept till 8:30 the next morning! When he got up it was straight to the potty and off we went to start day two. His favorite part was not putting the cool animal sticker on the chart, it was washing his hands! He loves to play in the water and the little monkey that he is, he can climb up on top of the vanity and do it all alone!

Day two we went through 10 pair of undies all day...by the end of the day it was starting to 'click' with him and he would come and stand right in front of you and just stare, I would say do you need to go potty and off he would run to the potty! Hes a quick learner and he was starting to get it. We stayed home from Monday all the way till thursday afternoon when it was time for swim lessons. He ONLY wore underwear except for nap and bed time, this allowed me to be able to tell when he was going or ready to go and he didnt have the crutch of the pull up, which is very similar to a diaper just alot more expensive. Wednesday and Thursday went well with an accident here or there but mostly successful.

Friday was day 5 and we went to lunch with my parents who had come to visit and let us play with a 4 month old foster baby they had. So we headed to lunch and had put Caleb in a pull up just in case. We went, ate and came home and he stayed dry the whole hour and a half! We were so proud, later that night we were meeting Brandons parents for dinner because it was his moms birthday, we drove to Shawnee and ate at Hamburger King and when we got done eating Caleb was still dry so I thought I would try and take him to the big potty and see what happened...and success! He sat up there like a big boy and went pee pee. This was his first experience with a big potty, he did great!

He is still having accidents every now and then but for the most part he is going 100% in the potty. Doing number two however is a little harder but he is getting the hang of that too. We went to run an errand on Wednesday and I didnt even put a pull up on him, no accidents, we just go to potty wherever we go and he always goes! Hes a little trooper! He has went several days where he hasnt had any accidents, so for a not even two year old I think hes doing great! And I think he looks too cute in his "big boy pants"!!