Happy Halloween!

This was Alex's first year to go trick or treating! The last 2 years, she just seemed too young to really realize what was going on. She LOVED it! She was not afraid to go to the doors and knock.

We started off by going to a neighborhood party with our friends, the Mikitaroffs. Josh has been sick since Friday evening so he had to sit out on the activities, but my parents came in town so they went with us.
After the party, Alex and Kate went trick or treating together. They were sooo cute!

Alex LOVED having her Popi and Nomi there. Popi even held the little ballerina when she got too tired to keep walking!

Something about Alex

There is something about this little girl I absolutely adore. Well actually, there are about a million somethings I love and adore!

I love how sweet and silly she is!

I love how she told me yesterday, Daddy was her best friend!
I love how she will stop whatever she is doing to give me a hug or a kiss!

I love her little sing songy voice!

I love that she loves talking to Nomi, Grandma, Popi and Grandpa on the phone!

Most of all, I love that she is a mommy's girl.

Ballet and Tap

Alex is kinda hit or miss with her dance class. Once she gets there, she has fun, but she never wants to get ready or leave the house. She refused to go into the class unless I went in with her so I spent most of the time sitting in the corner watching. I'm so glad I took my camera this week because they were sooo cute!

Alex is going to be a ballerina for Halloween.

This is her costume (and new leotard or dance)!

She has done so well with her potty training. We had one accident this week at home. It was my fault, I told her I was going to pick out her clothes, then she'd potty before she got dressed. I got sidetracked on the phone and before I knew it, she ran to me telling me she had pottied. :( We've been out and about this week and she has done GREAT! I can now say I've seen more public bathrooms this week than I ever have. When we go somewhere, I try to make a mental note of where the bathroom is in case we have to run there. We had 3 false alarms at Barnes and Noble the other day, but I would much rather make multiple trips to the bathroom than have an accident! She doesn't seem to have any fear of using different toilets and does pretty good sitting on an adult size toilet!

Spooky!!

We went for our yearly family pumpkin patch trip today. It's a little local pumpkin patch that donates the proceeds to Habitat for Humanity. We've gone to the same place since Alex's first October! Unfortunately, since we waited so long the pumpkins were a little soft so we took a few pictures then headed to the grocery store for a pumpkin!

Alex watched Josh work on our pumpkin while I made dinner.

Alex was even sweet enough to let Cooper lick the pumpkin scoop!

Josh and the pumpkin!

The pumpkin (and one of my mums I got for $5 at Lowes!!!)

Meet Spooky! Alex loves the word Spooky so she named our pumpkin Spooky Pumpkin!

Adorable

Saturday we went to Josh's company cook off. Josh volunteered to be in the pie throwing booth. He had pies thrown at him for 20 minutes. We missed most of it because Alex decided she had to go to the bathroom. When he was done, I snapped my favorite picture of Josh and Alex. I love that in the middle of all the chaos, all she wanted to go was kiss her Daddy!

I love seeing their sweet little lips puckered up to kiss!

Potty Training Recap

Well, I think it's safe to say Alex is potty trained...at least at home. Our first challenges will be this week when we go to gymnastic, dance and just continue our week like normal.

We had ZERO accidents yesterday. So far today, I've let her tell me when she had to go and stopped asking her. We are still accident free!!

I didn't really try a particular method. I've read some about the 3 day method and some other potty training tips/ideas. I kinda went my own route to see what worked best for us. We've had a potty for a while. We started out with the Fisher Price frog potty like a year ago. Alex HATED it! She would cry every time she sat on it. I ended up picking out a different one. We picked this one that can be used as a potty on the floor and it fits on our toilet with the bottom turning into a little step.

After cleaning a poo out of the potty I decided to put it on the toilet so I wouldn't have to clean it out anymore. The little step from the potty isn't quite tall enough so I ordered her a stool from Restoration Hardware Baby and Child. It will be here this week and it should make her reaching the toilet and washing her hands MUCH easier!

We stocked up on undies. For the first 2 days, I tried to keep her in the Gerber training pants. Not the plastic ones, but all cotton ones that are a little thicker than regular thin undies. I really liked these because when she would have an accident, she knew, but since they were thicker, it didn't leave as big of a mess where ever she was. I pretty much put her in undies as soon as she woke up every morning and we went about our day at home. I had to totally cut out TV the first day and a half because she would get so engrossed in the TV she would usually have an accident. After that, I went back to letting her watch a show or 2 through out the day, but it was always after she had used the bathroom. The first 2 days, I asked her every 30 minutes or so if she had to use the bathroom. She would tell me she had to go about 50% of time, the other times she would go when I suggested it. Today she told me every single time. We watched Toy Story earlier today and I was so proud she actually told me twice she had to go to the bathroom so we could pause the movie for her.

Our only issue we have now, is Alex is all about the M&M's. She will use the bathroom, get her M&M then 5 minutes later tell me she has to go again. She will push the smallest bit out for another M&M. She did this at least 3 times today. She also thinks if she sit on the toilet and toots, she'll get an M&M!

We will continue with the stickers and M&M's for a while longer and the "Potty Prizes" until they are all gone! Once we are done with the "potty prize" box I made we are passing it to our friend Kate who will start potty training over the holidays! I am sooo unbelievably proud of my little girl! This week we are going to Gymboree so she can pick out cute undies!!!

Potty Training: Day 3

Alex woke up completely dry this morning! She slept in a diaper, and will continue to do so until we feel she is consistantly waking up dry.

We finally had a poop! I know gross, but it had been over 2 days! This means she also got a "potty prize" or a poo poo prize as Alex calls it. I've decided cleaning poo out of the little "potty catcher" in her potty is so disgusting. I finally ordered her stool from Restoration Baby & Child so she can use the big toilet with her potty seat on it.

We ventured out for the first time today. We went to Josh's company cook off. Alex used the bathroom right before we left. We had 3 or 4 false alarms while we were there, but she finally waited until we got home to use the bathroom again!

Josh and I are just so amazed with how great she is doing with potty training. It took the first day from the time she woke up until 3pm to really get it. Had it not been for her wanting to go alone (and me letting her) twice yesterday, she would not have had any accidents and we didn't have any accidents today!!!