More Moving... then VACATION!

We have, officially, moved into our new house!! Besides a few bumps in the road, it went pretty smoothly. We already love how quiet the street is compared to our old place, how quiet the floors are (no squeaks!) and how much room we have. I'm pretty far done unpacking and still have plenty of space to fill. Yay!

Here is Violet helping her dad unhitch the trailer.
Mike, our friend Scott and Jon unloading boxes and furniture. THANKS for the help guys!
Violet also put in her time. Here she is carrying a small bag of something into the house. Good girl!
Violet and Uncle Mike take a break from moving.
We all took a break from moving/packing/unpacking to go watch Uncle Mike play hockey. Here is Violet and her cousin Tobin at the game. They are SO CUTE together! They play great and Tobin knows everything about hockey (his dad is on the same team) so he sweetly described to Violet what was happening. The word "Zamboni" popped up a few times. Violet is also showing off her lizard-like tongue. She knows it's long and she now knows how to curl it up on the end. She shows this trick off often.

We also had a birthday party this weekend for one of her playgroup friends - Here she is in the midst of the bubbles from the bubble machine.THEN to top off a crazy weekend of moving, Violet and I decided to get outta Dodge and headed home to Grand Rapids!! Yep, we're totally crazy. Packing up one house. Unpacking another. Packing up to go out of town with a 2 year old. Interesting! But we made it! Here Violet helps pack. When I got back to Michigan and unpacked, I did, indeed, find a few things she tucked away when I wasn't looking. Funny!
We are so happy to spend time with my mom, sister and her kids while we're here. Today we went to the butterfly exhibit at the Frederick Meijer Gardens. Here is Violet with her lovely Aunt Leah.
Leah, Claire and Violet are butterflys and caterpillars.
My sweet little caterpillarViolet showing off her squat (is this a "hip kid" thing or do all little kids squat this much?) while looking at the butterflies. At first she was pretty freaked out by them but after a few minutes she got really excited. Luckily there were TONS of them so there were a lot to look at!
Two peas in a pod. Violet and Aunt Leah

Violet and Claire look at the tulips.We TRIED. We really did. But this is the best shot we got of the girls with Grandma. Sillies!
Later today we hunt out at Leah's house. Here is Claire taking Violet for a ride in the Barbie Jeep.
And the cousins (Anna, Claire, Violet, Ethan) all snuggled up on the couch to watch Pocahontas. So sweet! Violet thinks her cousins are immensely entertaining. I've never heard her laugh so hard when she's with them!

Movin' On Up... to the West Side...

We're on the move... again! We closed on our new house on Friday and we're already pretty far in the moving process (special thanks to Jon's brothers who worked very hard all weekend helping us!)

Violet seems to like the new place. Here she was on Friday having a nice little snack under the chandelier.Jon got started right away building some storage shelves for the basement. He did great and actually got them done in one afternoon!
Saturday I had Violet pack up her backpack (aka "backrak") with some toys and books and we headed back to the new house.She got to have a picnic snack in her own room this time.
She's been taking great naps at the new house, even though she is obviously getting pretty big for her pack n' play! It's also nice to know that she's a pretty heavy sleeper - there were people bringing boxes and furniture in and out of the house, doors slamming, etc. while she slept and she never woke up!
Wait... didn't we JUST do this??
The more time we spend in our new house, the more we just LOVE it! It has so many fun features and so much ROOM! I have been busy cleaning the kitchen. It's obvious that whoever cleaned the house to put it up for sale was sure the new buyers were going to tear out the old kitchen and remodel. Not so much for us! Sooo there has been quite a bit of cleaning that I've needed to do. Which is really okay as it's given me time to figure out where I'm going to put all my stuff! Plus this house has some fun stuff like this lazy susan in the corner (there is a bigger one below, but not quite in that good of shape).
Any idea what these might be for? They are little metal hooks - maybe 4-5 per rack. AND on the potty training front - Violet is doing GREAT! She had her first 100% dry day today. We are SO proud of her! Overnights and naps are still about 50/50 but I feel like we're getting closer... and getting more used to bringing an extra set of clothes with us wherever we go instead of diapers!

I do need to stock up on different stickers for her rewards. She is (amazingly) SICK of her Disney Princess choices!! But they do work. Today she rewarded ME for being potty trained with a Barbie sticker. :)

Dogs N' Dancin'

Today Violet was "cleaning" all sorts of things with a package of baby wipes she found. Porter got in the way and he got groomed too.
She currently has a love/hate relationship with Porty. She either laughs hysterically while she tries to pet him (usually on his tail), or screams "Nooooo!" at him when she is eating. She is, apparently, trying to squash the one bright moment in his life: he's clean-up crew under Violet's high chair when she eats. Not any more! He actually listens when she yells at him... he sighs and goes back to his doggie bed. Poor thing!

You know, I always swore I wouldn't be a slave to kids music. So far, so good. Here is Violet dancing away to Guns N' Roses. Unfortunately I missed getting her headbanging on video, but she does do a pretty good impression of the Axle Rose slithery dance.


And last, a quick PT update. We had kind of a rough day today when she woke up at 5:45 am totally soaked and wouldn't go back to sleep. Unfortunately she knows that she might get to watch some cartoons if she's up early so Mommy can curl up next to her and snooze a while longer. However this morning we were both way too tired and I ended up putting her back down at 9. We both slept until noon!

The great news is that we actually *gasp* LEFT THE HOUSE! We ran some errands and low and behold, she had to go while we were in the fabric store. And she WENT!! It was so great. She got a special treat for that one!

She was dry the rest of the day but did have one tiny accident tonight. I think after dinner she gets too preoccupied and forgets she has to go. This time she caught it and felt really bad :( Poor thing! She even said "I'm sorry, Mama!" while I was cleaning up the bathroom floor. Awwww! The funny thing is that she KNOWS when she has an accident as opposed to going on her own. She asks for stickers (her reward) immediately after going on her own. She doesn't even ASK for anything if she has an accident. Weird!

Anyway, I'm trying a few different things for overnight since last night obviously didn't work. We'll see how it goes!

Potty Training: Day 3

Our last official day of potty training (ha! I think this will go on for a while) went really well!

She *gasp* woke up completely and totally dry this morning!! And of course she didn't want to even get NEAR the potty for a few hours after waking up which gave me another heart attack. I hate that! But apparently she can hold it!

We only had 2 accidents today - the first was totally my fault as I was feeling like a total slacker for literally doing nothing but asking Violet to tell us when she had to go potty all weekend. SO I took her upstairs and we cleaned out a storage closet to get ready for our move (we close on Friday - HURRAY!). I was asking her every 3 seconds if she had to go, and of COURSE during one of the lulls she did indeed go. Luckily she was in her excersaucer (yup, a 2 year old still fits in a baby-sized excersaucer) so we had a nice plastic catch-tray.

The second was tonight and I am trying to figure out why she did it other than Jon had just gotten home and I think she wasn't thinking about the potty at all. Of COURSE she went on the side of the couch I did NOT have the towel on. Oh well.

BUT the good news is she went #2 on the potty like such a big girl AND woke up dry from her nap. Again, she waited a good hour or so to actually go after that. Now that I know she can hold it I won't be so worried about it (hopefully).

Tomorrow we may try to venture out of the house. We usually have playgroup on Tuesdays and that would be a safe place to try an outing. And we HAVE to go to the post office (what's new there?) so we'll do that too. Wish us luck!

Overall I'm very very pleased with the 3-day-potty training method. I know a ton of people were VERY skeptical but obviously this lady's methods WORK!

Potty Training: Day 2

Quick update on Day 2... Violet did GREAT!

Today's Score:
Violet - 1
Parents - 7

Yup, she only had ONE accident all day! And it was really my fault for not catching it - she had just gone TWICE in 15 minutes and I just didn't think she had anything left! :) But she ASKED to go potty a few times and even asked to go during lunch AND in the middle of Lady & The Tramp! What a girl! We are really proud of her. In fact I heard her stirring after she went to bed, so I ran up and asked if she had to go and sure enough! She did! Yay!!

Stay tuned for what the last day is like!

Tinkle, Tinkle, Vi-o-let...

How I wonder where you wet...
(probably on the carpet and not the wood floor)

So here we are, on the brink of yet another childhood milestone. Potty training. Or the more politically correct potty LEARNING. A bunch of my friends had had great success with 3-Day-Potty Training so I bought the e-book a week or so ago, got Jon up to speed and planned a weekend at home. Inside. Waiting for Violet to pee.

But first things first. This morning we got up, had breakfast and then started on the course to no-diaper-land. The book talks about throwing out all your diapers with the help of your toddler. However, since we do cloth diapers we aren't throwing them away, just storing them for the next little one. Violet LOVED this part. She thought it was great fun to move the diapers from their baskets to the box for the baby.

Alllll done!
Call me crazy, but I'm going to MISS my diapers. Those of you who haven't used cloth diapers lately may not know that they aren't your momma's cloth diapers anymore :) No more pins. No more plastic pants, no more swishing in the toilet (ew!). The new cloth diapers snap or velcro on and have fun waterproof covers that are thin and leak-proof. I'll admit that I've probably spent FAR too much time in the last 2 years thinking about diapers. Which ones I needed to have. Which prints had to be in my "stash". And in the last 6 months I feel like I finally hit Cloth Diaper Stash Nirvana. I had just enough to go 2-3 days between washings. I had a great selection of fitted diapers from my favorite makers like Thirsties, Clothmopolitan, Muttaquin Baby and Spooky Kitty Collective.

So it was with a lot of mixed emotions that I put Violet's last cloth diaper on yesterday after her nap. Yes, I did spend some time beforehand thinking of which one it should be. My "oldie but goodie" SKC Day of the Dead print with hot pink velour inner (upper right)? My organic bamboo velour mint green Muttaquin Baby (this diaper is insanely soft, inside and out!) (upper left)? The Katherine's Kustom in Pink Retro Apples (bottom)? And yes, I TAKE PICTURES OF MY DIAPERS! Rest assured I'm not the only one. My CDing friends can vouch for my sanity ;)
But we ended up in a newer diaper - one that we got just a few months ago and became a quick favorite. A Brown Retro Apples Clothmo. Here are some pics of Violet in what should be her last cloth diaper.

So today went pretty much according to how the book said it might. She peed a lot. We visited the bathroom a lot. Neither one coincided with eachother the way it should. BUT she took a 2.5 hour nap in undies and was only slightly damp when she woke up, not even enough to change the sheets. YAY! However I plunked her straight on the potty after getting up - nothing. When we went downstairs I sat her on the couch (on a towel) and ran to get some pretzels for her snack. When I got back - well, let's just say good thing I thought of the towel ;)

BUT the rest of the night has been dry. She has asked about 37,938 times to go potty, and out of those THREE TIMES she actually went! Oh the party we had! The stickers she got! So I'm pretty excited to have three good successes our first day. Wish us luck tonight when we go diaper-free for the first time. Ironically this is the first night EVER that she asked for a drink of water before bed and drank an entire sippy of water. Eeks! I'm sure we'll have some wet sheets, and I will admit that getting up as soon as Violet does in the morning to plunk her on the potty does NOT sound fun (lately our late-sleeper is up at 6am)... however I really think tomorrow will be better, so wish us luck!

Seriously Cute

Meet the newest member of the Denver Zoo - a baby giraffe! Holy cow, he was the CUTEST THING EVER! My friend Beth and I went to visit last week. He was only 8 days old and came right up to the fence to say hello! Beth and I had to hold tight to eachother to not leap over the fence and give his sweet little faces kisses. No matter that he's already taller than us.
At least his MOM got to give him kisses. Awwww!
Violet in front of the penguins
And checking out the gigantic daddy gorilla.
She looked so cute in her little jacket that we took some more pics when we came home. Here she is being goofy.
And seriously cute. And seriously OLD, don't you think? Ugh! I can't believe she's not a baby anymore! Good thing we're having another one to fill up her spot ;)
And a silly one from our trip to the park yesterday. It has been record-breakingly warm here all week... in the mid-70's at least. It's really great but also really weird to feel like it's spring already!
I got all dressed up the other night to go to the ballet with my friend Carolyn (it was really cool!). I decided I should take some pics of me and Violet while I was all gussied-up. This one is just silly.
Much better. It's so funny how now I can say "Okay Violet, put your head by my head and SMILE!" and she actually DOES IT!