Potty Monkeys R Us

I've been asked several times how the potty training is going so I guess it's time for an update. :) Tomorrow will be one week and one week was the amount of time I had given myself to decide if we were going to stick with no diapers or go back to diapers. So what are we going to do?


I think we're sticking with the potty and not going back to diapers. Although she seems to be working on some timing issues (going to the potty before and not during or right after she's wet), she's really only having to change training pants about twice a day. Which, compared to her 10 or 12 times a day last week, is enough progress that I'm cool with sticking to underwear!


Now, I have a couple acquaintances who SWEAR that their two year olds were potty trained in JUST ONE DAY or in JUST ONE WEEKEND (imagine the Sunday Sunday Sunday voice) using some MAGICAL METHOD of AMAZINGNESS but I gotta say, I'm pretty okay with 80% potty trained in 6 days. I mean, after 24.5 months of diapers...I think I'll give her at least 8 days to stop having accidents. AND THEN PUNSIHMENTS BEGIN...


Totally kidding on the punishments, lol! Who could punish this face??


:D Oh and a big THANK YOU to both Miss Michelles for awesome birthday gifts. Yesterday Autumn wore the dress from the Miss Michelle in Memphis and it was the first real outfit we put on her since starting potty training. And, wrapped in the blanket is her Madeleine doll from Miss Michelle in San Diego! Autumn has been carrying it ever since she opened the box! Thank you both. :)


Of course, now that I've written this positive entry, Autumn is totally going to regress and I'll have to eat my words. Ha!

It's that time already!

Guess what we're doing!
Here's a hint:


Potty training! We're on day two and that's her travel potty. :) I've been loading her with juice pops and watermelon but discovered that it goes a *lot* better when we're outside. Happily, the weather cooperates.

We've made some pretty good progress. This photo is from tonight when she told me she had to potty in the middle of dinner. Yay! And yes. The potty is in the living room.


For the most part, Autumn is taking this in stride. The whole potty training thing hasn't really affected her daily play. Like dressing up.


On a completely different note, we had a girls/guys night last Friday. The girls and I did Twilight and sangria here while Mike joined the guys at Cathy and Eric's house. I actually just found out that he didn't do it but Mike initially told us he was going to head over there like this:


Either way. I have the moment saved for posterity.

Oh, yeah. Miss Autumn went to the doctor Friday. She's a healthy monkey with a big heed. Autumn's 22 pounds and 32 inches tall. Interestingly, this puts her in the 15th percentile for height and the 3rd for weight. Her head percentile? 50th. The doctor insists that it's just the charting method--a centimeter more and she'd be in the 75th, a centimenter less and in the 25th. But still. We all know she has a big noggin. Her mama does, too. All my ski gear was extra small. Except my helmet. That was a medium.

of birthdays and birthday gifts

Click here to see a few of the photos Elizabeth Wiggs took at Autumn's birthday party. There's some more great ones that I'll probably post when I get them but she's posted a great sampling.

Also, A Very Monkey Tea Party:


Uncle Brad and Aunt Lauren bought this for Autumn and it's been a huge hit with her! She will sit down and insistently pat the floor saying, "Sit! SIT!" until I sit and then she'll serve me tea, quite properly, for a ridiculously long time. Haha.


She'll also take the tea party on the road. Autumn puts the tea set in her backpack or in her doll stroller or the doll carrier and strolls/carries it around, stopping occasionally for a pretend sip. :D


Funny enough, she likes real tea. I think I've mentioned this before, but we have tea almost every morning together. She's graduated to a cup now, though.

Happy Birthday, Little Missy!

I'm a dork so this is something I put together at the last minute to have printed for Autumn's party...one photo from every month of her second year! We'll have her status update tomorrow after her 2 year checkup. :)

Few more birthday pics

Ryan and Tyler in the bubbles:


Here's Autumn while everyone sang happy birthday. It's funny, she doesn't really like it when a lot of people look at her. Sometimes she's okay but usually she gets really nervous--here she has her head buried and is chewing on my shirt (something else she does when she's embarrassed). A few weeks ago I took her for a dermatologist follow-up for her eczema. The waiting room is set up in a weird way so as soon as you walk in, there are people in a line, sitting there staring at you. Autumn walked in, stopped dead, said "uh-oh," and turned around and walked right back out. And then did the hiding and gnawing thing as I carried her past all the people!


Although she blows bubbles and dandelions, we couldn't get her to blow out her candle. :P


I'm not going to lie--I AM SO HAPPY about this cake!!! I had a blast making it and am really happy I took my cake-decorating friend Mollie's advice and iced it with a plain, white fluffy whipped icing because the reaction to it being cut open was probably one of the best moments of my baking life! Also, in the background you can see the lollipop bouquet I made...that was super fun, too! And the lollipops made great party favors!


Here's a pic of just the lollipop bucket which is also Autumn's Easter bucket. I figured that the bucket would be a good investment and I was right, lol. I also made the labels. Those aren't waterproof but as part of Autumn's birthday gift, I also made her some waterproof labels with her name and that same flower (in bright blue) and font.


I don't have photos of these, but I also made small pails with pinwheels and small swirl pops and all the moms took home pails with flowers...I think you can see one in the corner of the photo of the cut cake. Anyway, back to Autumn. Here she is in an awesome 2nd birthday bib her Aunt Lindsay bought her.


I tell you what, she knows how to open presents! And she loved everything because almost every time she opened a new gift, she was immediately enthralled. Thank you to everyone...I can't get over how amazing our friends and family are. You guys are the best and we are so blessed to have loved ones who know us and our little monkey so well.


Here's one last photo...a baby and her really big lollipop at the end of a hard day of fun:


Oh!! Before I forget...go here! You might recognize a scruffy leetle monkey and her not-as-scruffy cousin!

Autumn's Birthday Party, pt 1

Autumn's birthday isn't until this Thursday but we had a little party for her this afternoon. I'm going to pretend that there's not a stack of gifts and party food waiting to be sorted and organized by posting photos. :) Unfortunately, I didn't get many photos but the ones I did get are kind of fun. Here's Autumn in her birthday girl crown. That didn't last long. :)


Mike's dad got Autumn a little playhouse for her birthday and it was a huge hit with the babies. They were so cute playing house:


The theme of the day was rainbow colors so I put Autumn in this awesome yellow tutu that her Mama Lainey got her a while back. It was totally perfect and looked adorable whenever she leaned out the windows like this.


Right after this pic, Autumn closed the shutters on me.


Here's Mike blowing bubbles for the kids. I think he had more fun than they did with it...


Actually, I think I'm going to post the rest of the photos later but I'll end with a video...no editing but it's pretty great. Mike might have had more fun than the kids with the bubbles, but no one had more fun than Papa D!


Now. To convince Mike that I do, indeed, want to go to bed before 9pm. Haha.

One from the archives

With Autumn's second birthday rapidly approaching, I am feeling somewhat nostalgic. I think it's because Autumn has just gone through a major "growing up" spurt where she is, if not taller, certainly noticeably more mature. I can see it in her face and shape; she's all gangly and kid-like. And I can see it in her skill sets; she is talking and mimicking and learning to make friends. So, here's a little monkey reminder from May 2007...almost 2 years ago, if you can believe that:

From Autumn

Some current ones...I just uploaded a bunch of photos from my blackberry. Here's one of her being weird on the playground. We met some ladies and bebehs from church and she was a little shy. Autumn ended up having a good time poking the wood chips with a stick.

From May 2009

She doesn't look too happy about it here, but Autumn LOVES to help carry things in. We usually give her a light bag of groceries to drag in. A couple of weeks ago, she really wanted to haul the wrapping paper. :)


And we've mentioned that Autumn is a teeny bit OCD, right? Well, the big thing for her is the tub. She absolutely cannot stand to have anything floating in the water. Seriously, it's bad to the point that I warned Mike's parents right before they took Autumn to Birmingham the weekend I had that big conference. We found out about her little quirk when we put her in the tub at Andi's house in Colorado. There were letters in the tub. And she wept. She wept and walked around the tub picking up the letters and throwing them into the bucket. Wept. While Andi, Sophia, and I stared in confused amazement. Autumn doesn't play with many toys in the tub so I didn't really think about it until then but after we came home I got out our letters (I had forgotten that I stored them) and then I watched.


Autumn will fill and empty cups and line up her rubber ducks on the ledge, but will not let them float. She'll play with letters, dunking them in the water and then sticking them on the walls, but never, ever lets them just hang out in the water. She takes the letters out of the container, dips them in the water, sticks them on the wall, and then stacks them before putting the letters back in the container. See?


And, just for fun, here's a non-blackberry photo from another day that I think shows the sheer concentration Autumn puts into her bathtub play:


Hahaha! By the way, I am starting a new tag: "quirks." I guess Mike and I are somewhat quirky people so I guess it makes sense that we'd have a quirky baby. Might as well have fun with our eccentricities, right?