Potty Dairies Volume 3

So I had to work yesterday and I tired leaving Nate in his big boy undies woth our fantastic babysitter, Michaela. He did ok having one tt accident and one, um... "skid mark" kind of accident. She was having a difficult time getting him to go in the potty though so during nap and for a while in the afternoon he was in a diaper. When I got home he had on big boy undies and wore them accident free until bedtime!
Today however, I left him in a diaper. He got up at 4:30 am this morning went back to sleep at 6:30 until 8:10. That kind of morning has potential to cause a really rough day so for the sake of our sweet sitter, he won't be in undies until I get home.
I will have Wednesday through Sunday to work with him more before I have to be away to work again, so hopefully he will be ready by Monday...

Potty Training Diaries Volume 2

So yesterday went fairly well. He still doesn't tell me when he needs to go, I just have to take him every 30 minutes. He only had 3 1/2 accidents today, which is a huge improvement from Friday. We haven't gotten to work on it today b/c I put him in a diaper for church and when we got home he ate lunch and went straight to nap and is still asleep at 3:30! When he wakes up we are putting on the big boy undies.
On a funny note, I think he may have performance anxiety about it b/c I will sit there with him for a few minutes and then if I have to run check on Adah he will be peeing when I come back in the room! Also, I don't know who designed these potty seats, but he still manages to miss and pee on the seat. I am trying to teach him to "point it down" and now when he pees he says "point it down, point it down" however, he is a little more talk a little less action on that one! Silly boy.
His answer to everything is no. Do you need to go potty? No. Are you sure? No. Are you all done going tt? No. Are you sure? No. However he will say yes to one thing: Do you want chocolate? ;) Definantly my child!

Potty Training Dairies Volume 1

So after taking the advice of my friends on facebook, I decided to get Nate some "big boy undies" and trash the diapers! I put them on him when he got up this morning. Accident #1 happened within 45 minutes (b/c he didn't go in the potty when I gave him the chance) It was quite a mess and he cried b/c he did not like urine running down his legs, go figure, but he learned that lesson. Accident #2: he came up to me saying "I need potty, I need potty", which was good except that he had already soaked his pants, but we were getting closer... Accident #3: "Mama, I need potty!" Undies were a bit wet when we got to the bathroom, but not enough to get on his shorts. Woohoo, progress! This was all by about 9:45am. He had 2 more accidents in addition to a few trips to the potty and then I put him in a pull-ups for nap.
He took a super long nap today, so he wasn't up until 3:15ish. I put him right back in his undies and he wore then until 8:15pm (with the exception of an hour when we went to Freebirds, yum!) with NO accidents!!!! Yea, Nate!!! I get him to sit on the potty and try about every 30 minutes, but I am determined to be done with one set of diapers! That will save like $40 or $50 bucks a month!
Stay tuned for volume 2! ;)

How we got to where we are

So, Thomas created this blog for us several months ago, but this is the first time I have had a chance to get on here! I think that life may be starting to settle down a little bit, so I am going to ATTEMPT to blog for us once a week. I am going to have to get some instruction from some of you girls on how to decorate this blog! You all have such cute pages! Anyway, this is blog #1 for me: "How we got to where we are"

May 31st 2008 was Nate's first birthday. I cannot believe he is already one! We love him so much and I especially can't wait to have another baby. So we decided that after his first birthday we would start trying for a little brother or sister. I stopped my birth control right after his birthday. The end of June came and things started getting rocky with Thomas's job. At this point we decided that we should wait until it was sorted out to have another baby. But low and behold a week later we discovered that it was too late. God had already made His plans for our family whether we thought it was the right time or not! Thomas was sitting on the couch reading Nate a book when I handed him the positive pregnancy test. We were excited, a little scared, and curious to see how God was going to play this out. Little did we know the tiny baby growing inside of me would be 2 months old before we felt stable again!

A few weeks later we found out that Thomas's job would only last until the end of August and so the job search began. There were positions in Amarillo, San Antonio, Houston, but not Tyler. Anytime we had ever talked about moving, I was dead-set against it. I love Tyler. Our friends and family were there. Once again, God had different plans for us and even if I didn't want to admit it, HE knows best.

Thomas started his new job in medical sales October 1st in Houston. He was living with his Aunt and Uncle, while Nate and I stayed in Tyler awaiting the arrival of our baby girl. December 14th I spent the day packing our house up in preparation to move everything to Houston after Christmas so that I could unpack before coming back to Tyler to have our baby. December 15th Thomas's boss suddenly gives Thomas the impression that his job is not safe. December 23rd, yes 2 days before Christmas, our hearts are crushed when Thomas's boss decides that they do not need his position anymore. And so the job search begins again. Meanwhile our house is still in boxes and about a 3rd of those boxes are in Thomas's Aunt's rent house in Houston. We used alot of paper plates and even re-washed disposable cups!!!

February 27th a contract was placed on our house. We didn't know where we and our belongings were going to go, but we had a month to get there! March 1st around 11:40pm my water broke. March 2nd 7:27am Adah made her big appearance. Around 10am Thomas was offered an Assistant Manager position with McAlister's Deli in Houston! After a good 48 hour stay in the hospital we go to go home! Over the next 10 days Thomas and his dad drove to Amarillo to borrow his uncle's moving trailer, drove to Houston with a load, and he and my dad also drove to Houston with a load. March 12th, Adah was 10 days old. That morning around 6:30 my sister gave birth to my very first nephew, Riley Aedan Blackmon, in Tyler and after a quick visit Thomas, Nate, Adah, Bella(dog), Chrissy(dog), Sophie(cat), Sydney(cat), my dad, and I moved our stuff to Houston! It was freezing and pouring down rain!

After helping my sister for a few days my mom came to help me unpack for about a week. And we were moved in by the end of March! It wasn't long before we realized that the owners of the McAlister's franchises were in trouble, losing money faster than they were making it. A friend of ours that works for McAlister's in East Texas warned Thomas that he needed to get out. And so for the 3rs time in a year, the job search began again! Thomas had an interview set up on a Tuesday and when he went to work that Monday before, the owner was there to greet him with the news that they could no longer afford to pay him. Do you think God is trying to teach us to trust in him, not jobs or careers? ;) But Jehovah Jireh!! The interview lead to the job that Thomas has now working for a good, encouraging, honest Christian man!

In the meantime, Thomas met a woman at McAlister's that is head of one of Memorial Hermann's imaging centers and through her I got my job at Memorial Hermann Memorial City Out Patient Imaging (that's a mouthful!) Before I started that job I was driving back to Tyler with the kids to work 2 days a week! Super stressful! Although, I miss my job in Tyler sooooo much and I miss doing OB ultrasound, I DO NOT miss the drive and time away from Thomas. God also provided through a sweet friend at church (thanks again Amanda!) an extra get out of debt (yea for Dave Ramsey) job that I can do from home around my kids schedules. Being with them as much as possible is one of the most important things in the world to me.

So to wrap things up, God has done SO much in our lives this past year! A few weeks ago we were singing a song in church about God helping us through the storms of life and felt like for the first time in almost a year, I feel like the clouds are clearing and the sun in shining through! He has brought me and Thomas closer and taught us to trust in HIM alone, not the things of this temporary world. He has blessed us with 2 beautiful healthy babies. He has completely changed my heart and stubbornness about wanting my way in where we live the order we do things in, etc, etc. He has taught me to give up my imagined control over our lives and ask HIM to control it for me. He has blessed us with an amazing friends at church that have ministered to us so much and shown us what church is all about. So thank you to all of you from MOPS in Tyler, Cypress Bible Church, and our other family and friends that have prayed for us, supported us and watched God work in our lives over this past year. I will always remember this time in our lives as the year that God blessed in VERY mysterious ways and taught me that things don't always have to happen in my time for things to work our perfectly! :)