Desparate mom seeking potty training advice!

Hey all you mom's out there who would consider yourselves in-the-know on potty training, I need your advice because I'm obviously not very good at this! I need some input on what worked for your girls to get them potty trained.
Allie is so stubborn! She'll tell me either after she's already gone or just not tell me at all. If I do have her on the potty, unless I'm sitting right there with her, she'll actually get off the potty and go take a dump somewhere else (like in my closet! Yeah!)
We're going through more pull ups than we ever did diapers, because she can't stand the feeling of being wet. I know I can use that to my advantage, but whatever I'm doing is not working. So please help!

Princess Allie & The Royal Potty

Once apon a time there was a beautiful princess named Allie. The world revovled around her and she loved every minute of her enchanted life.

















Princess Allie and her mommy (the Queen ;) painted their toe nails and had so much fun. She never had to worry about anything.... Until one day....

It was time to potty train! Yes I know that she is only 21 months old in 2 days, but she's been showing a lot of interest and understanding of the whole potty concept for a couple months now. She's done pretty well so far, but just like everything else, she has her moments. I'm confident and hopeful that she'll catch on and that I won't have to buy anymore diapers, pullups or otherwise. Wish us luck!

A series of unfortunate events!

So at the last minute I decided to take the kids and caravan to Roy (where my parents live) with my sister, brother-in-law and their daughter. You see they were going to be leaving for 5 months for Baltimore, Maryland to sell alarm systems and my brother, who just got home from his mission would be giving his homecoming talk in church that Sunday. I really wanted to see everyone and spend a couple more days with my sister, but Alex had school and fire fighting. Nonetheless, I resolved to attempt it on my own.

The first part of the trip went pretty well, except for Tate was super winey and the DVD player wasn't working right. We stopped in Filmore for lunch. I was going to gas up too, but Tate suddenly went completely pale white and said he didn't feel good. He was still trying to get over an ear infection so I was thinking it had something to do with that. So I go looking for the small zip-lock bag I'd packed with all the essentials for such an event. No where to be found. I must have left it on the counter at home. Crap! The only thing they had a Maverick was children's Mortrin. So I bought that. All I needed was for us to make it to my parents. I took off pretty quick, before Mat and Amanda because it was sooo nap time for Allie and I was hoping Tate would fall asleep and feel better too.

Well Tate didn't sleep and he woke up Allie after only 20 minutes. Then suddenly I realized something else I had forgotten when my gas light came on in Salt Lake. Of course I was on the North end of Salt Lake in the industrial part with no gas stations. Fortunatly I made it to Farmington (because I missed another exit before that). Finally we made it to my parents. Sigh of relief, right? Wrong!

I looked at Tate and noticed these big red, welty sploches all over him. The motrin was the only thing I could think of that he had that was different. So I gave him some Benedril and helped my mom fix dinner, But by the end of dinner I was beginning to worry. His arms and legs were getting puffier by the minute. So I went looking for my medicaid card and called an instacare. Double wammy. Not only was it Saturday night and all the instacares were closed, but I had also forgotten my medicaid card! @#!%&#@

So I called up the ER at Odgen Regional and told them the situation. They said they could look up his file as long as I had the ID number off the card. So Alex got the number and me and Tate headed to the ER. "Yup, it's an alerigic reaction all right. No, we don't know what it would be from, you'll have to see an alergist for that. Good Luck" THANKS A LOT!
They did give him a disolvable pill that is kind of like an epi shot though. He was so tired and so swollen that his little feet didn't even fit in his flip flops. But he was so good. Such a trooper. He just sat there. When I asked him if he was okay, he said "Yeah, this is just my tired face".

What a trooper!

He's doing better now, he still has a rash that comes and goes and is itchy, but he's feeling better. But we had to top it off by Allie face planting it and getting a big old bruise on the side of her head. Good trip! But I won't be doing this again any time soon.

The fun and the not so fun!

It felt more like summer rather than spring yesterday. It got up above 80! So after I picked Tate up from preschool we dropped our library books off and went to the splash pad/river thing on main street. I was thinking that the water would be too cold to actually play in so I didn't bring swim suits (after all it is just barely April). And I was right about one thing. The water was cold, but the kids didn't seem to mind much. Tate took off his shirt and was wet from his waist down. He and Allie have had colds for a couple weeks, but I figured (once again) that they wouldn't get too wet and it would just be fun to walk around in the water and soak up the hot sun.


Allie got really wet too (mostly from Tate splashing her) and so dirty from climbing on the rocks. They had so much fun. Then we went home and Me, Tate and one of his buddies played baseball in the front yard while Allie took a nap. I was the pitcher and outfielder so I got some excercise and a sunburn on my arms!

By the end of the day I could tell Tate was dragging and he had little sunburned cheeks. I had to go to a meeting for the charity commitee I'm part of with the Washington City fire department and I knew that Tate was really tired and not feeling super good, but other than that he seemed ok. After the meeting I put the kids to bed, Alex got home and I headed off to Lieto! (choir
practice). I got home around ten right when Tate woke up...with a fever. He was up till 1:30. Then again at 4:30 and finally awake for the day at 6:20. He was so tired and out of it last night. He just kept crying and telling me that I wouldn't let him ride in the rocket ship! Other than that he wouldn't tell me what hurt or anything. I gave him some tylonol, and it let us sleep for a couple hours. Finally this morning when he woke up he was able to tell me that his ear hurt. Double ear infections, AGAIN! They were both infected just about a month and a half ago. The only other time he's ever gotten an ear infection was when he was a month old and we found out that he's allergic to penecillin (the hard way.)

The good news is that after medicine for the infection, drops to numb his ears, tylonol, a humidifier, a children's vitamin just for good measure and a 3 1/2 hour nap he is feeling much better!

No More Boot for Allie!

Well Allie went in to the doctors after breaking her leg three weeks ago. I thought that the doctor would take off the old cast (especially since Allie had worn out the entire bottom), do an x-ray and put another one on for another couple weeks. But nope it is off! Poor Allie...she was so sad that we were taking off her boot and after they cut it off she wanted the doctor to put it back on (she cried when the buzz saw was going, but she held really still) I thought we were past the worst part, but then they said they needed an x-ray just to make sure. Uh-oh I knew this wouldn't go well. It took me, Alex and a sweet x-ray technician to hold her down while another tech pushed the button and we still had to do it again because she still moved. All the nurses out in the office thought it was an older kid throwing a fit. They couldn't believe someone so small had such a big... uh...lung capacity. But she's doing good now. She walks like she's still got a cast on, but I'm sure that will wear off as it continues to heal more. Ahh memories!

BLAST OFF!

"WE HAVE LIFT OFF!"

So Tate had been telling Alex that they needed to go shoot off rockets for a while now and Alex finally had a day off of school and work and firefighting and everything else. So the night before him and Tate went and bought a rocket kit and built them. The next day we all went out the Arizona strip to shoot them off.


On her maiden voyage "big blue" had a crash landing because Alex had forgotten to put the wading stuff in there and the parachute had melted before it could deploy. Oops!


Since mommy's can fix anything :) I was able to pull the parachute apart and other than a hole on the side we figured it would work. So we tried again and this time it worked great...and it had a better landing!


Allie was not as excited about it at all! She opted to sit in the car for most of it or she had to be held by grandma Sherry (especially since Mommy and Daddy were the ones pushing the ignition). Even Tate had forgotten how loud they hiss when they shoot up and he only pushed the button once, but he was our count down guy! He got a little anxious when we couldn't find where one of the rockets had landed and there was some tears from him too. So aside from a few screams from Allie and a couple tears form Tate it was a great family outing!

Just some tid bits!

I've just got some random tid bits to share. First of all we have decided to stay in St. George and not go to Cincinnati. We kind of had the feeling that we needed to make sure that we didn't have any other options and as it turned out options kind of fell in our lap so we are staying! Yea!

I also wanted to let everyone know that one of my best friends back home in Roy and her husband are looking to adopt a baby. They've gone through the process and are just waiting for someone to pick them. They are great people and are going to make wonderful parents. If you'd like to refer anyone to them their blog is markanddannielle.blogspot.com

And one more tid bit...Allie has figured out how to walk with her cast so I don't have to carry her everywhere anymore! Woot woot!