Background: for the past month+ (at least) Aiden has sporadically been using the potty. I'll keep him naked on the bottom while we get ready, eat breakfast etc and he uses the potty like a pro. Well....this week I decided to see what would happen if I put underwear and pants on him. Not so good! After (I'm really not exaggerating) 6 accidents in about an hour, I figured it was either GO time or give up time (back to diapers and pull ups).

We have nothing going on Wednesdays so I decided to throw Aiden and his brothers a little potty party to see if that would sort of push A in the right direction. I had actually called and sought the advice of the triage nurse at our pediatrician's office and she was less than helpful. She said that she also has a little boy ready to potty train and maybe we could exchange ideas....like we were buddies instead of she, a medical professional who could point me in a good direction, and I, a mother with a need for info. It was a fun, but unproductive chat.


annnnyway....back to the party. We all know I have a tendency to over-do things (or rather...do things with a wave of full force and passion <-- that's my glass 1/2 full statement!) Soooooo.....I had a TON of things planned. I came up with most of my ideas last minute, around 5pm Tuesday night while laying in the steam room at the gym. After leaving the steam room and before picking up the boys from the playroom, I placed a call to Party City and ordered a few balloons....ok....like 12 balloons. Then we ran to Michael's craft store and the grocery store for supplies.

At Michael's, we picked up a bunch of stuff. They have kid's tee shirts there for crafting (painting, bedazzling....whatever) and they were all on sale for $1.99. I wanted to buy a big one for Aiden so that he could run around, even in our back yard, with no pants on and not scare the neighbors. Since they were so cheap, I bought a shirt for all three boys so that it felt like more of a team event. I also bought shrinky dink stuff to make potty party "medallions" (read: necklaces...for boys)

At the grocery store, we picked up fruit, a cake mix, frosting, sprinkles and blue icing.

Our day: We started the day with pancakes shaped like P's (pee and party and potty). I added chocolate chips as well (use your imagination)
Aiden requested pancakes shaped like balloons...I did my best :)
Choco-baby!
Playing off of Aiden's recent LOVE of Easter and egg hunting, I filled 10 plastic eggs with a little candy and some quarters. Each egg was designed to be split between Logan and Aiden. I hid them in crazy places where the boys would never find them without my help. The rule was that if EITHER boy went to the potty....I would tell them where to find an egg and they could share the contents (and put the money in their little "good day" banks...Logan's is a soccer ball, Aiden has a basketball and there is even a football one in Brady's room for the future <-- yeah for the Target $1 spot...I love that section!!).

The balloons had super long strings one them. My idea: tie them in bunches around the house like we do for birthday parties. The boys' idea: decorate the 2-story ceiling in the living room! I got a bunch of latex balloons plus three mylar star ones: green for L, blue for A and red for Brady (I sure hope that kid likes red...it's the only boyish color not already claimed)
Aiden has been eyeing these snack pack things at the grocery store lately so I let him pick them out for a special snack.

I used a small cup to draw the circles for our potty party medallions onto shrinky dink paper. I haven't used shrinky dinks in forever and I wasn't sure how small they would get so I went with "bigger than you would think"....which turned out perfectly in the end! We colored these, punched a hole in each one and baked them.

Ryan and MacKenzie wondered down to our yard and make a necklace too. Here are the kids looking into the bottom oven watching the shrinking take place.

Done! Amazing how small they got!! I wanted to do this for our potty party because I already have a craft planned in my head for Aiden's birthday (which will be in July). We're doing another get messy party, but I want to decorate with a Hawaiian tiki man theme. My craft idea is to make tiki necklaces with shrinky dinks (a la the Brady Bunch!)

Here are kids playing with silly string in the yard.

Aiden got a bit on his head....I may have been the one to put it there :) Boy those cans of spray foam don't last very long!!

Afternoon picnic with Aiden's favorite (and Logan's too) - grilled cheese. Logan congratulated me on not burning it this time.

Here is a close-up of Aiden's potty party necklace. He used lots of different colored beads...

...Logan went with a green medallion surrounded by two simple green beads.

After naps, we made potty party cup cakes.

Brady helped too! He truly thinks he is at least as old as Aiden.

When we planned the party, I was talking about how we were going to have cupcakes and hunt for eggs etc. Logan looked at me and said "mommy....I don't want JUST sugary stuff....can we have a fruit plate?" So...our afternoon snack was a big fruit plate (we apparently did a lot of eating at our potty party!!)

Finally it was time to decorate the cupcakes.

Brady mostly just ate his!

Here is Logan's: how about some cupcake with those toppings?! We even made one for daddy, but I forgot to tell him about it so it's still in the fridge (I'm finishing this post on Monday)

And the verdict?? Not as positive as I had hoped. We kept Aiden naked on the bottom for the next couple of days or reminded him to use the potty when he was wearing pants. It seems the more we talk to him about it, the less he wants to do it (this happened with Logan too). We sort of gave up on Saturday, but then he went to the bathroom without us asking three times that day. (shrug) We'll give it another go right around his actual birthday (July 10th). It was a fun party though....we all had a great day so it was well worth the effort...maybe we won't do that ALL again in July....I think we made a lot of progress that we'll build on later! A for effort!!

I've been sending a lot of pictures to Brian lately using my phone (since he's not around to see the day to day stuff the boys do). I thought it would be fun to put them all into a post. I've also been meaning to write down some of the milestones and cute things the guys have done lately as well. Therefore, I give you: RRRRRandom post!


Stuff Logan has said:

1.
me = in kitchen
him = on couch
Logan "hey mom?!"
me "what honey?"
Logan "how's book club going these days?"
UH?! <-- me
me "um...good honey...I'm not really reading the next book yet though...I have to track it down" Logan "are you still reading Twilight"
(laughter) <-- me

That was the text of an email I sent to two of my also-Twilight-obsessed friends.

2.
One night we were having dinner at my friend Kristina's house. She is a super fun mom (super!) and was letting the kids run around all over her couch, throw the cushions on the floor and have an all-out party. Logan said, "Hey Miss Kristina...how about some music to go along with all this fun we're having?!" She thought that was the best! (so did I!)

3.
Yesterday we were running errands and Logan said, "mommy...my heart is happy because I'm happy and I'm happy because you make me happy". He can be so incredibly loving and sweet!! He often says to me "ok mommy.....let's see that happy face!!" <-- if I'm cranky. It's like he steps up when Brian is out of town to love on me :)

4.
We've been listening to music together while we lay in his bed at night (instead of rocking in his chair...yes....we rock our 4 year old). Anyway, we lay and cuddle for a couple of songs and, again, he tells me all sorts of things like "you're the best mommy in the world". Tonight he asked me, "mommy...am I the best 4-year-old in the house?" <-- no offence to anyone else, but I DID tell him that he is the best 4-year-old in the universe ;)

5.
This one isn't something Logan said, but we're just so proud. Our man who didn't ever want to go to classes is doing GREAT at swim class. Unfortunately, I could only get him in on Saturday mornings which puts a kink in family time, but Brian has been taking him and making it a special outing. Brian is also so cute...he took notes on his iphone for me about what they did last week...what a good daddy!


Stuff Aiden is doing:

I must honestly say that I am having a VERY VERY difficult time with Aiden these days. He is argumentative about everything and throws temper tantrums not on an hourly basis, but almost every 15 to 20 minutes (any time I have to say no...which is often for a child who constantly asks for things he can't have....like marsh mellows at bedtime!) I have started REALLY trying not to say no at all and, instead, I'll just say "of course you can have a marsh mellow....tomorrow" <-- he's on to my game and throws a tantrum anyway. boooooo. I feel like we went through the trenches with Logan and I'm sure that Aiden will come out OK. I just pray and pray that God can give me more patience with him until that time.

1.
One night we thought he was sleeping, but I peeked into his room and he was sitting naked on his bed. He said "mommy....I did peeps in my bed" (translation: I took off all my cloths and peed on my big boy bed....and, I later discovered, on the floor)

2.
Another time, during naps, he got out of his bed and crawled behind his chair (which he does often). I found him sleeping on the floor back there. I pulled the chair out, covered him with blankets and put a pillow under his head.

3.
Yesterday we went to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Instead of using coins to play this basketball game, he climbed in (it was this big shoe....see pics below), threw the balls out, climbed down, found the balls and threw them back in. He did this several times. I tried to stop him, but it was pretty funny.

4.
Potty training: see future post! Currently, he is PERFECT at using the potty only if he's completely naked. As soon as you put any sort of underwear, pants or ANYTHING on him, he suddenly just doesn't bother. Yesterday, he went through 3 pairs of pants and then 3 more pairs of underwear in under an hour (I am NOT kidding). He must only let some pee go each time because GEEZ....who needs to go 6 times an hour?!!!

Stuff Brady is doing:

1.
He usually wakes up once during the night and will go straight back to bed if we give him a bottle of water. I take one to bed with me, put it on my nightstand and trot it in there sometime between 12 and 3am. He will also wake up early (5:30 or so) and drink his milk in his bed then go back to sleep until 8 or later. Gosh...if only Logan was like that as a baby!! He used to get up at 5:30 every day! If Brady was my only, I would be SO lazy sleeping in all the time! :) Also....Aiden constantly sneaks in there even though we tell him not to so that he can wake up his little brother. The other morning, I saw that Aiden's door was open when Logan came to wake us up, but I couldn't find A ANYWHERE. Bray's door was closed, but I went into his room after combing the downstairs and waking Brian in a panic. Aiden was JUMPING around in Bray's crib (this was 6:30). We removed Aiden, closed the door and didn't hear from the baby again until after 8! Can you believe it?! A child going back to sleep for over an hour and a 1/2 after his brother jumps all over him? Crazy.

2.
When you ask Bray a question, he will often say "ummm" as if he's thinking. We have now realized that this is how he says "yes"!

3.
It's hard to understand, but Bray will now point at stuff and say "mine!"

4.
The other day, Brady was in the kitchen while Brian and I were making dinner. He pointed at the fruit bowl and said, what I thought was "ball pl". Brian recognized that he was trying to say "apple".

5.
When you ask Bray what a sheep says, he responds with "baaaa". When you ask him what a cow says, he responds with "baaaaa". hahaha. His favorite is still "qack qack qack" for a duck. That kid loves his ducks....and footballs too. I'm thinking he may be like Aiden and the basketballs, but with footballs!!

6.
He gives AWESOME kisses!!! He will grab your face, move it so that he can get to your mouth and just lay one on you. My favorite thing is that he makes a smacking noise with his mouth after he's done. He will kiss anyone....even strange babies at his open gym class!

7.
If I'm wearing flip-flops and carrying Brady, he'll make a click click noise with his tongue to mimic the sound of my shoes.


8.
I love the way he runs. He kicks his legs out, wiggles his body from side to side and laughs frantically while waving his arms above his head

9.
Yesterday, he found the base to our stomp rocket...carried it around while he looked for a rocket, found one and put it on the hose part, and then stomped on the pump. He is a very advanced "player"! He SO wants to be a big boy. He gets fussy if we don't let him sit with the big kids and he now climbs up the ladder on our big playset and goes down the slide like a pro. I'm both worried and relieved. I thought this summer was going to be hard since he would want to climb all that stuff and wouldn't be able to. Well....he wants to and he can...

Pictures!!

This is one I took with my phone (it's hard to see). It's Brady sleeping. I snuck in to check on him one morning and had my phone in my pocket....thought Daddy would like to see the sweetness.

This is a picture I took and sent to Brian with the message "missing you!" Those are eggs that I tried to cook on our new Big City Slider Station. I think I did something wrong (ya think?!) Brian's always turn out perfectly!

I found this after our first session at Sears. I let Logan play with my phone when it wasn't his turn and he was apparently taking pictures with it!
I took this of the boys sitting on the fountain at the mall after pictures on the second day. Brady tried to wade in. They LOVE that thing!

Last Thursday, I picked Logan up from preschool and all the kids were standing in a line outside with these great hats on. They are learning the letters M and X so they had a Mexican party day! They made these "dancing sticks", wore the hats, ate chips & salsa for their snack and played games with the 4-year old class. Awesome! (it all looks even better with the sunglasses on!)

Here is an example of Brady wanting to sit with the big kids. We had some friends from down the street drop in for dinner on Saturday night. Brady was ANGRY that I would even think about putting him in a booster seat as opposed to the kids' picnic table. He does a great job too! He is just as good as Logan and Aiden at feeding himself!

Here is the picture I took with my phone of Aiden climbing into this "big shoe" basketball game at Chuck E Cheese. The ball is a blur in the picture as he drops it out.

Here are the boys at the "chomp chomp" machine counting their tickets. Strangely, we had EXACTLY 300 tickets so each of them got 100! How awesome is that?! Like the bright green shirts? Again...easy to spot in a crowd plus Brady even has a balloon tied to his pants since he was so tiny between all the giant game machines.

More total randomness: Look in the left corner window above the door. A bird is building a nest up there. Brian thought we should knock it down, but the boys were totally jazzed about having a bird's nest and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to peek in without hurting the birds (I'm thinking we can periodically put up a ladder and help them climb up there to look in). I took this picture from the top of the front stairs.

I pushed a chair over, held the camera up and snapped a shot of the inside. I think it's just amazing how birds put their nests together! I tried to get a picture of the bird inside because it's a beautiful silhouette, but every time she saw me walking towards the door, she would fly away.

Those are words I thought I would never utter after a trip to Sears photography. We went for round 2 of formal pictures today. Since we actually got good shots of Logan and Aiden last week, I just needed Brady to cooperate and hopefully get just one good shot with all three of them. Well, Brady's done teething (for now) and is feeling much better. He woke up in a fantastic mood so I had hope. I also requested a different photographer just in case. Before entering the mall, I had a quick "what to expect" talk with the older boys and it seemed to work.


It took less than 10 minutes to get the pictures we need and, 45 minutes after I entered the photography studio, I was leaving with an order placed and a CD of pictures in my bag. We celebrated with a return trip to the indoor gym (complete with gumballs all around). We threw pennies in the fountain, bought new summer crocs for all three boys and then ate McDonald's at the food court. The only snafu? I left all of our coats in the lobby of the photography studio and had to return this evening to get them (it was brisk when we went into the mall, but warm when we left so I didn't even think about it...until Sears called my house around 2!) Oh well...no worries, we got them back!

Here are some pictures. Feel my pain....feel my joy!!


Last week - "get me out of here!" (those are my hands)

This week - "hey mommy - this is fun!" (he's looking at me)
Last week's close up


This week - "heeeey ladies!"

Last week's group shot

One of this week's group shots (and bonus, the photographer today actually put the ugly yellow block under the drape! genius...)

It's a MIRACLE!

I think one reason that today's trip was such a success was because we already had good shots of Aiden & Logan from last week. Last time, they had to sit in a tiny room and take turns for about 40 minutes. This week we were in and OUT! Here is A from last week:
And Logan :)

Is this like a mom thing? With the exception of late pregnancy, I've never had such an urge to just totally organize the ENTIRE house. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that we've been here for almost 4 years now. Stuff is getting....well...stuffed every where and I need to create homes for everything.

So...yesterday I was going through the playroom and I reorganized the book basket. I found this at the bottom:
A note I wrote myself....something of a to-do (slash) wish list I guess.

That says: "9:45 - hair, Tom & Denay to Train, Stop at Michael's, Get money for maid, would like to go to JoAnn's, would like more sleep."

Before naps today I was cleaning the kitchen and Logan yelled "mom....we are playing musical chairs...can you please put on some music?" Cute.

We had a very fun family weekend kicked off with some good ol' laying around in bed. Here, Brian and the boys snuggle Saturday morning. Because he travels so much, Bri REALLY enjoys the love his boys always have at-the-ready for him! I'm trying really hard to keep my Aiden a "mommy's boy"...but I think he's going over to the daddy side too ;)
We bought a king-sized bed when I was pregnant with Brady mostly for THIS reason...sometimes we even end up procrastinating bath and bed times just to goof around on the bed for a while.

I happened to have my camera upstairs (because of the above pictures) and I thought this was kind of cute. Here is Logan wrapped up in a towel on our bedroom couch trying to warm up after his morning bath (also Saturday morning)

Now let's fast forward to Sunday - Easter! In years past, we've used a small stamp to put little bunnies on the boys' tummies for Easter morning...we've also used a bunch of cut-out bunny heads to lead the way from our room, downstairs to the egg hunt and baskets. Well...this year I lost the bunny stamp (so I used three fingers to make bunny feet on their tummies in brown ink instead). Also, the bunny heads served their purpose in years past...which was to lead clueless LITTLE boys downstairs, but we now have 2 big boys who sleep in beds, get up on their own and....may or may not follow the bunny trail without us!! Aiden chose to follow the trail....Logan came into our room saying "mommy...daddy....there are bunnies in the hallway!!" <-- this was said in a very confused and worried tone. I woke up when Logan came in and them immediately heard something faint coming from downstairs. The following is a picture I took over the front balcony. When questioned, Aiden said he was "putting them in a row". He followed the bunny heads, grabbed some of the "hid-for-small-children, therefore in plain view, eggs" and was sorting through them....admiring their contents and arranging them thus:

The bunny heads actually led FIRST to the landing on the stairs where the baskets waited (can you believe Aiden walked right past these to go find eggs?)

I forgot to take a picture of the older boys' baskets before they ripped into them. Here is Brady's. We put Nana & Papa's big (totally cool) Buzz Lightyear dart guns next to Logan and Aiden's baskets, Brady's big basket gift was a set of electronic drum sticks (and yes....he loves them!) Bray also got some bathtub crayons, Handy Manny tools (as did the big boys), a slinky, putty (which was taken away from everyone because of Aiden...enough said) and other assorted treats.

The boys ready for the hunt!!

We couldn't really get Bray to "hunt" for eggs...he just wanted to pick them up and shake them.

1 room down...2 more to go! (we had to keep re-focusing them!)

We hid some messages in the eggs that began a scavenger hunt. The hunt ended in the basement where the really big gifts were waiting. We gave Logan and Aiden self-filling water guns (which are TOTALLY awesome!). Nana and Papa gave them all a Lightning McQueen remote-controlled car and a Handy Manny fix-it TV (plus the buzz guns and all the Handy Manny tools....score!!!)

Aiden had a wonderful time emptying all the eggs....and then eating as many jelly beans as he could (we didn't manage to get anything but sugar into him until after nap time!!)

...and who was the #2 candy culprit? Brady! He and Aiden were having the time of their lives! Brady's jammy top was covered in a lot of crazy colored candy drool that totally reminded me of Aiden's first Christmas and his first experience with candy canes.

"Like this big brother?" "Yes Brady....that's fantastic candy-cramming form!"

We had to boogie out of the house and get over to Uncle David & Aunt Diana's house for brunch. Here is the centerpiece I took with us. (my friend Kristina sent me this idea...isn't it fun!?)

Memaw set up an egg hunt outside for Logan, Aiden, Brady, Zach and Jack. Each boy had their own egg color so it wasn't just a free-for-all (I really liked the whole idea because of the age differences between all the boys, but Jack was NOT happy that he could only search for purple!) My boys had green, blue and yellow. Logan's color was yellow....HAHA...just kidding.

Here is a Logan-esk shot of his egg bucket (I took it...not Logan...just to clarify)

Here is Aiden hunting for his blue eggs

Can we pretend that Brady had even the slightest clue about the whole egg-hunting thing? The older boys were running around the yard, after most of the eggs were gone, yelling "who has yellow?!" I ended up gathering them for him....happily (what a great excuse to be a kid again!)

Here, the Houck family does the usual "do you think we can get a picture of all 6 boys" trick. Um...it never works. There are 4 boys ages 4 and under....even the 10 and 12 year old ones don't always cooperate. I focused my attention on these cuties. I think I might frame this or the next one if my 2nd attempt at formal portraits doesn't pan out this up-coming Wednesday.

Brian was behind me making faces, funny noises and making them all giggle (go daddy)

And here's the best picture I got of everyone...not good...per usual. After the egg hunt, the boys turned in any eggs with a star on them for prizes and other goodies. They got yet more candy in the eggs and a TON of candy in their "baskets".

After I brought the center piece home, Brian added the flowers that Aiden picked at Memaw and Grandpa's last week.

Another attempt, on my part, at Logan photography

So....after we got home last night, I went through all the toys and candy that the boys got during the day and I managed to fill 2 LARGE sized zip lock bags with JUST the sweet stuff. I also forgot to talk about the ridiculous amount of food that we all consumed at David and Diana's (all delicious of course). At the end of the day, I felt like I had just been through Easter, Thanksgiving and Halloween all in one day!