Pottytraining....check!

I officially no longer have babies in diapers!!!! Last Friday was the official potty training day and it was quite an adventure. Because Jack's potty training took a couple of years I have put off training Addie and now she has a ballet recital in May and required to wear her costume sans panties (and especially big bulky diapers). So I realized it is time to start with the training and this time I was going to do it right, give 110%. And I did!
After Addie and I dropped Jack off at school we came back home to discover a tea party and our new big girl doll! Addie loves having tea parties and this party was extra special because we used the beautiful little china tea cups I've been collecting for Addie. Addie's doll was a big part of our day. The "bible" of potty training said that the first part of the day should be spent having Addie train her doll but every doll that pees looks like an infant and I wanted Addie's doll to look like a big girl. So I found this beautiful blond princess Aurora doll and knew Addie would fall in love with her like I did. I made the doll panties from cutting up old baby blankets and duck tape and tucked one of Levi's travel size contact solution bottles into her dress so that when I squeezed her she went peepee. I can be pretty resourceful when I need to be.

Addie got several special potty books and movies (of which I have the "Bye bye peepee" jingle fused into my head.)

We spent all morning watching our new movies and reading our books to Chloe (aka Princess Aurora) with interruptions to run to the potty to give Chloe potty practice.

I was initially afraid Addie wouldn't be very potty trainable because she hates potties because they are "yucky" so I glammed out the kid's potty with as much pink as I could find. She LOVED it and wanted to take her new princess potty seat and pink stool everywhere!

After lunch it was time for nap! So Chloe had to wear her new princess pull-ups and Addie insisted that she wear them too!

After naptime Addie walked into the living room rubbing her eyes and I told her that she had one more present to find and unwrap. This woke her up and she started running all over the place searching for her last present.

She finally found it and proceeded to pull out and throw over her head ever pair of her new panties. We put them on and sat on the potty...for 30 minutes. Nothing happened. Then the UPS truck turned down our driveway which could only mean one thing...our new shoes were here!!!! So before putting on panties we opened our new shoes and put them on! We danced around the house to the Justin Beiber's Baby when all of a sudden Addie ran to the bathroom screaming "POOOOOOPOOOO!!!" and slammed the door. I, of course, ran after her and opened the door to find my pretty little princess stomping around in the mushy diahrea poop in her brand spankin new shoes!!! By the end of the day I was a little dissapointed because we didn't have one successful potty attempt. The next morning we started fresh and new at 6am! It was an exhausting but very satisfying day. We had way more successes than accidents and I perfected my Barney act...well it wasn't so much Barney as it was a cheerleader on speed.

By the end of the third day I had exhasted my vocal cords with many repetitions of ABCs, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Baby Shark, This Little Light of Mine, Jesus Loves Me, and Twinkle Twinkle but it was all worth it because had NO accidents all day long!

So I officially have no more babies in diapers and I'm sad but relieved to have this one thing off my todo list. Congratulations Addie Grace! You are such a big girl!!!!

Valentines day

We celebrated valentines day the weekend before actual V-Day. It was pretty fantastic...Levi and I took off for the day to do some furniture shopping only to come to the conclusion that furniture is expensive and our car barks so we should probably do some prioritizing before making a big purchase. So despite my disappointment from not coming home with a complete new living room we ended up making the most of our day. Because we never are at home sans kids we decided to take advantage of this opportunity of Nana keeping the kids overnight and instead of spending $100+ at some restaurant we decided to spend 100+ on groceries, go home and spend 2 hours preparing a meal that took us 10 minutes to eat. I know it sounds kind of crazy but it was a blast! We made sushi all by ourselves thanks to ehow.com and I have to say that it compares to our fav sushi restaurants Kenichi and Steel.

And because we could not remember half of the 13 valentines days we have had together I set the camera up to snap a few pictures so that at least we would have some tangible record that this date took place.

Then on the actual valentines day Jack had his cute party at school...

Here he is licking his cup like a cat during the group prayer. Nice.

I took around 30 pictures of them eating while constantly yelling their names and telling them to look at the camera and not once did they both look at the same time. This was the best out of 30.

Addie got stuck in the middle of the easel. Oops.

Okay, Stef, so this is probably the worst picture ever of our two handsome boys but it was the best one I got of them that day.

Take a look....

I have gone through a small tote of the kid's spring and summer clothes and I thought that I would post them here and if anyone is interested in buying them from me you can email me at jessicadpope@gmail.com. I usually sell the kid's old clothes at the JBF sale but this year I had scheduling conflicts so I'm going to give this a shot. Take a look and see if there is anything you like. There will be more to come...if I ever get in the mood to clean out another tote again. Whew! It is exhausting!

ITEM #1 Hollywood Ranch Top and Pants Set

Size 12 Months (Addie wore this for about 2 hours for max...practically new)

Asking price: $40

Item #2 Ralph Lauren Bubble

Size 12-18 months

Asking price: $7

Item #3 Gymboree Dress and Bloomers

Size: 3-6 months

Asking price: $12

Item #4 Boutique Dress (I cut out the tag and can't remember the brand but I bought it at the Mother Goose boutique in Canton)

Size 18 months

Asking Price: $15

Item #5 Circo Dress and matching bloomers (not shown)

Size: 18 months

Asking Price: $4

Item #6 Youngland swing top and pants

Size: 18 months

Asking Price: $8

Item #7 Nannette Swing Top (Looks super cute with pink leggings)

Size: 18 months

Asking Price: $5

Item #8 Baby Gap Dress

Size: 6-12 months

Asking Price $15

Item #9 Ooh! La, La! Couture Dress

Size: 9-12 months (This still fit Addie at 2)

Asking price: $40

Item #10 Children's Place Independence Day Bathing Suit

Size: Tag says 9 months but Addie wore this at 6 months and it was tight!

Asking Price: $3

Item #11 Lillie Avenue Pants (Goes really great with cute pink top)

Size: 18 months

Asking price: $7

Item #12 Old Navy Bubble

Size:6-12 Months

Asking price: $4

Item #13 Carter's White Eyelet Dress

Size: 6 months

Asking Price: $5

Item #14 Baby Gap Onesie and Matching Capris (not shown but can provide picture upon request)

Size: 3-6 months

Asking Price: $10

Item #14 Old Navy 3/4 Sleeve Cardi

Size: 18-24 months

Asking Price: $5

Item #15 Gymboree Flower Top and Matching Denim capris

Size: 3-6 months

Asking Price: $15

(There is not a dark spot on the pants...not sure why the picture shows there to be)

Item #16 Cherokee Dress

Size: 18 months

Asking price: $3

# 17 Genuine Kids Gold Sandals

Size: 4

Asking Price: $3

Item #18 Circo Floral Bow Shoes

Size: 3

Asking Price $3

Item #19 Circo Butterfly flipflops

Size: 5

Asking price: $5

Item #20 Circo Bling Bling Sandals

Size: 5

Asking Price: $4

Item #21 Old Navy polo

Size: 3t

Asking Price: $5

Item #22 Children's Place shorts

Size: 4t

Asking price: $5

If you are interested at all or want to bargain on price just shoot me an email. I can send more detailed pictures if you request as well. If you want to see any of the item in person I can always leave them up at my store and if you live in or near Greenville you can stop by whenever and take a more thorough look.

Our snow pics

As everyone knows...it snowed... a lot. We spent 30 minutes layering the kids and ourselves with clothing so that we could play outside in the freezing snow for 10 minutes. But pictures make those 10 minutes last a lifetime. (Corney...I know, don't care.)

I'm not quite sure what Addie's face is doing in this picture. Is it a smile, is it a frown, is she growling?
I took this picture of Jack as he was anticipating a rather large snowball being thrown by Daddy.

This picture is definitely a smile. And why is she smiling?....

Because Daddy was running to rescue her and carry her the rest of the way.

Jack's hat was covering his eyes but he still had pretty good aim when throwing his snowballs.

I have to show off Levi's yellow dish gloves. I have to admit as ridiculous as it looks it was a pretty good idea to cover his fabric gloves with these bright rubber ones.

Addie and Daddy made snow angels together. Pretty sweet.

I'm not sure when Levi wrote this but I was going out to my car and I saw this sweet little message written in the snow. I'm kind of loved a little bit.