Potty training! Oh what fun!

Painfully cute, that is how Mike has just described our little girl. Boy has it been interesting the last few weeks as we've started potty training... At first it was hard, we put her in cloth training pants and let her run. Every time she would wet she screamed and yelled, "Poo!! Pooooed Mommy Pooed!!" So I would go change her and help her sit on the potty and give her a sticker for trying. She didn't like it. So I backed off for another week until she started wanting to sit on the potty again, then I started putting her in the training pants again. This time it has seemed to do pretty well. She still wets her pants, but when she needs to go she will actually take her underwear off and run into the bathroom and sit on the potty. She still hasn't gone, but I think we're making progress. She can tell when she needs to go, so that is good. And she likes sitting on the potty now, so that is great! Anyway enough about bathroom habits. :) One good story I need to tell is that I went to check on her before I went to bed one night, and she heard me come in and got a little confused. I went over to soothe her, realized she was still asleep and before I could help her lie back down she did this huge stretch and croaked out, "CAKE!!!" Then she smiled, rolled over and put her thumb in her mouth. I laughed and laughed.

Matthew is doing very well, he is now semi-crawling, scooching himself all over the place, forward, backward, wherever he wants to go. I would say he will be crawling at any moment. He was doing it today minus pushing off his knees like he's supposed to. I'm amazed at how fast he is developing these skills. It has also been fun feeding him solid foods. I haven't been buying baby food this time, I've been making it all, which I actually don't mind doing. It's nice to have it home-made and fresh, I know the veggies or fruit are good, and I can prepare it myself. Plus it tastes and smells better. That's got to mean something. :) He has done very well with squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, pears, applesauce, bananas and peaches. He eats two or three solid meals daily now and is doing a great job. He can eat a whole zwieback toast while he sits in his high chair (Emma never did that!). It's just been fun. The funniest thing is watching him chase this ball around the living room. He catches up with it, tries to grab it and ends up pushing it further, only to have to chase it down again. It's really cute. He's very determined.

Mike is officially on break from school. He did well on his finals, and is relieved to have passed both classes (physics really gave him a scare) and he is now not thinking about school for another week before gearing up for the next semester. This is the semester we need to buy good snow tires and make sure the gas tank never gets below half. I really hope he'll be safe commuting the canyon! It can be scary in the winter.

We are planning a camping trip for this next weekend during Swiss Days (good riddance) so that we don't have to sit through all the noise up at the square. Picture listening to yodeling all day long for two days. It's enough to make you develop a permanent twitch. So we're getting the heck out of here for those couple of days. I don't know how it's going to be camping with two kids, but I'm excited. We haven't gone anywhere for awhile so it will be fun. We're going with Mike's brother Dave, his wife Sara and their son Hyrum. Somewhere out by Duchesne. Hopefully it won't be too crowded. :)

I am continuing on my workout routine. I have been able to run again (I developed some stress fractures a couple of weeks ago and had been walking while I was healing up) so my workouts have been a lot more satisfying. I've also been doing some pilates now and again. I have so far lost an inch on my tummy (yay!!!) and hope to see more progress. I still am not doing as well as I'd like with the junk food. I swear your body needs chocolate to make up for lost hormones during pregnacy or labor or something. I have never wanted sugar so much as after I had kids!!! I'm working on it though. I have also been reading a whole ton, finished the Twilight series (which was great until the 4th...? Could really have been better) and have been reading some LDS fiction which has been awesome. I love a good adventure/romance/suspense/history.... yeah.