John's 30th birthday!

John turned 30 on March 12, 2014.

He was on Spring Break that week for school, so it was nice for him.  Unfortunately I did not have spring break until the next week, so had to teach class all day on his birthday.  I felt kind of bad, but I guess that's what happens when we all get old!

Here he is opening his presents.

He got the movie "Oblivion" on Blu-Ray, ankle weights for the gym, and some junk food (including pepsi, whoppers, and oreo ice cream).  Plus a box of his favorite (and very expensive) cereal- Grape Nuts.

 

The tradition on my birthday is to go to Samurai 21.  John decided that he wanted that as his birthday tradition too, but instead we went to Sakura, which is basically the same thing, but newer and we had never been there before.  We invited John's parents, sister and nephew, plus my mom to go with us.  I think we all had a good time and definitely enjoyed the food and show!  Brynlee had a love/hate relationship with the fire.  She was terrified of it at first, but then wanted more!

Brynlee ate rice.  As usual.

 

John got a slice of cheesecake (which was eaten mostly by Brynlee and Jaxon) with a Japanese plastic flower on top.  The waitress lit the candles and a few seconds later the flower opened and it played the "Happy birthday" tune.  It never stopped playing the tune the rest of the evening.  Jaxon was obsessed with the flower, so John let him take it home.  This was a Wednesday night.  On Saturday we were at John's parents house and he went to throw something away in the garbage can.  We could still hear the flower playing in the garbage can 3 days later!!!

 

 

I don't think I did a good job of making John's birthday special this year because of being tired and pregnant and miserable, plus still working and trying to get ready for a substitute teacher (tons of work!).  But we sure love him as a husband and Daddy and appreciate all he does for our family!

 

Family hike

My Dad organized a family hike to Johnson Arch in Snow Canyon.  The adults had a hard time keeping up with the kids of course.  It is a nice hike that is mostly flat and not too hard for an 8-month-pregant self.  It's fun for Brynlee to hang out with her cousins.

We went to Costa Vida afterward for lunch. Yum!

 

Fishing

There is a great little fishing pond a few minutes from our house.  John is pretty much obsessed with fishing and would do it all day every day if he could.  Brynlee has had a princess fishing pole for a few years now.  She enjoys it too. 

It was mid-February and already warm enough to play outside and have a picnic dinner at the fishing pond.

 

Brynlee loves to feed the ducks also.  I wish we would remember to bring a loaf of bread because she always wants to feed them our food.

John generally does pretty well with catching fish, but they are always really small at this pond (as evidenced above).  A few times  after this trip, John started catching huge fish.

 



Potty training

When Brynlee was 2 1/2 (summer of 2013), I planned to start potty training her.  It seemed a reasonable age to do that.  I tried charts and bribes and encouragement and she picked out princess panties.  We had 2 Elmo potties and a princess potty.  All to no avail.  She was not ready at all.  Even though I was frustrated and annoyed, it wasn't worth trying any longer because she was not interested.  And Brynlee is so strong willed that there was no point.  At the end of 2013, beginning of 2013 (Brynlee was 3 by then), John got frustrated and took away all of her princess stuff, including movies and dress ups, plus most of her toys that she played with.  She still didn't care.  Her answer for when she would go to the potty was always "tomorrow".  This went on for a month or 2.  I got tired of tripping over the stuff in the garage and it was not working either, so she got it back.  The truth is, she was a much better kid without all the toys anyway (and the house stayed a little cleaner).

Then one day in mid-February, I asked if she wanted to sit on the princess potty.  I was shocked when she said yes.  She sat on it a couple of times the next few days, then she actually went potty on it!  I couldn't believe my eyes!  She was so excited about it too!  It didn't take long for her to want to sit on it all the time and go potty most of the time.  The awesome thing was, we didn't have to push her to do anything, she was doing it all herself.  By this time, I had resigned myself to knowing I would have 2 kids in diapers at the same time (even though they would be nearly 3 1/2 years apart) and joked that the new baby would be potty trained before Brynlee.  I really wasn't pushing for her to be potty trained right before the baby came because I figured she would regress back to diapers anyway, which is normal for toddlers.  I figured I would think about potty training again at the end of the summer.

Within 2 weeks or so of the first time sitting on the potty without being forced, she was fully trained during the day.  She only had 2 accidents the whole time (and 1 was our fault because she was not ready to be in panties yet).  She was not interested in the baby potty's anymore, so we put those away.  She goes in the bathroom by herself and usually doesn't need any help at all.  Sometimes I would be upstairs and she would be on the main level and I would hear the toilet flush and be confused because I couldn't figure out who else was in the house!  It took me a little while to remember that Brynlee was doing it all by herself!  We just need to work on not using tons of toilet paper and tons of soap.  She loves flushing the toilet.  She is not potty trained at night, but I am completely fine with that.  I actually have no desire to put in her panties at night because if she had to use the bathroom at night, that would require help from us (because she can't open her bedroom door), and with being 8-9 months pregnant I am already up several times a night myself, so the last thing I want is to be up a few more times.

For a long time I was really embarrassed that she was not potty trained, especially when kids 6-9 months younger than her were potty trained.  It's crazy that she was in Sunbeams at church not potty trained (the only one in her class of course), and there were kids in nursery that were potty trained.
But I have heard so many horror stories about how hard it is to potty train kids, that now I am glad we waited.  It required almost no effort on our part when she was ready to do it herself.  So note to future self- wait until the kid is ready and wants to do it!  Don't push them if they are not willing!
 

Brynlee

John bought this stuffed Mario for his soon-to-be son.  He had no idea how much his daughter would like it.  We keep it in the baby crib next door to Brynlee's room, but she often climbs into the crib to play with it.  Oftentimes I find it on my office chair.  This day she had tucked him into her bed.  She is such a good little mommy.

 

 

 



Sad to say, I can't remember what was significant about taking pictures of Brynlee in bed.  But she was acting silly and being cute (as usual).

This isn't about Brynlee at all, but I didn't want to do a full post on just cereal (that would be crazy).  But one day in my 2nd trimester I suddenly remembered how much I loved this cereal.  So I looked for it at a few grocery stores and couldn't find it.  I was having some serious cravings, so even looked on Amazon for it.  It was available at Amazon, but pretty pricey, so I just decided to let it go.  Then one day John said he had a surprise for me.  He had found the cereal at Walmart!  What's funny is that now I see it everytime I go.  Not sure why I didn't see it before, they may have just been out.  Man, was that box delicious!

 

 

 



FYI: Brynlee looks naked, but she actually has a diaper on, it's just not visible in this picture. 

Evidence that Brynlee loves to climb in the crib, play with the toys and wrap up the stuffed animals or characters with blankets, give them a toy and bottle, then either climb out or cry that she is stuck.

 

 

 

 



 Brynlee's favorite dress still.  She got it for Easter last year.  Good thing it still fits.  She calls it her "twirly-skirty".  She totally picks dresses based on "twirlability".  She is not a fan of dresses or skirts that don't "twirl".

 

 

We had a little bit of French bread loaf left over one morning and Brynlee asked for some.  I was about to break off a piece to give to her, but she insisted on having the whole thing.  It just made me laugh.  She ate the whole thing too.

 

Swinging in the backyard.  She looooooves to swing (always has) and also loves to push her babies in the swing.

 

I vividly remember some of her worst tantrums in life were because it was time to get off the swing....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few weeks before baby's due date, I decided it was time for John to go in the attic and get all the baby stuff out.  Of course, Brynlee was driving me crazy because she wanted to play with everything and take things all over the house, thus preventing me from organizing the huge mess.  Seriously, huge mess!!!  I couldn't believe how much stuff baby's require (or is nice to have). 

Here she is with a binky in her mouth (finally had to hide them from her), baby Elmo in 1 bouncy seat, and lamby in other bouncy seat.  They each have a toy or bottle.

 

 

 



The Disney movie "Frozen" came out Thanksgiving 2013.  I had thought about taking Brynlee to a movie theater for her first time, but never got around to thinking more about it until February.  Since John and I hardly ever go to  movies in the theater (once a year or less), I could not believe the price for a kid's matinee.  Then my mom invited me and Brynlee to go at the end of February/beginning of March.  I knew the movie would be coming out on video in March, but still wanted to take her to the theater.  She did really good in the theater, better than I expected.  She would have eaten the entire bag of licorice if I had let her.   I think it helped that she had heard the music at her cousin's house when we went for Sunday dinner's. 

 

So when the movie came out on Blu-Ray March 18th, I picked it up that day.  I was actually really excited to see it again because it reminded me of when I was little and how exciting Disney movies were.  I have 4 Disney movies that are my favorites, but haven't seen a Disney movie I love since I was a kid.  Until now.  My mom burned the Frozen CD from iTunes for us and Brynlee loves it and constantly asks to listen to it.

We had to wait until the next day to watch the movie with Daddy (who hadn't seen it yet).  Brynlee must have asked 15 times if we could watch it that day.  Looking back, I'm glad we waited to see it until we did, otherwise it would have been months (instead of weeks) of her asking to see the movie again!

We had some leftover rootbeer and some snacks, then watched the movie in the basement.

We all loved it of course and Brynlee asks every day since then to watch it multiple times a day.

What was so cute is that the night before we watched the movie at home, I reminded Brynlee at bedtime that she needed to be good and go to sleep so we could watch Frozen the next day.  She said to me multiple times, "I'm so excited mommy!" & "I love you mommy!".

It was adorable.

In the picture above she is eating a whole carrot, which is funny because she has never wanted a whole carrot before, she liked them in small pieces.  I guess Olaf the snowman's nose was an inspiration to want to eat a whole carrot :)