Little Aves growing up and other February happenings {February 2015}

I’ve said this lots before, but I absolutely love all the parks in Bellevue. This cool park is actually a water park in the summer so I’ll definitely be coming here lots more. People call it the whale park because it has a giant whale in it. Avery loves to run and explore at parks. I usually keep Dallin in the ergo while Bryce runs around with her. He’s better at playing anyway.

In the beginning of February Bryce was still working his long hours but he was officially done with those hours on my birthday, perfect timing! Avery grew up a lot this month. She’s looking pretty grown up with her hair in a bun. In the picture below in the middle, she put her head under the blinds, took my keys and was honking my horn outside. And her and little Dallin are still good buds.

In the pictures below: sending a selfie to dad at work, two kiddos all over their daddy after work and Avery eating ice cream on national frozen yogurt day. We tried to get some free ice cream from Menchies but it was WAY too packed so we headed over to McDonalds instead :)

A trip to the mall. I love how Avery puts her hands behind her back when she looks at all the stores.

Cute little bubs poking his head out the ergo, enjoying coldstone ice cream, can you spot Avery in the stroller? And little Aves in the ergo while I’m trying to make dinner. She never wants me to hold her except during dinner. For some reason, as soon as I go to make dinner she wants me to hold her and just cries and cries if I set her down. So I finally realized I could put her in the ergo! It worked for a little bit anyway.

Cute little boy growing up!

Tea party with her friend Elizabeth and shopping at ikea for a little potty.

So Bryce and I decided it was time to try and potty train Avery even though she’s not even two. I was going to read a book on it or something but just got too lazy and decided I’d just try on my own first and see how it went. Avery was such a champ. Here’s pretty much how it went;

Day 1: In the morning she did not want to sit on the potty. I finally put Dallin on the other little potty and she thought that was pretty funny so she decided she would sit on the potty too. I got her some juice to drink so that she would have to pee a lot and therefore would have lots of practice peeing on the potty. She spent a lot of the morning sitting on the potty. She finally got up and asked for her blankies. I got her the blankies, she put them between her legs and peed. I cleaned her all up then she peed again. And again. And again. I think she peed 4 times that morning but never on the potty (she drank a lot of juice!) Then after being traumatized wetting her pants so much, she finally sat on the potty and would not leave the potty. She had her first successful pee mid morning. And was pretty much accident free from then on  but spent most of the day just sitting on the potty.

Day 2: She didn’t have any accidents but was suddenly NOT a fan of the potty and would cry every time I’d put her on it. She’d have to go and would try 3 or 4 times before being successful. We later learned that she did better with the potty in the bathroom and if we would leave her alone.

The days after day 2, she spent a lot of time on the potty just trying to learn how to pee on command. But by about day 4 or 5 she got much quicker.  Even though we were not planning on night training her, she potty trained herself for night time. The first night we put a diaper on her and she woke up in the middle of the night crying. Bryce went in and asked if she needed to go to the bathroom and sure enough she did. We put a diaper on her for a couple nights but then there was just no point because she would always wake up dry, or go in the middle of the night. She eventually got to the point where she could go before bed and not have to go again til morning. She’s amazing. I didn’t do anything special to potty train her, she’s just really good at holding it and knowing when she needs to go. So proud of my little girl and soooo glad I don’t have to buy two sets of diapers! Here are some potty training pictures.

And finally Avery in her new toddler bed. We’ve been on the lookout for a toddler bed so that we could start putting Dallin in the crib and we saw this one for sale for only 40. It’s the perfect size. Avery has done pretty well in it but she still manages to fall out of it sometimes. And there were some days that she still wanted to take a nap in her crib. All in all it’s been a good move for her. Especially now that she’s potty trained because she can get up if she needs to go to the bathroom. Also, no more pacifier! We took the pacifier away which was pretty rough at first and she still doesn’t seem to go to bed as easily as she used to with the pacifier but it’s so nice to be pacifier free. Little Aves is all grown up but she’s still my baby girl. I think she’ll always be my sweet baby Aves.