Potty Training Our Baby!

multi-tasking....pottying and watching a movie

January 1, 2017, I woke up with a mission, a mission to potty train Walker!  So that morning we woke up and I put him in underpants.  I asked him what he wanted to drink, and gave him anything and everything so he would drink a lot and potty often!  Since I had to be home to care for Bennett and Preston, it was a perfect time to hole up and do it.  Walker set up his "office" at the kitchen island and we pretty much did not leave that area for two days. 

Walker stayed naked or in underpants for the first two days of the year.  He had a permanently stained red upper lip from all of the Gatorade he drank, but he did awesome with the training.  He only wet the front of the underpants a little a couple of times, right before he went potty, and never had a full on accident.  If he ever did leave the kitchen, it was right after he went potty, and only for 20-30 minutes.  He had a couple of problems with pooping, but he finally went on day 2 (he was so proud of himself), and once he did....he kept going!


Day 3, Bennett insisted on taking him to Target for his first outing.  She wanted to buy him a birthday present with her own money.  So we packed him a change of clothes, and went on our way.  As we were about to leave, she took him to the restroom.  Needless to say, he did great and continued to improve with letting us know he needed to go. 

Day 4, Walker returned to school.  I packed several extra pairs of underpants, a change of clothes and a pull-up in case he completely revolted, but he did fabulous!  No accidents!

watching a movie while still sitting on hardwood floors

Proud face after using potty at school!

We are almost a full month into the potty training now, and Walker has done fantastic!  He has had two accidents (both due to getting too busy and waiting until the last minute), but he has this!  If we are diligent to just ask him occasionally, he won't make any errors.  We are so proud of him!

Happy 82th Birthday Mimi!

Due to the snowstorm of 2017, everyone was pretty homebound over Mimi's birthday.  However, we were NOT going to let her birthday pass by and not celebrate the woman who goes out of her way to celebrate everyone else's birthday all year long.  So a week after Myra's birthday, everyone gathered at our house for a fun family dinner.

We catered in Taco Mama, and Michelle and Sara baked the most perfect cake.  We ate, drank, sang happy birthday and watched old family videos.  It was a great night reminiscing!

Snow Day!

 Going sledding at 8:30pm

Every time it snows in Alabama, everyone goes outside to enjoy it!  It is always short-lived, so you have to get out and play in it while it is here....even if it comes MUCH later than the weatherman predicts.  This year, they canceled school so no one would get caught in a snowstorm.  Sadly there was NO snow until night, about 8-8:30!  But like I said, the kids wanted to go out sledding. As parents, we gambled that school would be cancelled again, so we let them go have fun!

Fun Daddy for the win!

However, the mad dash for ski clothes didn't go well.  We couldn't find the right sizes in our large stash of clothes, so we made due with what we could find.  Steve and the big kids went out sledding, and Walker and I stayed in and found the right apparel for the following day.

Pres and Jonas

After a good night of sleep, we all awoke ready to hit whatever snow was still left.  As you can tell from the pictures, there really wasn't much there.  However, the temps dropped overnight, so it all iced over.  Thankfully for us, we live near a pretty impressive hill that happens to be a newly paved road.  All of the neighbors were gathering on it too, and it ended up being a big party of children and adults taking turns sledding down it, and seeing how far we could all get.

It brought back good memories for me, sledding down hills in Oak Park Drive, and I had to partake in the fun too.  I even convinced Walker to give it a try, and he loved it!  We kept going higher and higher on the hill, and finally learned the trick to steering these cheap plastic sleds with our feet.

We had a blast for a couple of hours, but the sun started to warm things up, and before we knew it, our icy hill was a mushy mess.  Oh well, no school and a fun morning was had by all!

Bundled up and ready to go!

Selfie before sledding down the big hill

Beck loved the snow!