Nate's Potty Song

When trying to get Nate to sit on the potty for a longer period of time, I started singing this ridiculous potty song. Nate thought it was funny and has since started singing it whenever he sits on the potty. It's to the tune of Wheels on the Bus and it originated basically with I know Nate's gonna pee because he wants McDonalds. He kept asking to go to McDonalds and we told him when he went on the potty we'd get him chicken nuggets, fries and some chocolate milk. That's what the song was about! He's since started adding stuff in that he wants, like yesterday it was a red car! Anyway, here's Nate singing part of his song...

http://www.theledvinas.com/Pictures/pp.avi

One Week Update

Has it really only been a week? Well, one week and one day since the potty training journey began. I thought this would be a good time for an update. I'll do it by child.

Maddie - 4 days of accidents every 20-30 minutes. Her bladder control just isn't there yet. She went back into diapers on Friday of last week. She's asked for panties alot but I keep telling her we'll try again in a month or two.

Lexi - By far the easiest one! She was literally trained by day 2. We've had only one or two accidents since Wednesday of last week.

Nate - whew, what a rough start. By Thursday of last week, I was ready to throw in the towel and put him back in diapers. We didn't seem to be making ANY progress at all. Finally on Friday, I realized that I just wasn't paying close enough attention to him and his body language because he had several tell tale signs of when he had to potty. So Joe and I stuck on him like white on rice over the weekend and managed to get him to do something on the potty twice. It must have just clicked with him those two times because we haven't had any accidents since then!!! Praise the Almighty!! I honestly didn't think this day would come until he was 15. But alas, it has. Now we'll be working on him getting HIMSELF on the potty. I need to find a little step stool to put in front of the toilet in hopes of encouraging him to do it himself.

FYI - I started singing this ridiculous potty song with him when we started and now he sings it alot. I have a small portion of it on video but I'm going to try to get the whole thing so I can post it!!

"All done school..."

That's what Nate said today when I picked him up from his last day of school for the 06-07 year. His first year of school is complete. We now have 2.5 weeks off before the summer session begins. He will go for 4 weeks starting the week after July 4th. Then he'll get a month or so off before he starts the 07-08 year! I thought it would be fun to post a photo from the first day of school and one from the last day. So here they are (with an added photo of mommy and Nate on the first day of school).


Nate on the first day of school (with the pants and yellow striped shirt on) and Nate on the last day of school (with the yellow shirt and blue shorts on).

Good Lord Give Me Strength...

...as tomorrow I'll begin potty training 3 children ages 4, 2.5 and 2.5. Yep, Nathaniel, Madison and Alexis will start potty training bright and early tomorrow morning. Wish me lots of luck.

Father's Day 2007

We had a nice and quiet Father's Day at home yesterday. Joe's parents came over and we just sat around and relaxed. Here are a few photos.

Joe and the kids. The sun kept getting in Nate's eyes so this is the best pic I could get.

Joe, Nate & Grandpa!
Daddy doing what he does best - being daddy!

Messing a bit in photoshop - knocked the saturation way down. Love this shot of Lexi relaxing in the chair!

Nate's newest obsession - daddy's orange mower!

Maddie smelling some clover! If you click on the photo, you'll see she's actually looking right at me!

Maddie with her freshly picked flower!

The girls checking out their flowers!

A Good Photo Day

Look at those gorgeous eyes!

Enjoying some iced water!
To appreciate this photo, you MUST click to make it full sized. Those eyelashes are to die for!

Lexi in the pink. She's pondering something!

Oh what a pouter!!

Nope - she's a FAKER!

Another pouter? Or another faker?

A pouter for sure!

But not a pouter all the time!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today would have been my dad's 57th birthday. Instead, it's been 6 years since his passing. For the first year or more after my dad died, I had dreams about him at least 4-5 nights a week. 6 years later, the dreams aren't nearly as frequent but I still have them. And coincidentally (or not), I had one this week. I guess my mind knew this date was approaching.

Anyway, the photo that I chose to share is my favorite photo of my dad. It was taken at our wedding in 1999. He's sharing a cigar with his buddy from high school and the happiness is unmistakable. And that hat...who could forget his Mel McDaniel hat? It was a custom made hat that our neighbor bought for him when he took his family on vacation out west. (Thanks Pastor Tucker!) I want to say I was about 12 or 13 at the time. He loved that hat but rarely wore it. He dug it out for the reception and I think he received more attention than me and Joe. He was a huge hit! And I look back at our wedding pictures and have to smile at the photos of him in that hat. He looked like Boss Hog from the Dukes of Hazzard...too bad we didn't make him wear an all white tux.

Happy Birthday Dad.

I've read this passage several times over the last several months and I really love it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by Emily Perl Kingsley
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley.

All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Photo Phun!

I pulled the 50mm out today and had some fun with the girls! For the first time in a while, they cooperated quite well! Enjoy the silliness!

Miss Maddie giving me a funny face!

Lexi smiling pretty with her Pablo doll.
Blankie babies all the way!

Yes, Joey, it's over-exposed. But I still love it! (If you click on it to view full size, you can really get a good idea of her eye color.)

Silly girls! Maddie's talking to Grandpa - I asked her!

Secrets?

Maddie

Lexi's serious face!

A decent shot, even though Maddie's not looking at me!

Maddie giving Lexi a stern talking to!

ROAD TRIP!

A couple of weeks ago, we took a short road trip around the area looking for some good photo opportunities! We didn't have to look any further than our backseat!!

Curls, Curls, Curls!

With the humidity we had over the weekend, Lexi's hair really curled up! It's been a while since I've taken some hair shots, so I took a few of her! Maddie's curled up a bit too but she wouldn't cooperate in the photo taking department!!