Stranded in Pottyland...

A two-year old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it.
Jerry Seinfeld

 I was so excited that we reached a breakthrough in potty training last week with Alexis. Until then, she or Avery would only go after sitting for forever and me giving them tons of juice until they couldn't help themselves any longer. Well, you can imagine that technique just wasn't gonna work for us. But at some point last week I took everything off of Alexis and 10 minutes later she went in there all by herself and came out yelling "I went potty, I want a sucker!" Of course I had to give her one. And then she went about 20 more times that day and has been doing pretty good ever since. No pooping yet, but I'm just glad to have made the progress we have.

So of course since she's going, Emory and Avery want to go too. Emory does actually go sometimes, Avery rarely. But unlike Alexis, they will need to sit a while and I've learned that lots of damage can be done by three toddler/ preschoolers in the midst of potty training. In the past two days here are some of the things we've experienced;

• twice I've walked in and two of them were in the bathroom pouring water all over the counter & on the floor... 
• while I was in the bathroom with Avery, Emory walked out without a diaper after sitting but not going. A few minutes later she apparently peed all over the wood floor, walked through it, and fell in it.
• Someone got hold of some random stinky diapers that were folded up. They put them in their toy basket. I found them today while I was picking up toys and smelled a very unpleasant odor.
• Avery dropped Kaleigh's walkie talkie in the toilet. I was standing right there but wasn't fast enough to stop her. 

I'm sure there will be plenty more "fun" to come. But what can you do but laugh and be glad this stage doesn't last forever! And there are some real funny moments, like walking in Kaleigh's room and finding Avery sitting on her new IKEA potty like this -

Truly a queen on her "throne"

Book Reviews

A lot of my friends are having Hunger Games withdrawal & looking for a new book to read. I've been suggesting b/c it is the same genre - this series

 Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
This is set in a futuristic sort of Utopian society. In an effort to keep peace, every citizen is given surgery at  age 16 to become "pretty". Tally Youngblood is the central character & right up until her birthday is looking forward to following the future set before her. Then her best friend Shay inexplicably disappears. Tally is called upon by the law to become a spy of sorts & find Shay by following clues to where she may be. Along the way she finds out some terrible things that threaten to undo her whole way of thinking. And she meets David. There's always a David, isn't there?
This is the first book in a trilogy. The 2nd & 3rd are called Pretties & Specials. And even an extra book called, well, Extras.

I also read a stand alone book that I liked called

 The Scent of Rain & Lightning by Nancy Pickard
We open meeting Jody Linder, age 25 and slowly come to find out her story and even parts of her story that she doesn't know. At age 3 her parents were murdered and over 20 years later the past & present collide when the killer is freed from prison and returning to her very town. Without giving too much away, this is a mystery; a story about love, family, loyalty, greed and all the things that make people do crazy things. There are twists and the ending is pretty shocking. I will be reading more by this author...

I don't ever buy books, just check them out from the library so I can't offer to loan these to you but they are pretty popular & easy to find. Hope you enjoy but if you don't it won't hurt my feelings :)

My Review on SwagBucks

Swagbucks is super easy to use. All you have to do is register, sign in, and use their search function. I signed up for Swagbucks once before and didn't really understand what they were about so I didn't earn much & was discouraged quickly. This time around I'm loving it! Swagbucks is basically just a search engine, like Google, only they pay you to use it.

My method of earning is to use their downloadable toolbar. Any time I want to search, I just type it in their search box & it randomly award "bucks".  I'd say one of five searches results in bucks. Searches are saved so now I rarely have to type anything, I just select "hotmail", "facebook" or whatever in the drop down menu. An added plus when I've forgotten what I was doing by the time I got to my computer :)

Although there are many other ways to earn, this is the only one I've used and it's working for me. In about 4 months time I've earned enough for 5 $5 amazon gift cards. And I haven't once spent any extra $, signed up for anything or wasted my time doing anything I wouldn't normally.

It's pretty effortless for something I will most definitely use. (And I would have spent that money at Amazon anyway.) I've found that on most days, I can earn anywhere from 20 to 60 Swagbucks. There are all kinds of prizes but I'll stick with the Amazon cards for now.

When you sign up, you'll get some Swag Bucks to get you started. If you'd kindly sign up through my link  http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/shellstat I'll earn a Swag Buck every time you do. Yes, this is also a shameless plug but I wouldn't recommend it without knowing that it does work. Give it a try for a month or two, and I think you will be happy with it, but if not, you are not "out" anything.

Endless Summer

Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.  A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world.  ~Ada Louise Huxtable
 

These two are going to be trouble!

I don't know about you, but our summer is flying by. We had a fun 4th of July weekend even though Nathan and I were both mourning the fact that we should have been on our annual Guys & Wives Reunion fishing & catching up with old friends. He more than I was probably mourning! We still had fun though, had a couple of friends over and Nathan constructed this lovely slip & slide in our backyard. Because our yard does have a slight hill, it was great for that, but it also has an abrupt steep drop into a creek. So Nathan had to construct a barricade at the end using our old deck railing and some 2x4s. It was a true redneck water slide if you ask me, but it was fun anyway. Wish we could keep it but that wouldn't bode so well for the grass in our yard. What little is left of it anyway...

This photo was popular on facebook - Sara's face says it all!

Nathan's barricade at the end! Nice, huh?

Noah picked up some speed on the way down - trying to slow himself a little!

I got in the spirit of the 4th & made some festive goodies to go with our grilled chicken and sides. I made the Liberty berries by dipping the strawberry into white chocolate then into blue colored sugar. So easy and soooo good. Kaleigh helped me decorate the cookies. She used most of the sprinkles on one cookie, then we had to ration the rest! 

We ended the evening with watching the Benton fireworks show then doing a few of our own. The twins didn't scream this time but they also didn't watch much. Just hid their heads in our necks. Avery was trembling from head to toe when they started, poor thing.