Potty Training.... maybe?

So the title of this blog sums up the last 2 1/2 days for us. We could possibly be in the official business of potty training.... maybe.... we'll see how it goes.
Friday morning I took Daxton's diaper off and let him run around the house naked. I didn't have any intentions on making it a potty training experience... just simply letting him get some fresh air. But when he started peeing while we were playing I hurried and carried him to the potty and he finished up there. From there I decided to try out some naked potty training. I thought "why not".... we have nothing better to do today so we'll see how it goes.
I was completely surprised (that's probably an understatement) at how awesome he did)! By the end of the day on Friday he had peed in the potty over 50% of the time and even got to the point where he would be playing, stop what he was doing, and run to the potty completely on his own.
Saturday morning we were at Target so I bought some underwear just to try out. We put them on him when we got home and quickly found out that naked was the way to go with Dax for now. If he had underwear on he would just pee in them and not think anything about it..... but if he was naked he would stop as soon as the tiniest amount of pee came out and run to the bathroom to finish. Needless to say, Daxton was naked from the waste down again all day Saturday. I was really shocked after nap when he was having snack at the table (still in his diaper from sleeping) and said "mommy i need to go pee) and ran to the bathroom! By the end of the day we had peed mostly in the potty and even went #2 in the potty completely on his own!! (As in came out of the bathroom saying "Mommy I poop").
We're now at Sunday morning and still doing great! As we speak this is going on....

 Someone wanted to watch Barney and I knew he wouldn't dare leave the TV long enough to go potty so I made a little set up for him in the living room.

I think one of the biggest reasons this has been successful is because he has had a potty sitting around the house for almost a year now that he has been able to get comfortable with and sit on whenever he wants. We also have a pretty open door policy when mommy and daddy are going potty too so Dax has been able to learn from that and realize that it's a natural thing. We also have never pushed going potty. This has to be something they're completely ready for themselves and the more you push the longer it takes.

So if you're thinking about trying out a little bit of naked potty training on your own then here are my biggest tips..
#1:  Try and do it over a few days span where both parents are home (or a parent and another adult). It's completely exhausting! You have to watch your little one 110% of the time so you can see cues that they're getting ready to potty. And there's lots of cleaning carpet, emptying potty seats, wiping up floors and legs. It's tiring.... very tiring. So try to have some support there for yourself!
#2: Have lots of these around...

 Stickers, paper towels, and carpet/surface cleaning product. You'll do lots of cleaning carpet and bathroom floors (especially with little boys).  And every little kid loves a good sticker after they potty. But for Dax the most effective rewards has been ridiculous singing and dancing on mommy and daddy's part while singing a pee pee in the potty song!

 New books and toys! Dax loves sitting on the potty and reading his new books and playing with toys! It makes the potty a fun, relaxing place to be!

 We we made this mistake of getting super excited and giving Dax candy after the first few times he pottied... well he quickly learned that making himself pee... even the tiniest drop... would get him something yummy. We ended up opting for a bowl of m&m's or sixlets and only giving him one or two little pieces each time. This was enough to satisfy him.

Potty training is a process and it's going to take longer than a few days to get it down. Dax is making baby steps. He has gone from just peeing all over the floor, to starting to pee and then stopping himself and finishing in the potty, to going in the bathroom all on his own and doing the entire act. And I'm sure he'll have good days and bad days.... but we're just taking it day by day. If this ends up being the starts of him potty training then great.... but if he decided tomorrow he doesn't want to go anymore we won't make him. We'll take a break and wait until he's ready. I'll keep y'all posted!

My Winter Projects

So I did a post on Daxton's winter projects.... so I thought I would show some of the things I've worked on this winter too :)

Thirty One Banner...
So I had my first booth at a craft fair selling Thirty One about a month ago and needed something with my name on it to hang on my tables.  Pink and blue are big Thirty One colors so I went with a pendent banner using those colors. I also gave the clothes pins a coat of silver paint to give them a little extra shine :)

Wooden Letters
I love painting and have made these letters in the past for important peoples babies (check them out here). At the end of the month I'll get a new great nephew so I made these for his Noahs Ark themed nursery :)

NOEL banner
I saw this idea on Pinterest and new instantly that it would look awesome hanging on our mirror in our living room. I have sort of a rustic/tradition Christmas thing going on and burlap fits right in with that. This was pretty labor intensive (had to print each letter to use as a stencil, cut the burlap, paint the letters onto the burlap with multiple coats, and hot glue around twine). It may have been a pain but is now one of my favorite decorations!

Christmas Card Holder
 So I had the traditional Christmas card holder but was never a fan of it. It always got too full and you couldn't see the cards easily without knocking them all off. So when I saw this idea on pinterest I knew I had to do it. Simply hole punch each card and put them on a metal ring, tie a bow on, and now you have a precious flip book of all your Christmas cards. I love being able to flip through the cards and plan on keeping them through the years!

Napkin Rings

We had a ladies Gala at my moms church and our decoration for our table was a rustic/traditional theme so I volunteered to make napkin rings for us using paper towel tube, burlap, twine, and ribbon! Super easy and they turned out super cute!

So those are my mommy projects I've done over the past few months! Best part is that other than the painted name, they didn't cost me a thing because I already had all the materials!  I love having time to be creative again!

Dear Daxton

Dear Daxton,

Last Friday was the saddest day of your little life, one of the saddest of my life, and will remain in history as one of the saddest days for this country.

20 sweet babies, only 4-5 years older than you, the same age as your best friend/cousin Zain, became angels in a horrible, horrible tragedy.

Luckily you're little enough that it didn't phase you. While mommy listened to live coverage streaming online, you watched Rudolph with all of your 2 year old innocence.

Mommy cried.... and you watched Rudolph.

I first pictured myself being the parents waiting at the fire station to be reunited with their little ones.... only for that to never happen.

I then pictured you being one of the babies in that school hearing the things they heard and seeing the things they saw.

I then pictured mommy as a teacher in that school. Most people don't realize how much teachers love their students.  We love each and every one of those kids like they're our own. I never called the kids in my class my students, they were always my "babies". And this year, as I got a Christmas card from a little girl I first taught 5 years ago I told your daddy that it was a picture of one of my "babies". The kids in our classes are our babies for the rest of our lives. And I couldn't imagine that happening to my babies.

This weekend, I appreciated all the small things. I watched you play in your toy car and smiled. I watched you lay on the couch and watch movies and smiled. I watched you throw your body down on the ground in a fit, and still smiled.

On Saturday night you were up every hour. And each time I walked into your room half asleep, I was thankful. 20 families don't get to wake up during the night with their little ones because of bad dreams or not feeling well. I sat in the dark in your room and cried tears of thankfulness that I still have you, and tears of sorrow for heavens new 20 angels.

Mommy is still having a hard time dealing with the emotions. I worried about your cousins as they went to school today, I worried about my teacher friends as they returned to work, I worried about all of my past babies that are now elementary schools. I picture you as a 6 year old each time they show the faces of the sweet angels on tv. I worry about the future and your safety.

But for now I'm going to be thankful. Daddy and I left today to go out of town for interviews and it was hard.  I asked Melissa what to do, daddy what to do, and mawmaw what to do. You're not feeling well so that made the decision hard, but I think deep down it came down to me not wanting to be separated from you.... because 20 families are now separated from their families forever. We left and as we pulled out of the neighborhood I cried. But we can't live in fear.

I've called mawmaw about a million times already and I get to hear you in the background each time. I can still hear your voice and smile. 20 other families can't.

Daxton, mommy loves you very much. From loss, great things can come. For me, it's a better appreciation for the small moments in my life with you. Appreciating your fits, your tantrums, your cries in the night, your hugs, your smiles, and your "I love you"s.

Love you forever,
Mommy


Sleep in heavenly peace sweet angels. We will never forget.

Work in progress....

I'm changing the page up a little.... so things will look a little nuts-o until I finish :)

Winter Projects

With Daniel traveling so much and the weather being nice and cold we have filled our days with lots of Christmas time projects!  This post is going to be pretty picture heavy but I wanted to share some of our projects... and maybe give you some ideas of things to do too :)
Oh and best part about these projects..... between all of them I think I only spent a total of less than $5!  My projects are all pretty spur of the moment so I make use with the things I already have at home :)

Nutcracker
This little guy has been my favorite project. It was a mommy/son project so we both worked on it together. I found the wooden nutcracker at hobby lobby for 50% off, had acrylic paint, and then got a glaze to put over it to make it nice and shiny. I'm pretty sure painting a little figurine like this will be a new tradition for me and Dax.

Salt Dough Ornaments
Salt dough is so much fun and you can do so much with it. I found this recipe on pinterest and just cut it in half (it was set to make 12).
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 1/2 cups water
I let Dax help me do all the measuring and pouring and rolling the dough out on the cookie sheet. It was a pretty messy project but lots of fun! After you get all your shapes cut out don't forget to poke holes in the ornament to help air to go out.... or they'll puff up and you have to try to fix the damage later. Trust me... learned that one the hard way. Then you just put them in the oven for 20-25 at 300. And let them cool. I used acrylic paint because it tends to last longer and then covered them with a glaze again to make them nice and shiny.

We made all the cute hand print ones (and even a footprint one.... but my precious dog decided to eat it.... don't get me started) and then I let Dax have his way. He was really into a tiny toy dinosaur that day so we pushed that into a round piece of dough (top left on the picture about) and then he "walked" the dino around on the donut looking one (top right) and made footprint in it. He loved this!

(the left over salt dough made for great pretend "pancakes" )

Nature Paintings

If you've read the blog at all you know me and Dax both love nature. So we used a little acrylic paint and glitter to make a few ornaments and pictures for the walls.

The next day we painted glue on all of the final projects and used our fingers to sprinkle glitter on all of them! They all turned out really pretty and look great as Christmas decorations!

Glass Ball Ornament

I have a ton of extra ball ornaments that we didn't use on our tree so we decided to paint one with acrylic paint and at a cute bow on the top to hang on our tree. Dax was really proud of this project

 Gift Wrapping

In every class I've ever taught the kids have loved getting to wrap presents. So the other day I let Dax wrap a gift for his daddy. He thought he was so big and had so much fun! I let him do it all, the cutting, taping, folding, put a bow on, and even sign the tag. 

If you have any fun winter projects I would love to hear them!!!