random photo update ~ and Potty Training!!

OK.  SO.  When we got back from San Diego we had two days in our new house before the movers arrived with all our stuff.  Thankfully this wasn't my first rodeo and we were more than prepared to live in a big empty house.  On the UHaul we towed out with us I had packed a little bit of everything to live comfortably ~ pots/pans, dishes, linens, mattresses, Gavin's crib, toys, you know...only the necessities.....;)

By the end of the week most of the boxes we wanted/needed to unpack were dealt with and Smokey was finally feeling comfortable enough to come out of the closet he had been hiding in.

One of several casualties of the move was Gavin's little hand print :( .  I saved all the pieces so perhaps one day we'll try to mend it.  However, I do believe this was one of two hand print plates we have of his...

Towards the end of our week of unpacking the kiddos and I were starting to get a major case of cabin fever and it was time to break away and explore a new park!

I guess one had to move to the desert to get a park with huge sunshades over the entire play area.  These are fantastic and they're at just about every park here!

While Garrett was out in the garage he found a local resident!

This guy was BIG and aggressive!  yuck.  And here's something even more gross:  just yesterday, while the kiddos were playing out back I came across another one of these spiders.  Garrett caught it so we all could take a look.  As he was chasing it down a slew of tiny babies spread out in every direction.  When we looked at it, it was bigger than the first and it's backside was very bumpy, almost fuzzy looking.  He gave it a good shake to kill it and her bumpy fuzzy backside became smooth again.  And plastered all over the  sides of the Tupperware were hundreds of more tiny babies.  ewwww!!!  Needless to say, the exterminator is going to be called, STAT!!

Right now we are in the monsoon season around here.  Which, so far, means short random spurts of heavy rainfall that can result in flash floods.  Apparently our backyard floods a bit in these rains.  *note our new 'desert landscape", a far cry from our lush greenery surrounding our home in North Carolina.  I miss that!* 

The kiddos have been playing together very well lately.  Which is nice since I've been a little preoccupied in getting the house in order.  They seem to have hit this stage {ages} where they will go off as a pair and just engage in imaginative play together lasting sometimes for up to an hour or two.  magical.  just magical.

I find it almost impossible these days to get a descent photo of these two!

Settling into our normal daily routines...

After a week of unpacking and getting settled in it was time for potty training!!  Gavin had been SOOOOOO ready for a while before we left NC, but with the big move on the horizon we quite honestly didn't want to take the chance with backsliding since most likely Gavin would be in pull-ups the entire week we were on the road.  

The first couple of days were a bit rough and I had that moment when I thought 'oh man what have I done, let's just go back to diapers' but we carried on.  During the training process I'm not a fan of using pull-ups {cloth or disposable}.  Quite frankly I think that's just a lazy way of going about it and it drags out the process because the kid doesn't feel any different than wearing a normal diaper.  Gerber training pants worked great for Kayla and now Gavin!  

It's your basic cotton undies with a slightly thicker middle section.  They're by no means waterproof so you have to commit to staying home during the training and have the carpet cleaner on hand.  But they got the point across to Gavin that he needed to do his business in the potty ;)!  We used a sticker chart for positive reinforcement and it worked beautifully!

We are currently in his second week of potty training and my agenda for the week was to only verbally praise him and no longer reward him with a sticker unless he politely asked for one.  So far he hasn't asked for one sticker!  And he runs to the potty on his own when he needs to go :).  We are so proud of our 2 1/2 year old and excited for his {our} new found freedom!  

So that's what we've been up to these past few weeks.  Today is full of cleaning, laundry, and packing because tomorrow the kiddos and I rise with the sun and hit the road, San Diego bound!!