W is POTTY TRAINED!!

I am still so very behind on our life...but I thought I better get this written down before I forgot all of the details.  Warning...poop and pee discussed in this post!  I always laugh at mom's that post about potty training!  And now I'm that mom!
We started the dreaded potty training of child number 2 on December 27.   2 years and 3 months old!   I thought what better time than over Christmas break.  Cooper was staying with Gabby and Grumps for a week so it was just going to be Whitt and me and the casa!  No distractions!
We did pretty much the same thing with W that we did with C!  We put the baby potty in front of the tv, stripped him naked....loaded him up with juice or sweet tea and watched the magic happen!  However this time, I had just purchased a brand new rug that would be in the area that the training would take place...and I did not want to ruin it.  So some of my friends gave the grand idea of buying a tarp to cover it....so buy a tarp I did!  So glad I listened!  So after we had the rug all tarped up, I stripped him naked and he immediately started peeing in the kitchen.  I rushed him to the potty and sat him down.  After that...tee tee was a breeze!  Now poop is a different story!  After waiting allllllll day for a poop....and watching his every move, he decided to poop on the tarp.  It happened so fast.  I literally turned my back for 5 seconds.  So frustrating!   I had something going on during the second missed poop and Josh was home with him.  After Josh told me what happened, I got so mad at him for not watching his.every.move!  Low and behold, I missed the 3rd poop the very next day!  That sneaky little stinker!  Our first successful poop was when my mom was over!  Total touchdown moment!  We thought we had this thing mastered!!  Um...no!  The difference with Cooper and Whitt was that Coop was totally predictable.  Every morning at 10 he got his business done.  After it was done, we could leave the house for the day!  Whitt is so unpredictable...sometimes poops up to 4 times a day.  We only had a week and a 1/2 to get this done before he went back to school!  We had to start catching poops....but then he started holding them.  Not good!  So he was going every other day instead of his usual twice a day! When he had an accident, he would get so embarrassed and start crying.  By the time school started, he was more successful than not!   However, he was scared to pee or poop at school the first week.  The downfall of not training in the summer!  He had a couple off tee tee accidents and would poop during nap time when he had a pull up on!  But now, a month later, I think I can say he is officially potty trained.  He is peeing in the potty at school, but still hasn't pooped in the potty yet.  He hasn't had a poop accident at home in 2 1/2 weeks.  And he is back to going several times a day!!!   He is really independent about it and still likes to go on his own....so when someone tells him to potty when he doesn't need to, it makes him mad.  I started to doubt myself halfway through the process...thinking I should've waited until summer, but now I am SOOOOOO happy we took the time to do it!  Way to go my sweet Whitt Bit!

 Yep...our living room looked like this for about 2 weeks.  I almost went insane!

 Some sillies from Whitt and mommy!  We were going a  little stir crazy staying in the house ALL day for over a week long!

 Love a little nakey hiney!  We were waiting on some potty action before leaving for NYE for the night!

 Gotta love a little boy in undies!  Nothing sweeter!

Family Pics

This is the last blog dump of the night!  Goodness gracious...I had no idea how far behind I was!  Thanks, mom, for lighting a fire under my tail!!!  Cooper absolutely loves looking through all of my printed blog books, so it is definitely a desire of mine to try the best that I can to keep up with this so that we can have the memories forever! 

 We took these family pictures back in October!  Notice that in the first two pictures Whitten is wearing a cream sweater...but in the last couple of pictures he is in a navy vest.  Hmm?  What in the world?  Oh yea...the first picture tells the entire story.  Homeboy DID NOT WANT HIS PICTURE TAKEN!!  The cowboy hat somehow ended up in the car and somehow ended up on his head...and he was bound and determined to wear it!  We kept trying to take it off and thus ensued a meltdown.  Our sweet photographer tried to work her magic, but he just wasn't having it.  He was a-w-f-u-l for the entire shoot.  We kind of just threw up our hands and said...hope you got something!  Well, the next day I happened to drive down the same street she shot these pics...and lo and behold, she was shooting another session of beautiful smiley children!   I stopped to say hi and to apologize for the horrendousness that had occurred the day before.  She offered to try again.  I was reluctant to accept, but on the other hand...I did have to wake Whitten up for the previous shoot.  Maybe he was just tired...or hungry?!  Off we go....another round of getting everyone cute...which is never fun and always such a chore.  Ugh!  I'm not a fan of picture days!  The cream sweater had stretched out and was dirty, so in comes the navy vest!  I like it.  Whitten is bribed endlessly on the way to the shoot.  We made sure the cowboy hat was nowhere in site.  Breathe in...breathe out!  It's going to be a good one!  Negative!  He was just as awful.   Coop sure smiled for the camera....he looked so handsome!!  But....I had to bribe him with a transformer the second time around because he was so not impressed with having to do it all over again!

 Yep...he is screaming bloody murder in this picture!  We were at the end of our rope!  Ha!

 Thankful she caught this moment with Mommy and Whitt!  It is the definition of Whitten!  Sucking his lip and rubbing an eyebrow!

Christmas parties

We had a million Christmas parties this year due to the fact that Josh manages 10 different pharmacies.  The work parties all had great food (yep...I sure gained some lbs. during the holidays, which I've never really done before).  But we had a few fun friend parties!  I'm sad I didn't get pics of them all!

Supper club!  Not everyone could make it, but we had so much fun!!

The winners of the ugly sweater!

Work party 

Jayla's ugly sweater party...I borrowed Becky's sweater!!

Love hate relationship with a digger

Coop made me pull over to watch the digger.  

Whitt was not impressed!

Paschal

I am so thankful that Cooper doesn't know about all of the creative things that other elves do because Paschal is BORING!!!  It's enough for me to remember at the end of the night to move the darn thing to a different place...much less allow him to make a mess or create a scenario of mischievousness.  My hat goes off to parents that take the time to make their elves super cool, but Paschal is a super dud...and Coop doesn't know any better!  Ha!  And...let me tell you that Cooper believes his elf is a million percent real!  It was beyond precious to see his excitement when he found Paschal every morning and to listen to the conversations they would have.  The not so great part was he would wake up an hour and a half early to find him.  He would turn every light in the house on and go on a mad hunt.  It was so very frustrating at first.  But then we got smart.... we started putting him in a place Cooper was sure to spot him on his own.  So after a while, he would wake at 6:00....find him....and then go back to sleep!   I was awful at taking pics of where Paschal hung out...but here are a few!

Bath time cuteness

Cousin love

These two absolutely love each other!!!  Belyn got to stay with us over Thanksgiving and this is what happened every night!  Movies and snuggle time!

AND...we had the pleasure of having her spend a few nights with us just this past week!!  Could it get any cuter!  B wanted Cooper to hold her hand because she was scared!  Sweetness!

Scratch you...

Probably my all time favorite Whitt saying.... "Scratch you."  Meaning, scratch me.  He pulls up his shirts at random times during the day for a little scratchin'!  Taking after his big brother!

Allergy testing

Cooper had his annual allergy test back in November.  Looks like we are not even close to being out of with woods with eggs.  And all tree nuts are a no-go as well.  I was super bummed about the egg allergy being as bad as it is.  Kiddos tend to start growing out of it by this age, but his seems to have stayed the same... or may have become worse.  

About to head back for testing.  He got his toy before the test even began because I felt so sorry for what he was about to go through.

He did so much better with the actual prick part of the test this time around.  He came back into the room after being pricked with no tears, but immediately started crying when he saw me because he was itching soooo bad....and there wasn't a single thing I could do for him.  Let me dissect this picture.  On the left side of his back is the negative/positive control....just to make sure the test is accurate.  He even reacted to the negative, so when the test was all over and he thought we were going to leave, they had to retest the negative control on his forearm.  He was not a happy camper, but at least it was negative the second time around.  The A5 on the left side is eggs.  The right side consists of the nut panel.  #1 is almond. #8 is peanut.  I think the only nut that didn't react was cashews.

Very sad day.  Hoping for a cure for food allergies.