Milestones

OK, I seriously have NO idea where to start this post. My girls have reached SOOO many milestones in the past few weeks, I can hardly keep up with them. I must say, though, that I've been VERY happy with the accomplishments they have made.

I guess I'll start with Fanny. SHE IS POTTY TRAINED!!!!! This girl was basically potty trained already, she just chose to go in her diaper instead of on the potty. We finally decided to make the effort to force her to choose between panties or potty. We had her "throw away" all her diapers one day and put a pair of adorable little underwear on her. She was told she could go pee in her underwear or go in her potty. She held it in ALL day!! Finally at the end of the day she could no longer stand it, she went pee on her potty and got Smarties for the wonderful accomplishment. She had a little accident the next morning, but otherwise, has gone pee AND poo in her potty every time. She gets chocolate for going poop in the potty. I know, I know, bribed and rewarded with sugar is really the only way we could get her to do it, though. Needless to say, I'm very happy with this success!! Only ONE child in diapers is VERY nice!! Now we just have to convince Fanny that it is OK to sit on the "big" potty.

On to the next success. Fanny and Nora are now BOTH going to bed at the SAME time and in the SAME room!! Thanks to the Ferber Method, once again, we have a child that will go to sleep on her own!! I'm not going to go into all the details, but I will say that I'm super glad to not be nursing Nora to sleep every night anymore. I nurse her right before bed time, then we all go into the girls' room, say a prayer, and put both girls to sleep. The funny part was that Fanny had no idea she was sharing a room with Nora. We would always put Fanny to bed, then I would lay down in our bed with Nora and nurse her to sleep. Then we would put her in her crib after Fanny was already asleep in their room. Nora would wake up in the night and we would go get her and bring her into our bed before she woke up Fanny. Fanny never realized that Nora was ever in there because she wasn't in there when Fanny went to bed, and in the morning Fanny would come into our room to find Nora in our bed. Whew, did that make any sense?? Well, after a couple times of Fanny being upset and asking us to take Nora out of her crib, she got used to the idea that she had to share her room with her sister and now she LOVES it. Fanny still comes into our room every night and sleeps on our floor sometime between one and three-ish, but the important thing is, Nora is now going to sleep on her own and sleeping through the entire night in her own room!!

Speaking of sleep, here are some pictures of the girls...sleeping:

Fanny can sleep ANYWHERE and in ANY position. Here is a cute little something I found when I went in her room the other day:

Nora:

First time Nora fell asleep in her highchair:

You think she likes whole grain Mac n' Cheese with tomato soup??!!

Nora has really done A LOT in the past few weeks. Without going into too much detail and boring you all much further, I'll just list her accomplishments:

Crawling on all fours

Pulling herself up

Walking along things

Has her first tooth

Makes all kinds of new fun sounds

Eats EVERYTHING we give her and is pretty much off baby food

Crawled up the stairs (I thought I heard her at the bottom of the stairs the other day. When I looked down I found her halfway up them!!)

She is still nursing, but will also take a bottle now (This is nice because Joseph and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary in less than a month and Joseph's mom is coming to watch the girls for a night!!)

And, of course, Nora is going to bed on her own and sleeping through the night. I just had to throw that in again, because it means I don't get interrupted sleep every night, and that makes me happy. I love this girl. She sure is a lot of fun. She smiles and dances all the time, which makes me smile!!

One last thing. The other day I was taking the peas from our garden out of their pods. I asked Fanny to come and help me and she DID!! I would open the pod and she would take the peas out and put them in the colander. She just loved doing this and never got board for an instant. What made me so happy about this was the mommy/daughter bonding time that was happening during the experience, and the fact that she was actually helping. I would have been at it much longer if it wasn't for her. It made me feel hopeful that my children will really be able to assist me with household duties!! Anyway, here are the fruits of our labors:

We are just loving our summer garden and all the yummy fresh veggies!! It is fun having Fanny help me and involving her in as much as I can in what I am doing.