Things I have learned:

Potty training and moving house aren’t much fun.

Not to leave Flynn without a Pull-Up for any longer than 2 hours if he hasn’t been potty.

Marisol is completely accident free.  I feel fairly confident in saying that now.  It’s been over a month since she had a daytime accident.  There have been no signs of regression either.  She had 2 dry nights this week too.  What a big girl she is.

Flynn is still sporadic with his training.  He only had one accident this week and well, that was today.  He was wearing pajamas without a Pull-Up and was laying on my bed watching me unpack boxes and he peed.  On my bed.  There is a little footage in the video below.  We did try him in underwear for a couple of hours one day and that went well.  Whenever he was naked he was more than happy to go potty when he felt the urge, but unless encouraged he was also more than happy to pee in his Pull-Up too.  He only pooped in his Pull-Up twice this week though, so that’s encouraging and definitely a step in the right direction.

Encouraging him to pee before we leave the house seems to be working.  He loves going to the playground or to play outside so those are times I’m generally able to get him to at least try doing something on the toilet.  As I mentioned last week he will also try if Marisol has been and I let him know that it is his turn.   Sometimes he does something and sometimes he doesn’t, but at least he tries.   I’m considering giving him rewards for going.  I think rewards would really help and encourage him to go.  BUT with Marisol being trained already I don’t know how rewards just for Flynn would work out.  If she doesn’t get what he has she will have a meltdown, but I don’t want Flynn to see Marisol receiving the same ‘rewards’ when she is already trained and I don’t want Marisol to regress in order to get rewards.  I will have to ponder this and maybe ask for some advice from the experts at Pull-Ups and see if they have any suggestions. 

Anyway, here is a video from this week of our ups and our downs.

I truly hope things will settle down once we have finished unpacking over the next few days and they are both in their new big kid beds … aka the end of the night-time sippy cup.  Fingers crossed that goes well, with minimal tantrums.

Please don’t forget to take a look at The Pull-Ups Potty Project.   On this link you will find information and webisodes from 6 real families in the throws of potty training who discuss subjects such as rewards, nighttime training, working parents, training whilst out, getting started and regression as well as many other topics.

If you are just getting started with Potty Training then this link will take you to everything you need, from Custom Progress Charts, Learning Activities, Coloring Printables, Songs and Games to that ultimate goal of finishing training with a Big Kid Certificate and Party Kit.

Also, to connect with other potty training parents and get advice and tips become a fan of  Pull-Ups on Facebook.

Make sure you check in next week.  I’ll be hosting a giveaway that you will want to enter.  Trust me.

“As noted previously, I am being compensated by Pull-Ups for my role as spokesperson, however the opinions and feelings expressed here are my own. Become a fan of Pull-Ups on Facebook!”

hosted by Lotus

All photographs taken with a Canon Rebel XT'

Wow, I’ve been EXTREMELY slack in the photo taking department this week.

The poor puppy.  Leaves his bowl for just a few minutes and his water is used to make mud pies.

“Marisol, can mummy take a photo of you in your princess ears before you go to the playground with daddy?”

Flynn *jumps in front of the camera* “CHEESE”

2nd attempt.

Yes, we are now on Skype and yes we truly are that lazy that we Skype hubby Skype’s me from the bedroom, which is in the very next room.

Eek, I really haven’t taken a lot of photos this week.  I guess I’ve been too busy unpacking boxes and getting ready for BlogHer.   Promise to lift my game next week.

In the meantime you can check out my new business cards here and my preparations for BlogHer here (which will be updated daily until Thursday morning).

A princesses bedroom…

A bed fit for a princess

Her kitchen

A few of her favorite things, her art space and her walk-in robe

Adding pretty things

There are a few more things to be added.  When I find them. For now though Miss M is in pink princess heaven and she loves it.

Trust me.  You do NOT want to see the rest of the house yet, but it is getting there. Slowly.

I love the summer.

Summer for me means spending a lot of time outdoors with the kids and forcing the hubby to grill.  I swear he does the BEST steak and salmon on the grill.  Truly he does.  Plus, with him grilling it means I only have to whip up a quick side salad.  We especially love having people over in the summertime for a barbecue.

This was our dinner yesterday.  Yummo.  So delish.  Hubby grilled corn and steaks and I whipped up a super easy Shrimp Macaroni Salad.

There is a point to this post, aside from me touting my husbands grilling skills.

You see, I am one of the new #GNO (Girls Night Out on Twitter) Ambassadors.  #GNO happens every Tuesday night from 9pm-11pm EST and there is always an after party, especially with the girls on the west coast.  This week’s topic is Simple Summer Meals and there is going to be an awesome giveaway sponsored by Campbell’s including a gift basket and Flip camera.  What could be better, a little recipe swapping, a giveaway and chatting late into the night with the gals.

So please come on over to Mom It Forward to RSVP and get all of the details.

Looking forward to tweeting with you.

hosted by Lotus

All photographs taken with a Canon Rebel XT'

I am FINALLY back on the Weekly Winners bandwagon.  Yay!

Not the cutest photo of Miss M but a story I wanted to remember.  We had just started our family walk when Miss M had a meltdown of epic proportions.  You see, she had accidentally left her beloved mouse at home.  She refused to take another step until daddy went home to fetch her.  Which of course he did.  She took off after him just to make sure that her mouse was found and when she returned Flynn was standing on the path, arms open wide calling her name and wanting to hug her, she completely ignored him, ran around him and came running up to me with a flower.

For me.  From Marisol and Flynn.  Love you.

Finally.  Photos of our new house. 

Although you can’t see the inside just yet. 

It’s a mess.

Directly to the right of the house in the above photo is where the giant tree is on the vacant lot next door.  This is where the photos of the wild turkey and squirrels were taken (below).  Behind our house are hiking trails where we see people out jogging and walking their dogs regularly.  We are yet to find a few moments to explore the trails, but will hopefully do that over the weekend.  We get a lot of visitors to our home … of the animal and bird variety.

These two were having a fabulous morning chasing each other up and down the tree and leaping from branch to branch. 

We’ve spotted this family twice.  She has 7 little ones.

Meeting of the minds.  Turkey and Squirrel

The deer who come down the trails to the back of our house.   There are 3 of them.  We’ve spotted them 3 times already.

We are into week 3 of Potty Training with Pull-Ups.  It’s going well.  We still aren’t close to being finished with Flynn, but taking baby steps each day. As long as I can see improvements each week then I’m happy and he’s one step closer to being trained.

*We are currently in our new house, but this post was compiled over a series of days and I haven’t been able to post until now .. and yes we are still unpacking and potty training*

We are (or should I say I am) still living the hotel life … for just one more night.  Tomorrow we move into our new house.  I expect the next few days to be a little challenging as we are busy unpacking and trying to potty train at the same time, but we have taken the kids to our new house each day since we picked up the keys (a few days ago) to get them used to their new surroundings, show them their bedrooms and let them settle in.

As I’m writing this post, my husband and all 3 kids are camping out in the new house for the night.  The have blankets on the ground, a portable DVD player and I stocked the refrigerator and pantry for them.  They decided that would be a lot of fun for the night and it would give me a chance to catch up on work and laundry from the hotel.  This was how I left Miss M.  Dancing at the top of the stairs in her princess Night Time Pull-Ups … when these arrived in the mail last week, she was the most excited girl in the world.  She sure does love her princesses.

The very first day we picked up the keys we went straight to the house … we were all eager to see it for the first time.  Of course we had been out for a couple of hours so the twins were busting to pee by the time we got there.  Marisol happily went on the toilet, but when I heard something resembling the sound of running water I knew Flynn had christened the carpet for us … better him than the dog  ha ha.  Sure enough, he had.  There is a huge storage space under the stairwell and the kids were playing in there pretending it was their ‘spooky room’.  Flynn went right into the far corner under the stairs and peed.  Joy of  joys.  Thankfully though I had some cleaning fluid and towels in the car so I could clean it up.  We pulled all of their sand toys out of the car and put them in the backyard so they could play while we offloaded a few things and inspected the place.  Flynn chose that moment to also pee in the backyard.  Boys.

I only have one Marisol story this week.  Although she hasn’t woken up dry this past week, she did wake up one morning in my bed at the hotel and took herself straight to the bathroom, before crawling back into bed to enjoy her milk while watching cartoons, of course.   It was the first time she had instigated going to the toilet all by herself, first thing in the morning.  I was so proud of her.

Flynn has been doing better, as you’ll see in the video below.  I’ve learned a trick over this past week.  It really doesn’t work if I just ask him to go potty.  He has been running away laughing, or just plain ignoring me most of the time.   However, if I tell him that it’s his turn to go because Marisol has been or if I let the kids know that we are going out and they both need to go before we can get in the car, then he will go, but again, only after Marisol has been.   For some reason he is feeding off Marisol’s need to go potty, which I had noticed the week before too, especially in the car.  If Marisol needs us to pull over to get out the portable potty he will immediately say he needs to go too, most of the time he doesn’t actually do anything, but occasionally he has.   So I guess you could say I’m using this piece of knowledge to my advantage now and definitely pulling out the Marisol card whenever I need it to encourage him to use the potty or toilet more often.

Please don’t forget to take a look at The Pull-Ups Potty Project.   On this link you will find information and webisodes from 6 real families in the throws of potty training who discuss subjects such as rewards, nighttime training, working parents, training whilst out, getting started and regression as well as many other topics.

If you are just getting started with Potty Training then this link will take you to everything you need, from Custom Progress Charts, Learning Activities, Coloring Printables, Songs and Games to that ultimate goal of finishing training with a Big Kid Certificate and Party Kit.

Also, to connect with other potty training parents and get advice and tips become a fan of  Pull-Ups on Facebook.

“As noted previously, I am being compensated by Pull-Ups for my role as spokesperson, however the opinions and feelings expressed here are my own. Become a fan of Pull-Ups on Facebook!”