Valentine's Day party

Last Friday was Joseph's preschool Valentine's Day party. Maddie and I ran some errands before the party and then dropped by. Maddie loves hanging out with Joseph and his classmates, so this party was no different. Class game? She was all about it!

Snack time?

Don't mind if I do! Luckily, Joseph is super sweet with her, inviting and encouraging her to participate and shares everything (well, usually) with her. She does a pretty good job of cleaning up after him. :)

At the end of the party she found a book and settled into the big reading chair. Fits right in, huh? I wish she were old enough to go to preschool next year, as she will definitely be ready and not happy when she watches Joseph going off to kindergarten every day!

Both kids enjoyed checking out Joseph's haul back at home. Of course, most of the candy is still hanging out in his valentine's bag as they have completely forgotten about it already!

Ice skating

This past weekend the weather was really nice. Joseph has been asking to go ice skating, although I have no idea where he came up with that. He's never been on skates before. 

A shopping center near our house has a space that's an ice rink in the winter and sand volleyball in the summer. Since the highs were forecasted to be near 60, we headed there after lunch. 

I brought the kids' snow pants, figuring it would help provide extra padding when they fell and a bit more warmth. Both kids were quite funny when they had their skates on and tried to walk for the first time. Maddie had no idea what to think and kept just falling over. 

Eventually we made our way to the ice. Luckily they had these little PVC walker things for the kids to use. I'm not allowed to skate, so joe was on his own with both  kids. Joseph took to it quickly, and actually got pretty good (while using the walker thing) after an hour on the ice. 

It was big enough that every so often Maddie wanted to try too. Regardless, she much preferred to have Joe hold on to her, and basically steer her between his legs. 

Even though they stopped to take breaks, both kids kept asking to get back out on the ice. They had a blast and although there were a fair share of screams and tears, they both asked to go skating again. Success!

Big Kid Bedroom

So Jack is due to arrive in 10 weeks, and his room definitely needs a new paint job. So a couple of weeks ago, Joe and I decided we would spend the weekend painting. And instead of painting the nursery, we opted to paint and redo Joseph and Maddie's room instead!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks trying to pull it all together, but since sharing a room has been going so well and we wanted their buy-in on redoing the baby's room, we pulled the trigger and started. And tried to finish it all in one day! That didn't happen, but we got pretty close. 

We have a few finishing touches left, namely around the vanity area, but here's the finished product. We are excited and they are too, and the best part is that they call it their room now, not just Joseph's!

The dresser and train table are still in the same place, but we added new beds, the bookcases and Joe built a "stuffed animal zoo." There's some new storage in the closet as well, and the beds each have two large drawers that are currently empty. Joseph keeps asking what we are going to put in them, and had taken to storing Maddie's binkies in one of hers for her. :)

Molars and more

Little miss M has been doing amazing with potty training! She's spent every day for the past week in "big girl undies" with only two accidents, one of which was during naptime. Somehow she's figured out how to stay dry during naps, and is already making great strides toward staying dry at night too. I think it's safe to say she is officially potty trained! So proud of our little independent girl, and enjoying a few months without diapers too!

And in the midst of all this, she developed a runny nose over the weekend, which resulted in a little cough. Yesterday she woke up from nap complaining that her ears hurt. At first I was thinking maybe an ear infection, until I realized that she was rubbing her jawline too. And remembered that we were still waiting on her two year molars to arrive. She wasn't complaining at all today, and tonight she let me look and feel around in her mouth- sure enough, both top molars are halfway through the gums. No wonder her ears and jaw hurt! Hopefully that explains the runny nose too. And if we are lucky, we can get the bottoms in as well before Jack arrives!

Potty Training Success!

We have been working more consistently and diligently with Maddie on potty training. She was super interested and started training herself in the fall, but all of our trips between Thanksgiving and Christmad, plus lots of sick days, meant we hadn't been consistent and she had lost interest. 

For the past week she and I have made valiant efforts to get her across the finish line, and today was a big milestone-  she kept her pull up dry all day, including at naptime, even through school! I know we still have a ways to go before this is a daily consistency, but looking at 5 days of being home means we are ready to switch into real undies and keep rocking the progress. Here's to hoping I have at least a couple months of diaper free days, before baby throws us back to square 1!