One Crazy Week

We have had a crazy week in the VanderLouw home.  Mostly because we started potty training Elliot on Saturday.  He is doing pretty well, but it seems like one step forward, two steps back most of the time.  He has only had one pee-pee accident, but he still has not pooped on the potty.  He just poops in his underwear!!  And I get to clean it up.  On Wednesday night he went potty alone, without being asked, but hasn't done it since.  It might be because I keep making him go before he really recognizes it (Ray was home with him when he went by himself).  Anyway, we just have to keep plugging along with it, he will get it soon enough.  

Maggie is almost walking.  She took 4 steps on Sunday night, but hasn't done it since, she will usually only take one or two.  She is getting better at standing on her own.  She is such a good baby, she eats anything I give her.  The other night we fed her some black beans and she loved them!!  It is such  a relief to actually have a child that eats (for now anyway).  Maggie is getting 6 teeth, yes 6, all on top, all at the same time.  I feel so bad for her.  She has had a low fever off and on and has had a hard time sleeping, which means I don't get to have much sleep either!!  But she, remarkably, has not been very fussy and has remained pretty happy.  We just keep lots of baby orajel on her gums!!

Grace has just been a good sport through it all.  I feel like such a bad mom.  I took her to the doctor this week because I thought she might have a bladder infection.  She didn't but after I told the doctor that she has been complaining a lot that her stomach hurts, they took an x-ray of her stomach.  Well, she was extremely constipated.  I always asked her if she had to go to the bathroom whenever she said her stomach hurt.  She always said no.  She also always tells me when she goes #2, but I haven't really been looking at it.  Poor little girl.  I felt so bad.  But, we have that all fixed up now!!  I keep telling her that if she doesn't want this to happen again she needs to eat all her fruits and veggies!!  We have been having serious potty issues this week!!

Elliot in his big boy undies, no more diapers for him!!  You can't really see his legs, but he wrote all over them when he was coloring, it is a bunch of letters and smiley faces :)  They are washable markers, but it sure doesn't want to come off of his legs!!

This is the attitude we often get from Elliot these days!!

Grace got a new haircut yesterday.  I told her that she looks like Dora the Explorer!!

Here is a video of Maggie dancing and taking a step!  I love the way she twirls her wrists when she hears music!

Check out my Slide Show!

23 Pounds of Adorable

                                                              I LOVE the leg rolls!

This is what 95 percentile for weight and 35 percentile for height looks like!  Maggie has decided that she doesn't like baby food anymore and will only eat what she can feed herself.  Luckily she will eat just about anything I put down in front of her (as you can clearly see!!)

Video Game Generation

So, Grace got a little v-smile video game for Christmas and she loves it, but Elliot is completely OBSESSED with it. I honestly don't even know how he learned to play it. I went upstairs one day and he was playing it, and he was actually playing it, moving the joystick, making Dora jump, climb latters, everything she is supposed to do. I am baffled at how he learned to do this. Are kids these days just born with some innate ability to play video games?!? I mean, he is barely 3 years old!! It actually made me a little sad for some reason. My knee jerk reaction was to make him stop playing and I took it away. Well, that did not go over well. So now I have decided to let him play the video game for an hour a day. That seems to be working out pretty well. But sometimes I think that is even too much. I kindof worry a little because Elliot has a tendency to get lost in his own head, he plays by himself a lot, he collects things and arranges them in specific ways and he doesn't like to be interrupted. I really try to interact with him when he is playing. I go back and forth over whether it is a problem or just his personality. I talked to his doctor about it and she doesn't think that I need to be concerned, it is just a boy thing, that is just how his brain works. I guess that is just a part of being a parent, worrying over every little thing. It is so hard to know if you are doing the right thing, or permanently screwing up your children!! He has the video game thing down, now we just need to get him potty trained!!

When the Cat Is Away, the Kittens Play...

Now I know what they do when I am at work...

We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet

Gordon B. Hinkley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, died last night with his family at his side.  I believe that he was a prophet of God and communicated with Him in a way no one else can.  President Hinkley did so much to bring the church out of obscurity and to improve the world view of us.  He dedicated his life to the church and spent the better part of the last 40 years in full time service to the church.  He was the most humble man I can think of.  He was not interested in creating a legacy for himself, he only cared about furthering the cause of Jesus Christ here on the earth.  His vision for the church was truly inspired and his accomplishments on behalf of the church are staggering. He was the most traveled of all the prophets, which is not an easy feat for a 97 year old man.  I loved his self-deprecating humor, it was so endearing.  He missed his wife Marjorie so much after she died.  I still remember listening to him speak once after her death and he said something like, "When I married her I married the girl of my dreams, and now she is the girl of my dreams again".  I am happy for him that he is now with her again.   He will be greatly missed by the church and he will be greatly missed by me.  My tears at his passing are selfish, I know that he is happy.  I loved President Hinkley so much, more than I love anyone else that I don't really know.  He is part of the reason I returned to the Church.  Any time my faith was low I could think of him or listen to him and my faith would be renewed.  He was so faithful, so sure of the truthfulness of the gospel, so sincere.  He was never self-serving, he always knew where the glory belonged and worked tirelessly to glorify Jesus Christ.  I thank my Heavenly Father that I was blessed enough to live under the tutelage of Gordon B. Hinkley.

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