We had a busy last couple weeks of the summer. We went to Powell, WY. to visit my grandparents with the kids. My grandparents had never seen either of our kids so I thought it would be good to make the trip. I'm so glad we went! We had so much fun staying with them. While we were there we sat and talked with Grandma and Grandpa, went swimming, went to see the movie Planes, went out to eat at a Mexican Restaurant, and helped out around the house. It was a blast, we don't get to see them very often, but I sure do love them!
Calvin is so big and getting so independent. He definitely doesn't have a hard time telling mom, "No". He does it with the cutest little face too, so it makes it hard to get mad at him. I think he is definitely in the terrible twos right now. He screams and throws tantrums a lot, some days it feels like a slow form of torture that is steadily driving me to the brink of insanity. We have been working on potty training the last couple of weeks, with no success yet. I have tried several different things; we have done treat incentives, toy incentives, iPad time on the toilet, and still nothing (in the toilet at least). It has definitely become a battle, one that Calvin knows he is winning. The other day he sat on the toilet for at least an hour before standing up, walking into his room, and peeing all over an outfit I had laid out for Cora. Then he waked across the room and peed again on the floor. After that I told him that he had to wear a diaper. As I went to get a diaper he ran out of the room and I found him in the office closet peeing all over a box and the floor. By that point I was crying and frustrated and he thought it was pretty funny, he definitely knew who was in control of that situation. Another day I got a tip from my Mom to move the toilet into another room. So I followed him around pretty much the whole day with the potty chair, then one time I went to grab Cora and he went into the bathroom (where I would normally keep the potty chair) and peed all over the floor. I swear that he is messing with me on purpose... he is too smart for his own good haha.
Other cute things he has been doing:
- Repeating almost EVERYTHING you say, which comes in handy when he "reads scriptures", but not so much when he says things like, "oh crap". He also uses things I say against me. When he makes a "bad choice" I tell him that he is going to get a consequence and I say, "that's too bad", which he has started saying on his own. A couple days ago I asked him to pick up a wrapper on the floor. When he didn't do it I told him that it makes mommy sad when he doesn't help, to which he replied, "that's too bad".
- Loves to sing! He is such a good little singer, he will randomly burst out in song with songs from Gabba, primary, or just ones we sing at home. He does such a good job with singing, "I Love to See the Temple". He is good enough that when he starts singing I can almost always tell what song it is supposed to be. One of his cutest ones is when he puts his sunglasses on and sings, "Cool Calvin" with his own special dance that goes along with it.
- He loves reading books and is really good at repeating and helping read the book. His favorites right now are, That's Not a Pumpkin, Brown Bear Brown Bear, a nursery rhyme book, and Oh My, Oh My, Oh Dinosaurs. He loves reading Brown Bear and for a while he was terrified of the page with the teacher on it. He would say, "Don't read it, don't read it" when we got to the teacher page haha.
- He loves birthdays. He sings Happy Birthday and when you ask him when his birthday is he says, "twenty fourth".
- He loves his baby sister. He always says, "I love baby Cora", and loves to come up to her and talk and touch her and just see what she is up to. He is such a good big brother.
Cora has been doing really good lately. She is getting so big and super chunky, but a cute chunky of course. She is seriously the most even tempered, sweet baby girl in the whole world! I don't know what I would do without her. She is so patient and sweet.
Things that Cora has been doing:
- She grabs her toys and hit things when they are hanging above her. It is SO cute to watch her concentrate and swing her little arms around trying to get toys. She also stares really intently at anything interesting. She loves little toys, books, or peoples faces.
- She has started talking quite a bit. It usually sounds like complaining, but sometimes she does really happy little talking when I am holding her. It is so precious to walk into a room where she is just sitting and talking to herself. I also love when she is nursing and looks up at me and will start to talk. She is just so darn stinking cute.
- She is SO grinny. She has the biggest smiles and grins ever, especially first thing in the morning. When Nathan or I talk to her in the morning she always smiles so big that it seems like her little body can't even handle how happy she is. She is always ready with a grin for either of us, and smiles at most anybody. We haven't heard a really big laugh yet, but she has done a couple small giggles.
- She is super ticklish. Sometimes we will tickle her under the arms or on her little legs and she HATES it. She does a super strained laugh that is a pretty good representation of what it feels like to be tickled when you have no control.
