Weekend Update

We kicked off the weekend Friday night with dinner at Zipp's.We accepted a table out on the patio to enjoy dinner alfresco (Max's favorite) since they were super busy, but it was a bad choice. I didn't take into consideration the smokers...gross! I do not enjoy eating my meal while inhaling second hand smoke. Besides that, Max had a great time. He loves to eat out at restaurants. We went through a phase with him where it was a nightmare to eat out. Right now, we are in an eat out phase. He gets mad if we pick up food to go. Max loves to eat out and while he is well behaved in this phase we are enjoying it too.

Saturday morning we checked out a new hair place because Max was way over due for a haircut. This place was referred to me by a friend at work and let me say, this place was great! Max loved it. I mean what little boy wouldn't love sitting in a fire truck blaring the siren the whole 20 minutes it took to get his hair cut? He also got a balloon on a stick and a lion tattoo on his hand for being such a good boy. This place is called Sharkey's and it's in Gilbert. They hit the nail on the head with this hair cutting joint. Max is already talking about his next visit and how he is going to sit in the cop car next time.

Following the haircut we went to Evan's first birthday party where there was a bounce house. Max had so much fun bouncing around and even more fun when his friends arrived to play with him. There is just something heart warming watching your kids play with your friends kids.

We didn't have enough play time at the birthday party so following a nap, the Campbell's came over for dinner so the kids could play together. They played relatively well together and Max is still learning to share his own toys. I must say though, once I fed him he played much better with Briggs and Stella. It was kind of a mommy fail. Max did not get a snack after his nap so he was kind of hangry. Yup, my little boy gets hangry when he gets hungry. Next play date I will remember to make sure Max has a full tummy.  Nonetheless, the kids had a good time while the parents got to catch up and enjoy some wine.

Saturday was so busy that we just spent Sunday hanging around the house. It was a nice weekend with friends.

Mommy and Max Day

I had Tuesday off this week since it's the day after tax day. Again, I made this day all about Max and I, and I think I will turn this into an annual thing. 

Max was so excited about this day that he came running into my room at 6am to wake me up so we can head to the Children's Museum.

After Max's afternoon nap we played in the sprinkler grandma S and grandpa T gave him. He had a blast with it, but so did Izzy. 

Birthday Weekend

It was Andy's birthday on Sunday so we kicked off the weekend with a trip to the zoo. Max wanted to see the snakes, giraffes, tigers and the prairie doggies.

On Saturday night, Andy went to the Cubs vs. Diamondbacks game while I stayed home to do projects with Max to help celebrate Andy's birthday on Sunday. I never get to do anything like this because Andy is ALWAYS home. I am not exaggerating on this. Andy has done nice things with Max for me in the past and surprised me, but I have never had the opportunity to do that because the man is ALWAYS home. I took this opportunity to have fun with Max while we got ready for birthday celebrations.

We went to the grocery store to get ingredients we needed to make daddy a cake and to make homemade Belgian waffles in the morning. While at the store Max wanted to get daddy a balloon and of course it had to be a "wire cuck" balloon...or one would call it a fire truck balloon. When we left the grocery store Max was already super excited to give daddy his balloon for his birthday. He also picked out an Ana and Elsa small balloon for daddy too.

We got home and Max made daddy a card. He was very serious about this card for daddy.

We moved onto making a cake. Now, this cake is a recipe I received from an old friend back in my days of being a Teller. Yup, that's right, I was a bank Teller many moons ago. Anyway, I made this cake for the first birthday I got to celebrate with Andy...about twelve years ago. That would be the last time I made this cake, but I thought it would be a good one because it includes M&Ms (Max's favorite) and it's pretty quick and easy to make...until you involve a two year old.

Max had the most fun smashing the M&Ms with a hammer.

He was so proud of his cakes and couldn't wait until the morning to show daddy.

After Max went to bed I got to making the dough for the Belgian waffles. I have never made these from scratch before, but I know Andy loves Belgian waffles so I decided to give it a try. I found an awesome recipe on Pinterest that I followed and it was great that I could make the dough the night before. I also made Belgian waffles for the first birthday I spent with Andy twelve years ago. However, those waffles were straight from the box, so does it really count? I don't know, but I have definitely upped my kitchen skills from twelve years ago.

In the morning Max was so excited to give daddy his balloon and eat mamma's Belgian waffles. By the way, these waffles turned out fantastic! They are so good that I plan to make them more often. 

Opening presents.

Blowing the candles out of the cake for daddy.

A big Happy Birthday to a wonderful husband and amazing father. I had a lot of fun getting Max excited for daddy's birthday and I know Andy enjoyed seeing the excitement on Max's face yesterday morning.

Sans Diapers

We hit another milestone in Max's short life...potty training. I have read so many articles over the past year on potty training and every article had a different approach that was sworn to be the best approach. Ugh! After reading so many suggestions I only took away one idea: wait until your child is ready. So, we waited. While we had guests in town recently we knew that Max was getting ready because he was showing many signs. I even said to Andy that we could attempt potty training sometime in April after all the guests leave town. Then, on Tuesday last week, Max says he is done with diapers and wants to wear undies. Ok kid, we are with you on this.

I explained to Max that we will start this upcoming weekend and we will take him shopping for undies. I told people about this and everybody asked me what our plan of action was. Hmmm...what plan? We have no plan. I don't think we need a plan. We will be fine. It can't be that hard. Max wants to do this. We will just see how it goes. I did go on to Amazon to purchase a bucket of 50 Hot Wheels as bribing material, but did not click the purchase button because I thought it's not a good idea. I mean, he will train with us all weekend and then go to Miss Marie's house on Monday where there will be no Hot Wheels to bribe him with. So back to no plan at all. Just a laid back attitude of we will see how this goes. I did have a Cars themed toddler toilet and a seat for the adult toilet so that he could choose which one he wanted to use. I know Max can be picky sometimes so we just wanted to make sure we were covered for whatever worked with potty training.

We were shut-ins all weekend. We did nothing, but hang out with Max and the toilet. We made the decision to not have any plans this weekend and focus solely on Max's potty training. Plus, who wants to leave the house with a potty training two year old? I was more in fear of him having an accident in Target than anything else...so we stayed home.

On Friday night we made a big deal out of shopping for undies. We took Max to target so he could pick out whatever kind of undies he wanted and he chose Thomas the Train (kind of an odd choice since he doesn't watch this show, or at least not at our house) and Paw Patrol undies. Max was so excited that he played with his undies the whole car ride home. We made a big deal all night long about his undies.

Day 1: Saturday
Come Saturday morning Max was so excited that he woke up at 6:15am to get his new undies on. He only wanted to wear Thomas undies...and so the weekend begins. This day started out brutal. After the excitement of putting on his first pair of big boy undies it went down hill. I cleaned up so much pee and we went through six pairs of undies by 11am that I was starting to lose my mind. I didn't know what to do. I started to question the laid back attitude towards potty training and that maybe I needed a plan. I was beginning to realize that this is not a "winging it" milestone. I needed to get it together and put together a plan...ASAP. It's too late for the 50 pack Hot Wheels I was going to order on Amazon, but didn't. Then Andy got home from the grocery store and picked up Froot Loops and jelly beans (he had a dad moment where he thought we might need them with potty training). He saw that I was stressed with potty training so he stepped in to give it a try. We then put Max down for a nap wearing his nap time undies (aka pull ups). During nap time Andy and I regrouped and we approached the afternoon with a plan...a plan that actually worked. Max got to pee on the colorful Froot Loops when going to the bathroom and received jelly beans afterwards for a reward. This started to work, but unfortunately Max was all wired at night due to the sugar high he was on. That's ok though, because he was starting to get the potty training thing.

Day 2: Sunday
Now Sunday was a new day with new attitudes...more positive attitudes by Andy and I. We started right away with the big boy potty and peeing on the Froot Loops. He would get excited to "pee on certain colors." We would then pump him full of sugar with the jelly beans. Sunday was a very good day because he only had one accident and it was because he walked away to his toy room to poop. He then came back into the kitchen with a load in his pants. That was the only accident. Sunday was a very good day for everybody and we all kept our sanity.

I took Max to Miss Marie's today with a bag full of supplies for her...extra undies, extra shorts, a bag of Froot Loops and five pair of pull ups for nap time for the week. Andy picked up Max this afternoon to find out he had no accidents. He was completely accident free today. We are so proud of him.