Weekend highlights

Of course the best thing about this weekend was getting to meet my adorable new little nephew, Jude Michael! He is so cute! I'll post pictures soon but I'm too lazy to go get my camera and upload them. Trust me, he's beautiful! He has a ton of blond hair!

Yesterday we had my Grandma's 90th birthday party at my cousin's house out in the country. They have a beautiful house and huge yard that is just perfect for kids. They have a great playset, and Madeleine also played cornhole (Is this not an awful name for a game? I don't even know how to play it!) and croquet. We had a cookout and cake and ice cream and she even gave Great Grandma a hug and kiss. Grandma seemed like she was having a great time too. We got a few family pictures too with almost everyone. I really like hanging out with my family! We have great cousins and aunts and uncles. Grandma was talking about Grandpa and how she can't believe he's gone. She didn't seem too sad and was just talking about what a great guy he was. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it on here but John Paul was born exactly a year to the day after Grandpa died. A few of my cousins got to meet John Paul for the first time on Saturday, and of course they thought he was adorable. I also love how much Madeleine loves to play with her cousins. I'm really enjoying seeing her starting to play with other kids so well. She is really good at it!

Today we got to go out to breakfast with some friends after mass. My friend was at a half price book sale the other day and picked out some parenting books for me - I can't wait to read them! I need some help! Then we hung out at Barnes and Nobles, went to look at the kitties at PetSmart, played outside for a while, and then during naptime Ken and I took turns going out by ourselves with no kids, just for a break. I really like this routine. I went to this antique mall and walked around.

The next 3 weeks I am watching baby Megan. I'm excited and a little nervous about having a two year old, a 3 month old and a 1 month old! But I think I can handle it. I think we'll spend quite a bit of time at home. I'm not thinking we'll go anywhere unless I have help (right mom?) I might try to make it to story hour but we'll see how tomorrow goes! So while we are home for the next 3 weeks I have a few things I want to do with Madeleine. I picked up some great stuff on Freecycle, including a game that teaches writing letters, flash cards, coloring books, and some other fun learning stuff. Madeleine has really been interested in her letters lately. She knows several by sight, and also knows what sounds a lot of them make. I can also ask her what words start with a certain letters and she'll name several words. So I think she'll enjoy playing with the flash cards and trying to write a few letters. She's really trying to write "M" - her favorite letter. She picks out Ms everywhere we go!

The second thing I want to do is try one more time to potty train this child. I've tried a few different methods and it doesn't seem to be working. The thing is, she can go if she wants to. There's been a few days where she has had no accidents. She knows to go into the bathroom, pull down her pullup and get on the potty. She does all this herself. Other times she doesn't even try and throws a fit when I try to get her to sit on the potty. So this is my last try. If she doesn't get trained then I'm just not even going to talk about it again until she mentions it. Here's my plan:

I bought a beautiful partial set of Noritake china today at the antique mall. It was really cheap because there's about 5 complete place settings and then a bunch of extra random pieces. Madeleine LOVES to play tea party on her little table. She'll sit and feed her dolls all day and play with her little teaset she got for Christmas (it's about on it's last legs.) So, I'm going to set out 4 little place settings of the china on the kitchen table - a cup, a saucer, a little bowl and a little plate. I'm going to tell her that every day she keeps her pants dry all day, she gets to choose a piece to keep and play with on her little table. My theory is that if she wants it bad enough, she can do it, and then by the end of the 16 days she will have formed a new habit and won't look back. A girl can dream, right??