No small steps....more like leaps & bounds!

Let me first start with the potty training updates!

After day 2 I was absolutely ready to throw in the towel and quit! Day 2 was the worst. He was having twice as much accidents and just wasn't getting the concept. I thought a lot about it that evening and considered quitting the next day but that meant I needed to buy more diapers. I sure didn't want to go back to diapers after going through those last 2 days of constantly cleaning up puddles just to do it all over again when we tried to potty train again. So we pushed through and day 3 seemed to turn out way better! Each day has gotten better and better, as a matter of fact he hasn't had a single accident in 2 days! I surely didn't foresee him doing this well just a week into training! It is a nice change not having to deal with diapers. I will say we have visited every store's restroom since we have decided to venture out of our house....that just comes with this territory though! :) 

He gets to choose between a sticker or "mm" if he is successful with the potty. This is what I decided to do with the stickers instead of letting him keep it all day. He was becoming to fixated on the sticker if I let him carry it around so he proudly places them on a coloring page on the bathroom wall. He sticks it on and then points at it to show how happy he is to put it on there! 

My other VERY exciting news is that we haven't used his gtube for 5 days now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is gobbling up almost everything in his path and still requesting for "more", "eat", "hungry"! It truly is amazing to hear those words come out of his mouth and for him to use them appropriately! The other morning he ate all of his yogurt and his banana so he decided he wanted to steal my breakfast! What?! Who is this and what did they do with my child?!! I am praying that he has turned the corner and we won't be looking back! It will hopefully be a very exciting Thanksgiving watching him eat with everyone else and actually enjoying the food! Whoooo hooo, I am so happy I could shout it from the rooftops! 

We are so thankful for all of God's blessings. 

Timers, puddles, and M&M's!

Potty training day 1-

I decided yesterday evening that we would try to take on the 3 day potty boot camp!  This involves us staying home for 3 days straight with a very structured, frequent potty schedule. Connor is no stranger to the potty. We always use the potty before bath time, he loves to sit on it, flush, and play with the toilet paper. I was headed to the store to purchase more diapers but I changed my mind....big boy undies came home with us instead! "Ickey mouse undiiiies!" 

* How is it possible that my little peanut is a big boy now?!

So this morning started out quite interesting! The first accident in the big boy undies must have scared Connor! He immediately started running which then spread peepee everywhere! Thanks goodness I picked all of our rugs up and have floors that clean easily. Oh boy...what have I gotten myself into?! The next accident, several minutes later involved the same thing but this time he ran in his puddle, slipped and busted his little hiney. At this point I was giggling and wondering why I decided to attempt this...why can't they just become potty trained, like just wake up one morning and voila!! 

I set my timer every 20 minutes all day long and every time that went off Connor started to say "POTTY!" and ran to the bathroom. That's progress!! So it is nap time and he has had 5 accidents and 4 successful potty trips.  I started with a sticker reward system but the stickers became too much of a distraction, so I moved to 1 M&M if he was successful. He thoroughly enjoyed his M&Ms! I guess that isn't too bad for the first half of the day! 

I am hoping and praying that this just gets easier, less peepee puddles all over the place, and it just clicks soon! :) 

Hoping....

Josh and I have been thinking long and hard for quite some time. We have been having the conversations about expanding our family! No, we aren't crazy...I promise! We are just ready to open our hearts and arms to another blessing from God. 

We are hoping to adopt! 

We have thought about another sibling ever since Connor was born and feared that the same thing would happen since we don't know why or how to prevent my early severe preeclampsia. Yes, we have strong faith but it is just such a nerve wracking thought! It is scary to think that could happen again at even earlier and all the other things that come along with having such early babies. My body obviously didn't do well with the fertility medications and it isn't a risk we are willing to take again. The risk of loosing a baby or possibly a momma and a wife is so very scary. Of course we want another child, we just won't be taking the same journey we did with Connor. 

We know we are blessed to have our sweet miracle and we thank God for him every single day! We are ready to share our love, for him to have a sibling, for him to have a life long friend, for them to learn life lessons together, for them to get into trouble together...we are ready!

So, we are starting the process of adoption! First things first, we will be meeting with an adoption lawyer next week to talk about the entire process and then getting our homestudy underway! We know this could be a long, emotional journey and we are okay with that. We continue to pray for Gods plan and we know that the right baby for our family will join us one day. We are very excited and nervous at the same time! 

 I will keep you all updated as this journey takes place! Please pray for God's plan and know that we have faith that everything happens for a reason.  

Halloween!

I know I am a little late, but I wanted to share Connor's first Halloween actually enjoying the trick or treating!

Of course Connor wanted to be "ickey mouse" , his absolute favorite right now. We went to a handful of houses, I figured he is only 2.5 years old so he doesn't need to visit every house. As we would be walking up the sidewalk we would remind him what to say and he typically said "ick or eaaaat" before we got to the door! It really was cute.

The even more exciting thing about this Halloween is that Connor wanted to eat.....everything! His favorite was the dumdum suckers. I think this may have been his first time discovering what candy was all about. Obviously we only allowed him to have it in moderation. 

A sweet moment I caught while we were headed to the first house.