She used the potty!

Our baby girl is definitely growing up! Elizabeth used the potty for the first time today. And, she kept up her record of always reaching her milestones while Mommy was there - she did it during my lunch hour!

We bought her a little potty seat and potty book around the beginning of December, just to get her thinking about the idea. She read her book diligently, and loved pushing the button that made the flushing sound:



And, she really loved the potty seat - because it had ELMO on it. So, for the last few weeks we haven't been pushing her to use it, but we've just been getting the potty seat out and letting her sit on it whenever she wanted to. She seemed to think it was a pretty fun game, but she never actually used the bathroom while she was on it.



Then, yesterday, she wanted to sit on the potty, so I sat and told her stories while she was on it for about 5 minutes. She thought that was a lot of fun, but she didn't actually use the bathroom during that time.

But, today, when I was home for lunch, she was acting like she needed to use the bathroom (you know, grunting and making her constipated look), so I asked her if she wanted to sit on her potty. She sat there for another 5 minutes or so, and actually used the potty - both pee-pee and poo-poo!

We let her put on some pull-up pants after that - I bought them a few weeks ago and told her she could wear them when she started using the potty, and she seemed to get a big kick out of putting on her "tweety-bird" pull-up pants. Of course, that didn't last long and David ended up putting her back in diapers. But, I'm just amazed that she did it once! I'm hoping this means potty training will be a little bit easier with her, although I don't plan to kick it into full gear until she hits 2. We'll keep you posted on the progress!

Junior Beta Club

Jonathan got inducted into the Junior Beta Club at Jessie Clark this week. The 7th graders that were inducted were chosen for having a high grade point average, as well as exhibiting achievement, character, leadership, and service. We're very proud of him!

Practice makes perfect

Elizabeth's talking is really improving...she has a tremendous vocabulary and is learning new words daily. And, her words are becoming much more pronounced, requiring less interpretation than before. She's just like a parrot these days...she repeats everything we say. She also has started telling us everything she's done, sometimes ad nauseum. :) Here's a video sample of her telling me about a story she heard in the library when she went to storytime with Daddy....the sheep fell in the mud and got dirty....I wasn't there, but I've heard about it at least 100 times since! (Sorry the file is so large and the picture is distorted...I still haven't found a good way to share video on here!)



You'll also notice something very interesting at the end....she tells me that she went to Aunt Carolyn (Miller)'s house and saw her dog Blueberry, who was in his crate (not really, he was just in his room)....then she gets to the heart of the evening - she got to eat MARSHMALLOWS! No wonder she keeps asking to go back to Aunt Carolyn's house! :)

Of course, we quickly decided the marshmallows could be used to our advantage...we told her all day that when Victoria (her babysitter) came over last night, she would give Elizabeth marshmallows. We were hoping it would keep her from screaming as we left, and it really worked quite well. With a sweet tooth like that, she's definitely a Bridger girl!

We also bribed Elizabeth with something else last night...her NEW DUCK PAJAMAS!!! Several weeks ago, we had to throw out her favorite pair of pajamas, which had ducks all over them, because she wore holes through the toes of both feet. I told her we would get new duck pajamas, figuring I could pick them up anywhere. No doing - I couldn't find a single pair of duck pajamas in town. And, Elizabeth did not forget - she reminded us every evening that she was supposed to have "new ducks" and her "old ducks" had a "hole" in the "toe." I finally found some duck pajamas on eBay, and they came in the mail yesterday afternoon. Elizabeth was instantly in love, and wanted to take off her clothes and put them on as soon as she saw them. Here she is, trying to put them on herself:




Then, this morning, the first thing she told me when I got her out of bed was that she had her "new ducks" on, and they were "yellow" and "soft."



Of course, it was all cute, until she threw a fit when we had to take them off to get her dressed for church!

Her story of today is all about falling down when she was "outside" on the driveway yesterday. It was particularly exciting because she got a "boo-boo" on her "finger," which required a "Band-Aid." We've taken advantage of it to start teaching her the concepts of "left" and "right." She'll now tell us that her boo-boo is on her right hand, and her left hand is OK. And, for those of you who might be wondering, we're pretty sure she's going to be righthanded. She seems to favor her right hand for eating and coloring. Oh well....guess she can't be a mommy clone for everything!

Hide and go seek

Recently, we taught Elizabeth the game of Hide and Go Seek, which she absolutely loves to play. She thinks it's really funny to "find" Mommy and to hide herself. Only one problem - she always hides in exactly the same place....lying facedown in the center of the living room floor. Then, she'll start giggling like crazy and pop her head up when we start "looking" for her....silly girl! Here's an actual picture of her "hiding" from us:



Hmmmm....can you find Elizabeth? :)

Our little helper

A few weeks ago, we decided to change out the baby gate at the top of our stairs. David was using our drill to put the screws for the new brackets in, when Elizabeth ran to her room, grabbed her toy saw, and came back to "help" Daddy. It was very cute!





Here's a picture of the new gate - as well as the pretty green color David painted in the foyer. It's quite an improvement!




Elizabeth is also very excited about the new plant in our living room, because she gets to help water it. Of course, it would drown if we let her water it as often as she wants to, so she has to "practice" a lot. It probably doesn't hurt that the watering can is yellow....another favorite color of hers. I just hope the plant is hardy, because she sometimes gives it a beating trying to get her watering can in.

Pretty in pink

Elizabeth has a new favorite color - PINK! She's been insisting on wearing her pink hat and pink sweater around everywhere. She also wants to have her pink plate and cup whenever she sits down to eat. And, yesterday, she was particularly happy, because she got to wear her pink elephant overalls and Mommy was wearing a pink jogging suit, so we both "matched"....ah, the simple pleasures in life!



And, of course, you can't see her pink outfit in this picture, but it's one of my favorites!

Visiting with Aunt Carolyn

Last week, Aunt Carolyn (Bridger) and Uncle Waldie came through town. We all went out to dinner that night, but Elizabeth and David got to visit with Gran and Aunt Carolyn a little bit more while I was at work that afternoon. Based on the pictures, Elizabeth got spoiled with all the double attention, and they all had a great time playing together with the bubbles and slide in the backyard.







Hope they get to come back again soon!

Happy Birthday, Brooke!

Hard to believe, but Cousin Brooke turned 2 years old yesterday! Watch out world, here she comes!

Jonathan's Big Trip

Jonathan departed today at 2:00 for the Jessie Clark trip to Chicago. There are about 200 kids on 4 charter buses in route with an arrival time of 11:00 pm in the windy (and cold) city. The following is a list of places that are on the itinerary:

Navy Pier
Driving and Walking tour of the city (architecture, Chinatown etc)
Tommy Gun's Garage (some restaurant the teachers seem to love)
Hancock Observatory
Shedd Aquarium
Field Museum of Natural History
Woodfield Mall
Sears Tower
Museum of Science and Industry
Medieval Times dinner and jousting tournament

Of coarse I really don't expect to get a phone call or even see any pictures, but he is sure to have a good time, even if it is becuase of nothing more than rooming with 3 of his buddies with no adults in the room. They are on a strict schedule and with something to do all day until they leave to come home on Sunday. He will sleep all day Monday for sure. This is the 19th year that his school has gone on this trip. Maybe a teacher will snap a photo that we can put on the blog later.

Lots of loveys

Elizabeth is a precocious child. While most children are happy with one lovey - say a blanket or a stuffed animal - Elizabeth has FOUR: Baby Elmo, Barney, and her two blankets (a pink one and a yellow one). I think that even beats Cousyn Robyn and her bunnies! With all of those, plus her, my arms are pretty full at bedtime. She also loves to play with all of them, plus her pillow case and pillow (which for some reason always have to be separate), so they usually all come out of the crib at some time during the day.

Here's a picture of her putting Barney and Elmo to sleep:



Notice how they're both facedown. She has always slept on her belly, so she always puts her baby dolls and stuffed animals down "to sleep" that way too.

Elizabeth also has another new favorite toy - laundry baskets.



She particularly loves to pile all her loveys into them. Then, she'll usually point at the basket and say, "In there", which means she wants to get in there with them too.

Fun with beads

Recently, I re-discovered a bunch of beads that I...um....somehow collected on a mini-vacation to the fine state of Louisiana in a past life.... :) I pulled them out for Elizabeth, and she has gotten much playtime out of them since then.





Even Jonathan has joined in on the fun:




Lately, Elizabeth has particularly enjoyed putting the beads on her play horse and Mommy (and, yes, those are 2 different things!).



I just realized that I've now had these things thrown at me twice!

Jon's big surprise

I forgot to update you on Jon's big Christmas surprise. He was so excited to get it right away when he got home, he called us from the concourse and asked us to put his present right by the door. We ended up wrapping up a small portion of it (a piece of chalk) in a bag, then sending him down to get the rest - a pool table! He and David had a lot of fun trying it out:






And, check out how much David's face has improved. The Bell's Palsy is almost gone!



The present got even better when we decided to go out and buy a ping pong table cover for it. Here's an action shot:



Even Elizabeth got in on some of the ping pong action:

Christmas week recap

We've returned from Dixon and have finished putting all the Christmas decorations away. Although the last week was extremely hectic, and included the funeral of my grandmother, we still enjoyed being able to visit with all of our family. The funeral was very nice - and very well-planned by Amy. It was truly a celebration of Mother Dot's life.

Here are the highlights from the rest of the week:

On Tuesday night, the Hobbs family arrived. We went over to Gran's house for dinner, and she pulled out a huge trunk full of old doll clothes from when she and her sisters were young. The girls had a lot of fun playing in them, and both Erin and I took a bag full of doll clothes home for the girls.







The next morning, we got the news that Mother Dot had passed away. Aunt Erin and Uncle Brad went to help Granddad with some of those details, and Brooke stayed at our house to play. The girls were at the height of their anti-sharing mode, and we even had to take the clothes off of their identical dolls so they wouldn't be able to tell one from the other. But, we still had a lot of fun playing with Cousin Brooke!



That evening, Aunt Amy and Neal arrived, and we had our Christmas dinner and exchanged gifts at Gran's house.

Both girls loved seeing all their out-of-town relatives. Here's Elizabeth sitting with Aunt Amy:



And, here's Uncle Brad receiving a rare treat - a visit from both girls at once!



Of course, with two toddlers together, life is never boring. Here's an example of the cousin-ly love that was being spread around:



Yes, that is a snarl on Elizabeth's face, but in all fairness, here's what Brooke was doing right before that:



For some reason, my mom said that really reminded her of me and Amy when we were younger!

Then, it was on to the presents. The girls really enjoyed their "elf" roles and distributed (and opened) presents with much delight.





Afterward, they even played together peacefully:



Of course, neither one knew the other one was on the opposite side of the barn! :)

The next morning, Erin and Brad had to go shopping for funeral clothes, so the rest of us loaded up the girls and headed down to the Lexington Children's Museum. They had an absolute ball! Unfortunately, I accidentally left my camera in the car that morning, so you'll just have to take my word for it! They had several exhibits geared just for toddlers. The girls particularly loved splashing and playing in the water exhibit and playing in the bubble room. I think we're going to have to make that a regular activity from now on!

That evening, Granddad and Granny Pat came over for another round of Christmas dinner and presents.







Then, we settled down to family business. We put together a beautiful biography/program to be distributed at Mother Dot's visitations and funeral, which kept me and David up late into the night. Friday morning, we packed the cars (no easy task with a toddler in tow!), loaded everyone up, and headed to Western Kentucky. We got to the hotel with just enough time to change and head to the first visitation. The turnout was wonderful - our grandparents had affected so many people in the community, and their outpouring of love and affection was a true demonstration of that. They had filled the house with food before we arrived, and the church also prepared a fabulous potluck dinner for everyone following the funeral. Add that to the end of the holiday season, and it's definitely time for a new workout program! We also really enjoyed visiting with our extended family members and reminiscing about our grandparents. All in all, it went as well as it possibly could.

Here's a picture of our immediate family after the funeral:



And one with all of our extended family members - except for Elizabeth, who was crawling away!