Day to Day Happenings

Sometimes you can't win for trying...  It always seems to be a fight to get the kids to listen to scriptures every day. We are reading scriptures from the Book of Mormon Stories for kids that has the pictures and is very condensed. We read one story every morning. IF Teagan actually listens, he always has lots of questions and finds it very interesting... but it's always hard to just get them in a room with us at that time. It's like everyone runs away into another room when Jeremy pulls the book out. Why is that?

Then after we read scriptures, we have family prayer before Jeremy leaves for work. Then Teagan either wants to say the prayer EVERY time or votes that daddy has to say the prayer. Well, Tate has started learning to say prayers all by himself now and then it became a fight on who got to say the prayer... All of it is such a nice way to invite the Spirit for the day {sarcasm}.

However, today Tate and Teagan worked their problem out with out our help and I was proud that Teagan said he gets to say the prayer tomorrow if Tate said it today and Tate agreed. I've been really trying to get Teagan to start problem solving his own problems instead of running to me or Jeremy every time. So, I was very proud to see him doing that.

Tate's prayer was so cute. He said:
    Heavenly Father
    Bless the day
    Thank you for my IPad....
And then he looked up at us to see what else he was supposed to say. It made us chuckle. Plus he has the cutest little voice!

Teagan has grown up so much lately. His potty training is going really well. We have minimal accidents now and I find they are almost always when he's watching TV because he's just not paying attention. He is getting taller and starting to look more and more like a little boy instead of a toddler. He is such a smart, smart kid. He is very cunning and smart with his words. BUT, sometimes I feel like I already have a 3 year old teenager because of the back talk. Yesterday he got grounded from his privileges for the first time  for the day (no tv, no treats, no ipad, no fun stuff). He has gotten super demanding and bossy which is quite literally in his nature which makes it hard for us to find compromise all of the time. Teagan never takes "NO" for an answer. He will always lobby and negotiate his case to get what he wants. The good side of that is if we can direct him well, then he will be very successful in life.

Yesterday while he was mad at me for grounding him he was telling me all day how mad he was at me at that he was going to build a net that I couldn't get out of and had to stay in forever. Jeremy called from work and talked to him. Teagan thought Jeremy was going to save him from me... when he didn't, he told me that he was going to be mad at daddy when he got home and build a net to catch him in forever too.  (lol)  Then he seemed to be OK after a couple of hours and it was all done. He told me he is going to be good today and wants to have a good day! Yipee!

Can't you just see that plotting look in his eye.

Tate is also astoundingly smart. He is such a cheeky, sneaky little boy. He loves to pull food and treats out of the cupboard and fridge. Instead of coming and telling anyone about it, he runs and hides under a table or chair while he eats it so that no one will take it away. The food of choice usually has 'chocolate' involved = messy. He will proceed to smash a lot of it on the floor while he is at it. (ugh) He does this most of the time while I am nursing because I am most vulnerable during that time (which he is smart enough to know). Unlike his big brother, Tate is not as organized or clean. Teagan never made the food messes that Tate did. Teagan never played in the toilet like Tate. Teagan never really put gross stuff in his mouth all the time like Tate does either.

Tate also has a fiery little temper and a "mad" face that makes me laugh, but I try to remember to take him seriously because it's hard when he is so cute. I think part of the reason he has been so 'mad' lately is because he refuses to take his day time naps anymore, but I know he really needs them still. Instead it just makes him mad and grumpy for the last part of the day. BUT, on the flip side Tate is also hilarious and funny. He can make anyone laugh because of his bubbly personality.

Tate & Hisa

Steffan is my little doll baby. I melt whenever this little boy smiles. He has four little teeth popping through and it is funny when he smiles with all of these different lengths of teeth. The teething process has been a BEAR. He is normally very happy and smiley all the time, but lately he has been very needy and grumpy. Plus he doesn't want anyone but me and it makes it hard in the day when no one else can hold him. He was sleeping through the night for a long while, but since his teeth started popping through and his stomach problems (below), he has been waking up one to two times a night (sigh).

He is going to be ONE next month. I can't believe it! He was only 6 weeks old when we moved here, so it makes the time fly by. He has started crawling this last few weeks. He is still trying very hard to go forward, but usually pushes himself back into a corner or gets forked on a table or chair leg. He has a very sensitive tummy right now making it very hard for him to eat solids. It makes me feel bad because he wants to eat solids so badly but we can't give him very much. It causes him to back up for WEEKS and then he gets infected and cries and cries when he poops. It breaks my heart. We took him to the doctor not long ago and he has been taking some medicine called Coloxyl, 3x/day, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything for him. I don't know what we are going to do. It makes me feel so bad for him. He has to nurse almost full time still, which I love (and never thought I'd say that), but was kind of looking forward to stopping at the 1 year mark. I guess we'll see. I wish I knew the boys stats (height, weight, etc) but they don't really do those kinds of well check ups here and give you a nice little print out to tell you what percentile they are in with the rest of the nation. You really only take them in for their shots. Last time we went to the doctor we were there for the longest 3 hours of my life (by myself with the boys) and Steffan was the only one that got shots. They weighed and measured the boys, but I expected them to give me a print out so I didn't write it down when she told me. Plus it was all in Kilograms and Centimeters, so the information didn't 'translate' to stick in my brain.

Steffan's cute little smile with his 1/2 teeth. :) He has that little fake smile just like Tate when you ask Tate to smile.

  

Jeremy has been seeing a doctor for some major stomach issues he is having. He is having bad reflux and I think the acid is have a negative effect on his throat and can't think of the word for the tube you swallow all your food down (smart description eh). He throws up a lot and the doctors are trying to figure out what is going on right now. Keep him in your prayers, it's been really hard on him physically actually. Other than that, he is still just working away. His buddy Bodra that he works with and that we hang out with often is moving back to New Zealand in a couple of weeks. We are really sad to see them go, but have been trying to spend time with them before they make the trek back. I would love it if we could go and see them before we go. We will see...

As for me, I am loving photography right now. I am surprised how much I fell in love with it. Having an awesome camera made all the difference in the world! Thanks for helping us get the camera dad (it is so much cheaper to get it in the US than here in Australia). It started as a fun hobby, and still is. I've had a lot of people ask me to start taking pictures for them, so I am trying to learn all of the technical side of things and hope something can come out of it in terms of a part time job. I would LOVE doing that. I love how pictures make everyone happy and excited. I have another family photo shoot this weekend in the city and am really looking forward to doing it. I'm learning so much about photography that I never had any idea about. Stay posted on my photo blog. Hopefully you will be able to see improvements in the quality as I continue to take more pictures of people.

The big question we get asked from everyone is, "Are you staying?" Jeremy's obligation to his contract ends in mid-January. We have gone back and forth about staying here or going home. We love the people here are growing to really love Australia. When we thought about coming home, it made us sad to think about leaving here because who knows when we'd ever come back. We have been VERY prayerful about our decision because it is too big of a decision to make back and forth to different countries. It is really hard on everyone and we are JUST starting to settle into life here. Things always change with us as we weigh the options. There are so many things to consider! I think we have come to our final decision to stay at LEAST another year and we will have to come to the same decision time again next year. If we can swing it, we would love to come home and visit sometime next year, but spending $7,000 to visit Orem, Utah doesn't sound too exciting, so stay tuned.

Visitors, Visitors, Visitors! Joey will be our first visitor next month for a week. And my sister, Kiley, will be staying with us for a month in December through January. I can hardly wait! So, if any of your are still planning on coming, you still have at least one more year to make the trek here.

Learning About Colors

This activity was a spin off of something else I saw on Pinterest about mixing colors. The original post mixed colors by letting the water creep up a paper towel into another cup with another color to watch it mix. This is too slow to do with a 3 year old and 2 year old. So we did three cups of water with Red, Yellow and Blue and then mixed them to make the other three colors. They liked it so much we did it three times.

Carey's Cave

It's been awhile since we have taken one of our day trips and I was kind of missing it. This last weekend we went to Carey's Cave in Wee Jasper with the Swift Family. It was about 2 hours away from our house. It was a really cool cave, but probably not cool enough that I would recommend anyone going to see it if they come visit us. It was a 1 1/2 hour tour and just about 1 hour and 15 minutes too long for the kids to sit through. Plus the cave guide didn't seem to like kids much and kept making parenting comments which I didn't fully appreciate. He thought he was being funny, but for me... not so much. At any rate, I'm glad we went. I always enjoy going somewhere new. The boys still thought it was fun to see all the cool rocks inside and ran around.

Tate has no fear. He marched right in to that big, dark cave in front of all of us with out knowing at all what he was doing, where he was or where he was going. He was the first one to head on in. Teagan is so different than that. He hid behind Jeremy and waited to see what was in there and what, if anything was going to happen. Often we have found Teagan has crawled into bed with Tate because Teagan gets scared at night and Tate doesn't seem to be afraid of anything.

Later that night when we got home, we actually headed over to the church for Samoan Night. I wasn't too keen on the food because although I may have Tahitian blood, I'm not much of a Polynesian. Most of the food was sea food, raw fish, taro and a few other things I'm not sure of. I did try some of it, but politely didn't eat much. :) After our big Saturday adventure, Teagan and Tate were so tired for church the next day. It made it a LONG Sunday. However, Teagan fell asleep on the way home from church and didn't wake up until the next day. Woo Hoo! :)

It was a good day...

A few weeks ago we decided to take the boys to Questacon. It was a good day to go because they were doing a Dinosaur Puppet Show that day. I took the worst pictures for it cause you can hardly see the anything in the pic's above. The kids enjoyed it. They gave everyone a chance to go up and talk to the puppets after the show and Teagan wouldn't dare. He is not a risk-taker. Tate never thinks twice about doing anything... which is good and bad at times. He wasn't giving the puppets any sort of a smile and he wouldn't respond to them when they spoke to him, but he was very excited to go see them. He was just giving them "that stare down" you see in the top pics.

After we left Questacon we walked around. Just across the street is the Australian National Library. It is a very large building (that has nothing inside for kids to do), but the kids enjoy running around outside because of the water fountains. You can see we went on one of the better/warmer days. It's been so cold here that last week. It's been in the 20's and 30's. Brrrrrr! I can't wait for it to warm up (but not excited for it to warm up for the spiders to come out and play).

Side Track: On that note, I'm happy to say that when we got our first electric and gas bill (per my previous post about costs), it was only 1/3 of what other people in our ward's bills were. For both, it averaged about $200/mo for gas/electric. So, we were very conservative! But, it was also fall and wasn't too hot or too cold for most of the time and we dried our clothes on the line 90% of the time and didn't turn the heater on hardly at all. I don't know if I can say that since it's been in the 20's and 30's more consistently as of recent. So we will see what are next bill is like... that one is going to be the kicker.

Tee-Tee Did It

I don't have very many conversations that make enough sense to put up of Tate, but I had one today.

Tate: Mommy... cereal mommy
Me: Tate I don't like to give you cereal because you always dump it on the floor and make a big mess.
(Both boys like me to give them Crunchy Nut cereal in a cup and like to eat it dry/no milk)

Tate: I no make mess mommy.
Me: Ok Tate. Please eat it and don't let any cereal get on the floor. (...knowing well enough the inevitable is going to happen.)

***About 5 minutes later...***

Tate comes back in the kitchen and says...

Tate: Mommy... Big Mess... I did it mommy.

Me: Shocker
(I walked out into the living room to see it.)

Me: Tate, it makes me really mad that you dumped out all your cereal when I asked you not to.

Tate: Tee-Tee Did It!
Me: No... You did it.
Tate (In a high pitched, innocent voice): I did it???
Me: Yeah, you told me you did.
Tate: Why?
Me: You tell me why.
Tate: Tee-Tee Did It!

Rub-A-Dub-Dub

I love these three little beebers. I had to edit it a bit for little Stef-Man. Sadly, this is the best picture I got because they can't seem to all look at the same time... actually I should be proud that NONE of them are looking at me at all and they are all doing THAT at the same time. :)

I'm a BIG Kid Now!

 

Here's Teagan holding up the certificate we gave him from Lightening McQueen and Tate wanted to hold it up too. Tate looks like a goober in the picture. 

Tate is a great supporter of Teagan going on the potty. Tate claps and yells, "Yay!" every time Teagan goes on the potty. The other day I was running off and Tate said, "Doing Mommy?" and I said, "I'm going to the bathroom." And  Tate yelled, "Yay Mommy!" and started clapping for me. lol Cute nut ball!

***Potty Update: Teagan only had two accidents yesterday (one pee and one poo), but last night when we put his training pants on, he still told me when he had to go potty and didn't even go in his training pants at all. Woo Hoo!

Overall, I actually have seen a HUGE change in Teagan this last week. I think we should've done this sooner. He really needed this step of independence. And on top of that, it has immensely made my bond and relationship stronger by being patient and encouraging. Teagan's self confidence has gone up 100% this week. The hardest part is over and it was well worth the effort to make it positive! I'm going to pat myself on the back to because it was HARD! :)  

 This morning they both took showers and tried to get dressed all by themselves. Teagan put his cool Spidey Undies on (compliments of Honey Lona & Papa Tom) and didn't realize he put them on backwards.

And Tatey looks like a beauty queen with his shirt. He kept yelling, "I DID IT! YAY!"

As you can see, NON of the pictures below turned out very well. I could never get all three of them to look at the camera at the same time. We got these new jammies from Honey Lona & Papa Tom.

Potty Training Boot Camp: Day 4

Teagan still refused to sit on the potty this morning. I was feeling a bit defeated because this is now turning into something that is nowhere near "positive".

Honey Lona called us this morning on FaceTime on the IPad and I tried to get Teagan to show her how he could sit on the potty and he ran and hid in the curtains. We got off the phone with Honey Lona and I had a calm talk with Teagan. I asked him if he would go in his room by himself and say a prayer to Heavenly Father to help him go on the big boy potty. He quickly calmed down but said he didn't want to. I asked him again and told him I would leave him alone and reminded him how to start and finish a prayer and that he could ask for help. I shut the door behind me and he came out a couple minutes later and told me he had said a prayer. I talked him him for a minute and reminded him how he didn't try yesterday but today he could do better and that it doesn't take very long to go on the potty. I went on to tell him that it does however take a long time to clean up the mess and change his clothes and wash them. I let him know that if he pooped today that it would be a much bigger mess that he'd have to clean up and he probably didn't want to do that because it's very dirty and yucky. With in 2 seconds he said, "Mom I have to go." So he went and sat on the potty and peed. Yipeee! I told him to thank Heavenly Father for going and he said, "No... YOU Mommy" and he gave me a hug. (Those are the moments that make it worth it!)

Today I let Teagan write his own potty schedule and made him sign it (he signed two letter "T's" for TT, which is what I call him for his nick name). I let him know that it means that he is agreeing to what he put down. I asked him if he wanted to have the timer go off every 30 minutes and he was adamant about setting it for every 20 minutes. So, that is what we did. He never complained about getting on the potty one more time through the day. At one point he even did a potty dance singing, "I get to go on the potty!" Whaaaaaat?! Woo hoo!

I'm proud to say that although we didn't have an accident free day, Teagan still peed on the potty two times. On a different note, today and yesterday his behavior has been beyond exceptional. This is a HUGE deal if you know how much we struggle with him.

So... Today's status?
Success! Progress! Encouraged! Ready for tomorrow...

Potty Training Boot Camp: Day 3

I feel like things are falling apart today. Teagan gets mad if we talk about putting him on the potty and refuses to even sit on it. We had zero peeing or pooping in the potty today.

Tate is also shying away from the potty. I kind of feel like he doesn't like that Teagan has gotten more things than him and so it's stopped being fun for him. Jeremy and I decided that we are going to hold off a bit until Teagan is done and start Tate again shortly after Teagan gets the hang of it a little more. So Tate started back in diapers again today (unbeknownst to Teagan for as long as possible).

I should've gone with my intuition a lot more today than I did. I can kind of tell when Teagan needs to go potty because he starts grabbing and itching and usually isolates himself in the other room. Instead of just saying, "Let's go to the potty and try..." I gave him the option to say no to my question, "Do you need to go potty?"

My visiting teachers came over this morning and Teagan was an absolute angel today. One of my VT's has two little boys about the same age as Teagan and Tate, so they played all morning really good together. ALL day (besides the potty training stuff) Teagan was so good and nice to his brothers and all the other kids he was around.

We also had the Primary Olympics today at church. Teagan won a gold medal and has been so proud of it. He even did the 3-legged race with his friend Micah and it was the cutest thing I've ever seen. I wish I would've brought my camera. They didn't even fall once. I was so impressed.

But... back to the potty training - - I continued in big boy underwear today and Teagan peed in his pants every time today... two times at church during the olympics. I only brought one change of clothes so he had to ride home with no pants on. Luckily no other kids saw it. I didn't want anyone to make fun of him to add to the negativity of the process. Teagan began to beg for training pants (which tells you how ineffective they are since he knows they are just like diapers) and I told him he only gets them once he gets into bed to go to sleep every night. All the other moms at the Olympics today told me that training pants did nothing for them either and everyone has just had to stick it out with the mess. (ugh)

Teagan never pooped today, so I hope he's not holding it in because of the potty training. That will make me feel bad. We changed his clothes about 6-7 times today because of pee. I've been making him do everything for the clean up process himself including undressing himself, cleaning it up and taking his dirty clothes into the washer. AND... thanks to the anonymous commenter yesterday, we tried the cold rinse on his bum last night a couple times. He really hated that! We did it 2x last night and the second time he cried the whole time. (sigh) We weren't mean or angry at all when we did it. We just told him he's gotta wash it off with cold water in which I made him soap up and wash all the parts of himself he got pee on. Then he stood in the bath tub and we used a cup to poor cold water and rinse it off.

Still haven't gotten mad at him although today was really tough to stay patient when I KNOW he knows how to detect and tell me he needs to go. I'm trying SO HARD to make this a positive experience.


How the night ended:
Told Teagan that he is going to help me do a NEW schedule tomorrow so he can help me with when he is going to sit on the potty and try to go. Made him repeat it to me what he is going to do and also told him that the first thing he will do in the morning is sit on the potty and try to go which he agreed to. We will see...

Look for more of the potty training adventure tomorrow.

Potty Training Boot Camp: Day 2

I thought I'd wake up today and feel refreshed from yesterday, but I think I need to go back to sleep for another day. :) (Think Positive though, right?)

Teagan examined his training pants and despite my efforts in telling him they were NOT diapers, he said, "Mom these are like diapers." I told him they were not and how they are for accidents only. However, once he realized he could "go" in them, he just started refusing to go on the potty again.


Back up Plan:
I decided that he is going to wear normal underwear today... no training pants until bedtime. My gut tells me that this is the only way to get him to change; especially after that seemed to be the only way to get him to voluntarily go when he needed to yesterday. Ugh! I don't really want my kids running around too long with no pants and worrying where they are peeing in the house. I just had this conversation the other day with my friend Laura on how that is something I DON'T want to do. BUT... if I just need to do this for a short time and we are done with diapers AND training pants, then I guess I can be on guard for a couple of weeks for clean-up. :(

Also, he was so pumped up yesterday with all of the treats and prizes that I don't think it's realistic to keep that up. He just did it to get what he wanted and isn't interested today. However, I still wouldn't change it because I think it proved to both of us he CAN do it.


Today's Plan:
Tate still isn't quite sure what we are doing exactly... I will still need to figure out what to do for him. But, we are still keeping him in training pants.

Going to set the time to go off every 15 minutes (sigh) to go sit on the potty.

I think we are still going to do stickers and chocolate chips and treats today. It's not as new today so they aren't clambering to get all of the stuff like yesterday. I may start putting their treats in a bag and making them eat something good today. Although they still kind of snacked on it, it still deterred them from eating any of the healthy stuff I prepared yesterday when there were so many sweets and treats.

----------------------

How the day went:
Started setting the 15 minute time to go to the potty. About 10 minutes after the first sitting, Teagan ran in and told me he needed to poop. I was so happy he told me. We went in and he sat down but didn't want to wait and said, "nothing's there" so he ran off into the bedroom (which I should've been more watchful of why he ran off). He ran back out a few minutes later and told me he pooped in the bedroom... which means he actually had to pull his underwear off and poop. So I went in there and sure enough, a small pile of poop on the floor. ***ugh - - kind of like having dogs again ;) *** I didn't get mad or upset I just encouraged him. He kept apologizing and told me he was sorry and that he wouldn't do it again so I could tell he was embarrassed. I let him know that it was OK and that next time he'd do better. I had him sit on the potty after cleaning it up a bit and then it happened... "PLOP PLOP"! He pooped in the potty! Woo Hoo! We called and told daddy at work even though he was too shy to tell him himself. He asked me if he could go back to wearing diapers or training pants. I told him he didn't need them if he just remembered to tell me when he needed to go and not to be scared and to know that I would help him.

However, during the time I was helping Teagan, the next 15 minute timer went off. I turned it off since I was attending to the mess and trying to be encouraging and exciting and then I see Tate run off in the bedroom and I went in and caught him in the act of peeing. (sigh) I couldn't really help him while I was helping Teagan, so it got a little stressful for about 10 minutes.

The next 15 minute timer went off and I had the boys sit on the potty (which neither of them needed to go now), but none the less we sat on the potty. Chocolate chips and stickers all around. Set the next timer for 15 minutes... but then 5 minutes later Teagan said, "Mommy I pooped again". He asked, "mommy are you mad or not mad?" I told him I wasn't mad and just explained again how he needed to tell me like he did the first time. This time he needed a shower to rinse off and I decided to have him wash all the poop off himself. Someone once told me that this is what you're supposed to do. If they clean it up themselves, then it's likely to not happen as much, if at all. So he told me he didn't want to clean it. I wasn't mad or upset about it but just told him firmly and positively that he's a big boy now and could do it but that I would help him. I got a mirror for him to be able to see where the poop was and let him clean it up as best he could in the shower while he rinsed it all of with soap and water. I of course finished up where he wasn't able to. He didn't like having to clean it up.

I slacked a bit on the 15 minute timer because then we Skyped with grandma's to tell them of Teagan's success and then I needed to feed Steffan. Then Tate ran in and told me Teagan pooped again. I went in the living room and sure enough, he'd pooped again and hadn't bothered to come and tell me at all this time (not progress). He just said sorry and said he didn't know that he had to go. Was this because he was watching T.V. and so he wasn't paying attention? I'm guessing yes. We cleaned up again and I forgot to let him clean it up himself. I told him after that though that he would need to clean up from here on out and he agreed.

Teagan and Tate sat on the potty 2 more times in between all of this with nothing else to report there. We got lunch and then Tate and Steffan went down for naps. The boys haven't begged for any of the treats or even seemed to care about them today. If they remember the chocolate chip and stickers, I will give it to them. Since they are willingly sitting on the potty now with out anything, I'd say it was still successful to get the process started.

Teagan fell asleep at 4pm today and slept until about 7pm. The Young Men from church came over for dinner again tonight (but I was PREPARED with LOTS of food this time). While Teagan was sleeping I put some training pants on him just in case. He woke up just in time for Jeremy to take all the boys home. He wanted to go so he got up and went and peed in his training pants. He refuses to go on the potty again tonight. :( I'm not sure why! We've been praising him all day and Jeremy even brought him a special toy home for pooping today which he was so excited about. It's almost like he has gotten out of this process what he wants and is OK to stop now and just go back to diapers. We've done a quick 180 in just 2 days of training.

Status of Day 2:
Unknown

Stay tuned for Day 3...

PS. Sorry, I know these are long and detailed. I actually found it really helpful to read this info on other people's blogs. So if anyone came across this, I thought I would return the favor.

Potty Training Boot Camp: Day 1

All of you know how hard we have struggled with Teagan and the potty. He is 3 1/2 now and frankly he's just too big to be in diapers anymore. He is extremely "strong-willed" and beats to his own drum. So we've been building it up for the last few weeks that when he runs out of diapers, he is all done with them. And while we are at it, we are going to potty train Tate (2 years old) too.

(PS. no this is not my kid in the pic below. I thought it was cute and found it when I googled images for potty training)

Preparation: 

• MENTAL- Had to prepare myself mentally that this may totally suck and I need to be happy, make it fun and be positive no matter what happens. ENDURE to the END!
• Talk A LOT about it when ever we could. 
• We let Teagan pick out his own potty, which he actually picked out a plain toilet seat that fits on the regular toilet. 
• We've been telling him for the last month that he when he runs out of nappies (diapers), that we aren't going to buy anymore and that it's time to start using the big boy potty. 
• A side note on this... so many people kept telling me to let him go at his own time, but I honestly don't think this was working for him because #1- He is smart and he is going to use up as much slack as we give him and #2- He is definitely ready, he is just plain ol' defiant.
• Bought Pull-Up Training pants with Lightening McQueen and let the boys try them on.
• Got Big-Boy-Underwear for both boys to see, and try on different fits to see which ones they like the most. (Even though Teagan was hesitant of doing this, I didn't give him the option to say 'no'. He just went with it, despite his last 6 months of complete protesting anything to do with the big boy potty process).
• GOLDEN NUGGETS: Bought some cheap toy planes, helicopters, and cars at KMart to let the boys see them . They were never allowed to play with them. We just kept telling them what they have to do to get them.
• Went to the library and checked out potty training books for me and the boys so we could read them each night. We started reading them a few days before boot camp started.
• Watched the Huggies potty training DVD, looked online at what others did and came up with a plan that worked for my two boys.
• Last night was the last night the boys get to wear a nappy (diaper) ever again. We made sure to tell them that before bedtime. And we made it sound exciting!!!

Tailoring "The Plan" for each boy:
I have two very different little boys to train at the same time.

1. Teagan- Teagan is 3 1/2 years old. As I mentioned above and I will say it again... He is STRONNNNGGGG-WILLED!!!! We are always looking for information on how to work "with" this kid. If you are familiar with the color code personality types, he is a RED. He is motivated by power and recognition. He likes to work towards something and is motivated by his achievements and is VERY competitive.
2. Tate- Tate just turned 2 years old. According to the personality code, he would be a YELLOW. He is fun loving and caring and just wants to have fun. He loves to be the center of attention and he loves praise. If it's not fun, then he doesn't want to do it. He will do anything that his big brother does. So if we can get Teagan on the band wagon, then Tate shouldn't be too far behind.

Supplies on hand: 

• Butcher paper to make a potty chart.
• Markers to let the kids color and decorate them
• Sharpy to write their names on it really big
• Stickers to put on the potty chart.
• Chocolate Chips.
• Potato Chips.
• Corn Chips
• Crackers
• Cookies/Oreos
• Ziplock bags
• Water cups
• Lots of fruit and vege's to snack on through out the day
• Hand Sanitizer

Well, TODAY (Monday) was the big day! The biggest things I'm trying to keep in mind for potty boot camp is:

1. Happy, Positive, Encouraging Good Attitude (Remember, no one has fun when it's stressful)
2. Make it FUN
3. Make the kids VERY involved in ever step for preparing
4. Be involved as their mom so that I can encourage, cheer lead, and recognize.
5. IMMEDIATE recognition and rewards. 
6. Start on a week day when you can be in your normal routine instead of a weekend when different things happen.

We started the day out by:

1. Getting up and taking off their last diaper EVER!
2. PEP TALK: Talking about it and telling them how big they are going to grow today because of how big of a step this is. Told them we are going to have a Potty Party today. (Any word with "party" in it makes Teagan excited). 
3. Teagan wasn't too savvy to sit on the potty yet, so we started to prepare for the big day with the kid's help.
4. After we took the diapers off, I left them off for a bit. We started off by getting out the papers for their potty charts. I let them decorate it as I talked about what the papers are for.
5. ***Tate peed on the floor*** Clean up on aisle 2. 
6. Then we opened up all of the "Golden Nugget Toys" and put them into two separate Ziplock bags (one for Tate and one for Teagan). On the bags we drew a toilet, a little person peeing and then some poop. Very professional! ;) This got the boys interested and excited to get them.
7. Got out all the treats the boys would love eating but I only give them sparingly. (See list above)
8. Put single serving amounts of each in a plastic ziplock bag.
9. Got out a water cup for each of them.
10. Got out potty training pants to see
11. Layed out the rules.

The Rules:

1. You get one sticker for your potty chart every time you SIT on the potty
2. You get one chocolate chip every time you SIT on the potty
3. You get one treat in the bag every time you get 5 stickers on your chart. Then we put 5 stickers on the bag of treats and counted them.  **When you use up 5 stickers for a treat trade in on the chart, I just marked each one with a Sharpie by numbering them and counting with the boys.
4. You get to pick one toy from the toy bag when you pee or poop in the potty.
5. You get 3 stickers for each glass of water you drink. (I gave them 4oz cups of water)

I had fruit and yogurt ready for breakfast to eat during the process. Cut up strawberries, grapes, pineapple and Go-gurts to suck down.

Tate was the first one to want to sit on the potty. We cheered for him and then he immediately got 1 chocolate chip and one sticker. He learned how to get a chocolate chip very quickly and then he wanted to sit on it 2 more times right away. When Teagan kept asking for a treat and I kept telling him how to get it, he scoffed a bit but saw that Tate was getting things so quickly that he walked in and sat down on the toilet and gruffly said, "I WANT A TREAT TOO!" So, he went and sat down and got a chocolate chip and a sticker.

Since Teagan is RED, I had to remember not to push him otherwise he retreats. So, it was helpful that Tate wanted to first. Tate thought it was fun to get some chocolate and loves to play with stickers. So it was "FUN" for him. Teagan was reluctant to sit on the potty again. So I went and sat down on the potty and said, "See I just got a sticker". I did it again right after and said, "I just got 2 stickers." I did it again and said, "I just got 3 stickers and only need to do it 2 more times for a treat."

Ahh.... Ok. So this clicked with him finally and then I had him begging me to sit on the toilet for chocolate chips and stickers. Alright!!! We are making progress! Then after he did it again he asked, "So, can I have a toy now?" I told him he needed to pee or poo in the toilet and he scoffed a bit. Then he sat on the toilet 5 times to get his treat out of the treat bag. I let him pick out a treat and he kept looking at me like, "I can really eat this right now for breakfast?" He was even cautious how much he ate of it. I told him that he could eat all of it (because I'd already portioned it out). Well, this was VERY motivating to him. He went and sat down a 6th time and PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE came out this time! Oh my gosh! Is this really true? We've been fighting him for months! We called his daddy at work and gave him a chocolate chip, a sticker AND a toy! He was so proud of himself. He kept asking, "Are you so impressed with me mommy?"

When Tate saw him doing it, then Tate wanted to do it more. We literally did the potty sitting for about 2 1/2 hours between the two of them. They were very excited to earn something each time. I'm excited to say that Teagan even earned a total of EIGHT toys and it's not even noon yet. He pushed out every drop of pee he could. I gave him a toy even if there was hardly anything. I wanted him to know that every effort counted. Tate thought the funnest part was pulling off the toilet paper and then flushing.

Tate earned 10 stickers and is still working towards his toy. He still isn't quite sure how it all works, but at least he is going through the motions and is still having fun.

After Teagan got the peeing part down we went over the 4 steps of pottying:

1. Go Potty
2. Wipe
3. Flush
4. Wash your hands

Since they weren't really pottying and wiping a lot I used hand sanitizer since we were going so often. After the 2 1/2 hours they were ready to rest and watch a movie. They'd been snacking on their breakfast fruit and yogurt all morning (and along with the potty treats). So finally it is time for resting/nap time. During this time I will set up a schedule with Teagan on when/how often he will be sitting on the potty (i.e. when he wakes up, at snack time, at lunch time, at resting/nap time, at PM snack time, before dinner and 2 times before bed). This basically works out to be every 2 hours thru the day.

Mid-Day: Naptime
We had about 5 more potty 'sits' right before naptime. Teagan peed once more and earned his 9th toy. Tate still just thinks it fun to sit, get toilet paper and flush.  We had an hour break in between all the potty time and the movie and found that both boys had peed in the training pants. Maybe I should set the timer for every 30 minutes right now. Will start doing that with Teagan. Thank goodness Steffan is being good playing to himself! I fed Steffan when the movie started and held him a lot in between helping the boys on and off the potty.

Tate pooped in his pull up pants about 5 minutes after I had him try to go on the potty.

About 30 min after Teagan tried to go on the potty I had him try again and he had also peed again in the training pants. (sigh) This is going to be a long couple of weeks. PERSISTENCE PREVAILS! (right?)

***Tate pees on the floor again*** Go figure.
***Let Teagan run around with only a shirt on, then he peed a little bit before he realized it wasn't going into anything and he hurried and yelled... "Mom, I have to go to the bathroom!" (Progress!)

Night Time:
We were asked to come over to another family's home in our ward for dinner and Family Home Evening. Teagan's friend Micah was having his birthday and since they play so well together, his family asked us over for the birthday dinner. Well, because of all the sugar and candy the boys ate through the day, it was an awful visit from the Green's. Teagan and Tate (mostly Teagan) were completely out of control and unruly. I'm rethinking the treats for tomorrow. But what can I do to keep them motivated.

Status of Day 1?
Success and Failure. We made large strides in the potty world. = Success! Broke my spirits with how the night ended. = Failure.

Stay Tuned for Day 2.