Potty Trained

I think we can now officially declare that Oliver is potty trained! Phew! For all the hype about how difficult it is to train boys I have to say this was pretty easy. Maybe it's because I waited until he was just past 2 and a half or maybe it was all the bribery. We have gone through a A LOT of candy and star wars toys in the last three weeks but in mind it is TOTALLY been worth it. OR maybe it's just because we have a pretty smart kid on our hands. Whatever the reason, I don't care, I'm just glad we can cross this milestone of our list and I don't have to change two sets of diapers anymore!

TOld you it was a lot of toys!

Batman big boy underwear

Just Some New Stuff...

I absolutely cannot believe that it is already the end of July. The summer has gone by so fast and before we know it Michael will be back in school:( Which will make us all somewhat sad. It has been a blast having him home and although I have LOVED it I am pretty sure there is two small boys who have LOVED it even more. Here are just a few shots from the last few weeks. You will notice, as I mentioned in the previous post that our lives have been taken over by Star Wars:)

Wesley in his new big boy car seat next to his big bro. Ugg. How are the growing so fast?

"I can see! I can see!"

He has entered the climbing phase as you will see below!

Oliver at the D-Backs game the other night with his Daddy.

Star Wars

Oliver has a new obsession that has taken over in our house: Star Wars. My mom bought him a Star Wars sticker book to play with up in Canada and then to take home when the trip concluded. I am not sure but at least an hour of everyday was devoted to this sticker book and the learning and memorization of Star Wars characters. And let me tell you an hour of the same thing for any 2 and a half year old is a bid deal. Since we have gotten home he has (due to some heavy potty training bribery) inherited Star Wars Episode I,II, and III which he LOVES to watch as well as a light up light saber to add to the two he already has. I totally thought the movies would be scary but he just watches them intently and spouts off the names of all the characters with eerily amazing speed and accuracy. Here is a video with him and his book. Child prodigy or Star Wars nerd? Probably both but you decide for yourself.

Nothing Sweeter

Seriously, there is nothing sweeter than the sound of your child laughing. Enough said.

And here is a video from last night. We had some of our friends over and this is baby Maya laughing the hardest her mother has EVER seen in her 6 month life at Wesley. Don't know what tickled her so much but she was VERY tickled. SO CUTE!

Oh Canada!

We just got back from our trip to Calgary yesterday and were welcomed back with uninviting arms by the 110 degree weather. The trip was a total success. The boys had a great time and even blessed us with two fairly easy and manageable flights and by sleeping in pretty much every morning until at least 7:30 and most days until 8:00 or 8:30 which I guess just means we were successful in waring them out. I shouldn't be surprised considering Oliver spent most days trying to keep up with his older big boy cousins and Wesley trying to keep up with his big brother and, of course, we were outside enjoying the weather as much as possible which did the trick of exhausting them quite well also. Here are some pictures from just a few of the events of the week.

Here are the boys at Riley Park. So nice to be outside and not be feeling faint from heat exhaustion.







We spent an evening with my dad's side of the family and here is a group shot.

We went to Calaway Park in the middle of the week which is an amusement park similar to Castles n Coasters (for my AZ readers) with probably a few more little kids rides. Oliver LOVED it. He ran around from ride to ride with literally no fear (except for one minor meltdown). We were happy the morning was a success and even more thrilled that the money we will spend to do Disney at the end of the summer will not be totally in vain.

On our last day we took the kids to the zoo. All the big kids came too which was GREAT because Mitchell and Jake have both spent a ton of time at the zoo over the years and the knew exactly where everything was so we covered the zoo quickly and very successfully, getting really good views of most animals. They were the perfect tour guides especially considering the attention span of a two and a half year old is less than lengthly.






Here is Oliver with his buddy, Jake. I am sure that Jake, Shane and Mitchell were totally sick of hearing their names by the end the week because one small boy was more than just a little enamored with them but us parents sure appreciated all their patience and the time the spent playing with him.
I am realizing I didn't do a super job getting pictures of the rest of the family that we saw and got to hang out with but at least I did better with this trip than the NY one:)