Potty Training

When Landon was 2 years old, I found a book at a garage sale for $0.50 called Toilet Training in Less Than a Day. I bought it and tried it out on Landon when he was 2-1/2. It worked like a charm! I used it to potty train Gerren as well.

By the time Chase was ready to potty train, the boys were 5 and 7, both doing school. I did the one day of potty training, but had very little time to drop everything and run her to the potty the next day. After 4 or 5 accidents, I put her back in diapers. A few months later, she was asking to use the potty all the time, so we went back to underwear with success this time. However, on that day after potty training when she was having all the accidents, I said to Greg on the phone, "If we have any more children, you're potty training them."

I reminded him of this, and he agreed to potty train Carys. He read the book and set aside a Sunday for the big event. I took the rest of the kids out of the house (once they got their lazy bones out of bed). Before they did I managed to snap this picture.

You start the day by "teaching" a baby doll that wets to go "pee pee on the potty".


After the day was over, Carys was potty trained! Here she is in her big girl underwear.


As a side note, she was terrified to go "poo poo" on the potty, however, and would only go in her underwear. After three weeks of despair, I tried leaving her bottomless, so to speak, for the entire day. This has worked like a charm, and we plan to continue this until she has many days of success!

CAP Pool Party

Landon has been a member of the Citrus County Composite Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol for over a year now. Recently, Gerren decided he'd like to join, too. The Deputy Commander of Cadets and his family hosted the second annual pool party for this group. So, we all joined in the fun (except Daddy who was at work) last Friday.

A chess game was part of the fun...


so was an exciting football match.


Chase and Carys had a great time in the pool.


Landon is always interested in the food.


This is a picture of all the CAP members present.


It was incredibly hot (hence my hair being pulled back).


Shane and Landon joke around for the camera.


Thanks to my friend Mary for sharing the pictures with me!

Freedom Fest

On Thursday night, July 3, we headed for Brooksville for Freedom Fest. This was an event sponsored by the Joy FM and the Brooksville Ministerial Association as well as a few other groups. The headline of the evening was the free Matthew West concert (well, it cost $5 to park). The evening was awesome except for the 15 or so minutes of rain. We weren't very well prepared for it. The concert was fabulous! Here are a few pictures.

Carys smiles for the camera!


You weren't allowed to take food or drinks of any kind into the park. So, we planned ahead to eat there. Unfortunately, there really weren't a lot of vendors. We were thinking "fair food", but ended up with BBQ sandwiches, a cheeseburger, etc.


Landon's enjoying himself.


The fireworks were put together by the same company that does the Super Bowl fireworks, so they were really awesome.


The only downfall to the evening was the length of time it took to get out of the parking lot. We sat there until it was cleared before turning on the van. Gas is too expensive!

Newest Smilebox Layouts

Well, I've been busy over the last month, but we've finally managed to wrap up our Sonlight 3 and 100 from this past year. And, I've managed to begin exploring digital scrapbooking. Smilebox has been an awesome gentle introduction into this. My biggest issue now is finding a place to print them. My "loopy" friend Cynthia in Montana is going to have some printed at Costco for me. Meanwhile, I continue to look for an online place to do this. Anyway, I thought I could get a blog post done by posting a few of my latest Smilebox creations.

Some of these pics I've put on the blog before, but I thought I'd include them anyway since they can look completely different in these layouts!