What a poop!

If you look down below I posted twice already about today's potty adventures. I have to say that I was pretty pleased with how well James is doing with his potty training. We had a couple of accidents but it happens.

He really likes to stand and pee, so that's our magic. Aiming at Cheerios helps too :) Also, I time it just right and have him pee before he wants something. Go play outside? Let's pee first. Watch his Star Wars show? Let's pee first. Want to help me water my plants? Let's pee first. Want to have movie night and popcorn? Let's pee first!

So we had the zillionth showing of a Star Wars related show/movie. James brought down his blaster (orange water gun), a lightsaber, and then he wanted to wear Jim's helmet.

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All of our weekend stuff

Bright and early on Saturday (ugh, before 7am) we went to Cub. We were missing the essentials- milk, bananas, strawberries, and a chocolate donut. Oh, and no trip to the store (Cub or Target) is complete without the free cookie. Man, this kid has a memory. Its really been months since he's been at a store. I go by myself most of the time now. Quicker.


We went to a 10am movie! It was our first movie with James. He went to a movie (in his youth) with Sandra and the old daycare crew last summer. We saw the new Chipmunks movie. It was awwwright. James had excellent timing. Seriously, like five minutes before the end he started to whine and ask to go home. I guess it was long enough! So we did get through to the end and we left pretty quickly.

It was all about the popcorn, you know.


Yay! We made it to the credits!


We went to lunch at Time Out in Blaine. We are still dieting so we knew we would find nice salads or healthy sandwiches. It wasn't very busy in the restaurant and we were seated next to an old couple. The man was crabbypants from the very beginning. He was upset at the waitress because the TV screens weren't playing the right hockey/basketball game. He was pretty rude, good thing we left soon after that.

Jim and I were talking about it in the car, and Jim imitated the cranky old man's voice. We heard giggles from the backseat. James loved Jim's "old man voice". So here's a picture and then a video from their exchange.

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Jim made dinner! He followed a recipe from the South Beach cookbook- chicken in wine sauce. He improvised and added mushrooms. It was good. We usually find ways to tweak some of the recipes and we'll figure out how to tweak this one to make it really good!



I was doing pretty on the dieting but needed a treat later that night. Here's an experiment that didn't really work. I found a recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake Mousse. Well, it was basically whipped/smooth cottage cheese with peanut butter and chopped chocolate on top. I did the cottage cheese part with the peanut butter but added grated chocolate and one of our peanut butter cookies crumbled to the top. It doesn't look good. It was just okay. I think the cottage cheese kind of freaked us out. Hey, I still ate it all.



Sunday's dinner- Tuscan Vegetable Soup. I added some prosciutto and pesto paste (new product I found).


Football night needed some manly munchies! Jalapeno thingies.


Touchdown!


Yay!


The game is still going on. James started watching it but lost interest.

Wild Child(ren)

On Friday we assembled all of our students at CRMS together for a motivational type program. In our school's history they had never had an all-school assembly so it was quite a feat! It was a little overwhelming to have so many people in one (small) gymnasium- about 1500 students plus staff... The only scary part was the end when there was a mad scramble to get OUT for the end of the day.

You can't see all of the students in this picture, there were many more on each side, on bleachers.


My wild child started his day at 5am. He woke up this morning at 5 and so Jim and I each took a turn putting him back in bed, telling him its "too early". He may have fallen back asleep but we doubt it. He probably played quietly in his room or read books in his closet :) We all ended up waking up at 7am and we started our real day at our favorite breakfast spot, where James gobbled up TWO adult sized pancakes all by himself. Dipped in strawberry syrup? Yum!

After breakfast we wanted to take advantage of what might be the last great weather weekend so we headed to Springbrook Nature Center, in Fridley, to walk the trails and visit the exhibition building.

James' school is studying "Forest Friends" so we asked him to look for friends. We saw many squirrels and birds. I am thankful we didn't see any bears or wild animals :)






Inside the exhibition building there were stuffed animals, aquariums full of snakes, fish, and frogs.

James listens to the bird calls through the speakers.


He found a friend. James followed him around enthusiastically, and didn't even care that he picked his nose. Heh.


Touching snake skin. Ewwww.


Forest friends!


Skunk fur.




Happy.


At home we played in the tunnel and kicked the soccer ball around. Fun!




I think I riled James up. When Jim got home from an errand, he asked me, "How much sugar did you feed him?!"

We settled down after dinner for movie night. The movie "Up!" is so good! I really think it was the best kids' movie I've seen for a while. I love that it featured an old man. I just think old men are the cutest, especially my Grandpa Gutierrez, the oldest man I know :)


James got slightly antsy and I didn't think we'd finish the movie, but he just switched seats and then settled in again.


I love this little boy, even though he wipes away my kisses!

Happy Feet

I guess we're on a dancing theme. That last video just cracks me up.

In this first video I caught James dancing. We were playing outside yesterday and he left my view (I was gardening!) and when I turned around the corner to find him, this is what I saw.

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Because it was a rainy day we needed to play inside. I brought out the chalk mat and James had fun jumping, drawing, and just keeping me busy!









Deep concentration.


After dinner, I made popcorn while Jim got James all "cozy" in the basement for movie night! We chose Happy Feet because we thought James would like the penguins and dancing.


James was all about the popcorn!




Joining in the dancing. This was a tense chase scene between the sea lion and the penguins. I thought James was scared but he laughed and ran around the room as we watched.






Well, movie night was a success. We did get through the whole movie but James did lose interest for a little bit and got up to play pool. He came back to the couch to sit on my lap and we finished watching. And then Jim and James got up to dance with the credits!

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We try to have fun at our house!