Pearson's 3rd Birthday!

We had a great time celebrating Pearson's 3rd birthday! He is such a blessing to us! We were very excited to have most of our family with us to celebrate. Which was very different for us as all other parties have been filled with our special C/S friends, who we missed very much this year. He requested a baseball party for months so that is what we had! He was very blessed with lots of new goodies. Thank you all for sharing this special day with us!

Where has 3 years gone?

I truly cannot believe that our precious James Pearson turns 3 on Sunday!! So many thoughts run through my brain when I think about his birthday, so I thought I would blog them.

Where has the time gone? It feels like just yesterday we learned that God was going to bless us immensely with a precious child! What a precious day that was! Oh my and then the day I held him in my arms, was even more amazing.

Here a few Pearsonisms to share:
-He loves baseball! Loves to watch it, play it, read about it, wear it! You name it, baseball is the game these days! He has two shirts that are his absolute favorite shirts and they are in revolving order in the washing machine. Every morning he asks me "My baseball shirt dry, Mommy?" Here he is wearing one famous shirt with Daddy and in the other sweet pic he and his brother are reading baseball books. Some mornings he even tells me that Aaron wants to wear a baseball shirt too!



-He can sing "Take me out to the ballgame" perfectly!




-He loves routine, books, singing, playing, swimming, football and baseball!
-He has so many of his sweet Daddy's mannerisms and tendencies. He does not have a love for sweets, which is also his Daddy in him. He would rather eat a carrot than a cookie! He's not my son on that one!
-Thankfully, he still takes an awesome afternoon nap. He loves to sleep with so many other wonderful toys and books in his bed with him too.
-He has the sweetest, tender heart and spirit. He is caring, compassionate and loving.My favorite ongoing conversation goes like this: "Hey, Mommy!", "Yes, Pearson?", "I wub you!" to which I respond, "I love you too, precious!"
- He has a normal sibling relationship with his sweet younger brother, Aaron. He loves him and hugs him in the morning and then an hour later he is pushing him away. Overall they are best buds, but they have their moments too.

We are gearing up for a baseball themed party and are very excited to celebrate God's gift in Pearson this weekend! More to come... Stay tuned!

Summer Fun 2010

We have had an awesome summer adjusting to the Texas heat and connecting with family and friends. We are really enjoying the town we are living in. We love being closer to family for planned and impromptu gatherings. I decided to make a slide show and share a lot of pics at once. We have had a lot of fun playing with all of our family and cousins. I went to girls night out with the girls on my side of the family. We hosted a family get together for burgers and hot dogs. Pearson did great in swim lessons with his shades on. Brian and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary away for a night from our precious boys! We went to the Fort Worth Children's Museum with my sister and her precious babes. We even got to see our dear CO friends, Mark and Susan a few times! Overall, we had a lot of fun in the sun!

Brian is now in full swing with his new position as an athletic director at a brand new middle school and while we miss him we are so proud and excited for him!

4th of July 2010

We had a great weekend celebrating our country's freedom! Pearson and Brian went to the Park Street Parade in Greenville while I stayed home with sweet feverish Aaron. Thankfully, he got to feeling better soon. Here are some pics from their fun time!




On Sunday we went over to my parent's house to celebrate the 4th together.
The whole gang ready to eat dinner:

Two little boys very excited to eat a cupcake!

Aaron and Brian watching the fireworks:

Nana and Pearson watching fireworks:


We had a great time celebrating the 4th with our families. We are loving being closer to our families and seeing them more often and then heading back to our house to sleep in our own beds!

Update from TX!

Well, hello blogger friends! I am still here! I have had a few requests to update the blog, so here goes, hope you are ready! We are now happily settled in our new home in Texas. We had a great time seeing friends in CO before we left. My sister, Tammi, flew out to help us caravan to TX. She was a huge help, thanks Sis! The boys did really well on the car trip. Leaving CO was very bittersweet for me as I am so blessed to have so many friends there who I started mommyhood with and will forever be dear to me as our babies are the same ages. And honestly, Colorado will always be so special to us as God changed our lives there forever. And we will always be so grateful for the miracles in our lives that God gave us there.

This slide show has pics of the last week in CO,the trip to TX and a few adventures in TX and our new home:

This slideshow is Aaron's 1st haircut! He did great!

This slideshow is our Father's Day weekend:

Hope you enjoyed all the pics! I'll try to update more often now. :) I was sweetly reminded to not forget my blogger friends this week who might not be on Facebook!

One last visit to the zoo!

We went to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo one last time before we head to TX! The boys had a blast seeing the animals, riding the carousel and just playing!




Enjoy the video of us on the carousel. Sweet Brian can't handle things that go around and around, therefore I ride with them and he videos. It is so sweet to hear him talk on this one. :)

The Cat in the Hat at B&N

We have really enjoyed our story times at Barnes and Noble. A few weeks ago we met friends there for a special visit from Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat. Pearson was mesmerized by him. Aaron was a little unsure of him. Here are a few pics from our fun day!

This was about as close as Aaron would get. At least he waved at him.


Our sweet boys and me! Yea, we all three looked at the camera and smiled! It's a miracle!! Well, Pearson is kind of smiling, I am sure he is thinking: "Really, Mom, another picture! Can we stop, PLEASE!!" Love them!!!

IT'z!

We went to IT'z one more time to take advantage of their Thursday great specials! We enjoyed bowling, games, basketball, skee ball, pizza and just plane ole family fun!





Serious basketball!

Pearson wanted to ride the motorcycle ride, but then held on to Brian's arm for dear life during the ride.

Mother's Day

We are enjoying our last few weeks here in Colorado Springs before we head to the hot sauna, AKA Texas!

I had a very special Mother's Day and am so blessed to be these boys' mommy! We went to Fox Run Park and enjoyed the sunshine and another park we love here!

Pearson tried to climb the rock wall and Aaron loved the very cold stream!

My sweet honey and me! Thanks for making it a special day for me!

Lots of fun lately!

We have been having a lot of fun enjoying our spring in Colorado Springs. We are trying to play at all our fun places and with all our awesome friends before we head to TX this summer. We had a play date every day last week except Friday when a terrible stomach bug hit the house and each one of us! It has been a fun weekend re-cooperating from that. Other than that, here are some pics from our fun adventures!

We went to the zoo a few weeks ago and had a blast!

We were also very blessed with a great deal to go to the Sky Sox Baseball game!


Brian was able to go to Barnes and Noble for story time with the us! He is such an awesome daddy! Now, why won't Pearson sit in my lap like that when we are there?

The boys wrestling at Focus on the Family ( a norm at our house)


I love this hat and sweater and am so glad Aaron was able to wear it a couple of times. Here's Pearson wearing it at about the same age. I just love, love this thing, thankfully Mom and I got a great deal on it! Maybe that's why I love it so! Such a sweet pic of Aunt Tam and Pearson from Christmas 2008.



The boys and I after church today:

Potty Training 101

To blog or not to blog about this???? Is the question! I am one proud mama, but not of anything I have done, but truly proud of Pearson. He is amazing and I am so grateful for him. Do my readers out there want to know about his successes and all the books we have read together that I found helpful? Please comment to let me know.

Ok, three yeses is enough for me! Here goes! Grab your favorite beverage and sit back and enjoy! Just kidding! :)

First let me say we have been talking about potty training for at least 8 months. For Pearson's birthday in August he received a new Fisher-Price Royal Step Potty that sings, new big boy underwear, and an Elmo potty book that makes noises. I knew we would need these items so I put them on his wish list. Thanks to fam he received all his wishes (and Mommy too). So over the past few months we have sat on the potty with clothes on, clothes off and just talked about it a lot.

Next let me preface to say I have a public library addiction! Brian loves to tease me about this. The elementary school teacher comes out in me when we get to the library! I can't help myself and have to check out a ton of books! I love, love, love our library system here and hope the next town we move to has a fabulous system too! I love that I can search for the books I want online and then put them on hold and a sweet librarian somewhere pulls them off the shelf for me and puts them all in the "hold" area for me. We have read 3 -4 sets of potty training library books over the past year. I found them to be very helpful.


I also like to read mommy books for me and then take what makes sense with my parenting style and use it. I really didn't follow one particular technique in any one book. Although these two books were my favs! Easy reads and practical
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I also have to credit my other mommy friends and my sister who have been where I am by giving me words of wisdom and encouragement. Thanks, Jenn H and Tammi!

So I decided I wanted to potty train Pearson while we are living in an apartment as I am not too concerned about the carpet here as I would be in a home we own. I felt like he was ready as he is a smart guy and is very verbal and I just felt like he was ready, call it mother's intuition.

So I decided we would begin on a Monday and not leave the house until Thursday. I used a calm, consistent approach. I told him he was going to wear big boy underwear and learn to go "pee pee" in the potty. So we took off the diaper early that morning and started wearing big boy underwear. I kept him in a t-shirt and undies. Now I will say, day one was terrible. Accidents all day all over the house! It took a lot of focused attention! I had to remember that his little body did not have a sensation to go and he would trickle all day. So a lot of cleaning went on that day. I learned to put wet undies in the sink with a cleaning solution(thanks, Jenn for this tip!) I would just remind him that we go pee pee in the potty and tried not to get upset with him. I stayed very positive and upbeat. I would say, "That's ok, we'll try again," I also set a timer for every ten minutes to sit him on the potty to try. We would read books together, sing, and talk during this time. I kept a basket of books in the bathroom with us. I even had a book for me that I had been wanting to read. :) Even if he didn't want to go, I would still take him there. At the very end of day one at 7:45pm he finally went pee pee IN the potty! I was so excited! We even called Nana and Papa and had a big pee pee celebration!!!

During naptime of day one: he was worn out!



Day 2 went much better! I learned his triggers this morning and knew when he danced/jogged around the house and yelled "I not need to go, Mommy!" That he did in fact need to go! I started stretching the timer to 15-20 minutes and he did so much better. Only three accidents this day! I also learned on this day that he needed an incentive, so we used m and ms. He receives one m and m for pee peeing in the potty. When the m and ms in this dish are gone, then they are gone.

Day 3 even better! No accidents all day and wearing underwear all day! He even started saying "I need to potty, Mommy!"
Day 4 we went to MOPS and he went there too! Wahoo!

Then on the weekend he started standing up to pee pee, which they say is important to teach boys soon. Also, I put him in pull ups when we first left the house just for safe measures. Also, I put him in pull ups and naptime and a diaper at nighttime just to be safe. I will tackle "night time" training later.

Now, the pooping in the potty is a whole other story, but it will come! I am trying to be very patient with this too.

Where was Aaron during all this??? I am sure you are wondering. Well thankfully he is a happy, go lucky little brother. Some of the time he was taking a morning nap, reading books in his bed, or sitting in the bathroom with us. :)

I don't write all this to toot my horn in any way, please know that. I am just one proud mama of my boy! And grateful to those who helped us! I hope some or any of this will help my mommy friends who have the potty training journey ahead. Take what works for you and leave the rest.