Sisters and Potty Training

I had to snap a few pictures today because I couldn't believe how high Emilyn can hold her head up all of a sudden. She's getting so strong, and a little chunky too! I'm glad she's filling out and growing even with all the spit up business.

I always wanted a sister that lived at home with me to play with, share secrets with, teach me things, you know sister stuff. I'm wondering what Emilyn thinks about that subject when she's being squished and sat on by her big sister! Matisyn can't keep her hands off of her still, and can't resist telling everyone how cute she is and how much she loves her baby. Here is a great example of how helpful she is with Emilyn. Snuggles up above. . . and then

Helping her hold her head up. . .

Angry face being squished together by big sister. . . and then

Tears and sadness. Matisyn has accomplished her mission!


Here we are on a girls night out. I'm so lucky to have such great friends. We have so much fun together, I'm always surprised with how much we laugh together. I always come back happy. We used to be in young women's together so we spent quite a bit of time together. We created our nights out to make up for our missed time.

My mom was finally able to come visit this week. It has been so wonderful to have her here. She made this night out possible by staying with the girls even though Matt had stuff to do. She even managed to get my stubborn little eater to take a bottle for the first time so I could stay away a little longer. Matisyn and I are voting for Grandma Karen to move in with us because it is so nice to have her here, but I'm thinking we might wear her out a bit! Matisyn loves having a constant playmate and I love having the company and the help. We miss her all the way in California!

Grandma the baby whisperer, calming my hungry baby enough to go to sleep!

Taking her first bottle, well drinking her first bottle, there have been a few attempts before this one. I'm hoping this means some hope for me!

In Matisyn news:

The biggest news is that with the help of Grandma we have been successfully POTTY TRAINING this week! I'm crossing my fingers that this will be the real thing and we can really say we are potty trained. She has gone four days now with panties, only wearing a pull-up when she sleeps and only had two accidents. The accidents were just trying to figure out when she had to go, to put it politely, #2! Today there have been no accidents, and she even went upstairs on her own to go #2 in the big potty. What finally seemed to work was a combination of teamwork between my mom and me and buying a little potty to put in the family room, so that she didn't have to go so far everytime. For some reason she decided it was time and has been just going when she needs to go. Plus she has been getting an unreasonable amount of treats throughout the day just for going, and occasionally a new movie or princess from Grandma. We are not too good for bribery! Whatever works at this point we'll go with. I'm just hoping that when the treats and the cheers slow down that she will still be "potty trained". Sometimes she does go and not request a treat afterwards, so it's very possible that we have crossed a big milestone. I'm still holding my breath, but Grandma's convinced she's got it!

In other Matisyn news, she has decided we have a pet. On the way home from California she said out of the blue, "Mommy, Daddy, we forgot our kitty." Then later said maybe it was a doggy. She then told her friend who is extremely afraid of animals that she had a kitty. The friend said real or pretend, and Matisyn said real. She does have a vivid imagination, but for those of you wondering, we are not getting a new pet in the midst of having a newborn!

Matisyn also asked if we could have Christmas tomorrow because she slept when Santa came last time. I like her reasoning and I'm sure it has nothing to do with the presents Santa brings.