Potty Training Update

We're finally making progress with T3's potty training. Yes, we've resorted to bribing him with Skittles, but it's working! He's wearing underwear to school all day every day (awesome!). He also goes pee in the potty most of the time when we're at home; unfortunately, we're still having issues getting him to go poo in the potty at home. More often than not he poops in his underwear. Ewwww!!!!

Needless to say we were thrilled when he pooped in the potty on Sunday morning, but I'm not so sure we're thrilled about what he did tonight. He had to go poop while playing outside so he took his underwear off and proceeded to squat and poop right in the middle of the backyard. So not cool. Thank goodness Matt took care of that one! Looking at it with the cup half full, I suppose we should be glad that he didn't go in his underwear. Sadly, I'm waiting for the day he does this at one of T1's soccer games. Both he and T2 are rather comfortable dropping their drawers to pee anywhere outside, so I fear pooping on the soccer field while we are watching T1 is the next natural extension for T3. No pun intended.

Major Pet Peeve

Have you looked at the way kids and adults write on Facebook and other public sites? Bad grammar and poor spelling runs rampant and it drives me CRAZY! Since T1 recently got a FB account, I've been explicitly clear that it is not cool nor acceptable to misspell words. It's one of my major pet peeves! I know I have an occasional blunder, but it really bothers me when this happens and I work hard to prevent it. I don't think most people care, but I don't want T1 or myself to be like most people -- that's not our standard. So, you can imagine my horror when T1 posted the following on Facebook:

"I GOT A KNEW PHONE!"

Ahhhhhhh!!!!!! I was mortified! I immediately logged into his FB account and deleted the post and then explained to T1 that he would be writing lines next time I saw a misspelling like that. He knows I'm not kidding, so I chuckled today when I received the following text message:

"Call me. Please. And at your convienence. Sorry if I spelled that wrong. I don't know how to spell that."

I give him an A for effort for that one, and I feel rather confident he's going to suddenly become a better speller. That's my boy! He'll thank me later.

T1 Turns 12!

T1 turned 12 this month. Can you believe it? We're almost to the teen years! He has friends with thick fuzz that resembles the beginnings of a mustache. His feet are huge. There's a girl at his school that is pregnant. He enjoys social networking. He wears cologne. He buys his own shoes (old man loafers are his latest thing). He gave his number to five girls last week and changed his mind twice about which one was going to be his girlfriend. I don't think there is any turning back. Sigh... Thankfully, he's still my baby, my first born, my T. He still expects a hug and kiss each night. He gets scared when left alone. He loves to hear stories about when he was little. I'll hang onto these moments for as long as I can.

We celebrated T1s birthday a few different ways this year. First, a few days before his actual birthday, Matt and I gave him a ping pong table. He was thrilled! Next we celebrated T1's birthday together with his cousin Tanner. We had dinner, cake, and gifts at our house and then the kiddos all headed to Grandma Sara's to stay the night. They had a blast. Here are a few pictures:



On the night of his actual birthday, Nana and MamMa came over and we all headed to Adobe Verde for some yummy Mexican food. You can't go wrong with enchiladas verde and sopapillas followed by mint oreo ice cream cake. Yes, we all overate!

All in all it was another great celebration of the joy and blessings T1 has brought us since the moment he was born. We love you, T!

My boys love...

T1 loves his new hair gel. He spent $28 on it. (Yes, I know, that's ridiculous!) It's super duper uber strong - he might as well have gorilla glue in his hair. He also loves his new hairstyle. He recently got a new haircut and the cut was good, but his styling technique wasn't. With a little help from Keri, he is sporting a new hairdo and it looks great. We went shopping the other day and he stopped and looked at himself in every mirror we passed.

T2 loves John Denver and wedgies (not necessarily at the same time!). His favorite John Denver song is Rocky Mountain High. He begs to hear it every time we are in the car and he sings it at the top of his lungs. He must have an old soul. Tonight he was asking Matt to give him wedgies and he ended up giving himself a wedgie when Matt wouldn't. He was cracking up and doing it over and over again. What an odd way to get attention. Oh yeah, and he loves the number 50,000.

T3 loves his trains. He's been building long tracks around our house and rearranging them everday. He can focus on it for hours, so it's been rather peaceful at the Parker household lately. Can't complain! He also just reminded me he loves the number 2 and saying "poo poo".

No umbrella?

Today we had a tropical storm pass through our region and drop a ton of rain. I felt horrible because we didn't have a spare umbrella T1 could use when he walked home from the bus stop. Knowing how bad it was expected to rain, Matt quickly cut arm holes out of a trash bag and threw it in T1's book bag as he ran out the door this morning. I left work early today because of the poor weather conditions and happened upon T1 walking with friends from his bus stop and, yes, he was wearing the trash bag. At the time, it wasn't even raining that hard and none of his friends had umbrellas, hoodies, or anything else to protect them. When I asked T1 why he was wearing the trash bag, he laughed and said it was because he was white trash. Get it? See below:

Labor Day Weekend

T1 had a soccer tournament over the holiday weekend and he played really good. Matt, Lisa, and his mom and Marcus helped keep the little ones so I could go to the tournament alone and really focus on T1. Usually we're chasing around the little guys, breaking up their arguments, taking them to the bathroom, etc. so we're not able to really focus on the game. This weekend, though, I was able to watch every second of the game and I was really impressed with T1's skills and the decisions he was making. Unfortunately, by the time the last game was over he was limping from an injury and open blisters on his foot. His shoes had obviously gotten too small, so we headed to Academy and he picked out a pair of lime green cleats. He loves them and is now wanting to practice soccer every spare moment just so he can wear his new lime green shoes. We'll see how long this lasts.

While we were at the games on Sunday, Lisa, Sara, and Marcus took the little guys to the zoo. (Thank you guys!) I hear T2 and T3 were troopers, walking around all on their own and getting along relatively well. They each came home with their own zoo map and were looking at them intently listing everything they didn't get to see. Needless to say, they're anxious to go back! :)

After we recovered from the soccer games and the zoo, we headed to MamMa's house to visit MamMa, Nana, and my Uncle Bob and his wife Janet. Aside from MamMa forcing us to eat tapioca pudding and T2 being terrified of the angel head hanging in MamMa's bathroom, the boys were happy and enjoyable despite hanging out until about 10:30 p.m. Re: the angel head in MamMa's bathroom, T1 now uses angels to coerce T2 into compliance. For example, when T2 was taking forever to get in the car that evening, T1 told T2 "the angel's going to get you!" and T2's eyes filled with tears and his face washed over with fear. Poor baby...who's scared of angels?

All in all it was a great holiday weekend! Thanks to all who were a part of it!

He's finally three!

Yay Lisa! She told T3 this weekend that she couldn't get him a Christmas present if he wasn't three years old, so a month after his third birthday T3 finally acknowledged he was three years old. Until Lisa worked her magic T3 continued to insist he was two, but he now keeps reminding me he's "three and not two"! Maybe I should tell him I can't give him Christmas presents if he doesn't go poo poo in the potty? Hmmm....