Potty Talk and Words We Shouldn't Say

*Warning* This post contains blunt, but funny stuff.

In the last couple of weeks, Pierscen has started recognizing when he has pooped and let me know. He will grab his diaper and say, "I pooped." So I will ask him if we should go change him and he immediate runs to his room saying, "Diaper!"

Honestly, it's been pretty great. I appreciate him letting me know and it's a good step toward potty training... someday. (Not anywhere in the near future.) 

Well, the other day I... shall we say... "let one go." Pierscen immediately ran around to my back side, poked me in the rear, then grabbed my back pocket and tried to lift it up.

"Poop? Poop?" he asked.

"Nope, no poop. Sorry buddy," I replied.

"All gone?" he asked.

"Yup. It's all gone." 

I laughed pretty hard.

Yesterday while I was in Relief Society, the cute little young women brought him to me for a diaper change. I found a classroom, ducked inside, and changed his diaper. To my surprise, there was nothing there.

"No poop, huh? Did you just toot?" I asked him.

He pointed at his bum and said, "Toot," with a shrug of his shoulders. 

Ha! So there you have it. If he dealt it, he'll own up to it. But if you dealt it - be prepared because he will call you out on it too. :)  

Speaking of poop, we were babysitting one of P's friends the other day and the friend had a poopy diaper. As I was changing it, Pierscen stood by watching and said something that sounded exactly like, "Oh. My. G**." From that moment on, I noticed him saying something that sounded a lot like the "G" word all the time, and occasionally saying "Gosh." I started paying attention more closely to see if I was saying it a lot or something, but I don't! So I am trying to watch what I say just because coming out of his mouth it doesn't quite sound right. I have also learned that I shouldn't say "shoot" or try and get him to say "fox" quite yet. :) We are learning as we go.

2013 Summer Fun

One of the toughest things with moving to a new place is making friends. Last fall, one of the girls in the ward named Jen and I decided that we should start a Facebook Playgroup page. I had been part of one in our previous ward and it was awesome. We talked about it a million times saying, "Yeah, we should totally do it!" But it never happened. Until recently. 

Ryan was giving me a hard time about it (being all talk and no action) so I finally set the page up. I will admit that my hesitation was mostly that though I feel like I am a good people person and get along with just about anyone, I have a hard time being the one to set things up. I'm not a great initiator. But I stepped out of my comfort zone and went for it. 

So far, the group activities have mostly been dates at the park with fairly limited participation, but it's a start. Jen and I are also hoping to get a Girl's Night, Date Night, or Game Night going. We had our first Game Night a few weeks ago and it was a total blast. 

Anyway, so below are some pictures of a few of the things we have done this summer. 

Edness Kimball Wilkins State Park:

I went out with a group last summer, and to be frank, it sucked. It was really hot, there was no shade, and Pierscen was too young to care. (He was just learning to push himself up onto his knees.) So I was hesitant to go this time, but hey - I can't complain about not having friends if I don't make an effort.
 

This trip totally changed my mind! My friend Leslie set this play date up and she knew what she was talking about. The weather and water were perfect! We found a shady spot and Pierscen LOVED it!

I had no idea there were fish in the pond and I couldn't figure out why Leslie and her kids were throwing food in the water. Then I noticed the swarms of tiny fish attacking the bread they were tossing in. It was awesome! We also spotted a crawdad. (I almost stepped on it. Kind of freaked me out, but it was really cool at the same time.)

Honestly I think this was one of my favorite play dates. Most of the people that said they were coming backed out (not uncommon) but they way we see it - it was their loss!

I will definitely be making more trips out there in the future. It was totally worth it.

The pictures below have nothing to do with a play date. P and I had just finished a shopping trip and I had rewarded him with some yogurt covered pretzels. It was an awesome idea... until we got in the hot car and this happened:

But I couldn't resist snapping some pictures. Look at those gorgeous eyes!

Another great activity we had was actually the Elder's Quorum Party. We had a pot luck dinner, played volleyball (which I have no talent for other than serving underhand) and the kids had a blast playing in the bounce house and running around at the playground. It was so much fun!

One awesome thing that has come out of our playgroup page is that P and I met a new friend at the park. It just so happened that the first playgroup I set up was at Washington Park. There we met a little girl named Heidi. Her mom was 36 weeks pregnant with twin boys. At first I wondered if someone else had invited her to the group (friend of a friend) but it turned out she just liked going to the park early in the morning too. So I invited her to the group and we met up at the park most mornings and let the two little ones run around together. The twin boys have since been born (though she kept coming to the park up until about 39 weeks) and P had his first play date over at Heidi's house a week or so ago. It was really great! You never know when you will meet a new friend.

The page has been a hit and a miss for us. Some weeks have been good, others have been a total loss. But we are trying. One of the ladies I invited to the page was from our last ward. She has a group of her own that is geared toward preschool age kids, but anyone is invited. We have joined that group too and I think we will get to do some great things with that one. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago we went with them to the Green Acres Corn Maze. It was a blast! But that will be a post in and of itself just because of all the pictures. :)

To end with... here is another non play date related picture. P is, unfortunately, in that phase where the toilet is really cool. I caught him multiple times trying to fill up Dodger's water bowl with water from the toilet. I stopped him each time and finally filled it up from the sink. I thought P was just trying to be nice for his hairy brother, but no... turns out he was just thirsty himself.

I am sure grateful I didn't let him fill up with the toilet water! Sigh... they say you learn a lot from those around you. I guess that applies to animals too. ;)

Speaking of Fall Hazards

 Following Pierscen's attempt to crawl off the deck, we turned our attention to the back deck/porch/stairs. We still don't really know what to call it. Anyway, the existing deck/porch/stairs consist of three railings with large gaps between each one.

Pierscen has always been really good at taking the stairs, but for some reason, right around the same time that he tried to crawl off the deck, he decided that crawling through the gaps was much better than taking the stairs. Exhibit A:

And though the fall in this case would not be very bad, no fall is better than any fall. So we went and purchased a bunch of balustrades and went to work.

I love having a handyman husband. He is willing to tackle just about any project. :)

P, of course, was eager to help. He handed screws to dad through the posts, helped draw the cut marks with a pencil, and checked the leveler to make sure we were doing things right. :)

 Those balastraudes went up just in time too. Case and Point:

The posts didn't stop him from trying to crawl off backwards, but they at stopped him being successful in the endevor.

The stairs were a bit trickier since they needed to be cut at an angle, so they didn't go up that day. However, it has since been totally completed and not only does it look really nice - it is now baby proof. Yeah us!

Pretty snazy, eh? It really wasn't a difficult project. We need to do the same thing with the walkway leading to our front door, but we are waiting until we have finished chopping down the big tree in case we have a mishap and take out half of the railing. Not worth finishing a project that might get destroyed by another one still in progress, right?

Where'd The Money Go?

 As everyone knows, we have a lot of projects planned for this house. Deciding what gets priority has been a challenge, especially because so many of the things we want to do/need to be done cost quite a bit of moola. That being said, our first big ticket item: The driveway.

Initially our thought was just to finish the unfinished part. The pictures below are from a year ago when we first moved in. However, the whole driveway was in need of help, especially because the current drainage system was A. Not working, and B. Just a bad idea to begin with. So we decided to bite the bullet and redo the whole thing.

To our pleasant surprise, when we returned from Colorado Springs, construction was well underway.

Progress came in stages. Once everything was torn out they were able to bring in lots of leveling dirt and gravel to pack in. 

Once that was done, Ryan went to work on the new drainage system. I don't have a good picture of what it was like before, but I'll do my best to describe it in case anyone cares. Unfortunately, our driveway does angle down toward the house which is not a great thing when it comes to rain. The existing answer was to dig maybe a foot down right in front of the garage, put in some gravel, and then put a grate over it. Okay, so at least there was a place for the water to collect instead of pooling into the garage. But from there, there was no where to go. It just seeped into the soil and sat right against the foundation of the house... which isn't typically a very good idea. So after lots of discussion, Ryan and Nick - the concrete guy, decided to do a sump pump system. Ryan bought the parts and did the digging. Now the water will run into some drain pipe, which is several feet away from the driveway, and then run into a container in the ground. Someday in the future we will get the pump to actually pump it out to the street, but for now, at least it is away from the house.

One day while Ryan was down working on digging the pit, Pierscen was watching him from the deck above. I was working in the kitchen and popping my head out periodically to see how P was doing. He loves to hang out on that deck. While I was inside, I thought I heard Ryan call my name, but couldn't quite hear him. I held still and listened closely. This time I heard my name much more clear. I dashed outside to see what the matter was.

In the corner of the deck, there is a hole in the lattice. It really isn't that big. However, Pierscen wanted to be down with dad so badly that he turned himself around and tried to crawl off the deck backwards through it. From that spot, the drop would have been disasterous. I ran out to see Pierscen stuck halfway out the hole.

Ryan was standing beneath him, but he couldn't reach him. I am so grateful that Ryan was there though! I can't even bring myself to think of what would have happened if he hadn't been there. As it was, I believe that we definitely had help from the other side. There as no real reason for him to get stuck. Had he not gotten stuck, Ryan wouldn't have even known he was coming. He was only alerted to him because he started crying when he got stuck. I was able to pull him back through to safety and that hole is now covered. I am so grateful to our Heavenly Father for protecting him!

Once the hole was dug for the water basin and the new draining pipe was put in, they were able to set up the grid for the cement poor. Ryan covered the drain pipe with duck tape to keep the cement out. The driveway runs down to the drain pipe and then ramps back up a bit before you reach the garage. That way the water runs to the pipe instead of toward the garage. Much, much better.

Pierscen was able to put his hands in the cement. He thought this was great fun. I knew after we did this that we would need to try extra hard to keep him away from the cement because he would want to do it again and again.

They poured in sections a few days apart. Each day I had to go out every few hours and hose it down to keep it from drying out too fast.

One evening before the project was complete, we got hit with a crazy rainstorm. It was incredible. Unfortunately though, since the curb hadn't been poured yet, there was no gutter for the water to run down. It found the lowest point, which happened to be on the side of the newly poured section where the retaining wall will be eventually, and pooled down to the bucket. This would have been fine, but there is no sump pump in it yet - so it is just that. A bucket. There was so much water that our garage was almost flooded.

Even though we weren't really supposed to be walking on the driveway yet, we had no choice but to grab a few extra buckets and start bailing water. We ran most of the water to the street, but toward the end, Ryan started tossing it over the wall, which runs down a small hill to the street anyway.

Pierscen naturally thought this was awesome. Lots of puddles to splash in, fun rain, and mom and dad running around like crazy trying to fix things. :)

He tried to help, but mostly just chased a ball around and dipped it in the water puddles.

Ryan grabbed a small pump he had for a different project and tossed it in the sump bucket and started pumping out the water. It's not ideal for long term, but in a bind, it does the job.

Much, much better. Ryan was late for work that day because of it, but at least our house didn't get flooded.

At long last the curb was finally poured. The curb cut was what added quite a bit of cost to the project, but it was worth it. When they originally poured for our property, I think they must have just guessed where the driveway was going to go because the curb cut is underneath the flower bed. Trying to get into our driveway almost required 4 wheel drive. The new section is so much better!

We kept the stakes and tape they had up for several days to make sure the driveway was solid. The final product looks so good! I can't wait until the retaining wall is up because it will look amazing. It's so much better already!

To officially break in the driveway, Ryan and Pierscen pulled out the sidewalk chalk and went to town. Watching them together scribbling and drawing away was pretty priceless. I love these two!

We are really happy with the way things turned out. Yes, it was a hit to the bank account, (time to save up again) but I think it was a huge improvement and it adds some great value to the house. Never underestimate the power of curb appeal!  :) Can't wait to see it all completed.