Potty Trained

 I am pretty sure I can now say with confidence that Brian is potty trained!  How it all happened was a little different than I had envisioned.  Back in September when he was two and a half years old he seemed very interested, so we started the process.  He picked up quickly on how to use the toilet when I put him on it, but he could not recognize when he needed to go.  Not once during the next two months did Brian tell me that he needed to go to the bathroom.  Unless I bribed him to sit on the potty every half hour to an hour, he would have an accident.  After almost two months of many accidents and a little frustration on both sides I decided it wasn't worth the fight and Brian happily went back to wearing a diaper.  I decided to try again at a later date hoping he would have interest again in the future.  

For the next few months I would ask him periodically if he wanted to wear underwear.  The answer was always, "No, I want my diaper."  Then the day after his cousin Jordan's birthday party at the beginning of February, I asked Brian if he wanted to wear underwear and he said excitedly, "Like Jordie?"  He's been wearing underwear during the day ever since.  I guess in the last few months he matured enough and he was really ready.  He goes hours without needing to go and he tells me every time he does need to use the potty.  He's only had two accidents in a month and those were at the beginning when he was just figuring it all out.

The first potty training attempt was more difficult than I thought it would be, and the second attempt was much easier than I thought it would be.  I guess for Brian I should have waited until he was really ready.  In the end I'm just glad to have that hurdle out of the way.  Now we just need to get him night trained.  He does fine wearing underwear for his nap during the day, but he has never stayed dry at night.  This time I'll wait until he seems more ready before we attempt night sleeping without a diaper.

We are so proud of our Bri Bri!

Chinese New Year

My all time favorite Hsiao family gathering is always the yearly Chinese New Year Celebration.  It is a time to be together as a famly, enjoy each others company, make jiao zi (dumplings), exchange hong baos (red envelopes filled with money), and eat eat eat those delicious home made jiao zi and Suan La Tang (hot and sour soup).  Thank you Daniel and Alice for another fun party.  I love that Brian is old enough to start learning about and to enjoy these fun traditions that always bring the family closer together.  He is still talking about it.

 This was just before we left for Mark's parent's house.  Timmy woke up too early from his nap and was a little tired the rest of the day.

 Brian was so excited to wear his Chinese jacket to the party.

Brian learned quickly how to say the long Chinese New Year greeting "Gongxi Gongxi Xin Nian Hao."  He was able to say it somewhat coherently every time he received a hong bao.  Thank you family!

 Even the little kids joined in helping to make the jiao zi this year.  Rolling out (well mostly playing with) the dough kept Brian and his cousin occupied for a surprisingly long amount of time.

 

I sadly did not get any pictures of the final dumpling feast.  I was a little busy feeding the kids and myself to even think about it, but it was delicious and fun.  Brian ate so many dumplings and he even seemed to be keeping up with Mark for awhile.  I guess he is half Chinese after all.

January

1. We made it through the entire month of January with a healthy happy family.  After having someone or all of us sick throughout the entire months of November and December, making it through January healthy was so wonderful.  I've been working hard at washing everyone's hands and trying to stay away from other sick people.  Sorry to any friends or family we avoided while you were sick.  I still love you and hope you feel better soon, but I just had to do what I could to keep the kiddos healthy for a little while at least.

2. Almost two weeks ago, Brian graduated from his crib to a big bed.  He happily "helped" take the crib apart with daddy's tools and we said goodbye to it.  He now sleeps on the bottom part of the futon bunk bed we have.  The top part is currently in Timmy's room.  Brian took to this change better than I was expecting.  He has the tendency to get attached to things and he was tentative to give up his special crib he's been in for almost three years, but he surprised me and has been sleeping really well.  He goes to bed and wakes up just like he did when he was in his crib and he is very happy about his "big boy bed."  I love the added space in his room for all the toys and books we are accumulating.  Because our basement is occupied, we don't have a play room, or a storage room or even a storage closet, so finding places for the toys and books has been a challenge.  Maybe someday I'll move on from just trying to make a room functional to actually decorating.  Anyway, I am proud of Brian for adjusting so well!

3.  Brian is at such a fun age right now.  I am thoroughly enjoying everything about him.  He is fun, funny, social, happy, imaginative, and down right cute.  I find myself missing him when he is sleeping, and that is a new thing for me.  He keeps me and Timmy entertained and laughing all day long.  He loves playing with his trains and cars, playing with play dough, playing hide and seek, singing, dancing, watching Super Why, Dinosaur Train or Little Bear on TV, and reading books.  His favorite thing is still playing outside, but it's just been too cold most days.  He and I can't wait for some warm weather.

4.  Timmy is on the move!  For over a week Timmy has been army crawling around the place.  He is getting more and more determined to get to things every day, but he still gets very frustrated with his current state of immobility and wants so much to get himself to a sitting position.  He has yet to figure that one out.  At least he can get to a toy he wants by dragging himself along the floor on his tummy.  He has a special place in his heart right now for the toy keyboard and anything Brian is playing with.  Now that Timmy can actually move towards whatever Brian is playing with, Brian is having to learn how to keep certain things out of Timmy's reach.  It is the beginning of a new chapter in our lives, this fighting over toys and keeping unsafe items out of Timmy's hands and mouth.

He still loves the backpack and so do I.

5.  January was busy, but not too busy at work for Mark and he did take one business trip to Mexico.  He has been playing basketball with the Young Men and with the Elders and wants to stay in shape.  He has also had a lot of church meetings, many of them occurring now at 7:00 am on Sundays. Our church schedule changed from 1:00 pm to 9:00 am and it has taken almost all of January to adjust, but we like having the time after church to visit Mark's parents when we can.

6.  Since the new year I have been trying to keep up with a few goals of my own.  We've been reading a little bit of the Book of Mormon with the kids in the morning before Mark leaves for work and saying family prayers night and morning as well.  I hope we can keep this (or something similar) up through the year.  I've also been working on cleaning the kitchen as I go throughout the day so it's not a total disaster every night.

Mark and I are excited for this year and we have a long list of projects (mostly to be done outside) we want to accomplish!  We welcome 2011!

Timmy: Almost Eight Months

I  never got around to writing a post about Timmy at seven months old because it landed right during our trip to San Diego.  Now he will be eight months in one week and I have been wanting to record a few new things about him before I forget.  Since six months there have been some pretty significant changes with this guy.  

He now has two teeth on the bottom and I was surprised at how much teething bothered him.  I'm not looking forward to having the next set of teeth come in.

His hair has really filled in and he no longer looks bald on the sides.  His new hair is dark and straight as can be.  It now lies flat and forward, making any kind of cool spike do difficult.  I'm used to the total opposite with Brian's hair.

Timmy is still growing and growing.  All his clothes are currently 12 month size or larger and I don't know how much he weighs, but I guarantee he's no small dude.  

He has a stronger desire to move around and he rolls and reaches to get toys, but he's still far from getting up on his knees and crawling.  If I set him in a sitting position he enjoys sitting for a time playing with his toys.

Timmy smiles a lot, but he only giggles if we work hard to please him.  Usually those giggles come when Brian laughs in Timmy's face or when I tickle him.  He gets super excited when Mark gets home from work and flaps his arms up and down and kicks his legs really hard.  Then if Mark doesn't immediately hold him, he protests with some major whining.

Timmy's favorite people are of course Mark, Brian and me.  Like I said, he gets so excited when he sees his daddy and he always wants to be in the same room as Brian.  He is generally fine to be held by strangers as long as he doesn't see me around.  For example, if I am talking to someone at church and they ask to hold him, he'll go to them initially, but as soon as he looks at me and realizes that I'm not holding him he gets nervous and begs to be back in my arms.

His current nicknames are: Timmy, Timmer, Timmers, Tim-Tim, Tims, and Buddy.  

He is a pretty good eater and is eating any solids that he can mash with his gums.  He definitely has his favorites though.  Like most babies, he loves cheerios and bananas.  For months I have been working with him on learning how to suck water out of a sippy cup or a straw.  It has been a battle, but I'm happy to say that I won this one and he figured it out just this afternoon.  He is currently still nursing and I haven't needed to or attempted to give him a bottle for the last six months.  This may have been a mistake, because after struggling to keep him eating off both sides for his entire life, he has in the last week finally won that battle and is only nursing from one side.  I'm fine with it for now, but he may have to learn to drink his milk from a bottle after all.  I could see him taking to it either really easily or really struggling with it.  We'll see what happens in the next few months.  Luckily he's a pretty big boy and I'm not worried at the moment that he's not getting enough.  

Last of all we come to his sleeping patterns.  I am overjoyed to report that he is SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!  It wasn't until we returned from San Diego and he was over seven months old that it has been a consistent thing.  Not only is he sleeping through the night, but he is sleeping at least 12 hours every night.  Usually it is more than 12 hours.  He usually goes to bed by 6:30 pm and he almost always wakes up between 7:15 and 7:45 a.m.  The last few days it has been 7:15 a.m. on the dot.  I'm hoping it doesn't get any earlier than that.  He takes two naps a day.  His first nap is always around 9:00 a.m. and his second nap varies depending on how long he slept that morning.  I try to get him to sleep just after Brian goes to sleep for his nap so it is most often around 12:30 p.m. 

We are loving Timothy at this age!

San Diego Favorites

Besides spending time with my parents, here are a bunch of other favorites from our San Diego vacation.

The Mormon Battalion Historic Site

Brian calls it the Visitor Center and it continues to be his favorite place in San Diego.  This trip he particularly enjoyed the cannon, the brick making station, of course the gold panning, and the wagon in front.  The Center is truly a wonderful place to visit and it is so fun to see my parents running the place.

The Beach and Sea World

 We had a warm enough day to spend some time on the beach.  Brian would have stayed all day if it weren't for the cold.

 Mandy and Brian were in San Diego for about half the time we were there.  It was fun to have them there with us!

 

We went back to Sea World three different times.  Christmas break was a very crowded time to visit, but still fun.  Our favorites were feeding the stingrays and the sea lions and Brian loved the kiddie rides.

Christmas

On Christmas Eve Mandy and I played for the Missionary program at the Battalion Center while Mark stayed with the kids.  Christmas morning we opened a few presents that we had brought and Mandy made us all breakfast, then we went to Sea World later that day.

 

Brian was entertained through the morning by the playdough set Santa brought him.

 He was also super excited about his gift from Grandma and Grandpa.  He ended up buying a little San Diego snow globe and a few other souvenirs to remember the trip.

 Timmy and I were somewhat grumpy Christmas morning because of a very rough night.  The little guy got sick the day after we arrived and stayed sick through the trip.

The Maritime Museum

One of my favorite places we visited.

 We toured the Star of India, which is the world's oldest active sailing ship.  It was fascinating and fun despite the seasickness I got from being on the boat.

 We also toured the HMS Surprise (featured in the film Master and Commander) and the B-39 Submarine pictured above. It was very interesting to see what life would have been like on both these vessels.  I just can't believe people spent months in submarines.  The picture below shows the largest open space on that submarine and the whole thing pretty much looked like this.  Metal, metal, and more metal.

From the top of the submarine we got to watch people board a cruise ship.  Brian loved hearing the ship's horn blast to let everyone know it was getting ready leave port.

Wild Animal Park

Our favorites here were the brand new baby elephant, the safari ride, Brian's carousel ride with Grandma and the rhinoceros statue.

USS Midway Aircraft Carrier

Touring the longest-serving Navy aircraft carrier was a real treat.  It was much larger than I was expecting and so fun for the whole family.

We are definitely missing San Diego right now.  Thanks Mom and Dad for an unforgettable experience.