HELP!

This is the face of terror! I know she looks innocent, even a bit cute, but it's all a ploy! She is really out to get me. Her tactic is to drive me insane, and it is working!

Potty training is an overwhelming undertaking for me. I really feel out of my element. I know you're supposed to stay positive and everyone makes it sound so simple, but I have no idea what I'm doing. For example, do I put her in panties or pull-ups, if panties then what about sleeping, and do I reward her for staying dry or just for using the potty, and if she loves candy so much why won't she pee for it? These are just a few of my concerns. If anybody has some advice I could really use it. I've looked online, but I need practical advice, a mentor even. I know I got Jackson trained somehow, but Brooklyn is a different personality. She doesn't seem to want to go. She will sit on the potty and read and play but no action. Then she will have an accident while I am busy in another room. And she always tells me she's "poopy" (that's what she says for wet too) just after she has an accident. What can I do? Why am I so inept at this?

Here she is with all her entertainment. She brings all these things to the potty with her.

At least she is able to stay dry for a few hours at a time. We were able to go to Jackson's school today for his Halloween parade (all Halloween pictures will be coming soon). She stayed dry the whole time. I am committed to this. I just need some support from those who've been here and survived. (BTW, is there a T-shirt for this because I am definitely buying it!)

I'm Slow

Ok, I finally just checked my messages on my phone and have found the best place to look up our house. Go to www.exitrealtyidahofalls.com. The MLS # doesn't seem to work so just look at the Basalt home. That one is ours. Good luck, anyone want to buy it?

What the heck!

Okay, I'm tired of it being so hard for everyone to look up my blog. As of today, I'm just going to open it up to everyone! Are you ready for this world?

The other "what the heck" is more of a question, "What the heck?" Between the two girls I changed 6 (yes, six) dirty diapers this morning all before 10 am. And to top that, the first one woke me up at 5 am. That has been the motivating factor for me to get religious about potty training Brooklyn. I chose Brooklyn because of the three (Jackson wears his pull-ups at night) she seems like my best hope. That being said, she is my strong-willed child too. (It's probably a horrible thing to put labels on your children, but Jackson is my passive aggressive child and Dakotah has yet to stake her claim in the family.) Brooklyn is the one who will get into trouble just to see if she can get caught. She loves being chased and would sell her soul for anything sweet. I'll keep you all updated on her progress. That way you can all tease her when she is about 16 on how she used to take her diaper off when it got poopy and make Daddy chase her around the house to clean up the drippings. (Yesterday)

Until then, I wish a dry diaper day to you all.

The house is online!

Well, we signed all the paperwork and have now hired a realtor. What a relief just to have someone else take care of all that stuff! It is now listed online. I went to realtor.com to find it, but I'm sure you can look it up on a number of different sites if you are curious. (MLS#155799)As of right now there are no pictures. They are coming soon. Tomorrow we are going up to get the last of our stuff out of the house and our realtor is going to meet us there and take pictures and get our key. I am VERY anxious to get the house sold. The profit won't be a whole lot since we didn't live there long, but it would be nice to not have to pay the winter utilities and put our house payment to better use. The nice thing about hiring a realtor is that he ran a CMA report which determined that we were probably asking too low. Now we have added about $9,000 to our asking price. (Just enough to cover the realtor fees I guess.) That works for us. This realtor sold a house near us at the end of August in 5 days. I can only hope ours will sell fast too. Keep your fingers crossed.

New Family Pictures!

I am so excited about these pictures. We have never had any good professional pictures taken of our family. These pictures were taken by Dayne's neice Courtney. She is 16 and well on her way to becoming a professional photographer. I hope you enjoy looking at our family.

In other news; I have been talking to a realtor about our house. He has looked at it and will be giving me an estimate sometime today (I hope) of how much we should ask. In hiring a realtor I realize we are not going to make as much money on the house, but we will be relieved to have it sold and free up our payments and utility costs this winter. Also it is very difficult to sell a house when you live out of state. So I think this guy will relieve alot of our stress. Hopefully the house will sell soon. We've been assured by our old neighbors that it should go quickly. Basalt is a small town that wants to stay small. It is difficult for people to build there, so if someone wants to live there, they basically have to wait until a home is available. Good for us, hopefully good for someone else real soon.

In the mean time, happy fall to all our friends and family!