Help - I'm trapped with two potty training toddlers!

This has been quite a week. Last week the decision was made to dedicate this week to potty training the girls - no short trips to the store, no story time at the library, basically no leaving the house. We were going to dedicate all our time to potty training - period!

It is always good to have dreams.....

The week started off as I had anticipated - lots of messes and much fussing about the messes, but the girls were thrilled with the fact that they could earn stickers for their Potty Posters. Anna actually went in the potty twice and Ashlyn went once. Well - that was the beginning of the end.

Ashlyn decided she wanted NO part of the potty and started "holding it" for several hours which brought back horrible memories of all the issues we had with her and her surgery in May. After the second day of her screaming at me because she was holding it and would not get near a potty I decided to call her pediatric urologist and our pediatrician. Anna was also holding it, but not for near as long and she was not as traumatized by the whole experience as Ashlyn was. I was basically insane after the end of the second day and there were many moments where I found my head in my oven, but after my husband drug me out of there I was fine (kinda).

The urologist and our pediatrician called back with the same advice - don't push Ashlyn any more, but continue with Anna as maybe that would make Ashlyn want to do it more (nothing like peer pressure). So that is what we have been doing. We introduced M & M's to the mix on the second day and that has been a REAL motivator. Since Anna gets one if she sits on the potty for 5 minutes (and she does a great job at sitting for LONG periods of time) then Ashlyn has been more willing to try out the potty sitting process. They get 5 M&M's if they use the bathroom on the potty and a huge parade occurs. Yes - I'm sure many of you are laughing at the thought of us marching around our house singing "Pee Pee" songs at the top of our lungs. I can live with that.

So we are now on day five of potty training boot camp and things are going okay - Anna is still doing a great job and we aren't pushing Ashlyn, but she is coming around. Wish us luck!

Tons of presents, but the styrofoam "bubbles" are the winner...

I have many more pictures to post, but I wanted to get something on the website since I haven't had a chance to lately. We all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's. As you can see in this picture, we think the girls (Ashlyn in pink & Anna in blue) liked the little styrafoam packing bubbles better than the presents they got - isn't that always the way.....

We spent Christmas Eve with Papaw (Chris' Dad)& Mamaw Riggs, Uncle Travis and Jamie in McMinnville. We had a great time and the girls were on their best behavior. They must have known Santa was watching closely.

Christmas morning was spent at our house with Grandpa & Grandma Cook (my parents). That is when this picture was taken. They must have played with this stuff for about 15 minutes before we got them to move on with other presents - hysterical.

Nana (Chris' Mom), Pappy, Uncle Spencer and Grammy (Pappy's mom) came over later in the afternoon and we had our Christmas with them. We then ate a big meal and spent most of the time playing with the girls. Actually, Uncle Spencer spent most of the time teaching his brother Chris how to play with his new XBOX - not a small task.

The girls and I went to Pearl, Mississippi (near Jackson) the week after Christmas to spend time with my mother's parents (Mimi & Grandpa Ray to the girls) and my Uncle Steven & Aunt Teresa. That was a great trip as well and I will tell more about that in another post.

I plan on getting many more pictures on here as soon as I get them edited. I'm just glad I was able to finally download them all.

Happy New Year to everyone and God Bless!