Our new playground!

We have been waiting for a month for our beautiful playground to be open and yesterday it finally happened. The workers took down the orange gates and let in the mob of children. It was so exciting. It is really a great new playground equiped with picnic tables and a shade canopy. To top it all of, we got a rainbow to welcome our playground!



There are two parts to the playground!
Daniel is on the left climbing and Sophia is in the green on the bottom of the little slide!

This is the other section of the playground!

Could it get any better?
James loving the slides! Daniel hanging from the chain rope!
Sophia loves to go over the bridge! And to go down the slide... and tries to go back up the slide!
Daniel climbing again and again and again and again..... We stayed until the sun went down! There were lots of kids and no one wanted to go home! At 7:30 the sun was completely gone and we had to pull the kids from the playground and walk the whole way home... half a block!

Waimanalo Beach Park

So Today was our Ward Activity at Waimanalo Beach Park! Our ward provided lunch and lots of kids for my kids to play with. It was amazingly beautiful and so much fun! Here are some pictures of our day. What the pictures don't show... how sunburned we all got! We had applied sunblock, but clearly not often enough! Daniel is going to be our resident "beach bumb". He only left the water to eat lunch because mom made him and to wipe his eyes on the towel when the waves knocked him over! He had so much fun! Thank goodness James and Daniel had their cool SPF shirts on so only their faces got sunburned. They are really burned, but at least it is contained! We all really had a great time!
We got these cool body boards. I even got out and rode some waves. They are a lot of fun! James only liked to ride the small waves. He dumped a few times, but he was really brave!
Sophia spent most of the day under the umbrella. She doesn't like to sit in the sand so she was either in my lap, sitting on the towel, or sitting with Sterling! Sterling and I took turns holding her under the umbrella and playing in the water. We were at the beach from 9:30 to 3:30. We were having so much fun it was hard to pull ourselves away!
This isn't the most glamourous picture of us, but this is what we look like after a lot of fun playing in the ocean! The scenery is still beautiful!
This was a lot of fun! James and I were sitting on the body boards. Daniel and Sophia are sitting between my legs and we were just talking and having the waves come up to us! James had a lot of funny things to say and I was really enjoying my kids!

I really needed today! I love my family so much!

Do you want to see my trick?

(Note: Before you press play, you can pause the music on my blog by scrolling down to the music section and pressing the pause button, then you can hear the dialog between Daniel and I!)

Daniel found a way to entertain himself while I was unloading boxes last week. I should have put this on earlier but didn't get to it! It is very classic "Daniel". He makes me laugh a lot!

I was unloading boxes in the kitchen when Daniel comes down and says to me, "Do you want to see my trick?" So I stopped what I was doing and I couldn't believe it, he is such a nut! So I got my camera so that I could record it for everyone to see! Once I got the camera he wanted to do it more and more and kept saying, "record it some more mom!" What a funny little guy!

I don't know what I was so worried about!

Daniel is the man! Less than a week and he is accident free and doing it all on his own! He has mastered the potty. He has earned lots of little figurines and can do it all! (excpept I have to put his underwear and shorts back on when he is done!) He has had a dry diaper at night as well. I was so worried for such a long time about potty training him. He drinks so much and is a pretty focused kid. I really worried about it but he has proven me wrong! He did amazing! I am calling him potty trained. Thank you to you all for your support and inspiration!
We will go tomorrow to get Daniel his skate board and pads that he's wanted for so long. He has earned it! I guess when it sinks in that is all you need!
I love you Daniel, Great Job!

Day Five!

Today we let Daniel take the lead, not the timer. I didn't use the timer at all today. When Daniel had to go, he would say "Mom, I need to go potty" and he would go. He didn't need me for anything except to get his sticker and put his underwear back on. He has it down! YEAH! I must say he is doing much better than I had invisioned! He got 18 stickers today, pooped in the potty 3 times, and had one accident. The accident was really my fault! We went on a walk this evening around our little neighborhood and on the way back I stopped to talk to one of the neighbors. I should have brought him in to go potty, but I totally forgot about it! He made it inside and was trying to get his pants off, but just didn't get it done in time. I am so proud of him! He has done amazingly well for a little boy who drinks a liter and a half of gatarade every day. It hasn't dropped off during potty training, he still drinks a ton! I am so proud of him, he is doing great!

HE DID IT!

He did it! I don't know if I was more excited or if he was! I had already purchased some little figure guys that Daniel loves while we were in Utah for incentives in potty training. We had looked at them lots of times. Daniel really wanted the Zorro guy and his horse, but he could only earn them by pooping on the potty. After reading lots of feedback from my friends on ideas to get him to go poop in the potty, while Daniel went potty this morning I got out all the guys again and lined them up around the sink in the bathroom to show them to Daniel again. We were talking about how cool this guy was and how neat the dragon was, etc. and he did it! He started pushing and TADA! YEAH DANIEL! He was so great.. he just sat there and kept pooping, I must say that is the most excited I have been for poop in my entire life! What a man! We were very excited and we called Daddy at work to tell him all about it. Daniel wanted to tell Daddy about the guy he had earned and I wanted to tell him about our victory with the potty! All this and it's only 10:30am.. What a day it will be!

Day Four

He is starting to get excited again! He gets really excited when he tells me he has to go before the timer goes off! For two reasons, he gets a bigger sticker and because he is really getting it! He got 24 stickers today, no pee accidents, but still not pooping in the toilet! How do you get them to do that? He came right to me after he had pooped in his pants to have it cleaned up, but how do you get them to do it in the potty in the first place? All in all, he is doing pretty well and I am ready for a vacation!

Day Three!

So, he is showing progress! He told us a few times before the timer went off that he had to go potty! Yeah Daniel! He got 25 stickers today with only one accident. I was all prepaired at conference with my bag of a change of clothes, paper towels, and clorox wipes (Tina would be so proud!) to clean up when he had an accident, but I didn't need it at all! Sterling set his watch for every 25 minutes and Daniel did great!
His only accident was that he pooped in his pants instead of the potty, (While mommy took a nap! Daddy got to handle that one!) but no pee accidents at all! He has even woken up in the morning that last two mornings with a dry diaper! Yeah for us!
Go Daniel GO!

Daniel says "Look, I'm a turtle!" He puts his bumb clear to the back of the potty straddling the seat, his head on the front of the seat and the lid leaning against him. I'll beat you can't do that! I'll have to take a picture it is pretty funny!

Day Two!

So today went pretty well, 19 stickers(a 2 hour nap), 2 accidents, and still no poop! He has to go sometime right! I even have special prizes if he goes in the potty. I think he is just holding out. We will see how tomorrow goes, it will be our first adventure out of the house. We have Stake Conference, we will see how fun that is to go potty every 20 minutes for!
So far I am surviving Potty Training. Daniel is starting to like it less and less! But he still isn't showing many signs of being able to do it without the timer... when does that happen?

What a day!

So TODAY FINALLY we got our internet and cable hooked up! YEAHHH!!!

It was also day one of potty training Daniel. He did really well. The count for today is 2 accidents and a really great timer! He/we went potty 31 times in the potty today(plus 2 times not in the potty)! (He gets a sticker every time he goes so I just counted them all!) Now when was the last time you can say you did that? Even pregnant I don't pee that much! Yes, he was able to pee every time! IT WAS AMAZING! When you drink as much as Daniel there is a lot of pee to be had! I'll let you know how tomorrow goes!

I will take pictures of our house soon, as soon as there are less boxes and you can actually see living space! Hope everyone is doing well!