Big Potty Day for Caleb!

Today was a major breakthrough in Caleb's potty training. But first, a little background on the topic. We were wanting to potty train Caleb before his little brother made his debut, but I just didn't feel that I'd be able to be consistent with it right now. A friend of mine told me about the book "How to Potty Train Your Child in 1 day." It worked for her and so she let me borrow it. As I mentioned my concerns to her, she said "Have AJ do it." What a brilliant idea! So I came home that night and told AJ that I had a present for him. To my surprise, he agreed and got to work reading the book the very next day. We had the date planned where it was just him and Caleb doing potty boot camp. He had one good pee and a couple of accidents. I thought that was great since Caleb hadn't used the potty at all before that. AJ was a little discouraged, however I just thought maybe Caleb wasn't ready. Still, this past week we'd spent hours sitting on the potty, talking about the potty, and running around half naked in training pants - all with no luck.

Well this morning, AJ had him going to the bathroom and playing in his training pants. We combined techniques from the book with techniques we did with William and had him on the potty every 15 minutes or so (all while he was guzzling water and juice.) It took a couple hours, but he went pee pee!!! I was upstairs at the time and came running down when I heard the cheering and joined in. I started jumping up and down and Caleb just loved that and started jumping too. He was so proud of himself! So after he dumped it in the big potty he said, "I do it again" and he did! Two more times! What a fun and joyful moment. It's such an amazing feeling to see your child accomplish something and be so proud of themselves (and this is only the beginning!) Then about an hour later, he pottied again. I'd say he went about 5 or 6 times the whole day, with no accidents. He even napped for a long time and woke up dry. He did so great today and we are just so proud of him!

And I must not forget the proud big brother... William was very helpful and supportive. Whenever the timer went off for potty time, William would tell Caleb it's time to go and he would sit with him while on the potty. He cheered and hugged his little brother and told him how proud he was of him too. They played in between so nicely and took breaks for the potty. It was a wonderful day here in the Porfirio home. It was kind of a lazy day, but seeing Caleb accomplish something so big and having my sweet boys get along and support each other made it just perfect!

A Day in the Life...

Believe it or not, I am a woman of few words for this post. However, I wanted to update the blog with some photos that I've taken with my brand new beautiful Canon DSLR camera that my sweet A.J. gave to me for Christmas. I'm still learning how to use it, so excuse some of the blurs, but some came out really great! My subjects for my practice have been the most handsome William and Caleb. These photos do capture typical moments and sum up a day in our life...
























iBabies



And I thought I'd throw this one in there as well. I'm 28 weeks pregnant with Baby #3 in this photo (taken 5 weeks ago.)

William's Pirate Birthday Party

Ok, so we're in February now and I'm just writing about William's birthday party, but I had such a fun time planning it that I wanted to make sure I wrote about it. As the title suggests, it was a pirate party. I gave William the option to have his party anywhere he wanted... Anywhere! I suggested his favorite locations and all he said was "I want it at home Mommy." My first thought was "Ugh!" I don't want to have to prep my house for yet another birthday party, but once he said he wanted it to be a pirate party I started getting excited too.

For starters, you can't have a bunch of pirates running around without eye patches and bandanas! Annette, my mom, and I spent the night before the party cutting fabric and making eye patches - pink for the girls and black for the boys. I couldn't have done all that without their help!




They came out really cute and the kids loved them!








For games, we had a pin the patch on the pirate poster and a treasure hunt. The kids had a list of items to find in the sand pit and by groups the kids dug for their treasure. I should have done 2 buckets, but this seemed to work out ok with the little ones.





And of course they had their loot bags tied with rope to keep all their treasure plus a few other goodies.



The pirate cake was beautiful and tasty!







The main reason William wanted to have the party at home is because he wanted a water balloon fight. That was fine for me since we have a blow-up pirate pool and it's usually very hot on William's birthday. Not this year! It was barely 70 degrees, way too cold for swimming and even a balloon fight. So, I had to improvise and we had all our little pirates get the "Big Bad Captain" (A.J.)with the water balloons! It was a sight to see and the kids had a blast! My only regret is that I didn't do more balloons... although I'm not sure how A.J. would feel about that. ;)






William loved having all his friends over and kept saying this was his best birthday ever! I loved it because he's old enough now to truly enjoy it and understand what a birthday is all about.




Madeline came up with Grampy and MaMere which was a treat. Brody and Brodie were there as well as some of his classmates, Hutch from this year, and Dylan from last year. Also, Addyson and Family. He hasn't seen Addy in quite a while, but at the end of his party they seemed to be picking right up where they left off.

They were deeply involved in the cutest conversation - which I'm sure was much more interesting than any babble they had a year and a half ago!



William's actual birthday was a few days before the party and we spent the day at Monkey Joe's.





We had dinner and cupcakes at home then opened up some awesome presents. It was a great couple of days and I hope he felt as special as he really is!!!