Ok, so I skipped right past Christmas but I'd like to show you a
little peek into our wonderful holiday. A few days before Christmas we
visited with Forrest and Jancie and did a little celebration at their house.
I hadn't gotten my new camera yet, so unfortunately I don't have any
pictures of our fun there.
Then we headed up to the Sequoia Mountains, where grandma and grandpa have a cabin outside of the national park.
the river across from the cabin
This deer wasn't afraid of me at all, I was out playing with my new camera and he was the perfect subject
We met up with all of the
aunties, uncles and cousins and had a great holiday together.
I got an awesome new camera for christmas (thanks Leif!) and have been trying out all of the manual functions. It is great for pictures of the kids, and I've been snapping lots of those! I think I am driving Leif and Max a little nuts with all of my pictures ;-)
Here are a few moments from our normal days:
Cost Co- a weekly destination for the whole family
One of our days off during the holidays we went to the San Diego Botanical gardens. There is so much fun kid stuff to do at the gardens. The kids can climb in the tree hours, dig in the dirt, and Max even got to go sledding on the snow they brought in for the holiday season.
Max is running around by the sledding area
Hana is "building a wall"
Max has a new favorite activity. we'll be driving around town and Max will say "Mama, lets go Starbucks!" Our little kid LOVES his kids hot-chocolates. I swear he even knows how to spell it. The other day, i mentioned to leif that we should stop at s-t-a-r-b-u-c-k-s, and Max yelled "YEAH!!"
One thing about two-year olds is that they like routine. In fact, Max wants the same breakfast every day. "Papa, I want yogurt, 'nola and honey!"
Nice bed-head ;-)
Leif hung some new curtains in the dining room, and Max was quick to help with his new Christmas tools.
We've
had a cold snap here in San Diego the last few weeks. After too many days
in a row inside, last Saturday morning the kids were starting to feel cooped up.
The sun was shining and it was a balmy 36°, so we bundled up and headed out into the
backyard early in the morning.
All
of the grass was frosty-frozen, and there was a nice coating of ice in the
swings.
That made it even more fun! Sam raced around the yard, trying to knock the kids over... while all of us enjoyed the swing set.
We played and we played
until our fingers were frozen.
For our normal fans, sorry for the long time since I've checked in here. The holidays were wonderful and busy and it kept us all away from our regularly scheduled activities (including blogging).
Here's a quick update of some of our antics the last few weeks:
Lets skip right over christmas (for now, it was wonderful! Haven't processed the pics yet though ;-) On New Year's day we went to the La Jolla cove and had a beautiful day playing as a family.
This year the Keller's are serious about holidays, and Christmas is the grand-daddy of them all. Max is two and a half, and SUPER excited about celebrations, especially ones that involve presents.
Last weekend, after spending a fun Thanksgiving with lots of grandparents, lots of turkey and lots of potty-training, we quickly got down to the business of preparing for Christmas.
I convinced Leif that we needed to get our lights and tree up early, and the kids were our little helpers. Hana was recovering from a pretty serious fever, which meant that she slept a lot and her normally sunny disposition was mostly difficult to come by.
However, she still had a great time helping Max with the beads for the tree.
Max put the star on top of the tree (a coveted role in the Bauer tradition) and then we thought maybe we'd try an angel on top to see how that looked.
Max loved putting up the ornaments, leaving us with a very densely decorated patch of tree about 2 feet from the floor.
Even Samson is getting into the Christmas spirit very early this year.
I know you are all on the edges of your seat just waiting for the Potty up-date. Max did great this weekend. Saturday he had 3-4 successful "pee-pee in the potties", and Sunday he continued the trend. He's had a few accidents on both days but in the end we had more successes. One of those accidents happened on our neighbor's front-porch just as we were asking if Jackson could come out and play. Nice one Max.
Margo was super-lucky to face-time us at just the moment that Max was dropping the largest #2 ever into his little potty. I know she feels warm and fuzzy to have gotten to share that personal glimpse into Keller Life. Max was so proud to show Nana his poo-poo. (I'll admit it, Leif and I were proud too...look what OUR kid can do!)
It's day three in potty-training {take-two} and here are some important things I have learned about Max:
If you ask "do you have to potty?" The answer will always be "no." You cannot ask a kid this question when you are potty training...ever.
The books tell you to have him sit on the potty every 20 minutes until he goes. This is a recipe for failure with Max. He just feels nagged and potty time isn't fun if you HAVE to sit on the potty so often.
Chocolate chips are the perfect motivation. Instead of saying "time to sit on the potty" we say "Max, are you ready to try for some chocolate chips?" He likes to be empowered to make the decision himself.
We have 100% success when Max decides to sit on the potty. If it is his choice, he delivers the goods. When mama or papa guide him there, the hit ratio is much lower.
Charts and stickers may work well for some kids, but not for Max. I think he takes after his dad on this one (I was always one for gold stars). There is no quicker way to de-motivate Max than to start keeping track of his success.
Max loves big-boy underwear. Period. He is wearing undies all day when he's potty training, and now wears pull-ups for sleeping and naps.
Potty training = lots of laundry.
We plan to keep it up for the next two weeks, and hopefully we'll see some real progress!
PS. Max is doing a "Discovery Day" at a new pre-school today just to try it out. We've decided that he wasn't getting as much education/ interaction at his current school as we would like. Today's school has a camera in the classroom and I can check in on him from my computer. Here is a shot of max in action (that is him in the dark pants and grey shirt in the middle of the screen). Tomorrow we check out the Montassori School.
From time to time we make attempts at potty training with limited enthusiasm and limited success. We now have a little more motivation in that Max is starting a new school in December and they don't do much in the way of potty training.
So today we dove in again. Around 2 pm, after he had skipped his nap, max was rummaging around in the bathroom while I tried to conserve energy in the living room with Hana.
After a few minutes of muffled scrapes and banging Max yells "MAMA!!! I PUT SOMETHING IN THE POTTY!"
I am enough of a mom to be skeptical so I ask "did you put in something good or bad?" Hoping against hope he'd say pee-pee...
"BAD!!!"
"Max, what did you put in the potty?"
"I PUT SOAP IN DA POTTY!!"
Sheesh!
At the end of the day we've had 3 successful pees, and two accidents. Not so bad. Lets see how tomorrow goes.
