Happy Birthday Sweet Boy!

My Benny Tenny is one! (Not his middle name, we just call him that).

We made cupcakes:




Waited (not so) patiently for them to bake

While Benny napped, we wrapped his present!

I like to buy white paper and let the kids color it. It is more personal and then we can save money on a card! :)



After Daddy got home we had dinner and then it was party time



Gracie sang Happy Birthday to him at least 6 times, with the last being "Happy Birthday Benny cupcake..."
Tate cried when we wouldn't say it was his b-day and not Benny's. So He sang 'Happy Birfday everybodeeeee...." ha ha, we'll work on that.

Finally he got to open and play with his new toy!




Happy Birthday to my sweet Benny Bear, we love you more every day!

Review! Sesame Street Ebooks-Free Trial

This is my first review ever and I was so excited when I got the offer to review Sesame Street's new ebooks. These combine three of my kids' favorite things:
1. Books
2. Sesame Street (Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Grover, specifically)
3. Mommy's Computer

I set up a chair and asked G and T if they wanted to look at a book on Mommy's computer-they sprinted there.

It took a couple of minutes for me to get it all set up, so I suggest having it bookmarked already, but they were very excited to see their favorite characters on the screen. The site is super easy to navigate and I loved that there are several options to pick from.

1. You can manually turn/click the pages and read it your self. This is great to have time to say "Yeah, I see Elmo on that page, what is he doing?", etc.

2. You can turn on Auto Play and have the pages turned for you. Great if you want to put the keyboard or mouse out of reach from little hands.

3. You can have the book read by the site "Audio Play". I love this because it is with character voices and it highlights each word as it is read to the kids.

4. Finally, there is "Interactive Play" which enables you to move things around, count, and interact with the story itself.

Once you find the books you like, you can save them to come back to time and time again.

If that all weren't cool enough, you can read a color book and print out the pages on your home printer! This was a big hit for my twins since we are knee deep in potty training!


I've got nothing but good things to say and you can check it out for yourself. Sesame Street is offering a free weekly trial for my readers! Click on the link on the top/ right side of my blog and you can play around with the featured item of the week for free. Happy reading!

Birthday Shirts!

I just got the kids' shirts for Benny's party in the mail! So excited!

Gracie and Tate's have ties on the front (hers is pink and orange) and she has pink buttons on the sleeves.


Benny's is a mustachio'd (totally a word) face befitting the birthday boy!


They all have their names on the back! LOVE!


You can check out my friend Sara's blog here to see her other shirts!

Works in Progress

Sean was in AZ all week for work and I just barely survived.

This week continues to be a bit crazy with preparing for Benny's 1st b-day party and the non-stop fun of potty training.

A week later and we have made real progress. Gracie is wearing underwear all the time, except naps and bedtime. She has had just a couple of accidents since Tuesday. I am so proud of her! Tate is wearing diapers all day with his underwear over them, BUT he is going potty almost as often as Gracie. He tells us a lot and is doing really well, but he hasn't quite got the control down yet, so I am keeping the diapers on for back up a little while longer. To keep the excitement up I bought some stickers to add incentive and stocked up at the library on potty books and movies.

These have been a big hit and we watch two of them all the time. Elmo's Potty Time was an instant success and honestly, I think we have watched it like 15 times since Thursday. They LOVE it. I highly recommend this one for kids who adore Sesame street as much as mine.

I already recounted the nightmare that was Potty Power a few days ago, so we can skip that.

The Potty Movie was pretty cute. All cartoon and the kids seemed to like the songs. Sean can't take the videos where they actually show poop, but it really gets G and T excited!

The Books:

I won't bore you by reviewing all that I have here, plus, I have been switching out ones they don't get into every few days. They don't like books that are too long. No plot needed. Just show me a kid going poop or pee or both, please. I will say they are loving "The Potty Train", "A Potty for Me" and "On Your Potty, Little Rabbit" the best.
Saying "Chugga chugga poo poo!" is hilarious to two year olds, apparently.

I am close to having everything needed for Benny's Little Man party. I got inspiration here
originally, but have picked up pieces all over the web since then. Here are a few of the mustaches I am making for photo booth props!
I still need to make cupcake toppers and assemble treat bags. More to come!

Sneak Peak!

I need to brag on my friend Sara a bit!
She is an amazing MoM and is so talented! Her shirts are the cutest things...well..EVER! I am in the throws of Benny's Little Man themed bday bash and of course I asked Sara to make the shirts. Today she posted a sneak peak of Benny's shirt!

You really need to check out her blog and Etsy shop!

More details about Benny's party to come!

Day 3 and 4

It's kind of a blur now. Gracie did awesome and didn't have any accidents yesterday!
I put a diaper on Tate for nap and bedtime because Sean left for a work trip and I am tired. I am hardcore undies only on Gracie because I feel like she is so close, diapers would only prolong it. I think Tate may just need more time. He still had like 6 accidents yesterday. In a bold move, I also took them to daycare today, which may ruin everything, but I NEEDED a break. So I didn't really have a choice. Sanity trumps the potty.

We also watched the "Potty Power" video my friend lent us and Tate FREAKED out. He was so scared of this court jester during a fairy tale of the princess and the potty. This guy was everything you think of when you imagine a scary clown. I tried to make Tate sit through it so we could see he isn't scary and move on, but the dvd kept freezing and it would be stuck on his giant creepy smile/make up face. Tate was trembling! I turned it off and Gracie said "Tate stop crying, so me watch potty movie!" Apparently, she felt cheated. Only two episodes of Thomas the Train could calm us down enough for bedtime.

We did finish a lot of chocolate chips and have a lot of successes yesterday, so overall, It's going well.

On a side note, Tate got put in time out yesterday and was crying for daddy from his room. It was hilarious to hear Gracie yelling through the door "Daddy in AYIZONA!!" Tate would cry again "my daddyyyyyy" and again she'd tell him "No Tater, Daddy AYIZONA!!" Like he wasn't even allowed to ask for him.

As I sat in the back yard crying because they wouldn't nap and were waking up the baby, I realized that it was only one day as a single parent and I already couldn't hack it. Mt hats off to all the single moms and dads out there or even those whose spouses travel a lot. It's a really really really hard job some days.

Potty Training part Deux

It would be funny if it was someone else's kids.


Day One: Total of 28 underwear changes, 1 nap.
Day Two: 22 underwear changes. No Nap.

To make things a LOT more fun our dryer stopped working on the evening of day 1. So we are washing millions of pairs of toddler underwear and sheets, blankets and random soiled objects and then having to hang them on a line to dry outside. It just happens to be 60 degrees here, so I am getting to use my HAIR DRYER to speed things along when we need a new pair of undies fast.

The Good: Gracie is doing awesome. Lots of success and still a few accidents. She is pooping and peeing and actually telling us half the time. Tate has pooped a few times and peed a handful of times on the potty.

The Bad: They have peed on the floor, stairwell, kitchen chairs, bedroom floor, beds, giant stuffed dog, futon, and my shoe mirror.
Tate seemingly has no control or sense of when it is about to happen and I want to bang my head against the potty chair every time he pees on Elmo.

The Ugly: I want to give up. Sean wants to give up. He put swim diapers on them for nap (because they don't count as real diapers?? ) so we wouldn't have to change their sheets. This is against the advice of the book, so I don't know if this will set us back or not. We just don't have that many sheet sets or a WORKING DRYER. What does the book say about THAT?

We are trying this for the rest of the day and then he leaves for a work trip tomorrow. I may revert to diapers for nap and bedtime. I may just give Tate diapers. I may drink wine coolers, make them babies again and wrap them in a swaddle. I have no idea.