Summary of April

A trip to Barnes and Noble to read and play with the trains! 

Ball Bed! 

We took the kids to the town "Easter Egg Hunt".  It was crazy and I'm pretty sure I won't go again.  There weren't even eggs.  It was just candy strewn all over the ground.  Calin wouldn't go more than one foot away from us and was very intimidated by all the kids.  But he did manage get some candy. 

We went to Ami's to roll Easter Eggs.  These are our eggs before the beating. 

It was a beautiful day, but with no shade it got a little hot! We had walked a little ways out from Ami's house to roll the eggs so we weren't right by her house to keep cool. Kids were having a blast though rolling those eggs over and over! 

It was quite sunny and bright! 

Clara and I walked back a little before everyone cause we forgot a hat and I didn't want her to get burnt. We enjoyed cooling off with some nice cool water after being out in the sun!  

The demolished eggs after all the rolling! 

Easter morning the kids had fun with a little Easter Egg hunt in our living room that the Easter Bunny left for them.  Along with some good books and a new outfit! 

Later that day on Easter we had a cousin Easter Egg hunt outside.  The kids had a blast looking for eggs all over the back yard! They were excited to find monies and prizes in their eggs too! 

Traditional game of horse with the Comeford Clan after Easter Dinner! 

Cute kids in their Sunday Easter clothes! 

A walk out on the trail one nice April day! 

Calin was having fun exploring his surroundings! 

We stopped at the River after our walk to play in the water.  Clara was quite enjoying splashing and playing in the slightly chilly river water! 

Because Clara is so little and was not gaining much weight, and she has a heart murmur, her doctor recommended several tests to rule out any major problems.  Mostly she just had some blood work done, but this was the day we took her to the hospital to get her murmur checked out with an echocardiogram.  This was the toy room where she played while we waited for them to get started.  Once the took us back they started working on getter her IV's in so they could put her to sleep.  This was the saddest part because she did not like the hot pads on her hands and she did not like being poked and it was all very traumatic for her and me!    

They finally got everything in that they needed and so then she just "slept" for about an hour while the echo was done.  I was able to just stay with her and wait.  As soon as they finished the echo she started stirring and waking up.  This was hard to watch her try to come out of it and not knowing what was going on or why she had things all over her.  We tried to get her to drink some fluids and then once she was awake enough and had had enough liquids that they felt ok, they let us go.  Overall it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, and we both survived! We were quite spoiled and they sent us home with all kinds of goodies in their goody bag.  

Loving her graham crackers! 

3 Horns!! 

Cute spring baby!! 

Enjoying more graham crackers! 

April also brought the potty training of Calin!! I got all ready with charts and treats and cool new dinosaur underwear!  We sort of followed the 3 day potty training method.  Calin was already pretty much ready to go, but just needed that little extra push.  The 3 day method for us mostly meant that Calin went straight to underwear, no pull-ups or diapers at naps or night.  (He had stayed dry for these for months).  The first day we didn't go anywhere.  Stayed at home in underwear all day drinking lots of fun drinks.  About every 5-10 minutes I would just say "tell me if you need to go potty".  He pretty much told me every time he needed to go and was very successful.  We only had a couple of accidents those first few days. Otherwise he was very good at telling me and caught on quick!   Much easier this time around than the attempt we'd made before Clara was born!  

NOTE: (PROBABLY TMI but I'm recording for future potty training efforts)
For every "pee" he colored one toilet and every "poop" he colored two.  And then got to choose one or two little candies (M&M's or Cadbury Mini Eggs) for each success.  He was always so excited to color his toilets!  I was surprised cause I made it up the night before!  Pooping did not come quite as easily.  The first day we went outside to play for a little bit because he had done so well all day!  However, right around when Robby got home I got a little distracted and hadn't checked with Calin recently, but Calin, all on his own, all of a sudden ran to the door yelling "POTTY! POTTY!" We ran inside and he had started to poop just a little but then managed to get the rest in the toilet.  After that poop though, pooping became more difficult.  He wouldn't sit on the toilet when he needed to go and kept asking for his diaper.  I tried many different approaches (reading while he sat on the toilet, watching little videos while sitting there, eating lots of applesauce and peaches, etc.), however, what finally worked was I let him get off the toilet, he would squat down to "push" and I'd just watch to make sure he wasn't going on the floor and as soon as something was coming we'd plop him back on the toilet to go.  I only did this though knowing that he was very constipated at this point and it wasn't going to be "messy" poop. We did this probably two maybe three times before he started to be more comfortable with sitting on the seat to poop.  It only took those few times and then things got better.  He still seemed to hold it more than he did before potty training, but each time he was successful it got better! 

Some chalk drawings out in our driveway one day.  These were some of his first attempts at drawing people.
 Loving his representations of himself and Dad!  

Calin discovered these "big" carts one day and is now quite excited when we are able to use them at the store.  Personally all I can think about as I push them around is the germs that are covering everywhere my kids are touching and how much I feel like I am pushing a boat around the store instead of a cart of groceries.