Head over to my friends blog - Toddler Approved to enter for a free Christmas book giveaway. She also has the best ideas for teaching your toddlers.

Athen's Carnival Party

We had Athen's second birthday a few weekends ago and it was a carnival theme. He had so much fun. Here are a ton of pictures.
Ticket booth


I made clown bow ties for each of the kids and had clown noses for them.


We had a photo booth area.



We played pin the nose on the clown.



I made a clown mouth out of wood and painted it for the bean bag toss.


We had a face painting station, however, we didn't end up using it.


We made animal balloons.


We had a tin can toss.


Here is the table. We had lemonade, popcorn, corn dogs and cupcakes.


Lemonade glasses


Hershey kisses with A's and 2's.


Circus Eats with noisemakers I made for the birthday song.


Balloons for the kids to take home.






Birthday banner.



The party bags said "Thanks for clown'n around with Athen on his birthday"


Athen's circus peanuts and circus cookies.




In the treat bags we had clown noses, noisemakers, circus peanuts, circus cookies, hershey kisses, and button magnets with the kids name on them.

Now to all the fun stuff! The kids and their fun.








He got a red bike and LOVES it.


Blowing out his candles.


Eating his popcorn.


We had a blast. The people that came were Grandma & Grandpa S, Aunt Sara, Anupa, Jack, Kristen, Isaac, Amy, Mike and his little buddies were: Alyssa, Blake, Brady, Haliey, Chetan, Malini, Aiden, and Kiel. Thanks for coming everyone and happy second bithday Athen we love you to pieces!

HELP!

Calling all mom's who have successfully potty trained recently. I need help. The first week and a half of potty training (although exhausting) went well. Athen only had a few accidents and he was doing so well. It was a positive experience and he was happy to go potty on the big boy toilet. In the beginning we were bringing him and he was going on demand and then he started letting us know when he needed to go. We finally started leaving the house and I was a little worried but still we had success. He stayed dry all day, he went potty at church, at the mall, and my moms house and was doing great.

Then he started going through a phase for a day or so where he would say he had to go and then sit down and wouldn't go. He did this for a day or so, wanting to go to the potty every 15 minutes. The last few days he has refused to sit on the potty. He will not go to the bathroom. He holds it in all day long. I know he needs to go because he dances around and holds him self but he will not sit down. When we bring him to the potty he staightens up his body and wouldn't sit down. He won't take bribes - no candy, toys, movies, vitamins, stickers anything. Eventually after way too long he wets his pants. We have tried having him take off his own pants and putting them in the laundry and putting dry ones on but he doesn't want to do that. We have tried leaving the wet ones on which he doesn't like but that hasn't worked either.

I have been giving him tons to drink and am trying to feed him things like prunes (because he is way constipated at this point). I am worried he is going to damage his blatter (which happened to me when I was pregnant with him and the doctors wouldn't let me pee, it was a painful experience).

Any advice???? Please help!

Thanksgiving

We had a nice Thanksgiving in Utah. The night we got in was the only night that it snowed. The next morning there was a little bit of snow of the grass so Rick took Athen and the cousins out to go sledding down the front lawn. It was Athens first and only time.

We had a busy week. We visited with some friends and spent time with family. Thanksgiving day was delicious. We had some unique dishes that really added to the meal. We played games, went to the pool and did some black Friday shopping. We got all the deals we wanted to get so we were happy. We started our black Friday shopping at 10:00pm on Thursday night and ended about 1:30am. We then started back up at 7:00am. Luckily we were able to shop without the kids.

Here is our week in pictures:




At the pool with all the cousins. Athen loved the slide.




We made some turkeys and acorn treats for the kids on Thanksgiving day.




We went to Jump On It with cousin Dallin for his birthday.




My sisters and I.




We went to see the temple lights with both Rick and I's family.







And this is the view from Rick's parents front door!

Scammed!

I have found myself in the middle of an internet scam and I can't stop cracking up. Do you know who Ted Nancy is? Ted Nancy is the guy who writes "Letters from a Nut" or "Extra Nutty" which are some of my favorite books. Ted Nancy writes these crazy letters to all kinds of businesses asking for these crazy demands and waits to see how they reply. The book is filled with letters and responses and they are SO funny. When I first discovered the book I ran to the bookstore and bought about 4 or 5 of them. I came home and read it cover to cover all by myself in my apartment and was cracking up laughing for hours.

Anyways, on to the scam that I found myself in and the hilarious day that I have had as Ted Nancy. One of my new found hobbies is looking on craigslist for homes for rent, cars for sale or what ever I think of that day. I found a 3 bedroom home for rent that looked like it was a pretty good deal over in San Mateo. There was no picture so I decided to send the guy an email. Here goes the beginning of the scam (warning - this may get long but is worth the good laugh you will get)....

Me:
Hi, I am very interested in your home for rent on Craigslist. It sounds like it would be a perfect fit for my husband, two children and I. I have a few questions. Please give me a call or reply to this email if it is still available.

Shawn:
Thanks for the interest in the ad i posted on Craigslist........... even if i didn't add the details needed for the proper introduction of the apartment.I am the owner of the apartment and i recently moved down to Oregon with my wife after my retirement....the following are the apartment details:
square feet:2520 3 bedroom
amenities includes:internet,dining room,cable.fully equipped kitchen,tree surrounded,well furnished,.,, Like new inside with hardwood floors, gas cooking, many built-ins, side yard for entertaining, shed, garage,gorgeous kitchen. cozy fireplace in family room. larger master bdrm w/ walk-in closet. lots of storage. refrigerator, washer & dryer included.
marble floor,plasma screen,, fruit trees, patio and , shopping, . and few to mention
street parking just in front,laundry on sites,washing machine and dishwasher available
APARTMENT ADDRESS XXX Virginia Ave, San Mateo CA
Please if you are ready now to occupy the apartment kindly let me know please

(I took the real address out and added XXX for privacy - corene)

Me:
Thanks for getting back to me on the property. I looked it up on google maps. You have been refering to it as an apartment but on google maps it looks as if it is a house. Is it a house or an apartment? We are definately interested in it especially if it is a house. However, we do have our own furniture. Can we rent it without the furnishings?

Thanks,

Shawn:
It a house Yes you can use your furniture.

Me:
What are the leasing terms? How much is the rent per month and how long is the lease? When can we look at the place? We are very interested.

Shawn:
As long as you are staying but i may be selling after 5yrs or more

Me:
What is the monthly rent and when can we look at it.

Shawn:
Thanks for the reply and am so sorry for the late response. You may not be able to see in the interior because i dont have someone to show it to you but i have some interior pics.

(at this point we are definately a little suspicious. we do some online research on the property and find it on zillow for sale for 1.2mill. I called the selling agent listed to see what the owner's name was and if they were really renting out the house or if it was a scam. Of course it was a scam so I decided to play around with Shawn for a bit.)

Me:
What is the monthly rent and can you send the pictures?

Shawn:
(He sends pictures. The pictures were of a random house and not the same pictures as the house on zillow,)


Me:
This is a lovely house. We definately want it. We have a pet buffalo name Tizi that is very large but very well behaved. Will it be a problem to keep her in the backyard. We haven't had any problems with her in the past. She is very friendly.
When can we move it?

Shawn:
You can move in immediately. After the dep and a month rent is paid. No problem with your pet.

Me:
We don't use electricity or appliances. Will if be a problem to remove all the appliances and lighting in the house before we move in?
What is the best way to get the money to you?

Shawn:
That no problem. Regarding the payment you will be paying it to my lawyers account. He will get to me

Me:
Great, let us know. Do you mind if we install a steel front door and board up the windows as we are collectors of old cooper toasters and dont want to be robbed of our collection.

Still waiting his response. I think my next email will be something like this: I hope it's not a problem if we convert one of the bathrooms into a walk in freezer, as my husband is a hunter and likes to butcher the animals in the home.

If you are laughing as hard as I am leave me a comment.

Although it has been a long and tiring week, we have had some great successes. Athen has had a few accidents since we started potty training him but for the most part he has done pretty good. Night time is another story, when he wakes up he is a BEAR and does not want to sit on the potty. Even if he wakes up dry he won't sit on the potty and then ends up peeing in his pants a few minutes later. Last night Rick decided to wake him up before he went to bed to help him go so he would stay dry for the night. Big mistake. Athen is worse then Rick when you wake him up. He threw a fit, screaming bloody murder. Rick was cuddling him and singing to him to try and get him to calm down. Big mistake, he peed all over Rick while he was holding him. Our cute little 2 year old.

My little one started sitting up all by himself this week. He's been doing so good. What a cutie!



We had a fun trip to Utah for Thanksgiving and I actually took pictures. However, our camera has been giving us problems when we try downloading them onto the computer. Hopefully soon, I will be blogging about Thanksgiving and Athen's 2nd birthday party that we had today.