Emalyn, Snow, and Potty Training

       Yes, I am finally posting about this sweet baby we have been blessed with. It has only taken me three weeks. :) I have thought everyday I would get a chance to update the blog, but life with these two little girls has kept me busy (and tired). You so quickly forget what it is like to be woken up every three hours in the night and how tired that leaves you the next day. Thank goodness for timers on coffee pots, so the coffee is brewed by the time I wake up in the morning (and thank goodness for Chris making mine for me every morning). We are doing well and are enjoying this sweet time with Emalyn. I definitely think the second time is easier. I feel more relaxed and think I may even be enjoying this baby stage more with Emalyn than with Maddie just because I feel like I know what I am doing a little more. It has been fun to see the differences in personalities between the two of them so far. Emalyn likes to be held ALL the time, she rarely gets upset (as long as she is being held that is), but when she gets mad, she get real mad. Within seconds her whole body turns bright red, and as quickly as she turns it on, she can turn it right back off and be totally content in your arms. We are just soaking up every minute of this time with her, because as we learned with Maddie it passes very quickly (although I wouldn't mind fast forwarding a little to when she is sleeping through the night). 

Here are a few pictures from the hospital. Maddie was shocked the first time Emalyn made a little noise.

Chris and I have had so much fun watching Maddie with Emalyn, and so far Emalyn seems to tolerate "loving" from her sister very well. And all Maddie wants to do is hold her and rock her, and she loves putting the pacifier in her mouth (usually gagging her in the process).  Maddie doesn't like to go anywhere without Emalyn. Her "new baby sister" is usually the first thing on her mind in the morning, and she asks almost every night before she gets in her bed if Emalyn can just stay "up-upstairs" with her while she sleeps.

Here are the links to the Snapfish Albums from the first two days, and I hope to get the other ones up soon.

http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3628432014/a=91347848_91347848/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3676041014/a=91347848_91347848/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

So I'm not quite sure why in the craziness of a new baby and trying to love a two and a half year old who is learning what it is like not to be the center of attention all the time, why I thought it would be a good idea to start potty training. But none the less, I figured if we were going to be stuck at home, we may as well go ahead and tackle that too. It sounded like a good idea all week until it really did snow on Friday, which meant Chris was working from home. It is not unusual for him to work from home; however, now that Maddie's room is upstairs, he has to take conference calls from the dining room, which was asking for trouble. Trying to play with Maddie to keep her entertained and quiet,while holding Emalyn in the other arm with the buzzer going off every 30 minutes to remind us to check if Maddie was clean and dry and then try to sit on the potty was a little more than I could handle on less than 8 hours of sleep. I think we would have been fine if we could have gone for a walk or done something to get out of the house, but with the snow we were stuck inside, which meant by 4:00 when Chris finally got off his last phone call, I was done! Luckily potty training has been pretty easy. She has had two small accidents, both times while running to the potty. She will be in the middle of playing, and then all of a sudden will jump up and start running to the potty saying "hurry, hurry, hurry." Today, she startled Bentley when she jumped up yelling "hurry, hurry" and he started chasing her barking. Maddie is going through a stage where she is petrified when Bentley barks, and she stops what she is doing and curls up into a ball. So he started barking and she hit the floor and curled in a ball, and I just knew if she hadn't already had an accident, she would have for sure peed on herself after the barking. But amazingly she was still dry when I picked her up off the floor, and we made it to the potty. Here are a few pictures of Maddie...she much prefers to use the potty as a seat or as a stage to sing from.

So in true Maddie fashion,  she was less focused on playing in the snow and more focused on wiping the snow off of her toys outside. She definitely didn't get that from me. Nonetheless, here are a few more pictures of Maddie's adventures out in the snow with daddy: