Great Strides

We have big news! Eloise is potty trained! Only parent's can get this excited about something, but it means so much that we just can't help it. It means more money in my pocket and less to Sam's Club for diapers. It means one less thing to hold my breath for in a day, thereby increasing my oxygen supply. It means Eloise is old enough to communicate with me and figure out her body which makes me proud. And it means that I DON'T HAVE TO CHANGE DIAPERS! Yes, that's really what it boils down to. I don't know how all you other mom's do the potty training, but it you want to know our tip, nudity is key. It's been nice to have two kids potty trained in the summer, because I just put long t-shirts on them and let them go all day with nothing on the bottom, not even introducing underwear until things are pretty well established. Eloise surprised me by going in public restrooms without any trouble (Evelynn took months to master this) and once she mastered potty training during the day, she started to stay dry at night. Five nights in a row dry now. Wahoo! I love it when my kids make things easy for me. Evelynn potty trained herself in 3 days (no joke, just three days but that was after a few months of me off and on trying to "make" her do it, and then a month off in frustration, and then boom, done). Eloise took 2 weeks, but it was an easy two weeks with very few accidents. Now we're diaper free until the baby gets here. HURRAY!!!

In other news, I have two stellar singers in the family. Last night Grandma Jacobson hosted her ward's combine FHE and every Jacobson who lived in Utah took part in the program. We all sang a song or a duet or did something musical (Doug and I did Chu-Chi Face from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang--yes there is a video and yes I will post it when I get it because it was awesome). I had the girls practice a few times on Grandma's karaoke machine singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and they did will in front of family, but I didn't think they would do it in front of a bunch of strangers. Well, the big time came and they waltzed out there in front of 50 or so senior couples and sang Twinkle Twinkle perfectly! Eloise knew all the words and had a death grip on the microphone. She launched right into it like she had been doing it for years. Evelynn had perfect pitch and tried desperately to share the microphone with Eloise, but because of the height difference and the aforementioned death grip on the mic, she had to hunch over almost double to get her mouth close enough to be heard. They both sang wonderfully, were totally adorable, and completely stole the show. Doug and I were/are so proud. This was also caught on video and I will post it when I get it.

Another great stride is that I am going to be 28 weeks along this week, which is 7 months. Hurray! Now comes the hard part. I am not a big fan of the third trimester, but it's all downhill from here, right into the hottest part of the summer and sliding into fall and that long awaited September 17th due date. At least I got my birthday wish of Seven Peaks passes to make the summer easier. I mean if I'm going to be huge I want to be huge in the water getting tan.... seems logical to me. We've already been a few times this summer, and the girls LOVE the water (I have two little fish who love to swim swim swim. Eloise scares me with her desire to be JUST like her sister, even if that means walking straight into the water until it covers her head so she can be as deep as Evelynn is, parent's be darned). The girls great swimming accomplishment so far this summer is that Evelynn will finally let us float her on her back, and she makes forward progress while swimming in deep water, and Eloise will put herself under the water and kick her feet or arms but has yet to achieve forward motion. It's so much fun to swim with them because they love it so much. They even go on all the slides! I can't, but that's a plus for Doug so he doesn't have to go by himself.

Well, that's all the news for now. More to come soon!

A few precious moments

We've had a few cute moments these past few weeks, as well as some not so cute ones, but I guess that always happens with kids. We'll start with the not so cute moment that happened yesterday. I was awakened from my nap rather abruptly by Eloise waking up from her nap SCREAMING bloody murder. Still not awake myself I stumbled into her room and asked her what was wrong. "My ear hurts! It stings! Ow!" At first I thought she fell in her crib and hit her ear (its happened before) but the pain persisted past a few minutes, so an appointment was made with the doctor to look for an ear infections. They found a MINOR ear infection in one ear. It shocks me to have a child who takes pain like a.... well child. Evelynn wouldn't complain of ear pain until the ear drum ruptured, and here Eloise acts like it's the end of the world to wake up in pain. Anyway, we got it fixed and now everything is fine.

We've had some wonderful moments as well this week. We've started potty training Eloise and it's coming along better than expected! We're not 100%, but today at least we're about 70% and it's only the fourth day! She's started recognizing the signs and also has made the obvious connection between good performance on the potty and treats, which has made a drastic improvement in her success percentage. Hopefully things continue to go so smoothly so we can just have one kid in diapers by the time the baby comes.

In other news, Evelynn built a castle all by herself. She was very proud. :) She's been doing all sorts of big kid things lately. The other day she brought me a picture she drew of herself and she had her name printed below it, spelled correctly and everything. It's so fun to see you're kids progress! Her pictures are becoming much more detailed as well. She adds arms, legs, hair, eyebrows, noses sometimes, and even her baby brother to be if she's drawing a picture of me.

I found Eloise asleep like this when I went to check on her once. It was too cute not to snap a picture of.

Last night when the girls were supposed to be calming down to go to sleep, Evelynn starts whining/crying, and then really crying in earnest. Doug goes in to see what's wrong, and laughs and laughs. When I come in, this is what I saw. As you can see, she is stuck very snugly in between the mattress and the foot board, and very much caught in the act of playing with her little sister in her crib. The video is sideways, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking and just kept the camera at the same angle that I took the pictures, but you get the idea anyway.