RAIN

The one thing I noticed the most when returned from the beach was how our grass had turned brown. Our first week back didn't help either. Temps around 100 all week and no rain. Finally we are getting a little rain and it almost seems strange to see puddles in the backyard. Although it is a very pleasant one. Now if the grass would just get green again. If you look close you can see puddles under the hammock.

Potty Training Sucks

I don't like failure and right now I feel like a failure when it comes to potty training my girls. They are smart little cookies and can easily tell you when they have peed or pooped. Well getting them to tell you before they do it is a totally different thing. We hit the potty hard before vacation, I was having them sit on it every hour with no success. One evening I left Emma's diaper off and she did pee sitting on an old towel, but all she did was get up say she was wet and move to another part of the towel. Didn't seem to really bother her. Then we went to the beach and took a week back home to recover, so this week we have tried again. I even went and got TWO NEW potty seats. I thought maybe they didn't like the one we had because it had a hard seat. We got one with a really soft seat and one that will play music if there is success. They will seat for me, but just won't go. Ali did pee twice and pooped once last night, but that's been our only success. It also helped that everytime they would sit on it last night I would give them food. I've even put them in pull ups this afternoon, calling them big girl pants and said mommy would have to work hard to clean them out if the went in them like a baby diaper. That didn't work either. I'm about ready just to give up. I attempt to bribe them with gummies and M&M's, but that's not getting us anywhere. HELP!

The Beach -recap part 2

So finally 2 weeks later here I am to recap the trip to the beach. Thought I better to it before I forgot to much. First off we rented a van so that the four of us and my mom could all go down in one vehicle. The beginning of June we called and visited places about renting. At enterprise we saw a mini van that was loaded! Two screens for DVDs and perks for the driver. We ended up renting from them and when I picked it up the Friday before we went I asked how the DVD player worked. Well the one we got didn't have the DVD player and the other one on the lot didn't have it either. I was bummed but knew we could just move the players we had in the truck and use them. Just one more thing to take. Well I came home with the van, put in the car seats and head back into town in the truck to pick up the girls from the babysitters. I was almost there when I got a call and it was Enterprise. The loaded van had been returned and I could come it if I wanted. I really didn't want to because I had already put the girls seats in the one I had and didn't want to mess with moving them, but Billy said that I should so I did. Boy am I glad that I did. The girls loved the drop down screens, I loved the push of a button to open doors, shut doors, start the van. It was sweet. It even had a back up camera. So much for the van stuff, on to the beach:

The girls did well on the trip down and back. The worst was after lunch when they should have been napping. The first day we went to the sound because we knew the waves would be less and the girls might do better. Well Emma was freaked out about the sand, and the water was dirty you didn't want to really be in it. But they enjoyed their morning and we had seafood for dinner. We did the sound again for several days and it got better. One day we also went to an aquarium. The girls seemed to enjoy that as well. One afternoon Billy and I drove up to Duck and Corolla, did some shopping and had dinner. (An afternoon/evening without kids) That was a nice evening. Some nights we went out and others we cooked. The girls had trouble sleeping and it seemed like at least one of them was in our bed every night and being in a queen bed it was hard. I guess looking back the trip went well, but it was hard. A lot of work for no longer than we could spend at the water. The girls had to be heading back around 11 so they could have lunch and their nap. There was no way we could skip that nap. Maybe in 2 years things would go a little smoother and we could spend more time at the water. Just for the record: we did go the beach 2 days, we didn't spend all our time soundside.

The Beach-picture recap

I am still deciding on how to put this beach trip into words. They will follow soon, but here's a few of my favorite pictures. I still need to get pictures off both grandma cameras to see if they got anything better.