Corinne Kneewalker

This is Corinne's way of getting around until she decides that walking is better. As you can see she's pretty fast and gets that arm swinging to help her go faster. I especially like how she arches her back and sticks her belly out to look more like a girl!

Potty training woes

We have started working with Matthew on potty training. He's been doing pretty well the past few days and pees in his little toilet whenever he feels the urge without prompting. He did have a few accidents at first, but I made him clean up his own mess and I think that helped. He has been going around the house bare-bottomed which probably has been helping too. I am now trying out underwear to see how that works. He wore it 2 evenings ago to the playground and had an accident so we had to come home and clean up the mess. Last night we decided to brave the playground in underwear. We also knew he has been saving up some poop because he doesn't want to do it in the toilet. We still haven't been able to get him to poop in the toilet yet. He usually waits until I put a diaper on him to go to bed or for a nap or to go to the playground to poop. Well, the kids were having fun at the playground and we were mainly paying attention to Corinne since she's a little daredevil on the playground equipment and likes to dangle off of 6 ft platforms and hang from bars. After about 15 minutes Matthew approaches me and says "poop mess." I look at his pants and notice that yes, they're wet and he had an accident and then felt his bottom and noticed a sizeable lump. So we head home to clean up the mess and yes, Matthew walked all the way with saggy underwear. When we got home I had him flush his lump down the toilet and clean up as much of the mess as he could under my supervision and then he had a bath to finish up the cleaning job. I read somewhere that having the child clean up their own accidents gives them more incentive not to make more. We'll have to see if it works. Any suggestions on getting a child to poop in the toilet or getting them used to underwear? I'm trying hard to have Matthew fully potty trained before #3 comes.

Our playground

We have a few playgrounds in our housing neighborhood, but this one is the closeset and my favorite. For one, there isn't usually a lot of people or kids there when we go. Also, it is next to some large trees that provide afternoon shade to keep the equipment from getting too hot.
And, if you look closely in this picture you can see a gate that is open. It has steps that lead down to a path that runs along a little stream. Sometimes we take the kids down to the stream to throw leaves and rocks into it--they love it!
Corinne has a new fascination with water bottles.
She's not afraid to climb 6-10 feet of playground equipment but she's too afraid to walk.
Going down the slide with daddy!

Jeremy's birthday and Father's Day

Saturday was Jeremy's birthday. We celebrated it in NY at Jeremy's brother, Stephen's house and went out to eat. This is Jeremy blowing out the candles on his favorite cake--homemade carrot cake.

Matthew's "cheese" smile.

Corinne making a mess--as usual.

Stephen, Jeremy's dad, Phillip, Jeremy and Matthew posing for 3 generations of Mefords.

Jeremy's dad flew up from AZ and his brother, Phillip came from LA to help celebrate Father's Day. One of Grandpa Medford's favorite things to do with his family is to sing. So the boys are singing together per his request and boy, are they good!

Family Home Evening

We've started a tradition for Family Home Evening. We make popcorn with an old-fashioned popper and then watch a conference talk. The popcorn keeps the kids quiet and busy so that we can watch the video. As you can see they love watching the popcorn "pop" and like to help daddy make it. We still vary up our routine sometimes like last week we went swimming and to the playground and then out for ice cream with some free certificates Jeremy received from one of his races. But this is generally what we do to catch up on conference.

Beach days are here!

Having spent my childhood and youth in Arizona has led me to expect heat as a natural occurence for 9 months out of the year. Living in SC and VA helped me to learn to deal with humidity along with the heat. But since moving to CT, I've been waiting for the heat with anticipation. Finally around the first of June it began to actually feel like summer (spring?) with temperatures in the 70s to 80s. We had a "heat wave" over the weekend with temperatures soaring into the (don't laugh those of you from AZ) upper 80s. Okay, to give the weather forecasters some credit it did get into the 90s and even 101 in some parts of the state. But it just felt like a normal summer day to me. We took the kids to the beach to enjoy the weather and with the wind off of the ocean it felt just perfect. We were a little disappointed in the sand because it was so coarse, but I think any sand would be a disappointment after the soft sand of Panama City Beach. We still had a great day and even managed to keep from getting sunburned!

Jeremy's 5ks

The past two Saturdays Jeremy has been ambitious and decided to run some 5ks. Last week he ran a 5k at a place called Mohegan Park. It was a beautiful park and the course ran around a lake. The race started under a vine-covered arch (shown on the left) and they made Jeremy start off with the slower runners because he had the stroller eventhough he can run a 6:30 mile. But he showed them and ended up in 7th place. I like to rub it in that he got beat by a woman and by a 10 year old girl and an 11 year old boy. To Jeremy's defense, he did have the stroller as a handicap and that makes a difference with all the hills here in Connecticut.
Here's Jeremy huffing up a slow incline hill. It was a little bit chilly that day and overcast with the threat of rain. Thankfully it didn't rain.
This is a picture of the kids enjoying the ride. We made sure to keep them warm and comfortable with a blanket and drinks on hand.
This race was in Norwich that Jeremy ran yesterday. The captain of his boat showed up to run the race with Jeremy. Captain Davis is also an avid runner and has completed an Ironman competition of which he is so proud of his has an Ironman triangle tattoo on the back of one of his legs. You can see the captain not far behind Jeremy with the bright orange shoes.
Here is Jeremy crossing the finish line in 14th place. The captain finished about 30 seconds after. They have run 3 races together and Jeremy has beat the captain every time. I think his captain is a little frustrated by this fact which is why he keeps racing to prove that he can beat Jeremy. Or maybe he just enjoys the run. Who knows? Hopefully I can run all of the 5ks with Jeremy next summer after baby #3 is born in November.

My, what big ears you have!

Guess what Matthew learned about today in nursery... yep. Ears! They took a field trip outside and listened to all the different birds and cars and any other sound they could. Then they came inside and put on their ears. Matthew has awesome nursery leaders that have fun activities planned every week. I almost can't get him to leave! I just hope Corinne loves nursery as much as Matthew does. She goes into nursery in September. I can't wait!