Our Lil Munchkins: Easter fun & more "Big" girl changes!

Hard to believe that Easter has come & gone and we're looking ahead to May! Where is 2009 GOING??!! Shelby had a lot of fun this Easter, she had an Easter party at school and then I took her to the local McKinney Easter egg hunt. They had lots of neat things for the kids to do, she rode on a little train, pet some animals and hunted Easter eggs. She really enjoyed the animals, petting a little duck and some chicks. It was a fun day, but a tad windy. At least it was a clear day & warm enough to be out.

I took her to a little gazebo by a church nearby the other day & captured some cute shots. She enjoyed running around and especially wearing her flowery dress. She LOVES dresses....asks me every day if she can wear one. Since it has still been cool this Spring, she has had to wear leggings w/them, but she doesn't care, as long as she is wearing a dress. My Mom said I was the same way and would have to wear pants (don't think leggings were quite "in" for kids back then) w/my dresses because we lived in Oregon and it was way too cold a good part of the year. But we're also learning that she is quite the little tomboy too.....really enjoyed digging in the dirt a couple of weeks ago w/Daddy. Our neighbor had a trailer of dirt he was using in his backyard, and Drew gave Shelby a little garden shovel & bucket. For 2 hours she loaded dirt in her little bucket.....resulted in a 4-HOUR NAP!! I couldn't believe how tired she was ~ I had to wake her up by 6pm, otherwise I don't know how long she would've napped. Probably until midnight then been up & ready to play, ha!

Potty training is going really well, I cannot believe in a month's time how great Shelby is doing. After that first week and having very little success, I was ready to give up. But thankfully Drew remained practical and encouraged me to stick w/it. It did seem once she finally went in the potty a few times, it just clicked. She has not had an accident in 2 weeks, hooray! She loves wearing her big girl panties and she wears pullups on school days. So many people warned me about pullups and that kids regress thinking it's just like a diaper. Shelby hasn't had that issue ~ I think since there are princesses on her pullups like her panties, she treats them the same, I don't know. We also bought this awesome adult/kid toilet seat at Home Depot. It is soooo much better than cleaning out the little potty seat. I think that's another reason I was kind of frustrated, cleaning out the potty seat was just like changing a diaper. I was thinking, how is this really any different?!! But this toilet seat is great & I think has helped her do better w/the potty training too.

We also moved Shelby out of her crib into a big bed. I was really quite content to leave her in the crib ~ my thought was why move her out unless she is trying to get out??? She never crawled out of it, she never screamed to get out (like when awake, etc.), she was always content playing in her crib til we came & got her. But Drew was really ready to move her out, he said she was a big girl now and thought she needed more space, he thought she was cramped in the crib. (I explained if she just took fewer animals & books to bed, she wouldn't need space, ha!) So we put a spare set of Queen size mattresses that we had in her room and took out the crib. It's just the box spring & mattress on the floor, simple & if she rolls off, she won't go far! But she has been scrunching up in the far right corner against the wall so I am really not concerned about her rolling off. It's so funny to check on her during the night, there is alllll this space and there she is balled up in the corner. Oh well, her animals have more room now, ha! But so far so good, she has been good about staying in bed, which Isurprised me. So, guess Drew was right & she was ready.

Shelby gave me a good laugh the other day ~ I try really hard not to say "crap" or "darn" when I do something by accident, so I typically say "man" or "dude" like she learned before. Well I said that and she responded with "I hate it when that happens." Ha!! Just cracked me up! She has also explained to us a few times "That's ok, accidents happen." when I guess we make a mess or do something accidentally. Today we went driving around in the country, looking at land, and Shelby asked "Are we in the jungle?" There were so many trees, she thought it was the jungle and that we would see an elephant. HA! It's just funny to me how they become these little persons, just chattin' it up. We're looking forward to the summer and visiting Nana & Papa in OK, we're also planning a trip to Uncle Russ' BBQ competition and hopefully a trip to Colorado to meet up with Drew's family. We're also going to take some swimming lessons and plan some other activities to keep our days busy. Hope everyone is well, enjoy the pics!!