Kianna's Beauty Salon

After giving Kianna a manicure and pedicure, I decided to let her paint my finger nails for the first time. She had fun doing it and actually did a pretty good job. Afterwards, she decided it would be fun to do my hair. I'm thinking of hiring her...

Taylor's Visit

Our friends, The Taylor's visited us this weekend on their way out east. It was fun catching up with them. The kids had a blast together too!

Meet Broderick

Trevor's cousin, Broderick, is living with us this summer and we are all thrilled. He just finished up his junior year of college at Indiana University. Trevor told him about the Impact summer camps at The Centre and offered him a job as a camp counselor, as well as, a place to live. He jumped on it and we are all having a great time getting to know him better. He is a fun guy with a great, outgoing personality, and a tremendous love for God. Our kids adore him. Broderick's first day with us was Trace's first naked day of potty training. Not sure what kind of impression that made?

We had a fun time this weekend showing him around Ann Arbor (what we know of it). We ate at Jim's Blimpy Burger, a place that was highlighted on TV's "Man vs Food". It was a unique place with yummy food. Afterwards, we spent some time walking around downtown Ann Arbor, shopping at some quaint stores, with one of the favorites being a local chocolate shop. It was a great day! Welcome Broderick.

Potty Training Trace...

Has not been as easy as with the girls, who were completely potty trained in 5-7 days! I decided to use "the naked method", as it worked so well with the girls. I kept him covered by having him wear the girls' t-shirts with nothing on underneath. His little potty has been out since last November and he has been using it 1-2x/per day (off and on) since then. I decided to hit it hard and here are the results...

Recent "Events"-

• Day 1 : 5 pee accidents, woke up dry from nap. (June 6th)
• Day 2: Woke up in morning with bed soaked and poopie; stepped in his poop, tried to wipe it off with his hand, then rubbed his face. Not a good start to our day! Poor kid was a bit traumatized and stood screaming totally disgusted until all poop was down the bathtub drain. Hoping this NEVER happens again. 3 pee accidents. Woke up dry from nap.
• Day 3: Woke up in morning with bed soaked (no poop), 5-6 pee accidents, woke up dry from nap, pooped in swim trunks (outside of pool). Decide to put diaper on overnight. Ready to give up thinking maybe he isn't ready, as on day 3 the girls were only have 1 pee accident and never had a poop accident...
• Day 4: Decide to give it one more day. 1 pee accident in morning, decide to try underwear in evening. Tells Daddy he needs to go potty. Whoo Hoo! So glad I didn't give up!!!
• Day 5-7: Wearing underwear with 1-2 pee accidents.
• Day 8-9: Wearing underwear with no accidents!
• Day 10-12: Gets stomach bug, which is NOT good for potty training. Has 2 diarrhea accidents, one of which was at The Spotted Cow (favorite ice cream shop). Disgusting! Enough said...
• Day 13: Attempt putting diaper on him during day, he refuses, and is back to being potty trained! Decide to put diaper on for naptime.
• Day 14-present: Trace is potty trained and wearing underwear when awake. Decided he is not ready to be diaper-free while asleep, although he still wakes up dry from majority of naps.

Things I learned:

• Boys are tougher to potty train than girls.
• Poop accidents are disgusting, diarrhea is even worse!
• M&M's and Skittles are highly motivating (actually I already knew this).
• The Naked Method is best used during a stress-free week. Not sure preparing for a garage sale at the end of the week qualified?
• Trace is a big boy and loves his Elmo and Lightning McQueen underwear. Great job Little T!!!

Strawberry Patch

We had a fun time picking strawberries with our friends from church.

Happy Father's Day

To celebrate his special day, Trevor opted to spend a relaxing day at home with his family. He also took the girls and Broderick to play Frisbee Golf. It was a good family day.

Happy Father's Day to our special Dad's. We love you!

Shannon's Visit

We had a great time with Stacie, Patrick, Matthew and Andrew. They were in the area for one of Matthew's soccer tournaments in Kalamazoo, MI and decided to come a couple days early to see us. We are so happy they did. We had a lot of fun together and made some good memories. One of them being when we randomly decided that Stacie would cut the girls' hair. We had been in the pool talking about how the chlorine was turning their hair green, when they decided they needed it cut off immediately. Stacie volunteered to cut it although admitted she didn't have much experience. We decided to be spontaneous and the girls ended up with two adorable haircuts. Kaylee got about 5 inches cut off and Kianna around 3 inches. Great job Aunt Stacie!

Another memory, was our trip to our favorite ice cream shop, The Spotted Cow. Unfortunately, that will forever be a memorable moment in a not so pleasant way. The day before they arrived, Trace got a stomach bug and started having diarrhea. He was a trooper and kept up with all we did. However, potty training and diarrhea do not go well together. We had just ordered our ice cream and handed Trace his, when we notice that underneath him was a liquid puddle of yuckiness. I'll spare you the rest of the details. Our poor little guy wasn't feeling too well, which unfortunately meant that we weren't able to travel to see Matthew play in his soccer tournament. That was a bummer, but we had a great visit regardless!

Cedar Point Amusement Park

"The Bridge"

"After" the bridge

Kianna on the way home

Our good friends, The Miller's, invited us to join them on their work outing to Cedar Point and boy are we glad they did. We got discounted tickets, free Pepsi products all day long, free lunch vouchers, and had tons of fun! It was great because Kaylee is tall enough to ride most of the "big people" rides now and likes roller coasters. She went on the huge Gemini roller coaster two times. Kianna is pretty fearless herself and enjoyed riding on the Gemini Jr roller coaster multiple times among many other rides. Trace was a 1/2" too short to ride most of the kid rides, but he had a great time riding whatever he could. He especially enjoyed driving the jeep with Daddy.

We were excited to learn about the purple piece of paper called the "parent swap". The parent swap, allows one parent to stand in line with their child, while the other parent watches the other children. After the first parent gets off the ride they hand their purple piece of paper to the attendants at the exit. The second parent then comes up the exit takes the purple piece of paper and gets on the ride without having to stand in line. Isn't that amazing! This little piece of paper allowed Trevor and Aaron to go on four roller coasters and Nellie and I to go on three. Pretty exciting stuff for parents with little ones! Trevor's favorite ride of the day was the Top Thrill Dragster, which goes 420' straight up in the air at 120 mph and then goes straight down. The whole ride only takes 7 seconds. I was too scared to ride it. My favorite ride was Millennium Force, which was an amazingly fast roller coaster!

The funniest event of the day had to be when Kaylee, Davis, Nellie and I went on the Snake River Falls log ride. Upon exiting that ride I noticed a bunch of people were standing on the bridge waiting to get soaked when the next boat came down the big hill. Kianna had been disappointed that she wasn't tall enough to go on the actual ride and get wet. So I had Kianna and Trace come up on the bridge to stand so they could get wet. Kaylee and Davis stood on the bridge first and got soaked. They laughed and loved it. I noticed the force with which the water came up onto the bridge and made sure that Trace was holding on tight so he wouldn't fall. Well when the water hit, they all got soaked. Kianna laughed and loved it, but little Trace was not so happy. In fact he cried. Not only did the water scare him but his clothes were soaked and he was none too pleased. It was a super hot day, so I thought it would feel good to get cooled off. I wasn't quite prepared for his reaction. Oops! It may be mean, but it was pretty funny nonetheless! What a great day with friends!