Celebrating our family of five on our 5th Anniversary!

July 26, 2008. That's when our family began.  Five years ago. July 26, 2013. We are now a family of five. It's amazing how so many things can change so fast. 

My gift to Steve

We started our conversation about how to celebrate our 5th Anniversary. Should we travel far?  Spend lots of money? Buy each other big gifts? How exactly do you mark the celebration of the 5th year of marriage. Our decision to NOT travel far. NOT spend lots of money and NOT buy each other expensive gifts all came from the same cause - we now have three kids. Three crazy, wild, nutsy, lovable, wonderful, terrific boys who hold us back from doing those things, but give us all sorts of amazing opportunities in return. This weekend, they gave us the chance to celebrate our 5 year anniversary in the same spot we were at 5 years ago, with them this time. and with lots of family and even an old friend. Our wedding anniversary falls the day after my brother Lee's birthday and two days before my dads birthday, so we had an added bonus of celebrating everyone, 

Our final plan, we spent two nights at Sweetwater, the bed and breakfast where our wedding party stayed the weekend of our wedding and the site of our rehearsal dinner. Sweetwater is beautiful and since the addition of Grace winery has become (ok, always was) a little $$. We have waited for a justifiable reason to stay there again. This was a perfect fit! 

Friday, we loaded the car and headed on the drive from VA to PA. As we drove up the entrance to Sweetwater the memories flowed. We had an amazing weekend there 5 years ago. We thought of all the family and friends who were there with us, and of course, we thought about "the tree" (*who remembers that story*). One thing I did want to do for our anniversary was to get family pictures taken. I was super excited when an opportunity came up with an old friend, who now owns a Photography company. Tori joined us at Sweetwater and photographed our crazy little family. I can't wait to see and share the results! After pictures, Steve and I went out for sushi while the boys hung out with Gma, Poppop and Uncles. A WONDERFUL DAY FOR ALL.

A post-photo shoot shot.. too bad it was so dark outside and i didn't get the settings right. 

Saturday was Lee's birthday. We made last minute plans to go Peach picking with the family. Steve and I, Logan, Hayden, Owen, Lee, Mark, Poppop, Dean and Victor all met at Linvilla Orchards. Its an awesome orchard and we picked Peaches, Eggpant, apricots, Blackberries and Blueberries. Everything was so tasty. But the pictures from the day were the most delicious!

Saturday night was a birthday dinner for Lee. Again another fun day and relaxing night!

Our Anniversary weekend ended on Sunday at our cottage at Sweetwater with a brunch with us five, my parents, ALL my brothers, SIL, Uncle Craig and Laurie and family, and Mommom Bunny. We filled our small cottage with a potluck brunch to celebrate Lee and Dad's birthday and to introduce Owen. 

All the Feinman Kids

Feinman kids with ones they love...

Mom, Dad and the kids with the ones they love :)

...and with Mommom, the one who started it all

The whole family!!!

4 Generations!

I am so grateful to have had such a lovely weekend. A big thank you to everyone we saw this weekend, and to Steve for an exciting five years past and many more to come!!!!!

Camp Nichols: Christmas in July

It's July! Christmas in July! From Christmas shirts and dresses, to treats and snow, the these good girls and boys got in a perfect Christmas Party, IN JULY!!!

Potty Training: Day 2

[[[Warning, Warning. This post is about potty training. Read at your own discretion]]

One downside to such a great first day is setting the bar too high for Day 2. Day 1 was a breeze. Hayden was enthusiastic and proud. I was focused and energetic. Everything was centered around Hayden.

Day 2 was a little different. We started the same as yesterday around 10am and the first pee of the day was at 11:30am with consistent 15 minute "potty visits". It was a good start despite the fact that things were cray-cray around here. Owen wasn't as content with just chilling in his swing. He did a lot, but not like yesterday. Steve was doing heavy-lifting errands so Logan was home with us. The hardest part today was keeping both boys in the kitchen to avoid accidents on carpet, etc. Without focus solely on Hayden, I found it not only harder for him to concentrate on the task at hand, but also harder for me to enforce consistent "potty visits".

We managed to overcome most distractions with two pees on the potty between 10am-1pm. Yesterday there was no poo to be had so we didn't get to see how he'd do when the time came. Today, while sitting in time out with Logan, "the time came". Sadly, for all involved, i found out that he wasn't quite ready to announce his needs for poo quite as great as he's been doing with pee. Accident #1 for day 2.

Because we had such a late start to the day, lunch didn't come until almost 2:00. I made the decision to not return to diapers, so we went for a fancy family lunch at McDs in big boy pants. All lunch (no less than 20 times) I asked if he needed to go, and each time he replied no. We made a special trip to the McDs potty to try, but still no go. It may have been finishing the milk on the ride home, but from the potty at McDs and the driveway at home, 5 minutes, he did have another accident, accident #2. He almost got away with it too because as I pulled him out of the car, Logan was turning on the Car Wash and they both ran, clothes and shoes and all, into the water :) Score for cleaning it up!

After getting cooled off and cleaned up we tried again, no go. Sticking to my "no diaper" deal, I did compromise with a pull up. I was very clear as i put him for a nap (a nap we skipped yesterday since PT was going so well) that these were UNDERPANTS NOT A DIAPER. He wasn't fooled and used his Pull up as a diaper during nap (i'm fine with this on Day 2 of training).

As he woke up from nap and we started on the evening routines of dinner, play and bed all bare bummed again, I figured that Day 2 went to shit.... what i didn't realize was how right I was, in the wrong way!.......

After nap, Hayden's potty training returned and he went pee twice on his own. REALLY, ONE HIS OWN. He started to refuse to let me go with him. He walked himself over, climbed up and peed! I was so excited. Since he had a long and late nap, when 8:00 rolled around, I let him stay up. As we all sat around playing the M&M game (we give the kids a handful of M&Ms, but they can only eat them after they color match all the ones they have, and count the colors in English, French and Spanish) Hayden popped up and announced he had to go again. We let him enter on his own. From inside the bathroom he announced his success! "I did it" he cried! As Steve went to inspect, what he found was a surprise. THE BIGGEST POOP EVER! Once i got over my excitement that Hayden had gone on his own, AND POOPED, I immediately realized our luck in keeping him up! If he had gone to bed, poor kid would have done THIS in him diaper and poor mom or dad would have had to clean it! SCORE FOR ALL!

I am so proud of Hayden. This has been such a laid back, low pressure experience. My advice to parents (from my vast bank of potty training experience - ha ha) is to wait till they are ready. If its a terrible, horrible, no go, very bad experience,.. they are not ready. If you wait, then on Day 2 your big boy will take himself to the potty and make the biggest poop ever on his own too!!!

Potty Training: Day 1

Today we woke up with a mission. 

Potty Training Day 1. 

[[[Warning, Warning. This post is about potty training. Read at your own discretion]]

I won't lie. I had very low expectations. Hayden is just shy of 2.5. Logan didn't potty train until his 3rd birthday. I have successfully planned an activity with family or friends every day for the month of July. Because of that, I really didn't have time to just stay home to potty train. This weekend was the first opportunity so on Friday I asked for Steve's help. Steve agreed to spending the day with Logan while Hayden and I had some one-on-one potty time. Before bed Friday night, Hayden and I talked about "no more diapers" and "pee on the potty". He was excited and I was geared up for a day of necessary disaster.

We sleep in. We do. So it was 10:00am when i went to start our potty training day. I walked into Hayden's room greeted by the aroma of the night's poo, the smiles of a happy boy, and the sound of Hayden happily announcing, "no more diapers mommy!". Today might not be so bad after all. I changed his "last diaper" and dressed him in a tee-shirt. No diaper. No pants. No underwear. We made our way downstairs and started breakfast and a 15 minute clock to remind us to try the potty.

In the first 15 minutes, Steve saw quickly why 1) he needed to take Logan out for the day, and 2) how much a swing would help with today's endeavors. Remember that Logan and Hayden are not the only little Nichols these days,.. Owen is a cheery, smiley part of our daily life,.. when someone is holding him that is. The biggest challenge for the day would be to hold Owen all day while running to the potty every 10 minutes. I am so grateful that once Steve saw this in action his next step, and first outing of the day with Logan, was to BuyBuyBaby where he bought the mack-daddy of baby swings. Needless to say,..No, very needed to say,...THIS WAS A LIFE SAVER. Owen loves the swing and i have regained my life, and arms, again.

After returning home with the new swing, and even setting it up, Steve and Logan went to the mall for the day and Hayden and I got down to business. It wasn't all work, we definitely played too! We played cars, play dough, Hayden even learned how to use a computer mouse and played game after game on abcmouse.com by himself. It was actually really nice to have quality time alone with Hayden. He loved it.

So we started the day on the toilet at 10:15am. Set a timer for 15 minutes. Did this for an hour. After an hour I switched to every 10 minutes. After 2 LONG hours of repeating potty and play, Hayden finally peed on the potty!!!! It was as much of a surprise to him as me. I told him how proud I was. He got excited and even more excited when he got his first "pee pee popsicle". A PPP was his reward for going on the potty. (No its not a Popsicle out of pee, it a Popsicle he gets to celebrate peeing).

Because he peed I reset the clock for 30 minutes. At 30 minutes he tried, but didn't go. 10 minutes later (40 minutes after peeing on the potty), he asked to go - AND WENT!!! I reset for 30, but 20 minutes into it, he asked again and WENT!! Started at 30 again. no go, reduced back to 15. At 15, HE WENT AGAIN!!!

4 times so far!! Wow! Great start. NO ACCIDENTS. Even asking to go! Wow. everything was perfect and controlled. The time finally came though for Steve to come home. Fortunately, all the excitement and distractions were not problem for Hayden who yelled to Steve, "I have to go Potty daddy!!!" Steve however, didn't believe him and ignored him asking over and over. With no one to take him, Hayden just peed right where he was in the kitchen, still crying to Steve to take him. Lesson learned - FOR STEVE. So #5 wasn't perfect, but he DID ask, and would have gone!

We kept 15 minutes on clock, and he did ask to go intermittently. 5:45 he asked and peed. The last pee of the night was right before bed when he asked at 7:20 and peed!!!

For those counting, that was 7 times he went potty with ZERO accidents (ok, 1, but that was really steve's fault). 

Potty Training Day 1 = Succcess! Fingers crossed that Day 2 goes as well!

This week at Camp Nichols...Kiddie Kar Wash!

This week at Camp Nichols,.... Kiddie Kar Wash!
In true Pinterest addict fashion, I saw other moms post the Kiddie Kar Wash and knew i HAD to make one! I started by looking at pictures of other's final products, and took the idea to Home Depot. With Owen strapped on my front, I got help from the employees and we started laying out the structure in the store. Once we made a small, mock version I knew how much PVC I needed and what sorts of connectors I would need.

I was so excited to bring the pieces home and immediately put it all together. Once we had the structure together I was able to find some places to make improvements and started with new cuts and a few more HD trips. I was expecting to do this project on my own, but once Steve got to SEE the basic structure he got just as excited as I did, and started to help. Good thing because he did most of the cuts, and adding the holes.

With the structure up and the holes in, it was time to test it out! On went the hose, and.... NOTHING happened. We were so sad. Our initial assessment was that we put in too many holes and the water couldn't flow high enough to get through the pipes. As we were outside working on the project, our neighbor had joined us. He got excited with us and suggested trying his hose - with his super water pressure. He turned it on and.... BAM! It was awesome!!! ***Note to anyone who makes one next, make sure you have a hose with great water pressure!*** With the structure and holes, it was time to decorate. I added some strips of plastic table cover, sponges and pool noodles, and an Enter sign... Voila! Kiddie Car Wash. Of course the boys needed to test it out before Camp Nichols!!!

We had so much fun today with some friends (moms friends, Logan's friends and Hayden's friends!!!) Everyone got their cars (and themselves) nice and clean with water and lots of laughs!!!

And a pic of Owen's date :)

Owen is just one week older than Baby Sophia

11:11 make a wish

It was 11:11pm, and i made a wish. "Please go to sleep and sleep well!!!!"
It was magic or something becasue within 3 minutes Owen was sound asleep and didn't wake up until 6:00am!!! After a quick diaper change and feeding, he was back asleep within 15 minutes. He got up again at 8am (diaper and feeding) and up for the day 1at 10am!
Moral of the story....11:11 wishes do come true!!!!

iPhone Find

Check out this weeks Finds!!!

Snoooozing.....

Burke Lake Train ride with Logan's friend Quincy

The boys playing together,...nice 

Bug attack at Panera

3 boys, 2 dogs, 1 crazy mommy at the Vet!

Hayden: "Ha ha you suckers. You didn't want to nap, but look who has mommy to himself now that you finally crashed!"