4 Years Old!

Josh turned 4 years old in May. It's crazy to think he's already 4. My little boy is growing up.
















That afternoon we went to Pump It Up with some friends to play.













The next night, Adam didn't have to work, so we had our little family celebration after dinner. I made Josh a Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake, which he loved.




















Josh got a new bike for his birthday. He's not so sure about it yet. He still prefers to ride his tricycle, but hopefully by the time the weather cools down in a couple months, he'll be ready to try out his new bike again.



Josh has been in speech therapy for a year now, and Adam and I can see lots of improvement. He still has issues with beginning and ending consonant sounds, but he'll continue working on it as he does speech therapy again for another year. We're also excited for him to start preschool in the fall. Josh loves to play with his trains and his cars. He can play for hours running his trains and cars back and forth along his tracks, reciting the stories and phrases from the various Thomas the Tank Engine episodes he likes to watch. He likes to wrestle with Lucy, which sometimes she enjoys and sometimes she doesn't. He is very concerned when she cries and tries his best to take care of her and get her bottle for her when she is upset. He likes to build block towers and do puzzles and he loves playing with Mama and Daddy.

Here are some of his 4-year-old pictures.

























































































We love Josh and are so glad we have him in our family!

Catching Up

I had wanted to do individual posts for each of the things I will mention in this post, but that's just not going to happen right now. We did lots of fun things in April and May. My mom cam to visit for a week during the first part of April. While she was here, we went to Pump It Up, a place where kids can bounce and climb around on huge inflatables.







Josh just LOVES climbing all over everything and going down the slide. It's a great way for him to use all of his abundant energy.
































While my mom was here, we also went to Corpus Christi and spent some time at the beach.















Lucy didn't like the water very much.












Josh LOVED everything about being at the beach. He had a blast playing in the waves and digging in the sand.






























Up next is Easter. We had an Easter Egg Hunt with our playgroup friends. Josh and Lucy really liked looking for eggs.


















Oooo, there's candy in here! Bonus!








The day before Easter, Adam and Josh colored some eggs.




























That week we also got to play with a present from Grandma Pratt.













Josh doesn't quite have the whole "sliding" part down yet, but he still has lots of fun playing in the water.

Fun Stuff

These are some pictures from a couple months ago.





Lucy has discovered that the best toys are not in the toy box, but in the cupboards. She LOVES to take out the plastic containers and spread them throughout the house.






























And Josh still LOVES to blow bubbles. In fact, he's watching me do this blog post right now, and saw these pictures of himself blowing bubbles. Now his shoes are on and he's pulling on my arm to go outside with him and blow bubbles. He got a Thomas the Tank Engine bubble blower in his Easter Basket, so which he loves. So, I guess I need to wrap this up and head outside to blow some bubbles!

Potty Training

In my continued efforts to update our blog, I'm hoping to get a few posts done today. First up is Josh's potty training. We started at the end of January, and to be honest, it has been MUCH easier than I was expecting. We came home from church one Sunday and got out Josh's Thomas the Tank Engine underwear that he got for Christmas and got out the little potty seat and sat it in front of the TV. Josh LOVED to look at his new underwear in the package, but he didn't want to actually WEAR it. We set the timer and had him sit on his potty every so often. There were a couple frustrating times that afternoon when the timer would go off and we would discover he has just wet himself. But eventually he did go on the potty and we celebrated and gave him mini M&Ms for rewards. After a day or so he recognized when he needed to go and would run to his potty. After a few days we moved the potty into the bathroom so he would learn to run to the bathroom when he needed to go. After a few more days, we put the little potty away and he started using the regular toilet. He was so proud of himself, and I think it has given him confidence to try new things. I was so glad it was finally working. This was our third attempt at potty training, and I'm just happy he was finally ready. Over the next few weeks, he knew when he had to go and he would just go to the bathroom and do his business. Sometimes he would tell me he had to go, but mostly he would just go on his own. He's had a couple accidents here and there these past few months, but thankfully it hasn't been the constant mess of accidents that I was so afraid of when we started.






Of course we have to include some embarrassing
pictures :)






The past few weeks have been a little difficult for some reason. Usually, he would just go when he needed to go, or if we noticed he had to go we would encourage him to go potty and he would happily go to the bathroom. But these past few weeks have been different. We would notice that he had to go, he would be holding himself and dancing around, and when we tell him to go potty, he breaks down into a screaming and crying fit and almost has to be dragged to the bathroom. I don't know if he's trying to hold it as long as he can, or if he wants complete control over this area of his life and doesn't like us telling him to go potty anymore, or what is going on, but it's been frustrating. I'm open to any advice or suggestions. I'm sure we'll get through it, eventually. I am so proud of Josh for accomplishing this major milestone in his life! My little boy is growing up.

1-Year Pictures

Well, it's been a while since I've done some blogging. I have a lot I want to post, I just need to make some time to do it.

First up is Lucy's 1-Year pictures. She wasn't very happy to be having her picture taken, so she didn't last very long at the shoot before she completely broke down crying. I think we got a few good pics before that, though.












































































Aw, she's such a cutie! We love watching her learn and grow everyday.