potty training

This week I bit the bullet and decided to potty train.  She's ready.  I've just been avoiding a week where I can't go anywhere.  It's been surprisingly productive - I'm stenciling my bathroom, crocheting a hat, and my house is remaining surprisingly clean.  Yippee.

Monday we had 4 little accidents (all #1 - #2 has been going surprisingly well).  Tuesday we had two - she would go a little, then do the rest of the potty.

Today - no accidents so far!  She's napping now - and she really didn't want to wear her pull-ups for nap time.  I had to bribe her. 

Speaking of bribery - it is the only way this would ever work.  We start out with M&Ms - which work for a while.  She likes to pick which colors she gets.  She gets two every time she goes potty.  After the novelty of the M&Ms wear out we start with the suckers, tiny candy canes, or -- wait for it -- Readi-Whip.  I had some left from thanksgiving - she thinks it's awesome and calls it 'ice cream'.  The thought of one little squirt of that in her mouth makes her have to go potty really bad.   It's great.   And watercolor paint.  She LOVES it and asks to do it as soon as she wakes up.   Sometimes Mommy's not ready for that until I've had some coffee...

We started out on Monday going every 15 minutes - when the timer would ding we would say "potty time!" and run to to the potty.  Today she's been going 30 minutes to an hour - so good!  I think she'll have it by the end of the week.  Praise the Lord. 

Elise has her very own little Christmas tree.  She likes to take it down from her room everyday to her "little table".

 

And a video of my little genius (haha) painting, counting, and keeping her panties dry all at the same time.   Whoa.

thankful.

We're so thankful.  Thankful for health.  A happy home.  Sweet families.  

We've had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

  I successfully cooked my first turkey.  The prep work was quite hilarious as I was liberally applying herbed butter between the turkey skin and meat and Nick was playing the turkey sound on Elise's See & Say around the corner while Aubrey held the turkey bag open with her one working arm.   That poor turkey.  I completely violated it - although totally in the spirit of thanksgiving.  

Also - Elise can say "turkey", "gobble gobble" and "happy tanks-gunnah". 

But the saddest part is that I have almost no pictures to prove it.  I was a little busy - ya know with Thanksgiving at our house and everything.  We had Nick's family over- it went great.   We were all stuffed beyond belief. 

Here are a few (terrible) pictures we took this weekend.

Auntie Gracie is here!  Elise was loving all the fun things on her phone.    In this picture Auntie Gracie looks so cute and Elise looks not impressed.  She actually is super impressed with the Baby Ariel dolly that AG brought her.  Thank you so much!

We went to cut a Christmas tree today.  It.was.freezing.  This was the only non-blurry picture we got of our family the entire time.  

We drove down down a dirt road for this tree.  Elise liked to help me put up the lights.

I promise I didn't know my windows were this dirty until I used flash photography.  Oopsies.  And she was wearing matching pants at one point of the day - but I put on soft pants so I thought she needed some too. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

the elmo show

Last Sunday we all went to see Sesame Street Live! Elise was treated like a princess (as usual) and had cotton candy (thanks Papa K) and a special Elmo balloon (thanks Papa G). The was completely enamored for the first 30 minutes. And then got a little bored. She said "Elmo all done". And kept climing over all the chairs. This place was not full at all and I think everyone wanted it to be over at intermission because there were more kids than not crying by the end. (Not our sweet Elise, of course.)

It was so dark so I didn't take hardly any pictures.  And then Nick told me I broke the "no flash photography" rule when I took this one and almost confiscated my camera. 

And then we heard the guy who does Elmo resigned from Sesame Street amidst allegations of sex with an underage boy.  Sheesh.  It makes the phrase from the show's description "when Elmo gets his furry fingers on Abby Cadabby's magic wand..." a little weird now.  Poor Elmo...

a few days in peoria

We went to visit Lauren in Peoria this week - since she always drives to see us we went to stay at her super cute house for a couple days.   Elise loves her Auntie Lauren.  Grandma picked us up on Wednesday and Elise was so good in the car.  It's so great when she can just watch a movie and eat a sucker.   

We went to this amazing Bass Pro Shop/Amusement Park.  

They had an entire Christmas wonderland set up. 

Complete with craft tables -- right next to the tracker boats. 

They had a giant fish tank...

(isn't Lauren pretty?? She has hair like a model.)

Gross gigantic fish.

Thank you Lauren for a fun time and all the wine.  We really appreciated it on Wednesday.  Not so much on Thursday.  But thanks anyways... 

lazy sunday & orange snow

Today was probably the last nice day we'll have in awhile. We took advantage of it by running around outside and using the rest of our bubbles. Grandma & Grandpa even stopped by for a little while to join in on the fun.

And a little funny conversation in the bath tonight.  She always refers to herself as "'ise-goote" - like it's one word.  Hilarious.   And Nick likes to put those letters on her head and see how long it takes her to notice.  

medical mumbo jumbo

I never write about cancer.  Mostly because I never think about cancer.  It's just a weird thing that happened to me last year that led me to this haircut. Yeah - we'll go with that.  

Anyways... I had a PET scan last Friday.  It's weird going in for these things because like I said - I never think about cancer.  Until I go in for a scan and everyone's like "oh hey! you're back! cute hair!" and then I have to wait a week for the results and I get a little nervous.   Actually my mom might be the worst.  Or Nick.  They get more worried than me.  

But the results were great.  I don't even need another scan for six months.  I go in again in February for some blood work and a check-up -- one year after I finished chemo.  A CT scan in May and hopefully an all-clear for another Goote baby.  Who's excited?!? Haha...

Everything was clear and awesome.  See?

So there's that.  I know you all were dying for an update.  

It's naptime around here and I had some rotten bananas so I made some delicious smelling muffins.  Now I'm just waiting for Elise to wake up so she can eat one bite and I can eat the rest.   

happy november

It's been awhile.  We were hit with quite the stomach bug here at the Goote house - poor Elise woke up in the middle of the night throwing up.   This was a first for us - she was so sad.  After she got it - I got it - then Nick got it.  We were quite the sad bunch this weekend.  

Now that we're all recovered - here's another little project I've done. 

I had this vase sitting in the basement - it didn't really go anywhere upstairs.  

I sprayed it with Krylon's Looking Glass spraypaint - my new favorite thing.   I couldn't find it at Home Depot - I ended up finding it at Hobby Lobby and used a 40% off coupon.  It looks just like all that mercury glass stuff that's out for Christmas right now - I have plans to do a lamp for my living room too.  Love.

And for the Elise fans out there:  

This is after her nap today.  I finished this hat while she was sleeping - and it's too small.  We gave it to the cute baby down the street.   She has to take every single thing out of her bed after her nap - and she is very specific about what she sleeps with.  There's Lamby, Daisy, Buddy the Elf, and four blankets.  When she goes down for her nap or at night everyone has to be in their place.  

It goes something like this:  

"Yammy in.  Daisy's toes in, Buddy's arms in, on tummy"

"two bankies, yammy bankie, belle bankie"

"nuh-night buddy, nuh-night, daisy, nuh-night 'Ise..."

(she calls herself 'Ise - sounds like 'Ice')

It's quite an elaborate experience.