Pre-Christmas Abuelito Santa Claus

We celebrated Christmas with Michael's parents this past weekend and Abuelito Santa Claus made his annual appearance.

Giggling with Abuelito Santa Claus

Mr. and Mrs. Claus

Lots of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stuff

Lots of My Little Pony stuff

Snuggles

Daphne crawled into bed with Michael and me around 5:30 this morning. I felt lots of poking and prodding. At one point she was right up next to me and we were cheek-to-cheek facing the ceiling and Daphne said she was smooshing our faces together. After a while she moved over a little and I put my arm around her, which is something she usually loves and asks me to do. But this morning she declared, "Don't get so close to me!"

Dear Santa

Daphne brought this photo home from school today. It's a good thing that Santa's elves make toys and not pets! A few weeks ago when I asked Daphne what she wanted Santa to bring she said super hero butterfly wings. I'm not exactly sure what that even means. She already has 2 pairs of butterfly wings and she is constantly pretending to be a super hero, so I think we have that one covered. Tyler is pretty convinced that he is on Santa's Nice list and that Santa will be bringing him a skateboard. We shall see. We have definitely been making a point to bring up Santa's Naughty list whenever the kids aren't behaving as they should.

Tree Skirt's Adventures Continue

Monday, December 15: Stowaway!
Tree Skirt tried to go to school with Tyler.

Tuesday, December 16: Captured

Wednesday, December 17: Gone Fishing



Thursday, December 18: Silly Elf-
Trix are for kids!

Friday, December 19: Milk and cookies

Saturday, December 20: Popcorn and a movie

Trail of Lights

A few nights ago we went to the Trail of Lights in Zilker Park. The kids (and the adults) really enjoyed checking out all the light displays. This year there was even a ferris wheel to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Trail of Lights.

The Zilker Christmas Tree with the ferris wheel
lit up in the background

Abuelita, Daphne, and Michael on the ferris wheel

Renee, Tyler, and Abuelito on the ferris wheel

In the first tunnel of lights along the trail

Tyler was excited to see that the X
Games are coming back to Austin in 2015

Proof that Texas is the center of the universe

Family photo with Santa and Mrs. Claus

My little sugar queen was excited about Candyland

Potty Progress

After the few first really messy days, our big girl is now a potty pro! On Tuesday thru Friday she had maybe one accident per day and yesterday she was accident free. We are really surprised by how fast she has gotten the hang of it because Tyler took forever. We got tired of shuttling our potty seat between upstairs and downstairs and so Daphne and I bought a new potty seat for downstairs. I let her pick out the seat and she chose teenage mutant ninja turtles over princesses, Sesame Street, and Mickey and Minnie. She has been wearing training underwear that are thicker in the middle to absorb accidents. Daphne and I picked out big girl underwear for when she has been accident free for a few weeks. She picked out My Little Pony underwear and Jake the Pirate underwear. Technically the Jake underwear are boy underwear complete with the flap but Daphne really likes them.

Daphne wearing a teenage mutant ninja turtle mask
while sitting on her ninja turtle potty seat

Potty Training

Daphne's preschool teacher got us all pumped up to start potty training. I told Daphne a while ago that she's not a big girl until she is potty trained. Recently when Michael's dad told Daphne that she is such a big girl she told him that she is still a little girl because she is not yet potty trained. Daphne also knows the difference between her daytime and nighttime diapers. I think she is ready.

We took the plunge on Saturday with the hard core diaper-free approach (except for naps and nighttime). Let's just say that I did a lot of laundry this weekend and I'm not yet optimistic about potty success. Although Daphne does like rewards mini marshmallows. And Tyler can be bribed with marshmallows to keep Daphne company while she sits on the potty and to sing to her. Daphne did really well at school yesterday and today and only had 2 accidents each day while at school. Yesterday after school Daphne told me, "I'm a big girl now!"

Daphne waddled up to me at Lowe's on
Saturday with her pants all wet and said, "I need
to go potty." I made her pose in their bathroom.