Pictures of Me and other Random Tidbits

Ahhh! I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. I took a pregnancy pic and everything in the hopes of keeping you updated, and here it is a week later. Anyway, here's a belly picture at 20 and a half weeks (I'm now 21 and a half weeks, by the way):

I'm completely straight out, as I seem to be with all my babies, but I wonder if I'm not carrying a little lower than I did with the other two *shrug*. We'll see as my tummy fills out more.

I dyed my hair last Wednesday...mostly out of boredom. Also, Spencer was due to come home from a conference in Salt Lake that evening, so I was curious to find out how long it'd take him to notice. He kind of has a bad track record when it comes to picking up on things like that. I know, I'm a mean wife for totally setting him up, but at least it was for amusement's sake and not to pick a fight. It took him three hours. He claims he wondered if something was a little different on the way home from the airport, but wasn't sure until he looked at me for a while longer. Oh well, I didn't marry my husband for his keen awareness of all things appearance-oriented.

Before I show you the hair shots, be forewarned that the "after" shot is unrealistically dark. We just couldn't seem to take a true-to-life picture that wasn't blurry. My hair is really a lot more dark brown than black.

Before:

After:

On the potty-training front, things are moving verrry slowly, but hopefully in the right direction. Ezra is now exclusively in underpants (except for at night when we put him in pull-ups), however, some days it seems to make little difference to him and we'll have way more accidents than we do successful potty trips. He doesn't like to go to the bathroom (not because he actually has a problem with it, he just doesn't like to be bothered with it) and instead, he believes he can just hold it indefinitely. Eventually, despite his ability to avoid going to the potty for hours on end, the dam does break...and then we have a mess on our hands. I've tried physically putting him on the toilet and holding him there, but that only ends in flailing arms and screaming fits, which usually isn't conducive to potty-going. So, right now we're working on giving him some motivation to want to use the bathroom. We've tried to introduce Potty Candy, the Potty Sticker Chart, and Potty Toys for actually using the bathroom multiple times a day, all without much luck. We're basically down to cheering extensively whenever he goes. He also seems to do a lot better when he decides he needs to use the bathroom, versus me just hounding him until he goes. In typical Ezra fashion, he likes to be in control of things and make the big decisions. I'm figuring I might just have to let him. In the meantime, you'll find me upstairs in the bathroom, ringing Thomas the Tank Engine underpants out.

As for Georgia, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but we officially have another walker on our hands. She's actually been walking for a few weeks now (she took her first steps soon after her first birthday), but has taken her time getting to where she does it often and regularly. I expected her to act like Ezra, who as soon as he figured out why walking is better than crawling, ran away and never looked back. However, as I should expect by now, she was set on doing her own thing. Georgia kind of toyed around with walking for the entire month of June. She'd walk here and there, gradually increasing crawling versus walking ration, to our current state of about 40-60 (in favor of walking). It's actually been kind of a nice break having her walk a bit because it has slowed her down considerably. It's also made me realize it's time to get her some new shoes because when she walks her toes slide forward and hang off the edge of her sandals. So, yay! for new steps and new shoes!

The little ones were having loads of fun outside in the back yard a couple of Saturday mornings ago (they were both still in their jammies, by the way), so Spencer was smart and snapped some pictures.

Ezra was having a lot of fun pulling Georgia around in their wagon

...until Daddy came out and pulled them both around the yard.

They both thought that was only the best thing ever!