My girls are growing up so fast! (Anisten)

I can't believe my baby Anisten is going to be three in less than a month! She is getting so big in so many ways and she is a joy in our lives. Here are some of the things that are going on in her life:

Well in October I decided it was time to approach potty training Anisten for the last time. I prepared better for it this time and planned a "potty party" where both Ani and I trained a doll first and then that helped Anisten learn. The doll I used was a Samantha doll that I had when I was a girl and was saving for my girls. I decided this was as good a time as any to get her out. I told Anisten that her name was Samantha, but I guess that was a name she wasn't familiar with or something because she seemed to have heard me say Joseph Smith. It totally confused me when she kept talking about Joseph Smith, but I finally caught on when she said that Joseph Smith went potty just after we'd taken Samantha to go.

Here is Anisten with Samantha/"Joseph Smith" watching a Potty video

Well, this method seemed to work really well and within a couple days she was going pee in the potty all by herself! I was so thrilled that she was doing well. One of the big enticements that helped her stay on the potty was blowing bubbles. We don't usually blow bubbles in the house, so this was a real treat. :) Here she is blowing bubbles with Aivree. I left Aivree' s Bumbo in the bathroom during potty training because we spent a lot of time in there and I didn't want to leave her all alone in the other room. She liked the bubbles too.

Here's Ani with her Success chart. Look at all those stickers! She loves Little Mermaid, so those are the stickers she got. I couldn't get her to smile very good in these pictures, so here are a couple of okay smiles.

I wish I could say the success is continuing and as far as going pee it is, but she is struggling with pooping in the potty (sorry if this is TMI). She is still having a hard time with it and ends up getting tummy aches because she holds it in. I'm not really sure why she doesn't want to go. She's gone in the potty quite a few times already, just not consistently. I'm assuming it's just something that will take some time with her and we have to be patient. It's frustrating for us all.

Here is a picture of Anisten doing a number 2 (or peace). She hasn't been able to get her fingers to do that the whole year and now that she'll be turning three, she can finally do it. You can tell she's concentrating pretty hard.

Anisten loves to help me cook and it doesn't matter what I'm making, she's willing to help. She especially likes to crack the eggs (she cracks them pretty hard too..it's a little scary). Here she is helping me roll out some dough for our bread.

Here is Ani all bundled up to go outside in the snow and shovel the driveway with daddy. As soon as she saw any snow falling she was wanting to go out and play in it. She loves that she can play in the snow without feeling it because she has all her warm clothes on. She just loves to be outside - rain or shine.

Here's Ani being silly. I twisted her hair and put the braids together in the back and then she discovered that she could pull it in front. Needless to say we don't do her hair like that very often.

One of Anisten's favorite things to do is color and she is getting really good at it. She's figured out what staying in the lines means and she does really well. Markers are her favorite, but she doesn't get to use those all the time. Here she is drawing with crayons.

Here is a picture of a truck she colored

And here is a "smily sunshine" that she drew. Just like Ani, she is sunshine in our lives.