Potty training & walking

Both of my girls are working on very big developments and both are making huge strides. Reese is potty training & Ella is so close to walking.

Reese has had basically no success with the potty. She tries all of the time but aside from one poop she has never used the potty for either function. So 2 weekends ago we decided to take more drastic measures. We put her in big girl panties and a t-shirt , nothing else (this is so against my & Neal's, everything should be clean, nature). This was not a success. Through this exercise we realized that she is just not ready. She did have her 1st ever pee pee in the potty & she is so much more aware now so it wasn't a total failure. We'll continue to work on it slowly and try the 3 day thing again in several months.



Ella is so close to being a full time walker. This is crazy to me, she should still be an infant in my mind. She is able to stand for 30-45 second periods & is able to walk as far as needed with a walker. Reese didn't begin standing until 11 months & didn't walk until 12 months & 1 week. It's so interesting to see all of the differences in development & personality. Ella has been consistently taking 3 or 4 steps to get to something she wants and yesterday she took about 6 steps to get from me to a friend of mine. It won't be long. She is also a wild woman. She climbs on everything and is fearless. I am scared of what future bumps and bruises we will encounter.



2 weeks ago Neal and I got to go to the Color of Hope Gala. This is an event that we try to go to each year benefiting the Arkansas Children's Hospital. It is always a fun time. The color this year was green. Dinner was great, we saw many great friends and the auction is always fun (and more than we ever want to spend but fun to look and consider).

Last week the girls school had crazy hair day. We gave Ella a mohawk and Reese had 4 pony tails, each with mismatched bows. She loved the attention that she got from having crazy hair. My little girl that always refuses to wear bows is now requesting them. I have convinced her that her pigtails with a bow on each is "crazy hair".

Last weekend we went to a super hero party for a neighbor and friend. It was at the Bentonville splash pad, which was such a great place for a party. The theme was so cute and Reese and Ella both got to decorate a super hero cape.

Both of my girls are so unique and amazing. I am so thankful that He chose me to be their mommy. I love them so much. They have enriched our lives in ways that we never imagined. We. Are. So. BLESSED!

lightning strikes

Last Saturday, early in the morning hours…3:40 a.m., we had a large storm going through Rogers. The thunder was some of the loudest thunder that I’ve heard. All of a sudden we heard a really loud pop. It sounded like all of the windows in our house had busted. Neal and I SPRUNG out of bed and had adrenaline pumping through our bodies. Many of the appliances had gone off but we noticed that the ac was still pumping, the oven and microwave were blinking and the fridge was still running. We decided to go upstairs to make sure the girls were okay, check on the power up there and see if we could get the power downstairs working by flipping the breakers (which is located in the attic space in Reese’s room).


We went into Ella’s room and her fan was off but she was butt in the air sound asleep, not phased a bit. We then walked into Reese’s room. Neal headed to the attic space and I walked over to Reese. She was standing up and had been completely silent. As soon as she saw me she began sobbing and she was shaking so hard and her heart was beating so fast. I felt so bad for her. I got her out of her crib and laid with her in her big girl bed (she still refuses to sleep in her big girl bed but we are going to tear down the crib soon and force the issue). When Neal finished with the breaker box everything seemed to come back on, as far as we could tell without testing things. Reese was so scared that we decided to let her sleep with us, for the first time ever. It took her about an hour to go back to sleep. Ella’s monitor wasn’t working so I really couldn’t sleep out of fear that she would need me and I wouldn’t hear her. Around 6:45 I moved up to the bonus room to try to sleep and cracked Ella’s door so that I would hear her once she woke up. Reese woke up soon after I left the bed and noticed I was gone so she made Neal take her to find me.

When they got up to the bonus room we tried to turn on the 4 month old 60” television to realize that it had been fried. We went on to find that both baby monitors, all 3 cable boxes, the sound transmitter (machine that carries the tv, radio or ipod over the ceiling speakers), DVD players, alarm system, sprinkler system, iphone charger, router and modem were all fried & likely the ceiling speakers but that isn’t confirmed yet. Reese’s favorite movie, Toy Story, is also stuck in the DVD player and we lost our recording on the cable box of her other favorite movie, Tangled.

When Cox came out they verified that the jolt came in through the cable. He showed us the small metal box that had been turned black, which is located in Reese’s closet. He said we were lucky that it had not started a fire. He said that what we heard from downstairs was much, much louder in her room and that it probably also made a very bright light. Poor girl was petrified for good reason.

I am so thankful that this wasn’t worse than it was. We have an electrician coming out to ensure proper grounding and wiring but I am going to be a bit fearful every time we have a storm that comes through for a while. Reese may be in our room during bad lightning storms in the future.