Potty progress

Katya is making great progress in the potty training department. She is doing much better staying dry while wearing pants and shorts. She still seems to have a harder time with underwear but is doing better in them too. We have started to venture out of the house diaper-less! Last weekend at Grandpa Al's birthday celebration she went all day without a diaper. She had 2 accidents near the end of the day when she started to get tired (having missed her nap). On Saturday we went to Allen and Eryn's in the afternoon/evening and she did really great! Yesterday we went to the library and Safeway without a diaper and she also did great. It is so exciting!

She has started to take her diaper off during nap time and then cry "I have to go pee-pee!" But this is just a method of getting attention and trying to get out of napping. It is tricky but she has been doing okay after I go in and put her diaper back on her (she leaves it on for the nap). I often find her diaper-less after her nap or when she wakes up in the morning because she will take it off when she wakes up. She says, "I don't need a diaper any more!" I think she is getting to the point were she is enjoying the comfort of being without it. Nice!

She likes to be a "naky bottom" but she has to wear shorts, a long dress or pants to cover her up. We have the blinds open a lot and I think it is really important to protect her privacy. There are a lot of sickos out there and I don't want to take the chance of attracting such attention. Plus I think this is an appropriate age to start talking about keep her private parts private.

Here are a couple of sweet pictures of our beautiful girl!

Faulkner Family Fun

First off I have to say that just hours after I posted about how sweet and polite Katya is she proved me wrong! She has been really ornery the last few days! That's what I get for bragging.

We had a great weekend celebrating Grandpa's birthday with the whole Faulkner clan. Grandpa had a wonderful time and the weather on Saturday was just beautiful. We spent most of the day basking in the sun, visiting with everyone and watching Katya and Addison play. They are so cute together! Then we went out to dinner at the Gausthus. On Sunday we went back to Vancouver for brunch with those still in town and saw them off. Craig, the girls, and I stayed for a few extra hours visiting with Grandma and Grandpa.

Here are some great pictures of the fam (I am labling these for the benefit of my family members who haven't meet all these folks):

These two need no introduction! What a great picture!

Faulkner men: Craig, Doug (son of Al & Marian; Craig's father), Al (Grandpa), Don (son of Al& Marian) and Allen (son of Doug & Sharon; Craig's brother)

Eryn (married to Allen) and Reagan

Cousin Catlin and Aunt Joan (married to Don; daughter is Catlin) Such lovely ladies!

Aunt Cee-Cee (daughter of Al & Marian), John (married to Ceec), Jena and Paul (Cee-cee's children)

Addison (daughter of Allen and Eryn), playing with Uncle Craig's shoe

The girls with Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Doug

Loves from Grandpa

Alexi(Craig's sister) with her littlest neice

The Sweetest

It seems a bit braggy but I am so proud of how sweet and polite Katya has become. I know I talked about this in the last few posts but I have to say it again! As stated earlier, of course she is still 2 and has her moments but she is such a nice girl. All the time she is sharing with her sister and making sure Reagan has toys to play with. She shares really well (most of the time) with other kids and loves making friends. She says, "Thank you Mommy" at least a few times a day without prompting. At the park she tells other kids, "Good job!" when they climb up a tricky ladder. She tells me, "Good job Mommy" when I climb something. She rarely gets time outs these days. And she responds really well to 'one warning or it's a time out,' when appropriate. I would like to thank my good friends consistency and follow through for that! Months 18-26 were pretty challenging but the hard work has paid off.

I love not being pregnant right now which gives me the energy and agility to climb on the play equipment with her. I find the other kids at the park also enjoying how involved I am in the play. Today Katya was on a little structure at McCoy Park that looks like a ship and within minutes we had 5 toddlers joining us in our pretend play! It was really fun. I would say something like, "all aboard! We are setting sail!" And they really got into it. One boy (about 2-3yrs old) yelled out, "Shark!" And so we pretended their were sharks and a little later he said, "Pirates!"

Craig now has Saturdays off from Widmer!!!!!!!!!!! Though he will pick up extra shifts every now and then. So it's just Monday and Tuesday nights at the G-hut, as they call it (lame, I know:0)). We are looking forward to celebrating Grandpa Al's 86 birthday tomorrow with the Faulkner clan! Hope the weather holds up, it has been fabulous this week. Love to all.

Shamrock Run

Yesterday we had to wake the kids up early, especially because of day light savings time, so we could venture downtown as a family for Craig's Shamrock Run. He ran the 8K, same as last year and shaved about a minute off his time. He placed 22 in his age group, not quite as well as he wanted to do but still pretty good! There were a TON of people running; a couple thousand in the 8K alone.

Here are the girls riding the Max train across the river. We parked at Legacy, since we still have stickers on the car, and took the Max across to Waterfront Park. Katya was so excited to ride the train!

And here we are waiting for the 8K start.

It was quite cold, in the high 30s and the girls got a bit cold. After Craig's run started I planned on finding a coffee shop to warm up in but that proved more difficult than I thought. It took a while to traverse and cross the race path and venture into downtown Portland. When I finally found a Starbucks it was packed to the doors with people who had already finished their race (the 8K was the last to start). So we continued on 4th street and finally found another Starbucks inside Pioneer Place Mall. I stood in line for a while but decided coffee wasn't worth the wait and went to find a bathroom. It was perfect because the mall was warm and the bathroom not very crowded but it all took longer than I wanted. By the time I ran back to Natio Pkway I knew that Craig had already finished. And I was on the wrong side, blocked by runners coming into the finish! I was really bummed that we missed watching Craig finish, and he had to wait for us, freezing from the run. But of course the priority was getting the girls warmed up. Over all it was quite a fun outing!

Here are a few pictures from last week with my girls:
Katya at 'open gym' at our local community center.

It is only a half mile from the house and costs 1$ per kid. We often meet friends from church here on Tuesdays and it is really great for rainy days.
Here is Reagan in a car!

Here is Katya playing in the hose, not this past weekend but the Sat before. We had a beautiful sunny day and she ended up in her bathing suit playing for an hour!

Snack break.

Reagan in sunglasses, that she will not keep on! They will probably get more use from Katya.

11 month old?!

I don't know how it happened but there is a 11 month old in our house today! How is it that this is her last month of infancy?! Katya and Reagan have been 'playing' together a lot lately. I love that they are so close in age! I put them side by side in a Fred Myer "race car" shopping cart yesterday. They were SO cute! Katya was thrilled to have her sister sitting with her. Another fun thing we did yesterday was to pull the couch cushions and pillows onto the floor for them to play on. I came up with the idea because Reag loves to play on the couch but of course I have to be right with her. With the cushions on the floor the 'bonks' are pretty miner. And she loves 'climbing' up onto the cushions. She also enjoyed me chasing her, with her crawling away on her belly. I can't wait till she is really crawling because I know she will love it!

The clouds have given way to sunshine today and I am off to get ready for an outing. Love to all!

Refinance done!

Craig signed and closed on our home refinance today. We are very happy with how it turned out. It was VERY reasonable, the cheapest loan origination fee I have ever seen. We locked our 30 year fixed loan at 5.125% and the refi will have paid for itself in only one year. We had to bring 1500$ to closing but our first payment is not until May, so that was basically like paying our mortgage for March. The numbers ended up with a payment of just under $1500 a month, with about $275 towards principle. So we will be paying almost 60$ less each month and over a hundred more towards principle! Yeah!

We had a great visit with Grandma and Grandpa Faulkner and cousin Jena yesterday. We missed Allen, Eryn and Addison who had to cancel because of a sick little one. I cooked a turkey and stuffing which we brought along with salad and yummy rolls. The stuffing wasn't the best, in my opinion, but the turkey turned out really good. It was my first turkey ever! The day was a bit cold and cloudy but Katya still enjoyed lots of outdoor time in Grandpa's lovely yard. Reagan took a 2hr nap which was great because she was cranky! I bugged Grandpa about the genealogy research he has done on the family and I had such a great time looking threw stuff with him. He has a ton of information and I am excited to look through all of it! I absolutely loved seeing pictures of him and Marion when they were young and other pictures of Faulkner relatives. There was a picture of Grandpa at about Reagan's age, and I see similarities in their eyes. We are looking forward to celebrating Grandpa's 86th birthday in a few weeks with the whole family. Love to all, Brenda

Two beauties

I couldn't resist posting these pictures of our beautiful girls.

Reagan definitely favors Craig in looks (which I love) but I see myself in her too.

Katya stopped playing her absolute favorite game, 'chase', to pose for a few pictures for me.

Snuggle bugs

Reagan is such a little snuggler! When I am laying on the floor she loves to crawl over and bury her head on me. Especially if I have a blanket. I caught her cosing up on the dog bed the other day and got some cute shots. She was all smiles moving around on the bed and stopping to 'snuggle' the bed.





Today I was laying with her on the couch and she was doing the same thing; crawling and pivoting around, stopping to bury her head in pillows, cusions, and my lap. I started talking and encouraging her and got her laughing so hard!

Here are some cute pics of Katya snuggling with Levi.




Lastly, Reagan is finally enjoying her baths! She and Katya are really cute together. Reagan loves laying on her back and is even flipping onto her tummy in really shallow water and 'crawling (on her belly still)' around. Now we all love bath time, about every other day, instead of the dreaded once a week baby dunk.