Santa Visit and Christmas

We weren't actually supposed to be in the picture but as soon as Nathan saw Santa there was no way he was leaving my side. He was fine the whole time waiting in line but when he saw that big guy in red he was like no way! I think his face says it all. lol It was fun. :)

Here's our gingerbread house we made on Christmas Eve.

We let Nathan open a present on Christmas eve which was a game called Mr. Bucket that shoots these balls out of his mouth and you have to scoop them back up into the bucket as he's moving around the room. Nathan loved it!

He got a few more cars from the movie Cars that are mega blocks so you build them and he just loves playing with them. Anything car or truck Nathan is right into. Such a boy! :)

Can't forget the animals. Zumi got his Christmas bone and the cats enjoyed some treats too.

Opening one up with his cousin Jayden.

Making some music with the set he got from Granny and Papa G.

He did it !!!

Yup, he did it! Nathan went pee pee in the potty tonight!! We just finished giving him a bath and he was running around a little. He went over to the potty and said "potty" and then sat down. He did this a few times before he actually sat down and went. It wasn't much but it counts!

I was talking to his one teacher the other morning and she mentioned that Nathan has been using the potty at school daily. I was like "Really?" because he hadn't used it at home yet and she said this was common because at school he sees his friends doing it and makes him want to do it too. I was so proud of my big boy!! She says he seems to have an interest in the potty so it's a good time to start potty training.

So she told me that what they normally do is ask that the parents start on the weekend having them in only underwear the whole entire day, other then at night of course. They prefer underwear over pull-ups as those are basically diapers and don't let the wetness go through them like underwear would and the only way he is going to learn is by feeling wet so here we go!

She said to pick a weekend that we don't plan on going anywhere because we are in for some messy days :\ I'm actually excited though. This is such a big step for my little guy and I can't believe how fast he's growing up.

Halloween n' such

So this is what Nathan ended up wearing for halloween. He was originally going to be a dinosaur but we tried his costume on the night before just to be certain and what do you know...he's grown! It doesn't fit anymore!! So friday morning off we go to wal-mart in Newmarket to find him a new costume. And of course they have nothing!! So at this point I called work to let them know that it was going to be a busy morning for us and that I would be in as soon as I found Nathan a costume. I was not letting him go to daycare without a costume, so we had to wait around until 9am when Value village opened up. We looked all through there and all we could find was this poor batman costume that looked so cheap and I really didn't want to put him in it, so then we decide to head to the mall. First we try Toys "R" us but they are all out so then to Zellers which is where we found this. Thank God!! I was starting to worry...

We went to 3 of our neighbour's. Nathan was pretty quiet through it all, not really sure of the whole thing. He would just stand there and stare as our neighbour's would put candy into his pumpkin like he had no idea what was going on. It was funny. TJ decided to wear the head piece of Nathan's dinosaur costume. lol

Here they are enjoying a piece of a kit kat while waiting for trick or treaters. This one kid came up near the beginning of the night with the mask from the movie scream on and Nathan started to get upset. After that he didn't really hang around the door too much. lol

Today we cleaned up the front yard and the boys had fun in the leaves.

Nathan was the bag packer. Whenever we needed to pack down the leaves we would have him come and jump in the bag. He loved it!

Trip to the pumpkin patch

On Friday Nathan had a school trip to the pumpkin patch. Again I tagged along :)

They had a huge garden there and they gave a bunch of vegetables to the teachers to bring back to the classroom for the kids to eat. They gave carrots, beets, cabbage, potatoes and some kale for the kids to use as paint brushes for art.

All the kids were allowed to pick a pumpkin and a gourd to take home.

Enjoying a snack on the bus before we left.

The potty

So a couple months ago, my brother Jay gave me the potty my nephew Jayden used when he was potty training. Not that I was going to start him then because it was much too early. But about a month ago, I thought it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to bring it into the bathroom and just set it on the floor so that Nathan would just notice it.


After a couple of weeks of this we decided to clip it into the toilet seat and see what he thought of it. Well he thought it was so much fun to open and close the lid so we did this for a little while. I wanted to make sure that the potty was always "fun" to him and never forced him to do anything he didn't want to because I figured as soon as he got upset about the potty it would be hard to get him to go back to it.


So every night we would spend some time in the bathroom talking about the potty. TJ and I would take turns sitting on it in hopes that Nathan would want a turn sitting on the potty which is exactly what happened! Kids are so easy! lol well....so far.... :)


Well, last week after we got home one night I noticed Nathan was standing in the corner of the kitchen with his hand behind him. I looked at him and asked if he "pooped" and he nodded his head yes. Well, the very next night he did the exact same thing although this time he said he pooped as he was grabbing at his pants behind him. I was so proud of my little guy, he's starting to recognize when he's doing things and telling me which is so exciting!! I'm sure all the mom's out there understand exactly where I'm coming from..lol


So now for the past week he lets us know when he needs a bum change and we have a nightly routine of sitting on the potty. Things are going great! Then the other night he said he pooped and when I checked, he hadn't gone yet so I figured he was now recognizing that he had to go and letting us know before it happened. So I got him ready for the potty and I stood there all excited that he was actually going to use and......nope! He was just fooling with me lol BUT he is recognizing it now which is awesome!! I'm still not pushing him at all and he is deciding all on his own that he wants to use the potty. I'm thinking this might be easier than I thought although it's still early but so far he's doing great! I'm sure daycare has a lot to do with it as well as he sees other kids there saying/doing the same thing. Either way...I'll take it! :)

Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday TJ, Nathan and I took a trip to the Pumpkin Patch. It was awesome!! There was so much to do there and it was only $9 each (Nathan was free) and included in that was a ride on the wagon to the pumpkin patch to pick out your own pumpkin to take home with you, so really the admission was the cost of buying a pumpkin. This place was so much fun!

This corn tunnel was neat. It was the perfect height for Nathan. After going through it with Daddy the first time, he felt quite comfortable going through it on his own several times. TJ kept going with him but if he was taking too long then Nathan would run to the start without him.

TJ coming out and Nathan already on his way to the start. :)

There was a really cool corn maze and we let Nathan lead the way. He loved it!









And here's the pumpkins we took home. We found the biggest ones that TJ was able to carry.




Nathan even found one that was just his size. We were going to bring it back but he ended up losing interest in carrying it pretty quickly and threw it down.






These pumpkins were out by the entrance. They had some biggies. This one weighed in at 136 lbs.












We were there for just over 3 hours and didn't even see it all. There was a haunted barn that we were thinking about going in but at this time Nathan was pretty tired and didn't think it was the best time to see how he would handle the haunted barn so we'll try that next time...maybe. I'm still iffy about bringing him through it but of course TJ says oh he'll be fine. Typical dad :)

Elmvale Zoo

Yesterday TJ, Nathan and I went to the Elmvale Zoo which is about 20km north of Barrie. It was awesome! It was much better than the Toronto Zoo because you could see every animal in half the amount of walking. They had just about all the same animals as the Toronto Zoo with the exception of Buffalo's and Hippo's I think. And the cool thing about this zoo was that you could touch quite a few of them. In some areas the fence was actually stretched from the animals trying to score some treats. They had food you could buy to give to some of the animals which we did.

Then it was time for a little break from walking to play on the swings. Nathan walked/ran the whole time we were there except for the swings and lunch. We were there for just under 3 hours. At one point near the end I asked him if he wanted up and he shook his head no and kept on walking. He was a perfect little boy the whole time. :)

My 2 handsome boys.

These 2 really have a lot of fun together as you can see. :)

Nathan always said hi and waved to each animal and then before we'd leave, he would say bye to them and wave...too cute!

Not really sure what he was doing here...lol

Having some fun at the gift shop. We didn't buy anything, just played with some stuff for free then left...maybe next year lol