new years eve - sarah kate style.

we finally took sarah kate to james island tonight to the festival of lights. first we drove through the whole park so she could see all the lights (which she LOVED) and then we parked and got out to do all the fun stuff.


it just did not work out for us to take her before christmas and since tonight is the last night that it will be going on we decided to go for it. it's so much fun and we knew she'd love it even more this year than last.

roasting marshmellows

s'mores....

cheese!!!!!


carousel ride....

she loves it....


on the choo-choo train!! sk was so excited about this!




walking through the "tunnel"

i was nervous about the whole potty thing. she refused...i mean absolutely refused to wear a pull-up. she wanted to wear her big girl undies. so we just let her wear her princess big-girl undies so that she feels like we do have confidence in her and also simply because she wants to wear the big girl pants and that is great! that's what we want. but what i didn't want was for her to wet the carousel or the choo-choo train or just to get too busy playing and wet her pants at any point. so i spent most of my time worried about it and asking her over and over if she needed to potty to which she said, "no!" every time. well guess what? she didn't have 1 single accident. she enjoyed everything we did and stayed completely dry. after we had done everything we wanted to do we went back to our car and she went tinkle in our little travel potty in the back of my car and then we went out to eat at a yummy taqueria place since sk was dying for a quesadilla.

sk going potty in the back of the car. this is our new normal apparently.

she did great! she was so fun at dinner & didn't ever need to go potty. she even fell asleep on the ride back to mt. pleasant and still stayed dry! so proud of my big girl.



and if you're wondering what really worked for sk when it came to potty-training.....and why days 2 and 3 and 4 were drastically better than day 1 and nearly accident free......well, here is how we live at home....


that's right. no clothes from the waist down is what works for her. we are wearing big-girl undies when we venture out of the house. and today she wore them a little more than days 2 & 3 and did great, but i think it's only because it was day 4 and she's starting to get the hang of it. i'm sure she won't be completely accident-free for quite a while. she'll get busy playing and wait until it's too late at times. i'm really nervous about school because she's going to want to wear her big girl undies but her teachers have 11 other kids to worry about and won't be asking her every second if she needs to go. and if there's anyplace she is going to get really busy and forget about the potty it is going to be at school! oh well, all toddlers go through this time so we'll just roll with it and hope for the best=)
happy new year from the lucy family!! we have had a fantastic year in many many ways. i will be doing a 2012 post next week.....alot to look forward to next year!

potty party, day 2: making progress!

day 2's stats are alot better than yesterday! way to go, sk!! we had 2 and a half accidents (the half was when i caught her going and she finished on the potty). 9 successful frog potty tinkles!!! and the big news...drum roll....TWO successful #2s on frog potty! that's a big deal. i thought it would be a while until we were able to work on that, but she said she needed to go and so she did!
hoping things continue to improve each day....we'll see! she's pretty proud of herself & we are proud of her, too.

we'll be working on this potty training stuff for a while i know! so i'll update her progress in a few days or next week sometime. i can't wait to find out if i'm able to send her to school on tues. in big girl undies. trey is going to be home early tomorrow to relieve me and i'm going to go out and do some shopping! i'll let him enjoy the potty party for a while. i'm pooped (no pun intended). =)

potty party - day 1.

sarah kate -
*you had 5 accidents and 6 successful potties today
*you love your big girl undies so much
*you really could care less if you wet your undies....sitting around in wet or dirty diapers has never bothered you one bit and apparently wet undies are also no big deal (that is a major con for our training since most kids don't like wet undies).
*you like to put a sticker on your chart when you "go"
*you get one M&M when you "go" and you don't let me forget about that!
*you want to wear your big girl undies to bed....NO WAY SISTER! your diaper is completely soaked every morning so you are not ready for night training. let's discuss that matter in a couple of years....seriously.
*you were a delight all day today even though we stayed inside ALL day long (worked out nicely for me since i was able to get almost all our christmas decorations down).
*after bath tonight we let you wear big girl undies and your pj's while you drank your milk and watched angelina balerina. you let us know that you needed to go tinkle and you got undressed & on froggy in plenty of time! we were so proud!
*you do NOT want to use the big toilet even though we bought you a little princess seat for it. you only want to use frog potty.
*so as a whole....no you are not potty trained yet, but you are doing just fine. we will be home for the next few days to continue our potty party! hoping i can send you to school in big girl undies next tuesday. either way, i'm proud of you for making it through your first day with a big smile on your face and some tinkle in your potty;)

christmas 2011.

we had a wonderful christmas. sk enjoyed her time down in folkston so so much. she and i drove down there last wednesday and she slept part of the way and the rest of the way she just talked about going to mimi & papa's and she smiled and giggled....she was excited! when we got there, two little girls came running out of the house shouting for sk! what a big surprise for ava and bryce to be there.....i didn't tell sk that they'd be in folkston. i'm so sad that i didn't get sk down there in time to go to a little tea-party that our cousin maryeve had for all the little cousins in our family, but i just couldn't get myself together in time to leave early. but i'm sure glad ava and bryce got to go AND got to come to mimi/papa's afterward!

oh how i wish i had videoed or at least taken pics of our dinner that night. the girls ran around and played with flashlights and sang christmas songs at the top of their lungs! they were so excited to be together. i've got to say.....sk can sing her some jingle bells right along with those big girls, too!

on thursday, we played, went into town to see our cousin barbara, and then we had our christmas celebration with sk's cousins (my grandmahazel & papa's great-grandkids. they would really enjoy seeing these precious kids in action if they were still here!) and trey got there on thursday which was nice.

aunt theresa gave sk the little "mrs. pots" teaset from beauty and the beast. she LOVES it! she and her princess dolls had several tea-parties last week.


ava and sk...



i love the way sk is looking up at ava in this pic. she adores them. they started calling her "polly the parrot" because she just says anything they say. she wants to be just like them;)


nice balance, sk!


cuties!


climbers...




brycie's favorite thing...the tree swing.


headed over to fran's house to pick up lucas and gabriel....




riley and the boys!


bubbles....




choose your chalk and GO!


reagan and either lucas or gabriel. i just can't tell them apart. i have to ask dixie who is who (or they will tell me if i ask them). i wish i could!!!!


the oldest (reagan...8) and youngest (sk ..almost 2 and a half).








thursday night my mom cooked a big supper for our family. jonathan and his family spent the night with us and we had our christmas with them on friday morning.

here are our 4 hungry house guests begging for ham. later 3 little girls were just as busy begging...especially my little pork loving girl;)


friday morning....sk received some princesses and all was right with the world!


happiness....




the twins got a train table from mimi & papa. all 3 of the girls love those things! sk was so disgusted with whoever thought it would be a good idea to load that table in jon-jon's car & take it to ava and bryce's house! she wanted it to stay at mimi's! ha! hopefully we'll have a playroom by july and maybe she can have one for her birthday.


lining up her princesses....


watching papa open his new ipad that we all gave him=)


ava's favorite thing....a fairy costume=)


look, mimi has "poppy pie-corn" too!! sk loves popcorn so much. it's one of her favorite snacks and for some reason she calls it, "poppy pie-corn."

friday afternoon, mimi, papa, trey, sk and i went down to jax to make a target run and then we went to see grandma k since the lucy family were not able to make it to kriner christmas this year.

saturday was christmas eve. i have one pic from this day. i have NO idea why i didn't take pics of us before or after our 6:00 christmas eve service. or after the service over at aunt theresa's house where we had dinner with them & jordan, oana, and carlo. trey took this pic of sk and i before trey and i left to go over to amelia.


trey and i went over to amelia during the day and had a lunch date at one of our favorite restaurants over there. then we went back to target to grab princess tiana. sk and mimi went into town and played with barbara & cathy, got icecream and then somehow mimi got her down for a 3 hour nap. she napped real well down there.....so busy i guess!

before bed on christmas eve, i took a couple of pics of a few of her christmas morning items. the dollhouse is her big gift from mimi & papa (aside from disney!)




i didn't get any pics of her seeing everything for the first time because i videoed it instead (didn't think to tell trey to take pics). but anyway, wish i could figure out how to download a video onto this blog because it's so cute! i took pics after she saw everything of course=) her favorite thing was "pascal" that green chameleon in the pic above. he's a character from the movie "tangled" and she's wanted one for a long time. she was SO thrilled to see him sitting over there=) she was excited to see woody, too.




so excited! she loves her dollhouse!




santa brought me a snow white costume!!!


checking herself out in her new mirror from mimi & papa....



busy....


our princess;)


this is trey's pic. he was trying out my new camera lens that he gave me for christmas.

santa brought her a ride-on choo-choo train because she asks to go to the zoo ALL the time so she can ride a train. she wasn't a fan of this at all at first! she sat on it and when it moved and made all the sounds she decided she didn't like it. but eventually she warmed up to it and enjoyed it a couple of times. i'm hoping she'll continue to like it more and more (we haven't even set it up back at home yet because we just have so much stuff everywhere right now!!!!)




my cousin brooke got home from the hospital christmas day with her new baby girl, lilly rose! we went over to aunt theresa's house that night and i got to hold her! she's so pretty...looks like her sweet daddy!
then we went over to ava and bryce's house to see ashley's parents and sister and to see what all santa had left for them. i do have pics from that but that will be another post! i have a fun post in the works with some cute little pics to share. probably will get that done next week! whew!

a BIG thanks to mimi and papa for having us for the week. for feeding us, for keeping sk some and for putting up with our dog hair & christmas mess everywhere. it's always a really fun trip that we all enjoy and look forward to.

also, a big thanks to trey's parents for coming to celebrate christmas with us the weekend before christmas. we were glad to have them here even though sk was a little out of sorts for some reason. anyway, sk loves all her goodies that they gave to her (as do we!) i know that trey's parents enjoyed spending their christmas with trey's aunt and uncle. i know it was a difficult christmas because christmas day marked one year since trey's grandma sasi passed away, but a joyous christmas too! the birth of Jesus is a reminder of the promise of heaven where gma sasi is with Him and where we will get to see her again!

i have a few pics from our weekend with trey's parents. sk opening christmas goodies.....




she loves feeding her cookie monster those cookies!




we love her new easel and she has been enjoying it!




doug and trey made a gingerbread house;)


pretty cute!

so merry christmas from the lucy fam!! now that the holidays are over we are spending this next week getting our house back in order! and tomorrow starts day one of potty training. no matter how it goes, good or bad, i'll be posting about that in the near future for sure ....that's definitely a "baby book" type of thing to document. she picked out her big girl undies today at target (princess of course) and she's excited about them. should be interesting.