18 Months Photo Shoot

It is nearly impossible to actually photograph both girls at the same time and not have one crying, picking a booger, making a pirate face, or simply face down throwing a tantrum.  It is for this reason that we have avoided doing professional photos because why would I pay someone to capture something I get to witness everyday for free (that was sarcasm by the way).  That being said, I LOVED the photos my older sister had done of my niece Avery and I convinced Alex to give it one go. We also decided to include Avery in some shots so my parents could actually have a photo of all three girls.  I will just summarize the experience to say it was exactly what I expected: exhausting.  Thankfully, for all the work put in by me, Natalie, and the photographer, we actually ended up with quite a few great shots :-) Enjoy!

Photos by Julie Andress

Making It Up As We Go

 We've noticed for the last few months that the girls have been making a big to-do about dirty diapers: grabbing them, ripping them off, announcing to crowds of people that they have "pee-pee or poo-poo," and just generally being very interested in those delightful bodily functions.  We even caught Emma trying to "hold it" while running naked to get into the bath tub...hands down cutest potty dance I've ever seen :-)  One weekend with nothing to do or anywhere to go we decided, heck, let's just buy a couple pottys and see what happens!  We didn't go into this with any plans or really any hope--we had ZERO expectations.  They were so excited to just play with the pottys that that's all they really did the first day.  The next day we got them to sit on them nakey throughout the day but nothing happened.  The next day, a Monday (meaning mom was on her own without dad), I got them up in the morning and sat them on the pottys.  Emma was NOT having it, like full on tantrum, so I wasn't even paying attention to Lu.  I determined that Emma was definitely not ready for this and I wasn't going to push it anymore.  I turned around to grab a naked Lu and she was just staring into the potty repeating "pee-pee" over and over again.  Low and behold I looked in and we had our first success!  She was so proud and so excited that she ran all over the room yelling "pee-pee potty, yaaaaaa!" *Or was that me? No no, it must have been Lu*  Throughout that day, and the week that has followed, she has asked for the potty or to pee-pee.  She could literally sit on the potty all day happy as can be!  She doesn't always "go" but when she does she thinks it's the best thing ever and repeatedly "flushes" her toddler potty to hear the applause.  She is by no means consistent and she won't go #2 on the potty but since our potty training method has been pretty loosey-goosey what can you really expect?  She's too tiny/skinny for the smallest pull-ups and unless I special order her big girl panties she is stuck in diapers anyways.  So until things get a little more consistent she'll just keep wearing her diapers and doing her own brand of potty training hehe.

Checking everything out

She even keeps up her style while potty training :-)