Our peanut is 2!!!!!!!!!

Well actually she was 2 yesterday but I didn't get a chance to update then so I thought I better today! A lot has been going on in the Beal house since the last time we updated the blog. We are still working on potty training and Abby has been wearing big girl underpants in the evening and on the weekends. She is doing pretty well, although today she had 2 accidents within and a few hours but other than that she has done great. Abby has also stopped using her sippy cups and started using regular cups. It took a few days but she has it down and almost never spills. Today will be her actual party and we will get some pictures up of her from the party, but until then here are some pics we took over the past few weeks.

Just being silly!

She loves our friend Bargmann's motorcycle.

In fact everytime he rides it to our house she insists on sitting on it.

If rambo was a 2 year old girl I think he would look like this. The best part of this get up is the fact she picked it out and dressed herself.

Potty Training!

So, it's been a busy few months here and I noticed the blog hasn't been updated recently and I've had all intentions of doing so but other things have taken priority BUT, Jason and I have been doing something extremely important with Abby recently and we are very proud of our little peanut. Recently we started potty training! In March, we bought Abby her own little Princess Potty which is pink, purple and white and it is so high tech that it makes music when Abby goes poop or pee (pretty cool huh?). We didn't pressure the potty training and just let her get used to the idea of using the potty and sitting on it etc. Then, in the middle of April, we decided we needed to have an incentive for Abby to start using the potty more regularly and make it FUN! Now, when I was potty trained, I am told that my grandparents trained me by giving me KING sized candy bars (that's quite the incentive). Learning from that, we decided to go with something that wasn't edible and was cheaper thus, we came up with the idea of using stickers and developed Abby's Potty Charts.

Here's the rules: Abby gets a sticker every time she tries to go potty or actually "goes" on the potty. (Mom and Dad make sure to "high five" and jump around to make it extra exciting.)

So, we started on April 19th when Abby actually wanted to go potty. For a little while before, the charts were hung outside the bathroom upstairs so she could look at them. Most of the time when we asked her if she wanted to use the potty, she said no but once she understood the positive reinforcement of the stickers (and the high fiving with mom and dad) she got the hang of using the potty and the potty charts.

Here is the May Potty Chart. As you can see, some days have multiple stickers and only a few don't have any stickers for this month. YEAH Abby! We also ended this month on a high note with the last day Abby actually going POOPY on the potty. The whole month and a half before she never wanted to go poopy on the potty because she was scared and on May 31st she closed herself in the bathroom without her diaper on and she decided she was going to do it on her own. (Mom and dad thinking "yeah right, she's probably just pretending") About 5 minutes of her behind closed doors yelling " I'm doing it! I'm Doing it! I did it! I did it!" to our suprise, there was actually poop in her princess potty!!! What proud parents! Now the rules are if she goes poopy on the potty, she gets to put a sticker on and she also gets a few chocolate chips.

That's not poop on her face, that's Chocolate. We're SO proud.

Just some pictures

We have had a few posts pretty recently but no new pictures so I thought we better put some up. Hope everyone enjoys them!

Just laying around with Mom.

This was Abby's idea, everyone thought is was funny but Duke.

Abby was helping me fix something on our porch when she tripped and hit her nose on one of our patio chairs. Well it resulted in a bloody nose, but she handled like a champ.

Most likely watching "Elmo Opposites" for millionth time.

Best Mother's day present EVER!

I haven't posted anything recently because I haven't taken any pictures recently but Mother's day and my birthday have come and gone and I figured I should write something so I hope you all enjoy this Mother's Day TRUE story that happened with our little family.

Before I continue, I must apologize to my husband because this might embarrass him but this is the funniest thing that has happened to me in a long while. SORRY JAY!

Mother's day was a somewhat brisk day but clear enough and warm enough for the Peterson family to grill steaks outside so, while waiting for the coals to warm up, we decided to play outside with Abby. Since we don't have our own backyard, we like to get Abby outside as much as possible when she goes to grandma's and grandpa's. I was sitting sipping my wine on the porch and Jason and Abby had been exploring down under the pine tree's at the edge of the yard. While I was sipping my wine I thought to myself, "Maybe I should go monitor what she's doing under that tree ... NAH, it's mother's day, I should just sit down and relax, Jason's got it." I continued to sip my wine and chat with my brother and 5 minutes later I hear Jason say, "I don't know what that is, go show it to Mommy."

Interesting, what could this be that she's bringing me? Pine Cones, Pine needles, Sticks ... all things she's fascinated with. Abby trots up to me with her hand closed. I held out my hand for her to drop what was enclosed in her little fist into mine. Out drops 4 little balls of brown into my hand. I honestly had to think twice about it. Did she just put rabbit poop into my hands? Did Jason just let her pick up rabbit poop? Did Jason really not know what rabbit poop looks like? Too many questions and to much time holding the poo I whisked Abby into the bathroom to wash our hands. EEEEWWwwwwwww. Good steaks though. Happy Mother's Day.

PS, Jason says it's still up for debate on if those little brown balls were really rabbit poo or not.

The thing about being a parent ...

Today we took a trip to the grocery store and we were on our way home and I (Julie) looked in the rear-view mirror of the car to see Abby pulling something yellow and mooshy out of her mouth and Abby said, "icky mommy, I burp." Instantly I pulled off to the side of the highway and within a millisecond, Abby puked 3 times while strapped into her car seat. It was disgusting and the rest of the ride home the car smelled like puke, but, that's the thing about being a parent. No matter how gross it was, the only thing we cared about was making Abby feel better.

The other thing about being a parent is learning to "wing it." We weren't really sure what to do when she was throwing up and since she did throw up, our weekend plans for this Sunday night were completely thrown out the window. Oh well, that's the thing about being a parent.

Before today, I had planned on updating the blog with a some cute Abby-isms that she says all the time so on a lighter note, here's some cute things Abby says.

"Duke did it." (doesn't matter, if you ask who did it, it was always duke.)

"Baby Jesus and Baby Blake." (Abby's response when we ask her what her baby dolls are named.)

"Peecuz." (translation: Because.)

"No me don't." (translation: No I don't.)

"Big cuck." (translation: Big Truck)

"Now my no more A B C's ..." (translation: Now I know my ABC's ...)

"It's lellow mommy." (translation: it's YELLOW mommy.)

"Wewon is a kitty" (translation: Leon is a kitty.)

"Ony peepo goto Susie's. No Duke." (translation: Only people go to Susies. No Duke.)

"NO Daddy." (translation: I've got you wrapped around my little finger so tight that I will ALWAYS get what I want.)

Loving the outdoors

So we have been spending a ton of time outside these days. There is nothing like releasing a toddler into the warm sun after 6 months of keeping her cooped up inside! Julie and I love the warm weather but Abby just eats it up. She would spend every waking second outside if we let her, which makes for an interesting time trying to get her back into the house. Well here are some pictures from the last week of Abby living it up in the great outdoors.

Grandma Beal was able to find a FREE sandbox, it has quickly become one of her favorite things.

Here she is getting really dirty, one thing that sucks about nice weather is the fact that we can't get away with a bath every other day anymore. In fact right after playing in the sandbox it was right in the tub, she had sand everywhere.

My Jellybean!

Weekend Outings

For the past few weekends our family has been keeping VERY busy and we've been taking a lot of pictures to document the fun/busy times we've been having. We've been trying to keep our family busy because Abby always has so much energy on the weekends and when you're cooped up inside all day, the weekends get really long so the first excursion was an outing to the Como Conservatory. Here are the pictures from that trip.

Here's Abby on the way to Como. She looks pumped to be driving all the way to St. Paul. Although the picture doesn't look like she's excited, she actually was. We got to go through the Minneapolis tunnel on hwy 94 and Abby read her books on the way. She did very well for a semi-long drive.

Abby and Daddy looking at the waterfall in the conservatory.

Look at all the fish!

Mommy trying to be Artsy Fartsy with the Camera except Abby wasn't looking. Oh well.

More fountains.

Oooooh, pretty flowers. The flowers below are Star Gazer Lily's which were the main flowers at our wedding.

Sunbathing Turtles

Piranha's

The next weekend we went to the Bell Museum which is not a museum full of bells but a museum of Taxidermy. Yes, that's right, literally a museum of hunted, shot and stuffed animals. It sounds gross but it was pretty neat because they put the animals in areas that look like their natural habitats. They also have an area where you can touch and feel all sorts of different animal furs and they even have a few live animals too.

Abby standing in front of the Bear Den

Walking on a fake bog. it was squishy and kind of bouncy.

Cool antlers dad. I think those are moose antlers.

What kind of bones are those that they are sitting on? Well, since I'm going to be a Chiropractor in about a month, those are back bones, otherwise known as VERTEBRA, from a hump back whale one of the biggest animals in the world! (I just HAD to get a picture of those huge vertebra).

Look at them, they're bigger than my head!

Here's another one, this one might be from an Elephant or something of that size.

Look at all the different sizes and shapes! A-mazing!!

Here's a little video of one morning before we went on our trips. It's just cute cuz Abby is talking so much and is so active. She's just plain outright adorable.