Potty Time.

We are doing it.

Potty Training.

 The diaper came off Christmas morning. Jaws has been patting his diaper and reporting his business for the last month or so. It is actually really cute. In a high pitched voice he yells with amazement, "Pooooh!" That was enough to convince us. I don't have many times when I have a whole 12 day stretch off work. Knowing how crappy potty training is, Pops and I decided it was best to share the pain as much as possible.

 The first 2 days were brutal, with no success. but on day 3 Jaws, the beloved, started bringing us his little potty and saying, "pee pee" when it was time to go.

 We've had a few set backs... and we still need to get splash down with scary number 2, but so far this kid is a champ. Or maybe my expectations are shot after 4 Toads. Whatever, we are doing this thing!

The Rest of Christmas Day

The rest of Christmas day can be summed up with two verbs, playing and eating. 

The perfect day. 

 

The best part about having so many siblings is that you have access to all of their gifts too! There was a lot of cross-gift appreciation going on. Little Chief relented to Jaws' advances on his new kitchen once he realized that Jaws would share his talking chipmunk. It records your voice and plays it back in chipmunk voice. Tadpole spent a good chunk of the day laughing his guts out.

Superkid spent the day practicing his Jedi moves...

He is fierce!

Tadpole has become a Lego wiz kid!

Bam!

We decided on a fried breakfast: Bacon, hash browns (fired in bacon grease), and scones. 

Yum!

We forced the kids to try everything. Seriously? 

What kind of kids have to be forced to try fried bread dough? Turns out they like it. 

Who saw that coming?

Tadpole also liked Jaws' new bath boat!

Miss Abz got her pink iTouch!

Jaws took advantage of Little Chief's brief absence from his beloved pony stable. 

We may have another cowboy on our hands!

Little Chief got his dog! His name is "Big Sugar".

Abizella is thrilled with her mini violin!

Everyone loved the train set!

Toot! Toot!

Tadpole is living the dream. G1 Devastator was delivered from Japan! It is a good thing he has watched at least 100 hours of You Tube videos on how to transform this mega-Decepticon because all the instructions came in Japanese. No problem. This kid could produce his own "how-to" video on this creature's transformation. You should watch his fingers fly! You should hear his narration. Priceless.

The Lego King. He assembled a whole fleet!

More food! This time from LC's kitchen!

What a wonderful day! I love playing with my kiddos!

Christmas

The scratching of reindeer hooves and Santa's bells awakened a few of us shortly after he visited our house. We decided to investigate and even poke around in the stockings...

We were impressed!

For a second we considered waking up the rest of the Toads to behold the splendor, but upon a moments reflection we decided to tiptoe back to bed and wait for the kiddos to stir.

The first kiddo on the scene was Tadpole at 4:30 a.m.

He rallied Superkid and Abizella.

We tiptoed in to get a sneak peak of the haul. 

Then everyone got sent back to bed.

Nobody actually slept.

Tadpole came back at 6:30 and was greeted by my sleepy head. 

At 7:00 he rallied the troops again and insisted.

I was just relieved that we didn't get "Boomer's" wake-up call that Superkid had promised all month. Superkid has been practicing "Jingle Bells" on his trumpet "Boomer" for the big occasion.

I had a hard time picking pictures to post, so here is a big string for your enjoyment!

'

This one is fuzzy but I had to post it. This is the first present Little Chief opened. 

He was so excited he ran right upstairs and changed into his new shirt.

We did very well! Thank-you to our Grandmas, Grandpas and Aunt Jenny and Uncle Brian and Santa who made our Christmas spectacular!