Spring Break '09

For Scott's week of spring break, we decided to visit our friends Brian & Tia Frances living in Cleveland, Ohio. They took us on a tour at Kirtland to see the Newel K. Whitney Store where much of church history took place.

There weren't many original artifacts still in the building, but this one table was the one where Joseph Smith had in his room, and probably recieved revelations for many of the sections of the D&C.

The tour guide told us about the workings of the saw mill

Then we went to see the Kirtland Temple, the first temple ever built. Sad that our church doesn't own it, but who knows... maybe someday they say.

The temple has this bright green door, and Jamie was wearing green too... all on St. Patrick's Day!

Then we went to the John Johnson Farm about 30 miles south in Hiram. This is where Joseph and Emma lived. It took him a day on horse to reach Kirtland on a good day, and took us 45 minutes by car.

This is the door where Joseph Smith stood to preach the gospel to a group of people the morning after he was tarred and feathered. And he saw a couple people from the mob standing there hearing him preach.

This was Joseph's bedroom where he was sleeping when the mobs woke him and his family up in the middle of the night to tar and feather him.

The Children's Museum - Indianapolis, IN

Potty Training Time

It was due time that we potty train Ella... it just took some convincing on her part! She liked the little potty seat that just fit into the regualar toilet seat for a little while....but, when she started saying "no" when asking her to use the toilet, we had to put our game faces on.

First we started with the "bare bum" tactic. Where they run around all day with nothing on waist down, which helps them realize there's nothing there to catch their potty when it falls... I think this helped. Kind of scary to do when you only have one bathroom in the house without carpet... so she watched movies and ate lunch at her table in the kitchen (and heavily sanitized later).

She was obsessed with pink panties, so this really helped her motivation when all she wanted to do was wear her pink panties and pink sandals. This is how she usually is running around the house these days.

We barrowed a little potty trainer where there's lights and music and it says "yeah, you went potty" when she goes. She loves this little thing... but it's a pain to clean! I wouldn't say we're completely trained, but she made it a whole night without wetting the bed and a whole day out and about without an accident... we're getting there!

Bouncing Cole

Cole now loves to bounce on your lap if you're holding him, so we thought he'd enjoy the Johnny Jumper... check him out!