We started off the week with a bang at Graham's first dentist appointment!It was touch and go. he was great in the waiting room, went right back to the exam room, checked it all out and then proceeded to turn around and head back for the front door............we coaxed him back to the room and got him to sit on my lap in the exam chair and he was all uncooperative at first, but eventually warmed up to her and after some bribery of a new toothbrush and toothpaste, started talking to her and before you know it she had the mirror in his mouth counting all his teeth! He never would sit in the chair by himself, so much for that photo, ha! But, I did get a few in the waiitng room and of him hugging her to thank her for his stuff! He got two stickers and was very proud of those and his little bag of treats! She said she didnt see any issue and unless he was complaining about something or we had a concern, we could wait a year to bring him back and they would try to actually clean them on that visit. We didnt even see the dentist, just the hygienist. We did get him to talk about Baby Brother and he told her baby brother's name is Evan!

We headed to school and talked his teacher about the potty training progress and agreed he would stay in pull-ups for the three short days before the holiday and depending on how things went over the 4 day weekend, we would decide where to go from there. He did pretty good about telling them when he needed to go and staying dry a little more, so, we geared up for a big weekend of lots of Potty Training!

On Thursday morning, we headed to Dean's parents first for Thanksgiving breakfast and had some of Cal's yummy swedish pancakes and a nice visit. That was our longest trip with Graham in underwear and he made it!!!! So, that was huge! We left there and headed to my parents. Daddy had picked up Granny Stoots and Kenneth and Baby Lillian was there (Danah was home sick) and Mama was cooking up a storm. We had a big turkey dinner and lots of fun. Graham loved all over Lillian just like normal and was happy to pose for pics with her. It is very hard to get a good pic of both of them at the same time these days, but we did okay! Graham did pretty good with pottying, only had a couple accidents, but they were mostly when he was in the process of trying to get there and go!

He fell asleep in the chair watching tv and we scooped him up and put him in the car and he slept all the way home! Mama and daddy followed us home in preparation for our annual Black Friday tradition. We were up before 2am and left the boys in the bed and left the house at 230am and got the crazy mall at 3am! We were back at noon with lots of good deals and Daddy, Graham and Dean had a fun morning playing.

Mama and daddy headed home and I took a nice nap! Graham had another good day of potty training and often times will just get up and go "all by himself!" So that is great. On Saturday, we headed out again for another road trip, we met up with Brad, Kelly, Grey and Reed in Blacksburg for lunch and delivered Reed's belated birthday gift. The kids had fun as always and then we ran some errands. Graham did great yet again on the road trip and potty front! He napped all the way home. We were just thrilled at how things are going!

Another big test on the potty training front was church! We headed out on Sunday in underwear (the first time to church) and he did great in the car to and from and at church! The new nursery teacher is really good about working with him too. And, by the end of Sunday, we were totally 100% accident free for the day! WOW! So, now the real test.......school! We are gonna leave the house in underwear and take several pairs and several changes of clothes and HOPE that he does as well there as he done at home! Hopefully he will!!!!! He has really embraced it, so hopefully this is IT! Of course, we haven't even begun to tackle nighttime yet, but we figure we will give that a bit longer and get fully settled with daycare training first!

Sunday afternoon was a gorgeous warm afternoon and Graham "helped" me decorate the bannisters out on the front porch with greenery and bows and rode his tricycle and played on his playset, so it was a fun afternoon. he really seems to be in to Christmas this year, so it is gonna be a lot of fun! He loves all the decorations that are starting to appear and we are talking about Santa a good bit, but not sure what will happen when it is time to go see Santa!

Graham took his turn this week with a round of sickies, must have just been a fast moving bug of sorts. He has been coughing and having a runny nose a good bit since the weather turned, but we were hoping it was mostly just his allergies flaring up. First Baptist called at Noon on Wednesday and said he was running a fever and we needed to get him. I had several meetings the rest of the day, so Dean headed to get him. He gave him some meds as soon as they got home and once they kicked in, he was fine, wanted to play and play. Dean stayed home with him on Thursday as well and he didn't run a fever and pretty much had a fun play day with daddy! Dean managed to get about a half day of work in. So, on Friday, we headed back to school. He had spanish class on Wednesday morning and music class on Friday morning, so luckily he didn't have to miss either one of those. He really enjoys those extra classes so very much and always comes home talking about them. The spanish class is new and it is only once a month but he was counting and saying several words in spanish.

We had a full weekend of potty training successes, so MAYBE we are turning a corner. Mama came down on Saturday and we headed out Saturday afternoon to do some Christmas shopping, get Dean a new cell phone and have a nice date night dinner at one of our fave places. He stayed in underwear all day and only had two accidents, so that was wonderful. He and Mawmaw had a big afternoon playing and by the time we got home, he had already been in bath, had all bedtime stories, prayers and was fast asleep! He woke up coughing quite a bit on Sunday morning, so we decided for me and him to just stay home from church. Also, that gave us a chance to continue the potty training roll that we were on. Again, underwear all day and only one accident. He also decided all on his own that he wants to "stand up," so we just rolled with that. He even went all by himself several times and didn't want any help.

So, we will see what happens at school, they want him to be dry consistently in pull-ups there before we switch to underwear, so hopefully all the progress that we have made at home will rub off at school! We start this week off with a bang, Graham has his FIRST dentist appointment! We have been talking about it and I have pointed out the office when we pass it in the mornings and we have been making a big deal about counting his teeth, but I have no clue how it will actually go once we get in there! They said they will consider it a success if they atleast get to count his teeth, so we will see!

This is just a fun photo from Sunday afternoon. He always loves to be around when I am emptying the laundry basket, so on several occassions, he has posed just like this for me, so we had a fun impromptu photo shoot this afternoon. And, he LOVES being pull around in the basket!

And, in other pregnancy related news, we have OFFICIALLY settled on EVAN JAMES WHITAKER for baby brother! Evan is a name that meets all our "rules" and similarly to Graham, it is one that we found from the book we have been using. We struggled for a bit with a middle name and finally settled on James. We liked the way it sounded and we had actually even considered James for a first name but worried about how it might be shortened. James is actually Dean's great-great grandfather's name on the Whitaker side and on his mom's side, so we have a family tie in there as well! So, we are very excited and have really got used to Evan over the past couple days. Graham has totally embraced it, so that has been fun! Although, he uses the full name "baby brother Evan," but that is cute! So, from now on, we will refer to him as Evan!

The boys survived my trip out of town. They had a good week and even worked hard on potty training in the evenings. If we constantly stay on top of him about going, we can put him in underwear and have pretty good success, but if he gets distracted playing and we aren't reminding / asking him, then he doesn't care what he wets! School is about the same, he will go when it is time to go but not much asking on his own to go. So, we will just keep doing what we are doing and hope it clicks on for him soon!!!

Dean worked late Friday night to catch up from the week. I was pretty tired from my week of travel and still battling my back pains, so my parents came down to spend the evening / night with us and mama made me chicken and dumplings for dinner. We had a fun evening and Graham was very excited to play and play and play with mawmaw and pawpaw!

They headed out Saturday morning and we headed to swimming. Graham had a pretty good lesson, whined some at first, but did really good in the water, so that is good. Hopefully, the whining will keep going down and down each week. It is certainly moving quicker than it did last fall when we first started! It was a great weekend weather wise, so Graham and Dean headed out to the playset for awhile on Saturday afternoon and Graham got his first sting, a wasp, while going down the slide! He was screaming OWWWW and crying pretty bad. We put a variety of different things on it and put him in his recliner and turned on Thomas and he was okay in no time.....so crisis averted there! Graham didn't end up napping until way late in the evening, and then headed to bed late. Those weekend naps are just all over the place these days.

Dean's parents joined us for church on Sunday, so that was nice. We went out for lunch afterwards, so that was fun too. Graham enjoyed having a second dose of grandparents for the weekend and was pretty well behaved both for church and the restaurant! So, that was good! Graham took a short nap on the way home, but woke up as soon as we got home. We went out to enjoy the weather again, rode his tricycle, played in the yard and visited his playset again, after checking for wasps!

We are all still battling little touches of the sickies. I finally seem to have gotten over my sinus infection after round two of meds, but in the process of all the coughing, I have pulled the muscles in the middle of my back, so that has been pretty painful. Dean and Graham's allergies are doing their typical seasonal thing. We did switch Graham over to Zyrtec, so it will be interesting to see if we notice any difference from that. He has learned at school to cough in to his arm as opposed to coughing in his hand, which is quite interesting. He has even corrected me a couple times when he has seen me cough and use my hand!

Since my back has been hurting so bad, I have been trying to limit how much I pick him up and that is really hard. The hardest of all is the jeep! I have been working with him to try to get him to climb in and out all on his own and he does okay, it just takes awhile! He does much better with the Volvo since it is lower. He seems to understand a little bit that I cant pick him up, but it sure doesn't stop him from asking!!!!

On Wednesday, we had a treat. Tammy and I went to have lunch with Graham at school! He was excited that we were coming and we met his class in the classroom and took the long walk to the lunchroom, it even involved an elevator ride! The menu was fish sticks, peas and peaches and jello. It was quite the show to watch the two teachers get 15 three year olds from point A to Point B, fed, and back to Point A!!!!! Graham did great! He held our hands during the walk, ate a great lunch and was overall very well behaved! But, I have my suspicions that there are days when he is getting in just as much trouble as some of his friends were that day!! We walked back to the classroom with him and then said bye so he could take his nap, so that was great fun.

On Saturday morning, we headed to swimming. There was another little boy that was crying and very upset and he got Graham a little upset at first, but he finally settled in. His teacher says he is still a little rusty, but she still went ahead and taught him a new technique which he talked about all weekend. She said she expects him to be back to where he was in about 2 weeks, so that was good! We spent the rest of the day at home and did manage to get a nap in for Graham when we took a drive in the late afternoon, that trick always works, ha!

On Sunday, we headed to church, the first time in several weeks for me and Graham! Everyone was glad to see us back. He had a new teacher in the nursery and she had her 4 year old granddaughter there, so he made a new friend! He was a little talkative in church, but all in all, did pretty well since we had not been there for a few weeks. He seemed glad to be back. We hit the grocery store, got some takeout and headed home and he was fast asleep before we got home and had another good afternoon nap, both days! He always eats his lunch before we leave church in case he falls asleep and today it was a good thing that he did! It was nice enough outside for a change that we got to go out and play on the playset some, so he was quite happy about that!

I leave for Minneapolis early Monday morning and will be back late Thursday evening, so hopefully the boys will have a good week while I am gone!

It was a full week of doctor's appointments and more sickies! Graham had his 3 year appointment on Thursday morning. We had not seen Doc Johnson in a good long while, so it was nice to visit with her.

Graham was 33 pounds, 6 ounces, 65th percentile, 38 inches tall, 59th percentile, everything else looked great, got the flu shot and part one of the H1N1 shot. He will go back in a month and get the second part of H1N1, IF they have it! She did not want him to have the mist because of his history of respirtory issues, so two shots for him! He screamed OUCH on the first one and screamed STOP IT on the second one, but a sucker and a sticker cured it all away very quickly!

She was totally okay with where we are (or aren't) on Potty Training and said it will click and we can't really do anything to force it this point, just keep doing what we are doing and she assured us be will be PT before kingerarten! We are gonna try switching from Claritin to Zyrtec for this season and see if it does any better for him, she said it may or may not. Otherwise, she wont need to see him again til 4, ha,ha! But, of course, she will see Baby Brother in January!

Graham was starting to get excited for trick or treating as the week drew to a close. As with the last two years, I picked up Graham from school around 230pm and we went back to my office to trick or treat for 2 solid hours. Mama and daddy joined us and we had a fun time. Graham ended up with three buckets of candy. He loved his conductor costume and switched back and forth between the conductor hat and engineer hat. He was great at saying trick or treat and would also shout out All Aboard and Choo Choo! It was very cute. His teacher told me when I picked him up that he was so excited that he did not nap! So, needless to say, he fell asleep on the way home and I carried him in and put him on the couch and he napped a good bit longer!

On Saturday morning, Dean and Graham headed back to swimming. We had a later start to the fall season because his instructor moved to a new center and was getting everything ready. He was okay until it was time to get in the water and then he started fussing like in the old days. BUT, he did all his moves. His teacher said she would give him individual attention the next couple weeks since he is rusty..... not rusty on his skills but rusty on his attitude! Hopefully, he will settle back in to the routine quickly!

I headed to the doctor while they were at swimming lesson. My sinus infection from a couple weeks ago had flared back up with more force than it had to start with! I got another round of a different antiobiotic and cough syrup and hopefully this time it will go away for good! We met for breakfast after swimming while we waited on my medicine and then headed home. I took it easy the rest of the afternoon and then we headed out to do a little trick or treating around the neighborhood.

Graham was all ready to jump back in his costume and go at it again, he had his lines all down! We just hit a dozen or so houses, he certainly didn't need any more candy after Friday! But, it was neat to go door to door this time instead of office to office. It was fun filled two days of Halloween!

We had made the appointment weeks ago to have our family Christmas pictures made and get our Christmas cards, so we headed out early Sunday morning to do that. We went back to Portrait Innovations where Graham had his three year pics made. He wasn't quite as cooperative and it was a little more challenging with all three of us, but we managed to get some good ones and will be excited to mail them out to family and friends!

We stopped and had mexican for lunch and then took it easy the rest of the day. Graham didn't nap either weekend day, as is the typical pattern most weekends now, unless we happen to be in the car around nap time. Hopefully, the time change wont throw him off track this week!

My doctor appointment was on Wednesday. Dean went with me as it was a long appointment, including an ultrasound! We only got two decent pics. He was in NON-STOP motion and did NOT want to cooperate for his big photo shoot. He kept both arms, both legs and the cord in front of his face almost the whole time! He weighed in at 3.1 pounds.........95th precentile! So, a little big, measuring about a week and a half ahead! Anyway, everything looked great. Took my gestational diabetes test, that will be a couple days before I hear back and I got my shot because of our disagreeing blood types. Otherwise, everything else was pretty routine and I will go back in two weeks. I have another ultrasound in 8 weeks right before Christmas, at about 35 weeks, so it will be interesting to see how big he is by then!