The Elser 411: Odds and Ends

And just like that another month is gone.

Seems like we just got back from our summer vacation.  Then there was a fabulous visit from my bestie, a quick business trip to San Diego, all the other day to day stuff and suddenly here we are a whole month later. Geesh.

A few odds and ends as I prepare to turn the calendar page on another month. In no particular order:

Potty Training
We had a major success story yesterday. Jackson wore undies to school and stayed dry the entire day! I told him I was so proud of him for being such a big boy and offered to do something special to celebrate - ice cream or pizza or a new book perhaps? First, we had to call Daddy and Nana to share the news. Then he declared, "Let's go to Target, Mom!" So we did. He chose a $3.99 bug net as his "special treat". I think I dodged a bullet there since I stupidly told him he could pick anything he wanted. I won't make that mistake again as I'm pretty sure his choice of "special treats" is going to go up in value considerably as the years go by! He almost made it accident free all evening as well. He and Daddy were outside picking weeds when Jack declared he needed to poop. Drew told him to run inside and find me, but by the time he did it was too late. I've decided to blame Daddy for that one (sorry, Drew).  At this stage, the window of opportunity is very slim when Jack declares the need to go. Most of the time it requires sweeping him up and making a mad dash for the bathroom. "Go find Mom" didn't quite cut it. I'm still considering the day a victory and am anxious to see how it went at school today.

Weekend Plans
We have none. Yay! As weird as it sounds, I am very much looking forward to deep cleaning the house, hitting the farmer's market, grocery shopping for some healthy food, trying some new recipes and just hanging out. We're in the midst of about a 3-week heat wave (seriously, we've had excessive heat warnings for at least 10 days) in Kansas and it's too damn hot to go outside anyway. With all of the craziness that was July I've neglected some of the every day stuff and I'm in the mood to get back on track with a weekend of nesting!

Photo Catch Up
A few weeks ago our ~~clunky~~ trusty old desktop computer decided to bid it's final farewell. Thankfully, I'm very diligent about backing up our files, music, photos and videos so the unexpected crash didn't cause too much grief. In a stroke of luck, I had just purchased my old laptop from my company upon receiving a new one at work. It is a couple of years old already but is in great shape so with a little help from my dad and a friend at work we spruced it up a bit with a bigger hard drive and more memory and it works like a charm.  At least well enough to put off buying a new one for a while longer. Whew. I've finally got everything transferred over and realized I never shared pictures from a weekend trip Jack & I took to Iowa to visit my grandparents back in May.