Hallelujah!

I have been singing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah the last several days.  Mainly in my head, but that counts too!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

We have had several pretty good things happening around our household the past few days:

1) All of the glitter glue has been removed from the hard surfaces in the kitchen!  Never thought this would happen!

2) We discovered exactly where the pee smell was coming from in the powder room!  (I have mentioned this before, no matter what I cleaned, where I cleaned or how many times I cleaned it always came back!)  Thanks to a woman who works with my husband (Thank you, Thank you so much for this tip!).  It was coming from the actual toilet seat.  My husband took it apart, gave it a good scrubbing and no more stink! (He was a brave man for doing that!)

3) The funky smell in the laundry room is gone!  It was coming from our front load washer.  If you have this problem, give the Tide brand washing machine cleaner a try  - it really works! (I'm not being paid or compensated for this statement!).

4) The most wonderful thing that happened.....my littlest one, my "Baby B" is officially Potty Trained!  Woo Hoo!  We are day 3 in underpants!  We have left the house to do errands and go to the pool and we are accident free!  We had a party last night to celebrate! Ice cream cake is very powerful!  The last "dirty" diaper (pull up actually) I changed was on Thursday, May 31st!  I have changed diapers consecutively, for just my own children (not counting my 5 nieces and all the friend's babies I changed over the years!) for 7 years, 4 months and 18 days.  That is a lot of diapers!  Her twin brother was fully trained back in January, right around the time the twins turned three.  My little one had no interest.  We tried stickers, candy, promises of earning prizes - I even pulled out the "big guns" - the American Girl Catalog.  No interest, couldn't care less.  Either she wasn't ready, or she wanted to "be in control" and decide when she was ready.  Several things happened this time around and I think they all contributed to her success:

-My sister was in town recently and promised to send her a new pack of princess "chones" (cho -nayes : underpants) from Disneyland in California  if she would stay dry.  My little one liked the word chones and would say it over and over!  She likes Princesses too!

-There is a new Huggies commercial on TV.  The little girl is sitting a table, dressed like a princess having a tea party with her daddy.  My little girl, loves this commercial!  In the commerical the little girl does wear pull ups, but takes a potty break!

- My five year old stepped in and stepped up! (without being asked!)  After seeing this commercial, she would sing to her sister: " What do Big Girls Take?!  A Potty Break!" and my little one would go use the potty.  My five year old would also invite her sister to go potty whenever she did.

-The Pool opened.  It can't be comfortable to wear a swim diaper!

- I stopped asking her to go on the potty or if she wanted to use underpants.  I acted like I could care less if she went in her pants.  When she needed a change, she had to go get the clean pull up, changing pad, wipes and bag. Then I would change her.

Have a wonderful Sunday afternoon!