Big Girl Alert

Not sure how I missed posting about Arden's big news, but even three months late, it's worthy of a post.
She's potty trained! After all of the drama we had at the beginning of the year, I decided I'd let her do it on her own. Then as summer was slipping away and school was around the corner, I figured I better do it. I didn't want her to be the only one in her preschool group still in a diaper.
I picked a week where I had a few days with nowhere I needed to go.
Day 1:
When I got her out of bed, I took her diaper off, put panties on and told her that she's a "big girl and big girls don't wear diapers. We aren't using diapers anymore except for night night." She protested a little but did just fine. Actually at times when she was ready to go, she would ask for her diaper and sometimes cry for it but I stood my ground and she went on her potty. On the third day, we had company over and she got nervous and hid and went in her panties. Other than that, she's been great. I continued to put a diaper on her for naps and night time even though she woke up dry except one time overnight when she was sick. I stopped putting her in a diaper for naps after a month and in the middle of October, she decided she didn't want a diaper at night either and has had one accident when she didn't go potty before bed. So only two accidents and it was so easy. I definitely recommend waiting until kids are older rather than attempting the potty training in a day drama early on.
Arden has a bladder of steel and I really don't have to worry about dealing with public restrooms.
Her reward was a digital camera (She was dying for one. It's a $30 camera, but I got it 75% off. Go team.) It's a small Hello Kitty camera with internal memory only but holds 80 images and has flash. She loves it.
*She just started using the big potty this week. YAY!
Arden started school in September. The photo above is from her first day. My little rock n roller. I'm not really sure where she picked that up, but she's been doing it for a while. I need to teach her the 'Too much rock for one hand' way. It's much better.
In October, we moved Arden to a 'big girl' bed! Our awesome neighbors gave us one their grandson never used. It was perfect timing because the weekend before, we went bed shopping trying to figure out what we were going to do. It's a 'Cars' toddler bed, so it doesn't exactly go with her room so I'm trying to figure out a way to cover it with fabric or something, but she does love it and if we are out and she sees Lightning McQueen or Tow Mater, she gets very excited and reminds me they are on her "big gorl bed!"
When I was rearranging her room to get ready for the bed, Arden freaked out. She is not a fan of change. She refused to go to bed until I put her dresser, chair and bookshelf back in their original spot. We recently dropped Derek's car off for maintenance and she cried when we left it. I made sure to prepare her a few days before we traded my car in, and she got to see the new car before we picked it up. It really helped. She was a little concerned, but she loves our new car.

The first two nights in her new bed, she fell out (even with little guards) but didn't wake up. The third night, she said she wanted to sleep in her crib. I asked her why and she said because she wanted to sleep better. haha. It was a fairly easy transition. The first few days, she would get out of bed, but now she stays in bed and just yells at us if she needs anything (like if her covers come off or if she needs cold water or wants to tell me she doesn't want to go night night or two minutes later when she decides she does want to go night night.)

While I'm thinking of our awesome neighbors, Arden and I were outside playing basketball last week and he came over and played with Arden for a few minutes. The rest of the night, she asked, "where did that boy go?" and "I want to see that boy." He's in his late 50's/early 60's. Ha!