"pa-pa, NO, NO, NO!"

It's been over a month of no paci for Heath! (And I'm just now getting around to blogging about it!) Heath loved his paci, but it was time, because really, I think WE loved it more. His "pa-pa" could always calm him down and silence the screams! Ha! We told him that only babies like Brooks have pacis and he would always say, "pa-pa, NO, NO, NO" and wave his finger. So it was time to bite the bullet and just get rid of the thing.

Nolan gave his up about this same age. So we just decided one day to be done with it! When Nolan gave up his paci he went to Target and "bought" a toy with it. He paid for his Cars and gave the cashier his paci. So we decided to do the same with Heathy. We headed over to Toys 'R Us one Saturday morning for the big goodbye.

We let him wander all the aisles in search of the perfect toy/reward to "buy" with his paci.

It was so cute watching him check everything out!

Of course, he would have LOVED it if we let him get this Lightening McQueen Power Wheel.

As we walked up and down every aisle, nothing was really jumping out to him. (Except, of course, another Buzz Lightyear, but Daddy drew the line at roughly 14 of those in the house!) There are a million toys in that store and they would have been happy to take just about any of them home. But with Christmas and their birthdays so close we have just about filled up our toy space in the house. There really is about nothing that we NEED. We didn't want to just buy something just to buy it.

So we walked out of the store empty handed, well except for a few Skittles from the gum ball machine. The boys were just fine with waiting for the "perfect" toy to trade his paci in for.

We had been looking to buy "Criss-Cross Crash" for the boys for Christmas, but it was all sold out at the time. The boys have lots of Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars and a few smaller rampways, but no "Big Boy" race tracks. So we thought that this would be a great toy for them to play and grow with. So we found it online and ordered it. When it arrived in the mail, Heath was finally able to throw away his paci, which by that point he hadn't used in weeks, and be rewarded!

Heath and his big brother both LOVE watching the cars whip around the track, crash, and fly off!

Other BIG boy news...

Heath has been doing AWESOME at going on the potty! He is by NO means fully potty trained, but is going on the potty a couple of times a day. He often tells us he has to go and does a great job going right away. Mommy just needs to buckle down and spend a few days at home working on it and I'm sure he'll be potty trained in no time! But it has been nice to not have to change poopy diapers and go through less wet ones. I can't wait to only have to buy diapers for one child! In this picture Heathy is showing off his Potty Chart! (Us sneaky parents kind of double dipped the reward- Criss Cross Crash ended up being a special gift for BOTH giving up his paci and filling up his chart, which happened at about the same time!)

We just LOVE this big boy and are so proud of all of his recent accomplishments!