Rachel's a "Big Girl"

Hooray for Rachel!  She is potty trained - officially a "Big Girl!"  Since we had 3 days off with nowhere to go (no music or dance classes because of the holidays), I decided it would be a good time to potty train her.  So, we broke out the underwear - 8 pairs of Tinkerbell and 8 pairs of Elmo - enough to make it through 3 days of possible accidents!  I turned up the heat in the house, and had Rachel wear just a shirt and her underwear, so she wouldn't have to deal with getting pants up and down, and set out the training potty.  I gave her lots to drink, and set a timer to go off every 20 minutes, and she'd sit on the potty for 1 minute and "try."  The first half of the day, she didn't ever go on the potty, but had 5 accidents in her underwear... and then on the 6th time, she made it to the potty, and after that, she didn't have a problem!  So, the next 2 days of potty training were easy, because she just caught right on, and didn't need any help.  I still kept her in underwear only the 2nd day, and made her stay in whatever room I was in all day, so we could get her to the potty fast, but the 3rd day, I got brave and let her wear stretch pants and play in her playroom without me.  She's done really great!  One of her favorite things about potty training (and Lizzy loved this too) is I enlisted the help of my mom, Jason, and my sister, Michelle, to play characters (Tinkerbell, Diego, and Dora) that Rachel could call after going on the potty successfully to let them know what she'd done! After the 3rd day, we went to Wal-Mart and got her "Potty Training Present" - an Ariel doll, just like the one Lizzy picked when she was potty trained.  We're so proud of Rachel!  Such a "Big Girl!"