Around the Hepworth House

One of the best toys/gadgets that we ever invested in were the Leapfrog Leapsters. We now have an extensive collection of Leapster games and a grand total of three Leapsters so that all the boys can play at one time. Everyone from Bradon up to Ethan love the games. Ethan is now playing the highest level on all the games and will probably outgrow his soon, but in the meantime we've had some great play time out of these things. Below is a common scene in our house. Both of the boys have Leapsters and are playing them together on the couch.

I've been thinking about the most well liked toys in our house. Fisher Price's Imaginext line has always been a favorite. Their pirate ships, Batcave, castle, boats and airplanes have been well played with at our house. Another favorite is the Kaskey Kids line of football guys, baseball guys and soccer guys. The boys love to set up their own plays and follow them through with their little sports guys. My boys also love games (as do Brian and I) so we have quite an extensive games collection that get a lot of use. Ethan and Tanner have recently discovered the Playmobil line and they enjoy playing with those. We also have some toys that come out in rotation so they don't get bored, like Geotrax, Shake n Go Racetrack and Rokenbok. The best bikes we ever bought were the Rip Riders by Razor. Ethan and Tanner got one for Christmas last year and we ended up buying another when we moved to our new house because they both wanted to ride it all the time. It's been a popular choice with neighbor kids too. After awhile I figured out that some kids weren't necessarily coming over to play with Ethan and Tanner they were coming over to ride the Rip Riders. Even Bradon has learned to get around on the thing even though he can't reach the pedals. Sometimes I feel like we have so many toys I don't know how my boys could ever be bored, but they still find plenty of occasions to feel that way.

I've really had the desire to potty train Bradon before the baby comes in January. I've never had the next oldest potty trained before the latest baby arrived and I had high hopes for Bradon. He loved the idea of underwear, he was excited about the potty seat and I've even had some success with #2 on the potty, but he still strongly prefers his diaper.

If anyone has had great success training two year old boys I'd love some suggestions. My time is running out! I've always waited until my boys were almost three, but Bradon is almost two and a half and I think it's possible, just maybe more work than I want to put in.