My Boy

I love his sweet little two year old talk, I love when he tells me things like, "Night night, Angel Mommy", I love how cuddly he is, how he still asks me to rock him sometimes, how he belts out the songs in church.  I love his innocence, and I love seeing the world through his eyes, everything is just so exciting!  I love that his favorite toys are cool whip containers, hangers, and cereal boxes!  Ages 2 and 3 are my very favorite ages, and he's right in the midst of it!  He's such a good boy, but a crazy picky eater!! I love how he only calls Isabella, "Sissa", unless he is comforting her, he says, "Sissa Baby".  He does know how to push her buttons, though, too!  I wish I could slow down time, and keep him like this a while longer.

 

 

 

 

"Reading" a book in Spanish, one of the only remnants of my college days.

 

Eating supper tonight shirtless, after an unfortunate incident involving a lid not properly placed on a sippy cup!

18 months

What started out as just trying on the kids' new Easter outfits to see if they fit, turned into an impromptu photo session yesterday. That's what I love about taking their pictures myself, it saves on time, money, and in my opinion, a whole lot of hassle! :) Our little photo session took no more than 10 minutes.

I know I always say this, but I can't believe he's 18 months already! At his 18 month check up last week he was 23 pounds (15th %) and 32 and 3/4 inches (60%). He just started wearing some 18 month clothes in the last two weeks, but still wears quite a bit of 12 month, too, especially pants - he's got short little legs. He is a very mellow, easygoing little guy who can keep himself entertained (much better than his sister ever could, she always wanted us to play with her). He's very soft hearted, just like his sister, it absolutely breaks his heart if you tell him, "no". He experimented one time with climbing, and decided that was not something he should do again! About 4 months ago he climbed on top of his toy box, fell off, landed on his head, and went to the chiropractor to get his head back in proper alignment. He still loves his sleep, and transitioned from two naps to one nap about 6 weeks ago. I can always count on at least a good 3 hour afternoon nap from him everyday, but we have had to wake him up after 5 hours on occasion! At night, he sleeps from 7-7. He absolutely adores his big sister, and I'm surprised (because of their age difference) how well they play together. The big differences I have noticed between him and his sister are that he throws everything (is that a boy thing??), and he is not talking at all like she did at this age. He says an occasional word here and there, but mostly talks gibberish (which I think is adorable!). He still communicates his wants/needs with baby sign language, other than when he wants to go to sleep, he will tell us "nye nye" over and over again. He is completely attached to me, which is also different from Isabella, she's always been attached to her daddy. He is also a picky eater, which is quite frustrating at times! I didn't realize how nice it was to have such a good eater with Isabella. I'm always trying different ways to sneak vegetables in him, and he really likes my spinach muffins! His favorite things are looking at books, having us read books to him, and playing with tractors and trucks, and everything still goes in the mouth - all. the. time! He's starting to get a mouthful of teeth, and by the way he's been chomping on toys lately, I'm pretty sure he's working on some more. He was on antibiotic for the first time two weeks ago for his first ear infection.

I had to take some pictures of my little lady, too!

Exploring

It's been such an unusual winter with much more mild temperatures than we are used to. This was back in early December, it was nice enough to be outside for an extended amount of time. Jaymes took advantage of exploring outside for the first time since he started walking, and he had a blast!

Christmas 2011

My kids are terrified of Santa! (Yes, even Isabella at 5 years old!) We spent an early Christmas with Monte's parents, where we went to Santa Claus Day. Isabella was worried and nervous about seeing Santa, Jaymes was terrified, and a dog (don't know why there was a dog there in a school gym!) came up to Jaymes and took his beloved blanky away from him, which left Jaymes even more traumatized! But, it ended up not being a total disaster because . . .

Isabella's name was drawn to win these dolls! She loves them, she named the big one, Isabelle. :) Oh, and in the picture above she's demonstrating her nervous habit of twirling her hair, that was the closest she wanted to get to Santa.

We spent Christmas Eve here, just the four of us. I love it when it works out that we can spend Christmas Eve alone, just our little family!

Jaymes got a Little Tykes car and wagon for outside play, it should be perfect for this summer. He's not too in to opening presents yet. He enjoyed playing with all of the wrapping paper, though.

Isabella received the much longed for Strawberry Shortcake Market, among other things, including a kids digital camera. Monte says now he knows what it's like to be followed by papparazzi all the time! :)

We met up with my family at my sister's for Christmas day. Jaymes and his cousin both came wearing the same outfit! This was the best picture I could get, neither of them wanted to sit still, imagine that!

This and That

It's been a while . . . blogging has taken a back seat, and seemed more like a chore lately . . . maybe now that winter is here I'll be more motivated to blog.

My sweet baby boy started walking a few weeks ago, at the exact same age Isabella was when she started (14 and 3/4 months). He still crawls some when he wants to get somewhere really fast! He's had a few accidents since he started walking, and has bit his lip twice from falling on his face (man, those injuries bleed a lot!). But it hasn't been anything a cuddle from Mommy and his blanky can't fix. He's saying more words all the time, and still loves to show off his sign language.

I've been a little, um, addicted to pinterest lately, and have gotten some great crafty ideas that I want to try this winter.

Since we were married at Christmas time, we got TONS of Christmas decorations as wedding presents. I loved them all, but almost 9 years later a lot of them are starting to look out of date, or are broken (from me not storing them properly - oops!). I didn't want to spend very much, if anything, on Christmas decor, so I found a few ideas.

This one is my favorite! The free printable is located here. I spray painted an old silver frame that I wasn't using anymore, and now I have something "new" to display on the piano at Christmas time.

And I found this neat idea for a centerpiece, I bought some mini ornaments at the dollar store, and put in a large vase, but first I put an empty toilet paper roll in, to take up space, so I didn't have to put in so many ornaments.

This one is not Christmas related, but it is one of my favorite crafty things I've done lately. I painted another old frame, then put a piece of scrapbook paper in the printer to print this off. . .

Once you put it in the glass frame, you can write your meal plan on the glass every week with a dry erase marker, and simply wipe off again. It's definitely a lot prettier than bought dry erase boards!

Our tree is up, we haven't been able to use this big tree for a couple of years because we didn't have room for it, I'm so glad we have room for it now, this was my parents' tree when I was growing up! And Jaymes leaves it alone, yay!! He ooohs and awes over it, but knows he can't touch it.

We had our first snow about a week ago, preventing us from going on the four hour trip to my nephew's first birthday party, we were all bummed we couldn't go!

We travelled to one of Monte's sister's for Thanksgiving. They didn't have any snow, and the temp. got up to around 50 on Thanksgiving!! It was so nice that Monte and I went canoeing on the lake they live on. It was awesome, and so peaceful (and a good workout for these out of shape arms!)!!

Isabella is at her grandparents for the weekend, and it's been VERY quiet around here, can't wait to have her back tomorrow night!

This and That - Fall pictures edition

This should probably be more than one post since there's so many pictures . . . that's what happens when I don't post for so long! I think we have entered the cold, can't play outside too much anymore, stage. But we did have a great fall, with very mild, warm days.

I'm in my second week of teaching piano lessons at our house, and it has been going great! I have 4 students (with a 5th one starting in the next couple months), and I teach Tuesday and Wednesday late afternoons / evenings.

Jaymes is getting too big, too fast, and that's all I have to say about that. :( He's 14 and a half months now, and not quite walking yet, but VERY close. He wants to so bad, but doesn't quite have the nerve to let go of one of our hands and try it on his own. I can't believe how close he's followed Isabella in his milestones, so if I go by what age she started walking, he should be walking in the next one to two weeks. And then . . . can I still call him a baby? I'm going to . . . :) He's perfected some baby sign language (mostly any sign language that has to do with eating, he LOVES to eat!) in the last couple months, and it's too cute to watch. He always claps for himself whenever he does a sign because that's what we always did when he learned them! He's also learned more words, and loves trying to imitate whatever we say. He was at the Dr. last week, and he now weighs 20 pounds, he also kept telling the Dr. (with his sign language) that he was "all done" with the Dr! I can tell he has had a big growth spurt, and is now in all 12 month clothes. I never dreamt I would LOVE having a boy as much as I do, and I've decided I'm going to baby him forever! :)

I can not believe that a week from today I will be the mother of a 5 year old! I'm getting old. Isabella is super excited for her cupcake themed birthday party this weekend, and as usual, this time of year brings out a lot of emotions in me. Her birth, and time surrounding it, is on my mind a lot every year around her birthday. It's hard to describe one of the best days and one of the scariest/ worst days of your life all wrapped into one, it's such an odd feeling. Still SO incredibly thankful for our miracle girl, and all the Dr.'s and nurses God surrounded us with that saved her life that day!

Isabella is still loving preschool, but since her switch to afternoon preschool, she is extremely tired. When she's tired she gets weepy and emotional, so we've seen quite a bit of that in the late afternoons/ evenings. She now goes to bed when Jaymes does, at 6:30! I have got to have two of the world's sleepiest kids, they just can't handle much.

Every night in the last week, I have talked about all the things I want to get done in the evenings, and every night Monte and I end up playing Monopoly, and I get nothing done. I always thought I didn't like that game, but I guess I do!

Jaymes is excited because he is finally tall enough to see out of our living room windows. He spends a lot of time there!

And here, in his usual fashion, he's ransacking his room.



"Pink Day" at school.

I was going to do a whole post about this, this summer, but never got around to it. Isabella is obviously too big for a stroller, but I wanted to be able to go for lots of walks. I go a long distance 2-3 times a day during the summer. Too long of distance for her to ride her bike (plus she's super slow at riding her bike). I knew if I had a bike trailer that doubled as a stroller she would fit okay, and the kids and I could still go for all of our walks that we enjoy so much. I was looking for a used one since they are so expensive, but used ones are hard to find, and still kind of expensive. I went to several rummage sales (as soon as they opened) that had them advertised, but they were gone already. I prayed that St. Anthony would help me find one, and the NEXT DAY I was at a friend's rummage sale, she asked me if I was looking for anything, and when I told her, she said she had one not on her sale (so it wasn't advertised) but would get rid of it for $10! We have way more than gotten our money's worth out of it. And because of it, the kids and I were able to walk everywhere all summer.

Isabella was in her first homecoming parade in September, she was so excited she could hardly stand it!

Jaymes has had so much fun lately playing with the kitchen. And when I'm in the real kitchen, I can see him playing in his kitchen, so it's been a great way to keep him occupied while I'm cooking.

We celebrated Monte's 32nd birthday this past weekend, the weather was beatiful for a hike, followed by going out to eat at his favorite restaurant the next day.

Isabella is learning how to use the camera, she actually got our heads in this one, so she's getting better! :)

I made him the Duggar's ice cream cake recipe. It was out of this world! He thought it was better than a Dairy Queen ice cream cake, and Isabella requested it for her birthday after trying one bite!

Pumpkin Patch Fun

We decided, spur of the moment, to take a trip to a pumpkin patch this evening. It was great fun for all of us!

I LOVE this picture of my sweet little guy!

She's trying to get him to look at the camera, but he was too involved with the dirt. Don't you love her sunglasses? :) She had to use mine since we forgot hers, and she's obsessed with sunglasses.

This picture makes me chuckle, I had no idea she was doing that.

Me and my kiddos.