James Update- 2 years and 2 months

 Our early suspicions were definitely right, we have a serious talker on our hands!! James has learned so many new words and phrases and he loves to talk. Loves, loves, loves it. Whenever we are out and about running errands, I usually have at least one person comment on how much he talks. There are a lot of things that he says that need interpreting, but he is getting really good at communicating what he wants and what he is thinking about.

The best is when he picks up on little phrases and exclamations that you just don't expect out of a little one. His favorite right now is "Oh my gosh!!". He says it all the time with different variations and emphasis. Sometimes it is  "Oh. My. Gosh." Other times it is "Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh!!" He also says "Oh, shoot!", "Awww, man" and "Cool!!"

He has started to have a real independence streak and is having a hard time with transitions, so we have started saying "Bye, bye!" to anything that we have to leave or put away. It seems to help him realize that we are leaving or that it is time for it to go and he doesn't get as upset. Usually. In the past week or so he has started saying "Bye bye! ab good day!!!" (have a good day). It is so funny to hear him tell the boat or a toy car to have a good day :)

He is still really particular about his clothes and things around him in general. Everything around him always has to be just so. As the weather is getting warmer, I have had to make sure to hide his hats and jackets because if he finds them, he insists on wearing them no matter how hot or uncomfortable or cranky it makes him. I've started asking him what he wants to wear in the morning and try to give him some options, because if I choose something he doesn't like he flips out! One time he absolutely didn't like the shirt I picked out and after I put it on him he pulled and pulled and pulled on it until I took it off. When I ask him what he wants to wear in the morning, he always says, "Tie, tie, tie!!" I can usually get away with ignoring it, but one day he wouldn't let up, so I put on a tie over his t-shirt. He loved it!! He wore it all day.

Here are pictures of a trip to a park where he insisted on wearing his hat and his church shoes. I tried offering him multiple pairs of other shoes, but he just wasn't happy until he got his church shoes. When I went to put those on him, he was giggling with joy!

Here is a picture of the lake at this new park. It was a beautiful morning!

I had to take a picture of the roots of this cool cypress tree. It looks like something you would see in a fantasy movie!

 

James hates seeing trash on the ground and always wants to pick it up wherever we go (the park, the grocery store, etc..). Then he doesn't want to give it to me, he always wants to hold onto it until we can find a trash can and he can put it in himself.  

He still loves trains, but most of his attention seems to have moved to cars (and cars the movie), boats, and turtles. There is a video on youtube that he loves called "the fruit train" that is just a cartoon of a train with different fruits behind it and they name each one. James has watched it for a long time and has finally started trying to copy all the fruits that they say. Anthony got an adorable video of it the other day. My favorite is how "lemon" and "watermelon" became "belly button" :)

                                   

Pow-pow-power wheels!

When I was little if you had a power wheels you were the (wo)man!!! Since James is obsessed with all things transportation, I started keeping my eyes out at garage sales for an affordable power wheels. I didn't think I would really get him one, since I didn't want to pay too much. Plus, it still seems like such a HUGE gift like it was when I was little, although it seems like now the prices aren't that bad compared to the costs of other popular gifts. So I wasn't really planning on getting him one, but then I came across a barely used one at a garage sale a few months ago. It was priced at $50, which I knew was reasonable especially considering how new it looked. You could tell it hadn't been ridden much. The owners said they got it for their daughter and she went through a growth spurt and grew out of it almost immediately. I offered them $40, they took it and it was mine!

The only problem was that it looked like this (minus the blonde little girl:):

 Not that James would care of course, but we just couldn't feel good about ourselves as parents if we let his friends see him loving on a barbie power wheels. The embarrassment! :) So we did some googling to figure out the best way to go about painting it and we finally took an afternoon and got it done. I love how it turned out!

His new manly ride:

We are considering adding a few more details, like some bike reflectors for headlights and brake lights and maybe some decals but we might not. It depends on how stressed I feel as we get closer to Christmas :) We spent almost as much on paint as we did on the car, but I love that my little boy is getting something we really put some effort into. I can't wait for Christmas morning for him to start cruising around!!!

Ward Christmas Party 2012

 This past Saturday was our ward Christmas party and it was so much fun! Last year there was a "whoville" theme and we all wore costumes, but this year it was much more low key, just the way I like it! It was just a bunch of people eating good food, visiting, and a visit from Santa at the end. James has been pretty cranky the last few days and we haven't been able to figure out why, so we weren't sure how the visit with Santa was going to go...

 We gave it our best try! I took James up to wait for Santa's entrance and Anthony got a picture of everyone swarming him once he came in:

 He made his way across the room to the chair by the Christmas tree in the foyer:

 Of course, the line to see Santa was really long, at least for a cranky almost 2 year old. At one point I had Anthony hold our spot in line and took him for a walk around the church.

Waiting in line and trying to get the camera adjusted:

 When it was finally our turn, James instantly didn't like the idea of being passed to Santa, so Santa told Anthony to go ahead and sit on his lap holding James. It was a great idea, but it didn't fool James for a second!

 I was standing there laughing and taking pictures when Santa looked over at me and told me I might as well get in on the picture! So I sat on his other knee and couldn't stop grinning, James' reaction was too funny!

"All I want for Christmas...is to get away from Santa!!!" Sincerely, James

A lady in our ward was taking pictures from the front, so I will have to update this post with the straight on picture once she puts them up. I just can't get over how desperate James is in this picture! I was debating whether or not to take him to a mall Santa this year, wondering if he would miss out if I didn't but I guess I have my answer! No Santa for James, at least not for awhile! :)

*Update-here are more pictures*

A Day at the Park

Last Friday afternoon after Anthony went off to work (he has been taking the Friday evening hours for a coworker) I took James to the park. We were the only ones there and James had a blast being the king of the playground!

He went right up to this rock wall and climbed it like a pro, without help!

 Then he proceeded to go along the high walkway, occasionally looking down at me:

Once he reached the tall twisty slide, he promptly sat down, turned himself backwards and went down on his stomach: his go-to move for slides :)

 He loves picking up random sticks and using them as drumsticks/weapons the entire time. We are working on the weapons part.

 Once he was done with his drum solo, he put the stick down so he could clap for himself and go "Yayy!!" He does this at the end of every song he hears, even in church!

 Peeking out at me from the tunnels:

 Now he has two sticks, watch out! :)

Bear Hugs

Yesterday I had a primary presidency meeting in the afternoon, so I had to get James up a little early from his nap so we could get there on time. As I walked into his room, this is what I saw:

I die of cuteness!!! James has been sickly lately, he has an ear infection so he is on antibiotics and he has this pitiful little cough and a raspy voice. Since he doesn't feel well, it is good to know that his teddy bears are giving him some extra loving :) Do you think we have a toy story situation going on? That would be way cool!

Key West 2012: All about James!

Oh my word. This kid blew our minds on this vacation. Although he was crankier than usual, he has been an angel since we have been home so I am thinking that it must have been a combination of all the changes and the fact that the kid barely ate anything while we were there. He was probably hungry a lot of the time, but he refused to take the time to eat when there were things to explore and check out!

My mom was trying to entertain him with the camera on her ipad and got this picture of him. My favorite part is the drool :)

The second night we were there, James did animal noises for the first time! My mom has an app on her ipad with a bunch of different animal noises and he would do "mooooo" for the cow and "ssssss" for the snake. It was so cute!!

On the day we spent at the beach house in Marathon, while Anthony was out catching lobster James had a little play date with 3 year old Valentina. She was so sweet with him! She loved showing him her dolls and sharing her princess backpack with him. James couldn't get enough of rolling the backpack around. He would go from one end of the room to the other, back and forth, nonstop for at least 45 minutes.

When he would get to this end of the room, Valentina would try to get James to stop and play with her.  At one point she decided that they were going to play "waiting for the bus" and wanted us all to sit down with her. James started to walk away with the backpack, so she yelled out in a very firm voice, "James! Come back here and sit down!!". James turned right around, walked over, and sat down next to her. It was priceless!!

It was wonderful having a separate room just for James to sleep in. He slept in late almost every morning after the first night. One morning he slept until 10:30 and when we went in to get him because we needed to go somewhere, this is what Anthony found. I think we wore him out!!

After the first couple of days, we were noticing so many new words from James that I decided to keep a list of all the words he came out with, just from the week we were on vacation: cracker, oh cool!, yogurt, key, fishie (sea), teeth, eye (his word for glasses or sunglasses), keh ku (thank you), no (and the correct way to use it), cookie, poop (can you believe this one??oy)



Getting ready to go adventuring:

Laughing at something:

My mom took these pictures of an overheated boy after doing some walking outside:

On Saturday night we were all sitting on the couch and watching some TV while James played around us. Anthony was snacking on some candy and James noticed right away! He went right up to Anthony and started pulling on his legs, pointing at the bag of candy and whining. Anthony tried to distract him with books and by trying to rough house with him, but James was not having it. He could not be deterred!! Finally James got fed up, looked Anthony right in the eye and said, "Bop!!" (he says bop right before he hits something or someone). My mom and I were laughing so hard!! James really meant business!! At least he warned us first before hitting right? He didn't follow through on his threat, thankfully :)

Playing with drums and daddy!

On Wednesday nights Anthony and I are in charge of the cub scouts and we usually take James with us. Last Wednesday he was being a little difficult, and since my mom and brother were visiting, they took him into the nursery to play with toys until we were done. My mom was impressed with James' drum playing skills so we got him to do a repeat performance for the camera :) Can I just say, in advance, that I am 100% against him having a real drum set one day because of the noise factor, but I love that he likes rhythm and music!

While I was looking through my brother's videos to get the drum video, I found this one of James and Anthony from while were vacationing in North Carolina. We were showing everyone how much James loves to be thrown around on beds and couches. So funny!



Beans are good!

Sunday night we had black beans and pasta for dinner and James had a blast with it! He loves him some beans :) When I got to the table this is what I found:

Somehow he made it to his highchair and got his food while holding toy car and without a bib.....two guesses how that happened :)

Yesterday I went through all of James' clothes and put away his 12 month sizes and brought out his 18 month old clothes. His shorts were starting to look like short shorts and his shirts were turning into belly shirts! We are having a difficult time with hitting lately. James has started hitting when he gets angry or frustrated. He will look straight at you and hit you in the face purposefully and then when you tell him "no, we don't do that" in any variation he cries even harder. We keep going back and forth between wanting to address it every time he does it and trying not to make a big deal out of it so that he doesn't start doing it for the reactions. Fun :) He has been talking more and more, but he also seems to be crying and whining more. It seems like he wants to communicate but can't so he just whines. He never really picked up much sign language, but I've been thinking of focusing on it again. Maybe it will help with the crying and the tantrums?

I've been meaning to take more videos of James, it seems like it's been forever since we videoed him. The problem is that when he does something cute, by the time we get the camera all he is interested in is what WE are doing. This is just a few minutes of him playing this morning, nothing special. You can hear him say "car" while he pushes his favorite fire truck, he laughs at the ceiling fan, and then he gets the xbox remote, turns it on and hands it to me while babbling. I'm pretty sure he is requesting his favorite show Yo Gabba Gabba. Ummm, I am thinking we watch a little too much tv :)

Right now James says: mommy, daddy, car, ball, bubble, bye (sounds like buh, buh), uh oh, bapple (for apple), and doggie. It is funny, to him anything with wheels is a car, so he says car anytime he sees strollers, grocery carts, walkers, buses, trains, etc.. He also likes to point at his ears when you ask him where his ears are and he sticks his finger up his nose when you ask him where his nose is. Then he laughs hysterically. He is such a ham!





Busy, Busy, Busy

We have been busy over here lately, it seems like June has just zoomed by! Last week we looked after our friends' children in return for them watching James for us a few weeks ago. Oh my word, having three kids all together is loud!! I'm not going to lie, it was a little overwhelming, especially since James and their little boy Jaxton are only a month apart so it is like having twins plus an older sibling. But, we had a great time!! Our friends have an awesome playroom that I am totally jealous of and we had fun playing dress-up, play-doh, and hide and seek and James loved pushing around the different shopping carts they had. It was kind of funny to see the look on James' face whenever one of the other kids would come and sit in my lap. He would get this "Hey, that's my spot...what are you doing in my spot....?" look and then he would come over and try to wiggle in. So cute.

We took a picture of them all in the tub and it was adorable, but I'm only going to post the pictures we took of James since I'm not sure how their mom feels about bath pictures up on the internet :)

James has started to notice different body parts on himself and is starting to realize that other people have those body parts too. His favorite right now is his belly button. If you ask him where his belly button is, he will immediately lift his shirt up and look for it, almost as if he isn't sure it is still there! Then he looks over at me or Anthony and lunges towards us, grabbing at our shirts trying to lift it up so he can see our belly button. He thinks it is hilarious that we have one too!

A few weeks ago we went to a fund raiser event at a local horse rescue and James loved it! I really need to find a local farm or something that we can visit more often because he loves seeing all the animals and chasing all the chickens. He especially loved running around in the mud, much to my dismay! :) We got to feed and pet the horses, there were so many of them. They even had a baby miniature horse that was the size of a child's rocking horse. So cute!! James was not afraid of the horses at all. One of them was in a separate pen that was made up of a few horizontal bars and James tried to stick his head through and wiggle his body over to get inside multiple times. The horse would come up and sniff James to see if he had any food and he would just laugh!

With all the rain we've been having, a lot of the fun activities on my list of the summer have been put on hold and I've tried to think of things to do to get us out of the house. The mall is a good 30 minutes away from us so we don't go that often, but they do have an indoor playground so we've gone a few times. For some reason, don't ask me why, all of the decorations and play equipment are large scale breakfast items... It is kind of weird. But that doesn't stop the kids from having fun! Every time we have gone they are all running around going crazy and having fun. James likes climbing on the top of the eggs and standing there like king of the mountain. Then he slowly sits down and slides down backwards off of it very cautiously :) He also really likes the bacon slide (so odd!! who came up with piece of bacon for a slide?? Why??)

The rule at the playground is for everyone to take their shoes off, which isn't a problem except that James is in this phase where he loves to pick up people's shoes and bring them to them to put on. Loves it. Does it nonstop at home. So of course when he saw the tower of shoes in shoe rack he squealed and looked so excited! It was pretty difficult to keep him away from them for the rest of the time. He also has started saying "Shoe" a lot, one of the few words he will say. He talks and babbles all the time, but he doesn't say very many distingushable words. I think he knows how to say more than he does, because out of nowhere he will say something and Anthony and I will look at each other like, "Was that what we thought it was??" but he won't repeat it or do it consistently.

James has also started getting into EVERYTHING. Instead of just screaming and crying when he can't get at something he has started to get creative..

My phone camera is awful, but if you look closely you can see that he pulled his ride-on fire truck up to the couch so he can get at the side table that has remotes, candles, books: everything he isn't supposed to get :) The funniest part was that I was sitting right next to him by that blue pillow when he did it. I was reading a book and had no idea until I happened to glance over and he was level with my face. Attentive parenting in action :)

Anthony's work is going great, he still loves it and he renegotiated his contract for another year. He also has been really excited about his aquarium lately. A friend of his sold all of his corals, so Anthony made out like a bandit and now his tank is FULL of new stuff. He hasn't been fishing lately, but once the weather gets better we hopefully will get to go out in the boat again soon.

I haven't been doing anything too exciting. I really enjoy the one day a week I volunteer at the library. I usually just put my mp3 player on with podcasts I like to listen to and I zone out while I reselve books. It is relaxing :) I bought myself a Kindle Fire, I had been thinking about it for 6 months and I finally decided to do it. Anthony and I share an Ipad, so I thought it would be nice to have something for each of us. Of course, when Anthony is at work or doing something with his tank I use the Ipad because it is so much bigger so I've been feeling kind of guilty that I don't use the Kindle more. First world problems right? :)