James 2.5 years old

Man oh man I love this kid. How can a little person make you laugh, cry and want to rip your hair out all in the same hour? Toddlers have an incredible ability to feel and express emotions us adults have trained ourselves to suppress. Yet hanging out with this little guy can rub off and I sometimes feel like I am losing control of my own emotions! It is not a feeling I like (unless it is the laughing my pants off kind of emotion). Being the parent of a toddler is challenging and fun. I guess it is just the process of things, as your children grow, you have to grow more too. I have had to learn how to control my temper (which I didn't even think I had until we hit the toddler phase). I have to watch my actions more because someone else is watching my every move and learning from me. I have to be creative with how we spend the day. I want to teach my kids lessons, but I also want them to have fun, experience new things and be active. This is not always easy to do on a daily basis, between running the house, working, taking care of two kids and other obligations it can be a challenge. OK, enough about me...

(Just the 2 of us at Disneyland for my birthday)

James is such a fun kid. He feels emotions very deeply. When he feels happy, he is bursting with joy. He loves to giggle and run around and be goofy. On the flip side, when he is upset, he lets you know! He can wake up super cranky from naps (especially if they were too short) and take a whole hour to get over it. He can cry at the drop of a hat. He is also very loving and will kiss his toys goodbye or goodnight. He will randomly run up to me, hug my legs and say "I love you mommy" (best feeling ever!). He is kind to other people, most of the time and not very physically aggressive towards others. He loves being social. When we are at the park, he instantly will go up to other kids and say "hi". He likes running around and playing with other children and especially likes the older kids. Little ones can bug him sometimes. He loves his little brother, except when Davis is going after one of "his toys". James has a possessiveness when it comes to his toys. We are working on sharing. He is getting better, but it really depends on his mood. Some days he is so willing to share. Others he will cry the second someone gets near something he is playing with. The best is when he says "Oh no! Baby coming... ahhhhh!!!!"

James loves trucks, especially garbage trucks. He also loves cars and trains. I am hoping he will work at the dealership and not the sanitary district. He will sit in our back patio area playing with his trains and trucks all morning long. He is really good at playing alone and entertaining himself, although he does loves when mom or dad joins him. James loves going to his Grandparents house. He will wake up from his nap saying "go to grandmama and pop's house" or "go to nana and bops house". I am so happy he loves being with his grandparents, they are all great so I am not that surprised. He also loves his cousins and will get excited when we are planning to see them.

We spend a lot of time at Disneyland, the park, going for walks, going to the gym (he loves playing with the trucks at the gym daycare), playing with friends and relatives and reading books. He also LOVES the movie Cars. James likes to paint and has made a few pretty impressive art pieces. 

James loves to play with his Dad. Haws got him (and himself) a monster truck remote control truck for Christmas that he loves playing with.

We got to watch Brad and Kori's boys while they went to the Golden Globes (lucky!). James was so sad when they had to leave. The day was full of crazy fun with these four. Haws did a lot of the entertaining. He is the best!

We have started the potty training process. We had some friends for dinner one night and their son who is 6 months older than James was potty trained. After James saw him go to the potty, he wanted to do it too! I held off doing the full on potty training because of the holidays, but he would go in the potty when he felt like it. Now of course that we are pushing the potty training, we are met with some resistance. Always more fun when it's your idea right? It has been about a week and he is doing OK. Still accidents here and there, but hopefully it won't take forever.
We see a lot of these cheeks around here lately:

And sometimes James brings his trash truck with him to help him go potty. Whatever gets him there!!!

James is still sleeping well in his bunk bed, but he has learned how to open his door! After that happened, he started wanting his door left open while he slept. He was "scared". He will stay in his bed, but when he wakes up in the morning, he just comes into our room and if we are not already awake (we usually are and then he comes downstairs) he will come right into my face and say "good morning mommy" in the cutest little voice ever. But because it is usually sometime between 5am and 630am I usually don't find it very cute!

James is doing awesome with his speech. It is fun having him express his thoughts. He says the funniest things sometimes. I need to start writing them down more.

James is still our tall and lean guy. Not sure what his height is, but he weighs about 27lbs.
Sporting the big boy underpants and abs of steel. (nice socks)

I am sure there are things I am missing, but I have been meaning to write this post for over a month. I love you James. Even though you keep me on my toes, I am sure I will be sad when this stage is over.

Winter Fun

I love the Christmas season! It is my favorite time of the year and I hope to pass on the love for Christmas time onto my children. We had a busy holiday season (who doesn't?) and we tried to fit in as much as we could. There where a few things I love to do that we just didn't have time for this year, hopefully next year.

James got his first "real" hair cut with clippers and everything. Our "barber" Aunt Brooke was out of town, so we went to cool cutz for kids. He did great. Rode in a car and watched cars... how couldn't he be happy?

We took weekly visits to Disneyland meeting up with friends and going by ourselves sometimes. I love Disneyland during Christmas time. We rode all the decorated rides, went to carsland, saw snow fall and watched the Christmas parade a few times.

James helped me decorate our tree.

It was a little bigger than we thought it would be.

We took many evening strolls to see this house around the corner from us. It is amazing! The lights "dance" to music that is being played.

Had a girls night out with these lovely ladies. I love our annual dinner and shopping night!

We heard about a real railroad that does Christmas rides where Santa comes and visits the kiddos. The kids wear their PJs and have cookies and chocolate milk. I didn't realize it would take us 2 hours to get there! We barely made it and the kids had a great time, but I don't think it is something we will do again anytime soon. 4 hour round trip for a 1 hour train ride? No thank you. But glad we did it.

 The highlight of the night was getting to hang out with this family. Even though we work together, the nature of our job doesn't mean we actually see each other! Their girls are close in age to our boys (the babies are only 4 days apart!) It was so fun sharing quality time with them.

 These two danced to Christmas carols

 And how cute are these bums?

James, Max and Liby rode the train at the Spectrum since we were blocked out at Disneyland.  James got to spend a lot of time with these two thanks to our Disneyland passes. It is one of the highlights of having a pass :)

One of my favorite things about the holidays is getting Christmas cards from our friends and family. It is so fun getting the mail each day and seeing which ones we got. I leave them up through January because I love looking at them.

Here is ours from this year.

Jesus, The Temple and the Trash man

Every time we end one of our prayers as a family, James will say "Forgot to bless Jesus, The Temple and the Trash man".  Sometimes the trash truck will get thrown in there as well. We have tried to remember to include all of these things in each prayer now just to see what will happen, but no matter what we say, we  get our reminder to pray for them again. I am sure Jesus doesn't mind that he is grouped in there with the trash man. This boy loves his trash trucks!

Oh and did I mention how he lines up all his trucks and cars this way? He has a little bit of his dad's perfectionism I think...

Davis 8 & 9 Months

At 8 months old Davis had a few first. 

First visit to the doctor for something other than a well check. He developed this rash all of a sudden. We were not sure if it was an allergic reaction, a virus or eczema. He had no other symptoms besides the rash, but I took him to the doc anyway. It was definitely eczema, but the doc we saw couldn't determine what caused it. She sent us home with instructions to change detergents, not give him blueberries (which was the most recently eaten new food), give him some benedryl and use cetaphil lotion. It started getting better immediately  I think the lotion is what made the biggest different. I remember that James had an outbreak of eczema around the same time of year when it gets really dry out. Haws had actually had an outbreak himself! I guess I have to remember to douse my men in lotion during the winter months.

The next big first was Davis became mobile! He started crawling a little past his 8 month mark. And like his brother James, he is doing the army crawl. It will be interesting to see if he sticks with it or moves onto hands and knees. James never did get up on all fours... he was too fast the other way to bother changing his method. Davis is a quick one too. If he sees something he wants, he can get there pretty fast. Here is a video of when he first started crawling.

So they days of having a non-mobile baby are over :( I swear once they start moving, they develop an opinion of where they want to go and things they want to see. I guess it is just part of the learning process. Davis is luckily still a cuddle bug. Not as much as he once was... but I still get in some good cuddle sessions each day. 

Davis is eating more foods. He loves eating solids and will eat 1-2 jars, 3x's a day! He was doing this until he got sick recently and then all of a sudden started rejecting being spoon feed. He will suck down a food pouch, but won't let me feed him. It is the strangest thing and I am hoping it is just a phase because I have a bunch of baby food we need to use up!

These were his stats at his 9 month check up:

18lb, 2 oz (10-25th percentile)

28 3/4 inches (70th percentile)

44.5 cm head circumference (25-50th percentile)

He is our happy, easy going little guy most of the time. He loves his big brother and they laugh together all the time. I even caught them playing with toys together. It was so cute. Now that Davis is moving, if he is going for something he is not suppose to, James will say "no,no,no Davis... that's not a baby toy" in a cute little song voice. It is also hilarious if James thinks Davis is coming to get one of his toys, he will grab it and run away screaming "oh no, baby coming!!!"

He loves trains :)

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving day we did our annual walk at the beach with Bop while Haws played in the church Turkey Bowl (no stitches this time). It was just my dad, my little men and me. It is always nice to have a little quality time with my dad. We were about half way back to the car when my dad decided to take James out on the sand to chase the seagulls.

They were having so much fun that I decided to take the stroller back, get the baby carrier and join them. Well the car was farther than I thought and by the time I got to it I had received a call from my dad telling me James had decided to go in the ocean. So I drove the car to where they were and found them dodging the waves. James was soaked, but having so much fun! It had to have been freezing, but that didnt stop him. Needless to say, it was a fun and memorable walk once again.



For dinner we were able to join our two families together... it was great! Haws' parents and Jared and his family came to my parents along with Brad and his family. The food was great and the company was even better.

 I have so much to be thankful for, but I am especially thankful for my 2 little boys and the man who helped me make them :)

Halloween 2012

We had fun this Halloween season doing two of our favorite things. Going to the Middagh's for their annual Pre-Halloween party and then going to John and Brooke's house on Halloween for dinner and trick or treating. Were were a family of cowboys/girl with our own little cow.

James loved trick or treating this year. He was so funny, whenever someone opened their door he would say "trick or treat" and then walk right into their house. He likes to make him self at home I guess :)

Tanaka Farms

We love going to Oak Glen around Halloween time, but this year, after just getting back from a long road trip with the kiddos, I wasn't really looking for the 1.5 hour drive. So we decided to go pick out our pumpkins somewhere closer to home. We decided on Tanaka Farms and met up with the Orvin family for some pumpkin patch fun. 

James had fun running around and looking at the animals in the petting zoo through the fence (hey if they are happy looking through the fence, why pay to go inside?) We had fun hanging out with friends and picking out our pumpkins that we carved into this. Haws is so much better at carving. He likes details, I like something simple.