Mostly pictures

A long over due update

2009-11-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

2009 has been an interesting year for us. A few months ago Xian was offered a job that took us over 2,600 miles away from our home, family, church, and friends. We have moved many times, but for some reason this move seemed just a little bit harder than normal. But we are finally settling in and once again exploring a new place and starting a new adventure.

Autumn has always been my favorite season. This was a first for Jay, finally experiencing the beautiful fall foliage.

As soon as we moved we thankfully found another Awana Chapter to be involved with! Jay is in his second year of Cubbies and LOVES it!

The pig mask is normally not part of his uniform! It was dress as your favorite bible character night. Jay was certain he wanted to be a pig from Noah's ark.

We've been taking advantage of all the touristy things that we are near now!

He wasn't thrilled to take this photo, it was very busy at the Bureau of Engraving and Imprinting, and he did not want to stand alone near that sign!

More to come soon, I hope!

Long over due Christmas update!

2009-01-27T08:31:00.000-08:00

I'm over a month late with this entry, but figured I may as well post a few of our Christmas pictures from this year. Christmas was so much fun this year with a three year old! He was so excited about everything! He keeps asking when it will be Christmas time again. He was so disappointed when we started packing up the Christmas decorations, he really wanted to keep the tree up until next Christmas.

This year we stayed in California for the holidays. Our NY family sent many boxes to us during the month of December! Jay was so excited to get so much mail! Most of the packages had to go into the garage to wait until Christmas. He keeps hoping the mailman will continue to bring surprises to our house.

I took my own photos this year for our Christmas cards. Jay was pretty cooperative. This was our favorite for the cards! I wasn't really happy with how they turned out, but had to order them asap to get them in the mail before Christmas. He is crazy about the red monkey and candy cane pj's he is wearing in this photo. He is still wearing them all the time. Sometimes he even insists on wearing them under his clothing!

We usually get Jay's photos professionally done around the holidays. But this year we really wanted to try to cut that expense, so I took some pictures myself in our living room. This was one of my favorites of him reading a book he got from my Aunt and Uncle. We also took several family pictures, and they turned out really great! Wish these could have made it into the Christmas cards!

And here is Jay with Santa. This year we went on the Santa Train, and got to visit with Santa during a train ride. The train was all decorated for Christmas and Mrs. Claus was even there greeting everyone. It was a wonderful day, but a little chilly. Jay asked Santa for a garbage truck, jumping rope, and a grocery shop.

I had a few pictures from Christmas day I wanted to share, but sadly I can't get the cropped versions to show up on my blog. I'd rather not post pictures of our extended family here! :) So I guess this is all for today!

ARGH, I hate how the photos are not showing up correctly, but I don't have any more time to mess with this right now! Maybe later tonight!

Day out with Thomas!

2008-11-16T17:05:00.000-08:00

On Vetern's day, spur of the moment, we decided to call and see if there were any tickets available to see Thomas the Train. We missed seeing Thomas last year, and we knew little Jay would really enjoy it. Luckily, the event still had tickets so we were off to the train station.

It sure seemed to take forever for Thomas to arrive. But luckily, someone was in a patient mood that day.

Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of him next to Thomas! But I did get some during the train ride. After all that waiting, the 30 minute ride seemed to fly by!

The senery wasn't anything too exciting, so Jay amused us with his "Pirate Eye".

He also got his first tattoo! These things sure are better than I remembered. His has just started to wear off today.

And almost as exciting as Thomas, our good friend Bob the Builder was there too. He did a singing show for the kids and then let everyone get pictures. Bob is a favorite in our house, he might even win over Thomas on most days here.

After seeing Thomas, (and Bob) Jay was melting down, since he missed his nap, so we had to cut the rest of the day short. They had a lot of stuff going on, and we only saw about half of it. We are thinking of going back to the Train station in December. They will have a Christmas Train then!

Another give away!

2008-08-08T15:23:00.001-07:00

There is another great give away at 5minutes4mom.com. Please check it out.

I will be posting a real entry soon, we've been having an awesome summer, and have many pictures to share.

FFF ~Daddy and Me~~

2008-06-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

This first picture was taking Father's Day weekend, and Disney's California Adventure. Jay just adores his Daddy.

He was so upset when Xian went on a ride without him. He didn't cry until his Daddy came back, and then he just sobbed. :( Daddy went on no more rides solo after that.

Here is a picture from last Father's Day.

Sadly, I don't have a picture from Xian's first Father's day, because he was deployed then. But this is a picture from our pick up trip, always one of my favorite Daddy and me pictures!

2008-06-14T22:48:00.000-07:00

Here are the two best pictures that I mentioned earlier! I hope to have more time to update with some action swimming shots soon. I have them uploaded, I just need to resize them.

We are all so tired tonight. We just got back from Disney's California Adventure! It was so much fun! :)

I think and am almost afraid that it wont be long before little J is jumping from these rocks around the pool...

giveaway

2008-06-13T09:30:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to let you all know about another give away!

FFF ~bloopers~

2008-06-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

Here are my bloopers from this week. It seems like every time I have my camera out, I get more missed shots than keepers. But I still keep every picture anyway. It's really hard to get a good picture of J lately, he's always moving. We've been so busy with our move, I can't believe it has been so long since I've done a FFF!

We love having a pool now!

He's showing off his new bathing suit from his Auntie!

It took 13 shots to get two good ones, I'll post those later on this afternoon maybe!

FFF Just one picture

2008-05-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

Here is my FFF photo for this week!! We took J to Disneyland for his 3rd birthday on Monday! We all had a really wonderful day. This is my favorite picture from the trip.

Super J

2008-05-13T15:30:00.000-07:00

Little J's birthday is just six days away! I can't get over that he'll be THREE in less than a week! So some birthday surprises have started to arrive in our mail box. This is from Auntie Sasha, who knows how every little boy needs a super hero cape!! He loves this, thanks so much!! He wore it nonstop yesterday.

Before bed we talk about why little Super J could not and should not fly down stairs.

He listens, and I tell him how he can fly from his train table, or our couch, but not from the steps.

Oh wait, he has an idea!!

Daddy can fly him!!!!

We are seriously having so much fun with our little super hero!

Mother's Day Pictures

2008-05-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

Little Jay painted this flower pot for my MIL for mother's day. He was so proud of it. He picked out the flower too, an orange Poppy. We've been talking a lot about the different states, so I thought it was really awesome how he picked out our state flower!

I adore this hat. X wasn't sure it was worth $12 bucks, but I am sure it is!

He LOVES this car. He has one that stays in our living room too. I asked him to get out of the car to take a mother's day photo with me, he did, but he wasn't happy about it. I wont be sharing those images, as they weren't pretty. When I picked him up to pose with me he told me that he hated me. He loves using the word "hate" lately. He "hates my music it makes him sick", he "hates noodles", he "hates the new broken house", and the list goes on and on...

I adore him even when he's in his hateful moods!

Another give away this time for Mom!

2008-05-09T15:06:00.000-07:00

Here is another give away. This time for Mom's! I actually won something from the toy give away, so it is worth a try!! This one ends today too! I keep finding out about these at the last minute! YOu have until 9pm!! Enter!!!

Wow I had a hard time getting that to link, thankfully it is nap time here.

And here is my all time favorite mothering picture and my FFF for this week. It was taken on our last day in Guatemala, when we were finally finished with our Embassy appointments, and we were getting ready to go home with our new little son! I don't really know what it is about this photo, but it is still my favorite one. Looking through all my picture albums reminded me that I MUST take more pictures of me and little J together. I am usually the one taking the pictures! I still kiss his cheeks just like that too.:)

Check out this great Toy give away!!

2008-05-07T10:32:00.001-07:00

I just heard about this on it's final day!! Go over and check out what away toy giveaways they have! :) It ends today at 5 pm though, so GO NOW!!

FFF

2008-05-02T13:58:00.001-07:00

J is crazy about lollipops. Yesterday, he got his haircut and was given one of his favorite treats. I put it away for him to have after lunch, but then I could not find it! I looked every where, and I am still not sure where it went.

But luckily today, while visiting Daddy at the office, Aunt C had a lollipop waiting for him!

He even waited until after lunch to eat it! But he didn't let it out of his sight.

2008-04-29T23:15:00.000-07:00

Wow, I've really neglected this blog lately. April has been such a crazy month for us. We got the idea in March to start looking for a house to buy. We lost out on a few along the way, but we finally have found the one for us, and are very excited about it. It hasn't been smooth sailing so far, and we've run into a few issues, but nothing that can't be dealt with. The house is a bit of a fixer upper, but luckily most of the issues are easy to fix. We are supposed to close on May 12, a day before my birthday.

Jay isn't thrilled about moving. But he seems to be warming up to the idea at least a little now. Here is a picture of him from this past weekend. We have been cleaning out our garage and starting to move some of our boxes of junk into a storage unit. Jay isn't thrilled about that storage space either. He must have asked me at least 20 times today, when we were going to the box store to get his red bed, and blocks.

We recently bought him a lofted slide bed (red bed), for his room in the new house. Right now the slide is hooked on to his train table, because he had to try it out once he saw it. He isn't smiling in this picture, but believe me he is having a blast with it.

Maybe this bed will help him sleep in his own room. Hahaha, unlikely but it's worth a try anyway.

A few Easter pictures

2008-04-12T23:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, this entry is back dated, but it is finally posted.

We had a really nice Easter this year. J loved the egg hunt we made for him. He loved finding all the clues, with pictures drawn inside, so he could figure out where the next place would be. We stayed up so late drawing pictures and hiding eggs.

Isn't that one mean drawing of a cozy coupe?? He never got stumped up on any of the pictures, and believe me, they weren't all this good.

And here are a few pictures from just before we left to visit family.

Easter Egg Mess

2008-03-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

Dying eggs this year was so much fun with J!

He enjoyed every messy second of it.

He cracked a few eggs with his not so gentle dropping them into the cup technique.

Happy St Patrick's Day!!

2008-03-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

We had a lot of fun this St. Patty's day. Jay was really into hearing stories about leprechauns and rainbows. We made a bunch of shamrocks and hung them around the house. But I'm afraid Jay has Easter and St. Patrick's day confused. He told my friend yesterday that Jesus left him chocolate coins, and peed green in the toliet.

He's wearing the same shirt he wore last year too. I think this will be the last year for it though.

FFF ~ a year ago~

2008-03-07T09:12:00.000-08:00

I stayed up way too late last night looking through all my pictures from last year. At first glance this was the only picture I could find from March and it was taken at the end of March on our way to a wedding. The more I looked the more concerned I got, because I couldn't find any pictures from February either. My camera is always on hand, I couldn't believe I'd have gone that long without snapping any pictures.

I e-mail my family pictures often, so I searched for my sent mail folder for March 2007 and sure enough some pictures came up. But I still couldn't find them on my computer. But I kept searching through all of my picture folders until I found them in a mislabeled folder. I don't have as many pictures from March and February, but I am sure glad I found them and they didn't get accidently deleted.

So here are my pictures from a year ago. We are avid readers here, so I always love to watch Jay looking at books. He is still a big book lover. His favorite books right now are anything by Sandra Boyton. Last year, he was really into the itzy bitzy spider book.

He was also convinced that this Elmo chair, was a recliner, and he'd lean back in it as far as he could.

FFF Leaping..

2008-02-29T09:18:00.000-08:00

Well I searched through all of my photos and I think this is the closest I could find to leaping. These photos were taken around Christmas time, when we were visiting my family in New York for the holidays. It was the first time J really got to play in the snow. And of coarse he had to jump in it. He loves jumping. It was so much fun. Growing up I was never a huge fan of winter, it seemed to last forever, but now that we live in California I find myself missing winter and snow. Just a little bit.

I'm adding one more that shows his face too!

Beach pictures

2008-02-25T14:46:00.000-08:00

Last week, we had company, the flat paper variety that is. My Aunt teaches third grade, and they do a project called Flat Stanely, so basically Stanly comes to visit for a week, and then you write the class back telling them about his adventures. Last time we were asked to help with the project, Stanley went to visit Xian while he was deployed to Iraq. His trip this time was less exciting, and he is on his way back to New York now though.

We took Stanly to the beach with us, and here are some pictures from his time with us. I wrote this post back in Feb, but never got around to finishing it until today. It was so cold at the beach, but Jay and I had an awesome time. Xian refused to even get his toes wet, it was much too cold for him.

Jay is wearing a sweater and hat that my Aunt made for him!

FFF ~then and now~

2008-02-22T07:00:00.000-08:00

Here is the first photo we ever saw of J. He was five days old here. I can't get over how little he looks here. It would be five and a half months until we actually got to hold him in our arms, but it was love at first sight, as cliche as that sounds.

This is a picture I took on Monday. Xian's cousin gave J this bike, and he is so excited about it. He can petal his tricylce now, but he can't get this 'big boy' bike to go, yet. But he sure is persistant. He picked out that helmet all by himself too. I can't get over how much he's grown, and how big he is getting. He will be three soon, and all this time has gone by much too quickly.

Valentine's Day Continued...

2008-02-16T14:18:00.000-08:00

We didn't go out to dinner for Valentine's day. It's really hard for us to go out, because we have yet to find a really good babysitter around here. But there is something nice about making a homecooked meal too. For dessert we decided to do fruit and chocolate fondu. We had never used our little fondu pot before, but it was perfect for the three of us. We only ate a little bit, and then it was time for Jay's bedtime bath and books. We really try to limit J's sweets because he has so much energy and even a little sugar gets him very excitable.

After his bath, he remembered his favorite book was downstairs, so he had to have it. Xian let him go down and get it, but when he didn't return right away, he went down to see what was holding him up, and sure enough J was enjoying the leftover chocolate in the pot! He even had chocolate under his Pj shirt. I wish I could have seen his face while he was getting into the chocolate because I'm sure he was having such a great time. So it was time for another bath, new pj's and surprisingly after all that chocolate he went to bed fairly easily!

I am not sure why all these pictures came out pretty dark. My camera battery was almost dead, so I'm lucky it worked at all. The battery was so dead that it would no longer let me look at the previews of the pictures I took. Thankfully, I've located my battery charger. J had hidden it, and it had been missing for a week or more.

FFF with Valentine's Day Pictures

2008-02-15T09:05:00.000-08:00

My favorite photo's this week are from Valentine's day. J was crazy excited about V-day this year.

I really wanted to get him one of the Mom themed Valentine day shirts, but once he saw this shirt he had to have it. He is crazy about construction vehicles, and dirt.

Here he is puckering up, he has been in a great mood all week. We've been able to do many projects together. He made personal valentine's for all of his grandparents, but sadly we got them in the mail late, so no one has received them yet.

We picked him up a chocolate lollipop at the grocery store on Saturday, and he had to wait all week to eat it. It was his favorite topic to continue bringing up about fifty times a day. "O Idea Mama", "What is your idea J" "CHOCOLATE LOLLIPOP!!!" I was a mean mommy and made him wait until after dinner to finally have it.

I have a few more pictures from yesterday I am going to try to blog later, but for now the dishes are calling me!

Bathtime fun

2008-02-12T13:49:00.000-08:00

Bathtime is always a big hit around here. It always has been one of J's favorite times of the day. For Christmas Jadon got this crayola bath set, that came with bath tints to make the water different colors, which is how the water got such a lovely purple hue in these pictures. He is not really crazy about the bubble maker, it's a little hard to use, but he love the tints.

We went to the Learning Express to get a gift for a friend's baby, and they had a bunch of toys 30% off. We got him this little shaving kit for $5. It has a little mirror too, which he just loves to check himself out with. He's a very serious shaver. He thinks it is so cool to have his own razor. He must think it's pretty cool to spray the shaving cream too, because the other day I found it all over his comforter, and several of his toys.