Mostly pictures

Spring

2010-05-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

Once again time has escaped me, and we are months without an update. We saw a lot of snow this winter, and it left us longing for the west coast.

In March, we signed up for a class at the US Botanical Gardens in DC. It was so much fun. Jay loved visiting the gardens each week. He learned so much about seeds and plants. We have just recently attempted planting our own flowers and herbs. I have never had much luck at all with keeping plants alive, so we will soon see how this will turn out. We enjoy the gardens so much we have been trying to visit each month to see what new flowers are blooming.

We are lucky to have a Cherry Blossom tree in our front yard! The trees bloomed early this year. They were so beautiful. For a while it looked like it was snowing cherry blossoms. My Aunt visited us during the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC, and she bought us all tickets to see the parade! It was so much fun! I had not been to a big parade like that before, and we all really enjoyed it. We had awesome seats near the grand stands and we got to see all of the performances!

We spent a lot of our free time at our local rec center! He has taken basketball, swimming, and gymnastic classes so far this year. I like to rotate which classes he takes each session. His favorite is basketball and he has participated in that class the last 3 sessions. They are so much fun to watch. It is basically a skills class, with some parent involvement, but they do scrimmage and it is so cute! I would like him to try soccer again next but so far his heart is still set on basketball.

There are only two weeks left of Awana! Jay's Cubbie vest is all filled in now. Next year he'll be a Sparky! He loves the Awana program and we are so happy we found a chapter for him to participate in here. We are amazed by his ability to memorize bible verses.

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!

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...

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.:)

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.

Seven Strange Things About Myself

2008-02-10T20:03:00.000-08:00

I was tagged by Janet

1. I love watching thunder and lightening storms. We had some beautiful ones in FL, but I haven't seen any here yet.

2. I've been married all of my 20's, and couldn't even legally sip wine at my own wedding.

3. I like walking through old cemeteries.

4. I love to read, we have books scattered all over our house. I'll read just about anything.

5. I even read celebrity gossip online. (I'm pretty embarressed to admit that haha)

6. I've sent a secret to Post secret Post Secret

7. I am not very organized, and when trying to accomplish things I normally need to make a list. I sometimes even make schedules for our days, even though we usually don't do anything very exciting and we never stay on task anyway.

I Tag, Sasha, Chelly, and hopefully I can think of a few other people who have yet to be tagged, but right now I can't think of anyone.

FFF ~messy face~

2008-02-08T14:01:00.001-08:00

Originally uploaded by MandyLouWho

I had to really look around to find a messy faced picture for this week's FFF. I can't believe how *little* he looks here. He's still does that closed eyed crazy smiling thing.

FFF

2008-02-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

My Friday Favorite for this week, was taken on X's 31st birthday, which was Monday! We had already celebrated his birthday with his family, but I decided to make his favorite dinner, and bake him a cake for his actual birthday. J and I had a lot of fun baking that cake. It didn't turn out exactly how I'd hoped, but it was still good. J has been talking non stop about birthday's now. He sure thought it was a lot of fun trying to blow up balloons. The month of January seemed to just fly by here!

our new pet!

2008-01-20T14:16:00.000-08:00

X really wanted to get J a fish for Christmas. I was less than excited about the idea. In my mind all I could think about is how it would be another thing to clean. We had decided to wait until J's third birthday to get him a fish, but when we went to the Petco all of the Elmo Fish Tank line was on sale. We decided to use some of J's Christmas money for the fish tank and fish! Having this little fish has been so much fun. With much coaxing J decided to name him Fish Azul Cabo. We have had a great time watching him swim around in his tank, it is so peaceful. Taking care of him has been a piece of cake, even the cleanings are really easy. I'm very crazy about our new pet!

It took us a long time to get the cookie monster bubbler to work, but X was finally able to figure out a way to get it to have a stream of slow bubbles. J had been terrific about only putting fish food into the tank until this week. But that is a story for another time!

J is crazy about this helicopter shirt. He wants to wear it all the time.

My FFF

2008-01-04T13:49:00.000-08:00

I've been slowly making my way through all of the pictures I took over the holidays. This picture was taken while we were visiting my family in NY for Christmas. Something about him all curled up in Xian's lap just kills me. He stayed asleep like that for hours while we were playing the wii.

FFF

2007-12-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

My favorite photos this week were taken when we were decorating our Christmas tree. We thought about not even putting one up this year, because we will be out of town for the holiday, but I'm really happy we did! Jay was so excited about putting things on the tree! The first thing he does in the morning is run to turn the tree on. He is going to be so much fun this holiday season!

FFF

2007-11-30T02:00:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd give Favorite Foto Friday a try. There has always been something about sleeping baby pictures that just make me melt. He often sleeps this way with his arms folded behind his head, looking so comfy and sweet. It kills me every time.

I know that he should really kick the binky habit soon. I'm worried he might give up sleeping all together if he didn't have his binky.

Christmas Baseball

2007-11-29T18:40:00.000-08:00

Jay has been having an awesome time lately, playing Christmas baseball. We ordered some rather pricey Christmas wrapping paper, in a school fundraiser and when it arrived, Jay was certain it was a Christmas bat. This has been keeping him very entertained. I eventually had to hide my expensive wrapping paper, and switch it with some from big lots. So if anyone recieves gifts from us this year with crazy wrinkled and worn wrapping paper will know why!

This picture shows the ball we use! It's an inflatable Christmas tree ordament. Xian got a huge box of free stuff from a yard sale in May, and this was one of the treasures inside. I complained a lot about that box, because if you saw how full our garage is, you'd realize why I'd be annoyed!

And finally he had enough of me trying to pitch and throw the ball at the same time. NO CHEESE MAMA! He wasn't not very happy in these last two pictures. I was tempted to tell him that "THERE IS NO CRYING IN BASEBALL", but I controlled the urge and just put down the camera...

little helper

2007-11-26T13:04:00.000-08:00

With the holidays lurking right around the corner, Jay and I had gotten into a bread making kick. He loves dumping everything into the bread maker. Once he thought it would be great fun to pushed a bunch of buttons, and reset the machine midcycle. Lots of googling later, and I figured out how to fix my bread! Besides that though, he really loves helping around the kitchen. So even thought it would be much easier for me to just do things on my own, I try to think of ways he can help out when cooking, and baking.

Here is my happy little helper!

He's not that interested in laundry sadly. And I had a lot of laundry to do on Friday. I asked him if he wanted to help me throw some towels in the dryer, but he no interest in that at all. So I went up stairs to quickly finish up the towels. I barely threw a few in, when I heard a kitchen chair moving across the floor downstairs. I think about just yelling down the stairs, but I know that wont work. If I'm out of sight there is no way he'll listen. So I run downstairs, and this is what I find. He was cracking or smashing all of our eggs. COOK MAMA, BABY JJ COOK!! At least he cracked them all in the carton so it was pretty easy to clean up. I thought it was at least a little funny so I grabbed the camera, but then after we cleaned it up, I told him how he wasn't supposed to play in the fridge.

So Xian comes home, and Jadon has started giving him a run down of our day. He is still just using a few words, but he manages to get the point across. He tells him, "DadaPapa Baby JJ cook. Egg broke. Mommy NO NO NOOOO" He changed his voice for the No part to sound pretty demon like. Xian found this funny, so he kept asking him what Mommy said. And his rendition of my voice kept sounding meaner and growly. He was really getting into it his story telling. For the record though, I seriously didn't even raise my voice.

It's that time of the year again, Santa Photos!

2007-11-19T23:14:00.000-08:00

November is going by much too quickly here. It has been too long since I've posted here! I've been meaning to update here, but just haven't had a lot of time! At the beginning of this month we celebrated Jay's Family Day.

And in honor of his two year home anniversary I'm going to post a few older pictures too. Everytime I look at my son I still see him as my little baby boy. He still seems so small and so much a baby to me. But when I look at these pictures it really makes me realize what a big boy he is becoming. I have enjoyed every second of being his mother. He is everything I've ever dreamed of, and then some!

Here is Jay with Santa for his very first Christmas. What I really love about this photo is his outfit. I bought those overalls long before he was even born, when we were still in the paper chasing part of our adoption. It was the first baby item I bought in anticipation for our child. I still have those overalls some where around here too. I remember that Santa remarking that I should have dressed him in something more christmasy for the photo, but now I'm really glad I didn't. I think this is the only picture I have of him in that outfit!

And here he is last year around this time of the year. I was surprised he didn't cry when sitting on Santa's lap. He was going through major seperation anxiety at this time, but he was okay as long as he was clutching my cell phone. Looking at this picture I can't get over how much he has grown up in this past year. I just can't believe it.

And this picture was taken this past weekend! I was surprised he was so excited at the chance to sit on Santa's lap. He still is very weary of people so I was surprised at how great this went. We haven't even talked about Santa at all this year, so I was shocked when he was so excited, and wanted to sit on his lap. This Santa was so sweet with him too which was really nice. And we finally got a smiling picture with Santa. And I even managed to have him dressed in matching shoes this year.

I think this holiday season is going to be a lot of fun this year with him! I can't wait.

Carving pumpkins

2007-10-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

Last night we carved pumpkins. I can't remember the last time I carved pumpkins, maybe highschool? I'm not sure, but I had forgotten how much fun it could be. We bought one of those little pumpkin carving kits, and those little knifes have come a long way! They certainly beat a kitchen knife. Jadon was very interested in the whole thing. He kept asking for a "hampkin please". He is crazy about napkins, and he doesn't really like to be dirty. But soon he forgot all about them and was having a good time cleaning out the pumpkin.

When he had had enough of pumpkin carving, it was time for a nice warm bubble bath. Xian finished up the rest of the carving, and had the pumpkins waiting for us when bathtime was over. (I am not sure why he put them on the couch like that, but Jay sure found it funny) I will have to add a picture of them lite up later!

Pumpkin Patch

2007-10-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

We took Jay to the pumpkin patch this past weekend. It was the first trip ever to a pumpkin patch. Jay has been talking nonstop about pumpkins ever since they started showing up at the grocery stores earlier this month. We googled and found an Organic Pumpkin farm in the San Pasqual area. I was hoping to find a patch with a hayride, but this one was still nice.

Here are the boys as they set off on the pumpkin patch adventure.

It took Jay a long time to find the right one. I think we looked at every pumpkin in the whole field. He wanted to find a "baby pumpkin", and a "mama Dadapapa pumpkin". He is so funny. He also said "heavy pumpkin" for the first time! We are so excited that he is finally starting to talk!

When we were paying for the pumpkins Jadon noticed some "blue corn", and really wanted it. He was very excited to have corn, that he is sure is from his Aunt Cat's farm. We've had to hid that piece of corn because he was determined to eat it! We were hoping to go to another pumpkin patch again before Halloween, but with all the fires out here, I'm not sure if that will happen or not. (We had to leave early after Xian got something in his eye, and Jay was freaking out over dirt getting in his shoes) I really wanted a nice hot cup of apple cider, but it was so hot outside, we decided to get iced coffee at starbucks instead.

2007-10-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

Getting a good picture of Jay has been somewhat difficult lately! He has to say "CHEESE" everytime his picture is taken. He gets REALLY into it. Here is a series of different stages of him cheesing up for the camera. These photos crack me up! He picked out his own clothes this day. He has such an opinion about what he wears.

We still need our afternoon nap here!

2007-10-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

We are so excited that Grandma, Grandad, and Aunt Kelly are coming to visit. They arrive on Tuesday so Sunday was spent doing all the fun things you do when company is coming, like cleaning, getting guest room(s) ready, grocery shopping etc. And when nap time came around for little Jay, we decided to all go for a nice long swim. Maybe not the smartest idea, but it sure was fun. (Plus we figured maybe he didn't need his nap since he decided to sleep in, which is very unheard of around here)

But by the time dinner rolled around he starting to get crabby. Xian was sweet enough to offer to make dinner. After a few bites, Jay fell asleep in his highchair, still clutching his garlic bread! I had to grab the camera and snap a few pictures.

He hasn't fallen asleep on his own without books/songs/drinks of water please, in over a year. Of coarse, he wasn't out for the night, and that late 6:00 nap, kept him engergized until almost midnight!

Not so Terrible Two's

2007-10-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

Everyone is always talking about the terrible two's! Well, Jadon is now 2 years and 4 months old, and I think for us the terrible times came early. Around 18 months, tantrums around here were crazy. There was all the typical behaviors like screaming, kicking, biting, thrashing around, and more screaming, all those not so fun toddler things. He could carry on for quite a long time too. We live in a townhouse and I for a while was quite worried that our neighbors would complain, and we'd be house hunting once again. But really I think we have past the worst of this age already.

But the other day, Jadon got quite upset. He wanted "more ABO Crackers Please". He is obsessed with "Very Vanilla Letter of the Day, Sesame Street Organic Cookies", and when his snack of them was gone, and I offered him fruit instead of his most favorite cookies, the tears started rolling and he started crying under the train table. I thought we might be into a long crying spell. I offered him grapes, and other snacks, but he kept on crying for the ABO crackers. Tried playing his favorite CD, and taking out the puppets, but he still wanted to stay under the table. I had my camera close by so I took the first picture. I didn't know if it would make him more upset or not, but I figured I could take the chance. I haven't had the chance to have any crying photos of him lately anyway. But who would of guessed it would have turned his mood completely around. Then he was trying to smile with all of his might! And kept begging for "more cheese please". I have dozens of photos from this time because he just got really into getting his picture taken. He was sad when my memory card ran out of pictures, but at least he was in a much happier mood then!

The beginning

2007-10-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about a more public blog for a while now. I want this blog's focus to be mostly Jadon and mostly pictures of our day to day life of a SAHM with an energetic crazy two year old! I am vowing to keep everything public here too. Forget all the filters, locked posts, and all that jazz. If it's written here it's for anyone to read enjoy and see!