Picture Time

Aunt Michelle and Eve...I think Aunt Michelle is squeezing a little too tight!

Crazy Aunt Michelle gave John (I mean Batman) lipstick marks on his face right before Scotty's superhero party. How embarrasing! But wait, maybe it was Vicky Vail.

The little hulk (we did the best we could on St. Patrick's day)

The big hulk

Both incredible.

I know, I'm bad, but I couldn't resist. He's got fashion sense just like his father.


Tonight we planted a garden on the kitchen table. John did such a great job and took it very seriously. We planted cucumbers, two types of peppers, broccoli, corn, zucchini, tomatoes, cilantro, and a handful of different types of flowers. 3 cups a piece. We don't have enough space for all of that in the yard, but if it works out like last year, we won't have to worry. Only two plants survived. Hopefully John is our little green thumb.

Ready to plant the seeds!

Eve's first watermelon. At first she wasn't so sure.

Hmmm, I think she decided to like it...

John's quite a fan, too.

Aunt Michelle etc.

Again, it hasn't really been that long, but it feels like I've missed a lot. Aunt Michelle came to visit. What a fun time! We were on the way to pick her up at the airport. We had been talking about her visit for quite some time. "We're going to the airport to pick up Aunt Michelle, and she's coming to our house". On the way we were listening to a song called "Glorious Day". John wanted to know what it meant, so I was trying to paraphrase in preschool terms as the song went. We get to the part where Jesus is coming...Oh Glorious Day. John quickly put 2 and 2 together and realized that Jesus and Aunt Michelle were coming to our house today. Rather than correct him, I just let it slide. I wasn't quite sure how to explain, and it was cute.

John has been getting more and more excited about his birthday party (which isn't until AUGUST) and keeps adding more to it. Thanks to Grandma, who keeps talking it up and saying how excited she is to come and asking more and more about the details. He also gets really excited whenever somebody else has a party. As of now, he's going to have a Spiderman party, with cake and candles and balloons, we're going to eat, everything is going to be Spiderman, Grandma is coming, he's going to be three (just now figuring out how to do that on his figers), and then we're going to the farm, and then to the beach. Whew! No wonder he's so excited.

Potty training is going really well. We had a stretch of 5-7 days (I lost count) with no accidents! The stretch is over, but still, he's doing really well as long as we make him go on a regular basis. It's such an ordeal, though, and he crawls all over the toilet, so it grosses me out in public restrooms. He had his first outdoor experience this weekend when I was doing my first triathlon. I think his daddy was so proud.

Eve will be 10 months tomorrow. I really need to take some more pictures and upload. Yesterday she surprised me by standing all on her own. She's pulled up on things and let go, but yesterday she came up from the floor. WOW! She's been very independent with playing, talking a ton, crawling very quickly, biting A LOT (I remember John having a compulsive biting stage), and getting into things a lot (i.e. starting to learn the word "no"). Right now she's trying to learn German from a cassett tape (or pull all the tape out). She still smiles a whole lot and it's so darn cute. She's not a big laugher, but when she does, it's very cute too. She just has to be in the right mood because she isn't very ticklish. John, on the other hand, will laugh if you look at him sideways. Oh, and the other day when I forgot to close the gate at the bottom of the stairs, she crawled all the way up and met us in John's room.

John and Eve have started to play little games together and it's so fun to watch. They really enjoy rolling a ball back and forth (with some assistance), but also make up their own little games a lot and it's so cute. He's still really good with her, still sings to her a lot and tells her it's OK when she cries, or we're almost home...things like that. She's started to protest when he takes toys from her. That's not going to be a fun battle, but at least for now they really seem to enjoy each other's company.

Almost Forgot

I almost forgot. John put his socks on by himself for the first time today. He had been in trouble for most of the day, most recently for taking off his socks with "try and stop me" look on his face when I asked him not to. After spending some time in his room, I told him I had originally planned on going to get supper and having a picnic outside, but that we wouldn't do that because he hadn't been obeying and hadn't been respectful. Of course, he was very disappointed. When he went downstairs I told him I'd take him to the car. He asked why we couldn't go outside and I recapped our talk and added that I had asked him to leave his socks on, but he had taken them off, so now we couldn't go outside. He managed to put one on as I was getting Eve ready. I was so impressed (and desperate for something to fill our time since I had taken away everything fun) I told him if he could get the other one on by the time we got home with dinner that we could have a picnic outside. What do you know...that boy can do some amazing things in desperation. He had both socks on before I left the driveway!

More Accomplishments

I picked a bad day to update because John and I have really been butting heads today (and I'll admit, probably just as much my impatience as his stubborness...although he's started to develop a disrespectful attitude at times, which really gets my goat). Anyway, I've lost count of the days. We put him in big boy underwear last Thursday afternoon, I guess, so we're almost to the one week mark. First afternoon, no accidents. Next day or two one wet accident. Then came two days with no accidents! WOO HOO! Yesterday #1 and #2 accident, and he didn't seem to feel bad about either. Today only #2. Surely we're getting somewhere. I feel pretty good about our first week. I've even gotten up the nerve to go to Target, and today to the zoo and playground, and I wasn't very nervous while we were there. I think he's getting comfortable in his big boy underwear and it's starting to feel like the normal thing to do. We're doing less bribing now, and I'm pretty encouraged about how well he's doing.

John is also feeling better...finally. He's had a fever since Saturday-some viral throat thing. The weather has been beautiful and John has enjoyed helping Daddy in the yard during the extra hours of daylight (daylight savings just started). I think we'll be nursery safe just in time for the yucky weather to come back.

Eve really surprised me yesterday when I looked over and..."Look Mom, no hands". She didn't say it with words, but her face said it all. She was standing beside a crate with toys in it and just let go. Yep, she can stand alone for a few seconds now. I wasn't so eager for John to learn to walk, but I am for her. She wants so badly to get down when we're outside, and it's got to hurt crawling on the concrete. Plus, she gets so so dirty and she's ruining the toes of her shoes! She needs steel toed boots. I'm hoping she learns to walk before the weather gets hot enough to require shorts and heat the asphault. I think she'll make it.

SNOW SNOW SNOW!!!

We got SNOW! March 1, believe it or not. It's the best snow we've seen in probably 10 years or so. We got around 5 inches. It started snowing in the early evening Sunday. John and I went out to play and he had a blast! I don't know where he learned about snow angels, probably from TV, but he immediately lay down on the ground and started moving his feet and arms. Of course he had huge flakes falling in his face, so it was scrunched up, but he had a ball. It was perfect snow ball and snow man snow Sunday night, so we chased each other around and he laughed and laughed. He kept saying "I'm going to catch you. You better run." I'm certain he gets that from me, but it was so cute and fun. I tried to show him how to build a snowman, but he thought it was more fun to kick it down. Buck bundled Eve up as best he could (we don't have ANY snow gear for her-actually all of us were very pieced together and quite fashionable but at least we had some of David's gear from Wisconsin for John). She still wasn't feeling great, but we sat her down long enough to snap a few pictures.

By Monday morning John wasn't as excited about the snow. He didn't spend a whole lot of time outside and he mainly just wanted to play with the same old toys. Up until yesterday, though, he was still obsessed with finding little patches and eating it.

Eve is feeling better now, but a little too late to enjoy the snow. I did put a little bit up to her mouth, and she wasn't too fond of that. She's mostly just glad that it has melted and she can start crawling on the ground again. Freedom!

John's 2nd molar on the upper right has surfaced. I don't know when, but the left one hasn't come in yet. One more to go.

Eve has been balancing on her knees well for a week and a half or so. Bit by bit, eventually she'll be up on her feet and won't have mulch covered pants after playing outside. She's talking a whole lot now and really enjoying shaking her head. She's also made kind of a turn to table food. She seems to be more cranky if she's hungry for table food that milk. That really just happened all of a sudden. She went in for her 9 month well check last Friday. I don't have her exact stats in front of me, so I'll have to post them later. She's right around 20 pounds. Her percentiles were considerably lower, but the doctor didn't say anything about it, and to me she seems to be growing just fine. I think a slight difference in length or weight makes a significant difference in percentiles while they're still small, so it doesn't really mean much. She's starting to protest when John takes toys from her. Uh oh!

John had a big day yesterday. I saw a small window of days that we could be home, so I decided to try big boy underwear. I put them on after his nap yesterday and said if he was still dry when Daddy got home and we ate supper that we could go in the jeep to get a milkshake. He sayed dry until we put his bedtime diaper on! This morning he only lasted an hour before we had to change to another pair, but he helped me mop the floor. We put on a new pair, which he soiled just a tiny bit, then came to tell me he needed to go. I think we're on the right track. We'll see how long my patience lasts. I'm not brave enough to leave the house yet.

Some cute things John has said-
First, he can now recite the story of Jonah and the big fish pretty much word for word from his Bible story book. That's the one he requests every day.
Second, here's a conversation between John and Buck the other day-
"Where are you going, Daddy?"

"To work"

"Why"

"To make money"

"Why"

"So you can eat"

"I don't eat money, Daddy"

Daddy is so silly. I think he should quit work today.

We're still singing Away in a Manger before bed time, and it has expanded to nap time too. John often sings it to Eve when she's crying. It's really cute and sweet, but it often just seems to make her scream louder!