12 months!

Dear J,

And just like that you turned one! Oh my sweet boy! My heart can not handle that you are technically not a baby anymore.  We are so thankful that God chose you for our family. We can't imagine it without you. God knew we needed you here. We never knew if we would be blessed with another baby, and God gave you to us. Your name means "praise" and we named you that because we will always give praise to the One who gave us this surprise blessing. My prayer for you is that you will always sing God's praises. That you will know that he is a God who is faithful and who fights for you always.  You are so so loved my sweet boy. You are precious blessing to us. A wonderful gift. We can't wait to see how you grow this next year.

You are so joyful and full of laughter. You find something to laugh at everyday (usually something your sister does).  Your personality is sweet tempered. You only get upset when you are hungry or tired. You easily go with the flow and are happy to play by yourself for a few minutes before happily checking in with us. You love to cuddle and to follow your sister around. You love to be outside. You are so curious and just want to figure stuff out.

You are a walker now!!! You started walking about 2 weeks before you turned one. You are still wobbly which I think is super adorable. You fall down and get yourself right back up and keep going. I'm sure you will be running before I know it. You love to push the kitchen chairs across the kitchen floor. You get down from eating and start moving them around. So funny! Walking has helped you move faster so you can follow your sister around easier =).  You still love to play at the dishwasher.

You are a mouther of everything! I am constantly having to swipe your mouth to see what little thing you have put in it. I keep small things out of your reach,  and I vacuum but you somehow manage to find the one thing that I miss! You keep me on my toes for sure! You love to eat finger foods now and love to feed yourself. You don't really like me feeding you at all.  You tried cantaloupe and watermelon this month. You know LOVE spaghetti and eat so much of it when we have it. Although you aren't much of a meat eater right now and prefer your fruit and veggies more.  You now have seven teeth! Two more popped up this month but they didn't seem to bother you much.

Your favorite toys this month: Big sister's hot wheel cars, balls and blocks. You love to shut the doors in the house. If there is a door open, you feel like it was meant for you to shut it. You still LOVE patty cake and will start clapping with me when I say it. You love to take things in and out of containers and in and out of the safe cabinet in the kitchen. You love touch and feel books - the That's not my tractor and That's not my monkey books and the farm animals book. You love to flip the pages of books too.

Cute things you are doing:
- When you are nursing, you like to stick your fingers in my mouth and then flick my teeth. Ha!
- You like to make noises (like an Indian war cry) by sticking your fist against your mouth and then moving it back and forth
- You love to stand at the window and point to everything outside. You get so excited as I tell you all the names of everything out there.
- You love your wagon rides and get so mad when it stops moving.
- You like to poke my eye and then take my hand so that I can poke your eye too. Ha!
- You will say "ma, ma" and pull on my shirt sometimes when you are hungry.
- You like to shake your head (sometimes when dancing) and love it when we mimic you. This can go back and forth for quite some time.

You weigh 20 pounds 11 ounces and are 29 inches tall. You wear 9-12 month and 12 month clothes. You wear a size 4 shoe.

Oh J, we are so so thankful for you. This past year has flown by so quickly with you and we have enjoyed every minute. We all adore you including your sister. We love you and can't wait to see what this next year has in store for you.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

11 months!!

*totally know this is overdue. carry on*

Oh J!!

One more month and then you will be one. I CANNOT handle this. Stop it. Just stop growing =).

Sleeping is still the same. You still nurse twice in the middle of the night. You still like to be held. Nothing new there - ha! You are still nursing 6 times a day and eating two solid meals of lunch and dinner. You still get so distracted when nursing and you eat very little meals before saying you are done. You are really loving to feed yourself and getting better at it. Slimy foods still give trip you but you are doing great with non slimy stuff. You love to eat blueberries and sweet potatoes with cinnamon all cut up! You tried spaghetti sauce this month and you gagged on it at first but eventually got the hang of it. You also tried blackberries. You also tried macaroni (with butternut squash sauce) and LOVED IT.  Puffs are still your jam, and you will go find them in my diaper bag and pull them out to eat them. When I catch you, you just smile really big and continue to eat your contraband. Ha. You now have five teeth. You are starting to grind your top and bottom teeth together (cringe).

You are crawling everywhere and will walk with a push toy. You are into everything! I am constantly having to redirect you from things. You are constantly trying to get into the dog food and dog water bowl. You love to play at the dishwasher while I'm unloading or loading it. You will stand there and pull the bottom drawer in and out, in and out. You will immediately come into the kitchen if you hear me open the dishwasher regardless of what you were doing. You have tried to climb onto the dishwasher lid several times. You can stand by yourself for 15-30 seconds. You took one step by yourself on your 11 month "birthday" and can walk with one hand for about 5 steps. You love to dance to music. You will bounce up and down while standing and it is the cutest thing!

You can now sign "done" and say done. Add that to your words of dog and dada. You are pointing to things and love when I name the stuff you are pointing at. You love to clap. If we say "yay!" you are clapping, if someone is cheering you are clapping, if you see someone else clapping , you clap too. YOU LOVE PATTY CAKE. It is your favorite thing and you love for to say it over and over. You like to take your socks off especially in the car and then chew on them. You can wave bye and give high fives but you hand those out to only certain people. You rode in the wagon for the first time this month and loved it. You leaned your arms back and completely chilled. You would get upset when it wasn't moving.  You also went to the nursery at church for the first time. It's a work in progress. You don't like it at all and scream A LOT and loudly. We have had to come get you because you can't make it through the whole service but  I know we will get there.

Favorite toys this month: You love to push around the bike push toy over and over again. You can now shut all the doors to pop and turn toy and love to shut them over and over again. You love carrying around little hot wheel cars. You love blocks and balls. You even played ball with your sister and would hold the ball up in the air and then drop it like you were throwing it back to her. You would laugh and laugh the whole time you were playing together. You still love Lucye. You love to look at books. Your favorites are the touch and feel books. You could look at those forever.

You are wearing 12 month clothes but a lot of the shorts are still baggy on you because you don't have a bottom. I would guess you are about 20 pounds still.

Next time, I write one of these you will be one. My heart.

 Love,
Mommy and Daddy

This is it...

So I've been a horrible blogger...it's true. Which is sad because I love to blog because it's my digital scrapbook since I need it to make photo albums eventually one day. My brain doesn't remember anything! Anyways, I'm going to kick myself into gear and for the next two weeks I am going to catch up. I will probably have at least 8 posts. Not kidding. Feel free to read as much as you want but it's really for me to get caught up for document purposes. AND THEN I WILL MAKE SURE I STAY ON TOP OF IT!! So don't laugh when you see J's 11 month post up later today, you know, since he is almost 14 months....Ha! Got to get caught up some how. Cheers, my friends

First Week of Summer Fun!

My mom stayed the week after J's birthday party to enjoy some time with her grand babies. We had lots of fun while she was here! On Monday, we went to the zoo because they have membership Mondays in the month of June,  and you can get in an hour earlier AND ride the train and carousel for free all day. Yes, please!!

Waiting for the train

Nana and E

The best picture I could get....sigh....

Little loves waiting their turn for the carousel

E shared her horse with her brother so he could ride the carousel for the first time on a horse

We spent time playing with chalk outside several times during the week

Tuesday I left J with my mom so that I could take E on a special mommy/daughter date. One of the local libraries was having a meet and greet with Paw Patrol and I knew my Paw Patrol obsessed daughter would be excited to see them.

We are so excited to see Paw Patrol!

E become so quiet when she met Marshall and Skye at first and would only go in for a hug. After she met them though she wanted to talk to them again so she was willing to stand in the ridiculously long line to see them again. She gave them high fives and actually talked to them that time.

One happy girl 

Playing a Paw Patrol game they had there

J has decided that breakfast is silly and he shouldn't have to eat it. I'm trying to figure out things that he likes but so far I can only get him to eat fruit. Toddler problems....

We also went to the splash park. It was J's first time to actually get in the water. He liked it as long as didn't get him in the face.

We went to two libraries and signed up for their summer reading programs. We love to read books around here. Right now I have two full book bags from the library that we pull from each day.

Lots of play time with Nana

My cute kids (who hate looking at cameras) rode in the cart together while we were at Aldi. They had fun.

We also broke in our new water table that J got for his birthday. We have been having lots of fun with it!

I was really sad to see my mom go back home but we packed in a lot of fun while she was here! Can't wait for another Nana week again!

Weekend Shenanigans

Since I'm so far behind (that is ever increasing - hello 11 month and 12 month old blog posts!) I'm combining the last two weekends together. We've actually had two busy fun filled weekends.

1. Friday, May 27 we celebrated J's birthday together as a family. We had planned to go to the zoo but it was raining hard that morning so we went instead to an indoor play area that had bounce houses and tons of toys, and a little kiddie size town. It was fun and he enjoyed it.

He loved the little cars they had. He played on one of these most of the time we were there.

Isn't he the cutest little birthday boy?

I have done this every year with E for her birthday. I decorate the table and kitchen area and then decorate their door as well to celebrate their day.

He had his first birthday cupcake and then got to have spaghetti for dinner. He had a fabulous day.

2. On Saturday, E had her dance recital. She did three dances : tap, ballet, and then participated in the daddy/daughter dance that was to a rap/hip hop song. She was an adorable precious dancer and I loved watching her up their on stage. Every time she came on stage, I was beaming with pride. She loves to dance.

3. On Sunday, we went to church and then went to a birthday party for one of E's friends an hour away at Sweet and Sassy. Each of the girls had their hair done (with braids, a princess bun, and spray glitter) and their nails done. She loved it. She has wanted to paint her nails every day since then.

4. On Memorial Day, we went to the McDonalds playscape area because E earned all her cotton balls in her jar (it is rewards for catching her doing good behavior) and that was what she chose. For the record, we never eat at McDonalds. Ever. But I went to get breakfast burritos there for MOPS several weeks ago and she saw the playscape and decided right there that was what she was going to earn for her cotton balls. Judah had fun playing too.



5. The next Saturday, J had his first birthday party. I plan on having my own separate post for it but it was super fun and we feel so blessed to have all our friends come and celebrate with us.

6. E had a party she attended that afternoon after Judah's party. It was a pool party but before that we had cake and they painted the kids faces and played dress up. It was lots of fun. 

 The rest of the weekend we geared up for our first fun week of summer fun!!!