Past couple of weeks update

I have a bunch of things I want to jot down from the past couple of weeks that I want to remember, so I thought it'd be easiest to make a list!


* Last week, I said, "Okay, James..." to try to get him to stop playing with the blinds and sit down and eat, and he walked over to his meal that had cheese in it and said, "Okay, cheese..." with the exact same intonation. 2-year-olds are so funny!

* Twice today he made me laugh with his great dislike of anything dirty. He found a baseball in the mud and shouted over and over, "Yucky ball! Yucky ball!", until I cleaned it off. Then, he got dirt in his crocs, stopped, took of his shoe, and said, "Dirty beetsies! Dirty beetsies!" until I wiped them off. (I will be sad when he stops calling his feet his beetsies!)

* He's starting to get the hang of his tricycle this week! He gets frustrated with it after a while, though, when we go up or down hills and he can't keep up. We need a perfectly level street for him.

* James' intensity has gotten even more intense lately. It is one of the cutest things to me to watch his little eyes in everything he does, because there is so much passion and intensity in there! I would have to say he doesn't have nearly as much of a laid-back personality as I thought he would have at the beginning. Almost all day long, he has ideas in his head and is so determined to make them happen! He also is asking a million times a day now, "Whas this?" and "Whas dat?" over and over until I answer him.

* In the past few days, James has finally started sleeping until 7am, and he's taking a nap every day now (that started back up again a few weeks ago). He is so happy when he gets good sleep in!

* He has been having a growth spurt lately. 2-3 good meals a day, including healthy meats (a lot of times a struggle for him), lots of fruits, and even some new veggies! Broccoli ("brocki") is his tried and true veggie of choice, but now he's trying and liking a few others, which makes me so so happy, since this is not always the case!

* At his 2 year check up, he was in the 72% for height and 76% for weight. He didn't have to get any shots this time, and loved getting checked out! He gets kind of lulled, almost drooling, when the doctor checks his ears, eyes, throat, etc. He didn't used to be this way, but has just gotten better the past couple of checkups.

* The doctor commented on how he was very social. He also asked all of the autism screening questions, and James past with flying colors. Dr. H also gave me some great tips on

- potty training (wait until ready...average age is 3-3 1/2...told me of a great song/book that helps),

-getting rid of paci (around 2-2 1/2, take all pacis, put in a bag with James next to me, take out to dumpster on trash day together, make it sort of ceremonial and say bye-bye to pacis for good, talking him through it)

-tantrums (says they're going to become more intense in the next half a year possibly, walk away when they're throwing a fit over something, leave the grocery store if they throw a tantrum at the store, etc)

* James asks to go to "Bibi house" (Elizabeth/Mary Beth are Bibi) EVERY DAY.

* James has always been a climber, but he has been on a climbing spree lately, and won't stop climbing! I can't tell you how many times this week he's climbed on top of the bathroom counter, and he climbed out of his crib for the first time the week while in time out! He also mastered climbing over the missing step to get into his fort, and also decided he wasn't afraid of the biggest obstacle coarse/big slide at the park and did it over and over again one day. It's so interesting to me how all of these things just happened in this past week! He is trying his best to completely exhaust me every day lately!

* I turned 28 this past Thursday and had such a nice birthday! I wasn't really thinking about it in advance (I used to anticipate it all of April until I had James), but Thursday seemed to come as a very pleasant surprise, and I felt showered with love that day (as cheesy as that sounds) from friends and family. Josh stretched the presents out throughout the day, brought me lunch, made me breakfast when I woke up, and we had a nice dinner with my parents, who always make me feel so special on my birthday. My dad talked about holding me for hours right after I was born and talking to me the entire time while my mom was getting worked on (she almost died from having me). Then, anytime I would get fussy as a baby and my dad would start talking to me, I would immediately calm down. I love hearing that story!

That's all for now! I hope everyone has a wonderful week! Here are some pictures taken James' birthday weekend when my brother was in town. James is such a "gookie" monster!

2 Random videos of James

I have a new computer now that will let me easily upload videos from our camcorder and edit them. Before, I've always taken short videos from our old camera to put on the web, so I'm excited that I'm able to have all of our better quality home videos on here now! I have been really enjoying playing around with the videos, and I thought I'd throw one in here for y'all of James on Day 2 of his life (short video). I always thought he looked different in person than in his pictures, and this video looks just like I remember him. This makes me ache looking at this, because I remember this moment like it was yesterday. I was absolutely on cloud 9 laying in my hospital bed, looking over at my sweet newborn, and enjoying feeling so great!



This one is of James at 7 months and one of the other loves of his life, Jennifer (Josh's cousin on his mom's side). He has ALWAYS had a thing for Jennifer, and he's going to be disappointed when she gets married off this summer! This video is hilarious, because he didn't do this with many people, and every time we'd come, he'd light up with her, go to her, and kiss her.

James' Birthday Party

We had a wonderful time last night celebrating James' 2nd Birthday! From his two birthday parties in Atlanta, to his adorable class birthday party at MDO (pictures to come on that later), to sweet friends, to his birthday party last night, I am truly grateful to everyone who has shown love to our little boy! Here are some of my favorite pics from his party last night. To see all, go to our family photos (new) link.

Happy 2nd Birthday, James!

Today, my sweet boy is turning 2 years old. In some ways, it's so hard to believe that 2 years have gone by since our baby boy came into the world. He has brought us more joy that we could have ever asked for, and we could not feel more blessed. I adore the person he is and is becoming, and I love to watch him grow more into himself every day! Here are 10 things about our little guy at the age of 2!

1. He is a social butterfly. He thrives on interaction with others. He reminds me a lot of his daddy in this way! People walk a lot in our neighborhood, so he has to tell every person hi really loudly until they say hi back. He gets giddy and crazy when he's the center of attention, and I love to watch this side of him. It's very entertaining! He is absolutely crazy about all of his cousins, and would be around them 24/7 if he could.

2. He goes constantly. Everywhere he goes, he runs. He will be standing still, think of something he wants, and then take off at turbo-speed. He's always climbing over things, and doing anything he can think of that's physical.

3. He is a talking machine. I'm loving the new sentences, phrases, and thoughts his little head comes up with all of the time. He's very expressive, too. He'll say, "Oh Wow!", and "Oh MY!" a lot in front of the things he says.

4. He is a sweetie-pie and affectionate boy. He saves most of them for me, which I don't mind a bit! :) He hugs me and says, "Ooooaaahhhhh, Fweeeet! (sweet)". That gets me every time! We cuddle every morning and he just randomly hugs and kisses me throughout the day. We even play kissing games where we kiss and then yell over and over. (Hard to explain, but he cracks up.)

5. He is really into letters, numbers, and colors right now. He knows a few letters and loves to point them out every time he sees one when we're out and about. He also tells us when he sees grouping of things ("three books!", "two pacis!").

6. He still loves to read. He brings us book after book throughout the day and sits in our laps to read it to him. I love to see which one he picks out each time. He will search and search until he finds the right one. His favorite is still "The Little Red Caboose". I think we read that 3 times today!

7. He is into assigning ownership of things..."Daddy's chair, Mommy's cup, Manes shirt (he calls himself Manes)" Also...mine and yours ("thash yours"...in a cute raised-eyebrows, nodding-head way)

8. He went through a phase of throwing tantrums (I think from being sick and sleep deprived), but he's throwing them less now. (Should I even write that??? Knock on wood!

9. He's taking naps again in his crib! This started Friday afternoon. Hallelujah!!!

10. He's funny! He makes silly noises and says funny things in funny ways, like, "dirty biaper (diaper)" in a growly voice while I'm changing him. He gets down and swings his arms back and forth to dance. He whispers a lot, so quietly you can barely hear it, and looks at us for laughter.


Thursday, he is having a party at MDO, and Saturday, he will have his 2nd birthday party at our house with our family. I am looking forward to lots of celebrating! I will post pictures of it all after it's over. I also made a slideshow below of his two years of life.

James is 2 years old!

Turn up your music and watch James grow over the past two years! I realize it's a little long for some, but I was having too much fun going back and looking at pictures. ( In order to see the captions, just click the little x by the song title.)

Atlanta trip

I just got back from a Ladies' Retreat and am finally sitting down to blog about our trip to Atlanta!  We had a wonderful visit, and James was on cloud 9 the entire time we were there.  He ate up all of the attention he got from his cousins, aunties, uncles, grandparents, etc., but he was particularly attached to Josie and Hannah ("Joooo-sie and Nina") this trip.  They babied him and never let him out of his sight.  They are going to be the BEST babysitters one day!  It was so great to see our incredible nieces and nephews who we adore and are so proud of in so many ways.  We also enjoyed seeing a good amount of the extended family, too!  I'm so thankful for the time that we get to spend together, and it was hard to leave!  We had a little bit of travel drama.  The day we were to fly home (Wednesday), AA canceled 80% of their flights.  There was no shot of us flying on our buddy passes, so we rented a car and drove home!  We didn't get home until 2:45 am, but we were thankful that James slept from 7 pm on (with just one wake up).   Here are some pictures from our week!