All about my 2 1/2 year old!

There is so much I want to remember about James at this age, but it's just not possible to record everything! James is a big 2 1/2 year old boy now, and he is acting so much more grown up lately. I absolutely adore this age and have never had so much fun staying home with him. He is such a delight and joy to Josh and me. He's got so much personality that just keeps revealing itself more and more with every month. Here's a list of a few things I want to remember about James at this age...

1. I love our conversations. He has a funny/interesting way of expressing himself, and picking his brain is one of my favorite things to do with him! He is also has a very expressive and adorable voice that melts my heart to hear. He's a chatter box so we get lots of opportunities to hear it all throughout the day!

2. He literally listens to every word we say, whether talking to him, talking quietly in his presence, talking in the other room...everything! We really have to watch every word that comes out of our mouths. I will say something so quietly to Josh while he's focused on playing with something, and he will start repeating what we're saying.

3. He is extremely observant. I can't so much as make a face of slight disapproval without him calling me out. Every time I get up and make a face because of back pain, he'll say, "Your back hurtin', Mama?" He takes in everything in his surroundings, too.

4. He is sensitive. He gets really upset when others are upset. This worries me a little about the baby coming, because I know the baby will be crying a lot, and I'm not sure how James will take it. I love this trait of his, though, because he is usually the first to comfort a friend who is crying and is very aware of others' emotional states. He is also aware of his. He will be in a bad mood for a while, and then the second he snaps out of it, he'll say, "I not sad e-more!" or "I not try'n (crying) e-more!", and then he'll be fine!

5. He is really funny and spunky. He loves to make us laugh and is learning how and practicing this more and more now. He's silly and has a huge smile that lights up his face. One thing he says all the time right now that cracks us up is, when we say something like, "Are you hungry?", he say, "I not humbry, I Banes!" (Banes is what he calls himself.) Or he'll do something like growl, and we'll say, "Are you a lion?", and he'll very promptly respond, "I not wion, I Banes!" He says this all day long!

6. He is high energy! He mostly runs everywhere he goes and really fast. I think I get the most comments about this when we're out and about.

7. He is a loud boy, but he also has many different voices for different reasons. He has his super sweet voice to get what he wants, his loud deep voice when he's being bossy or is serious about something, his quiet whiney voice when he's tired (not a fan of this one), and his high-pitched excited voice.

8. He is very social and happiest with a companion. He will not let me do anything, such as talk on the phone, read, computer time, etc., most of the time but focus on him. I got so tickled recently when I picked up the phone to text someone. I was not planning on talking, but James said, "No Mommy, no talk to Amber." (He is bossy, too!) I'm trying my best to prepare him for my attention being divided soon! He talks about his friends and family a lot, and I actually consider it a break when someone else is here to play with him.

Another funny story about this topic...A while back, Josh came home and was sitting on the floor playing with James. I had been in the kitchen and came to sit down with them while dinner was cooking. Josh and I started talking about something, and I guess James didn't like that I took his daddy's attention away. He told me, "Mommy, go sit peeter (computer)". Our mouths dropped open and we couldn't help but laugh. 1) He never tells me to go away and 2) He knows what his Mama well (kinda sadly in this instance!).

9. He is pretty clingy right now. He wants to be held a lot, when we're out and about especially, which is very hard on the back when you're pregnant and your boy weighs 35 lbs!

10. He is a strong-willled/determined/persistent/demanding boy all rolled into one! I love this about him, but it is also challenging to us as his parents! He is testing us more than normal this week and is coming up with more creative ways to manipulate. He keeps us on our toes! Other than that, though, he is happy, happy, happy.

11. He has a memory like an elephant, like his daddy, and will remember small details from months and months ago. Recently I bought some toaster strudells (sp?) for the first time and made one for James. Michael had made one for us when we spent the night with him in a few months ago. He said, "Is that Michael's?"

12. He loves singing. I love that he knows a lot of the songs from the cd's I'm listening to right now...James Taylor, Walk the Line Soundtrack, The Jersey Boys Soundtrack, and a cd of old church hymnals made new. I get sad when I here these songs and he's not in the car with me singing the lyrics in his funny way.
Ex. Carowina for Carolina, and It Ain't me, Bave (Babe).

13. He is more of a daddy's boy right now. He tries to do everything like him and even copies his every movement sometimes. This melts Josh's heart. I just love watching them together.

14. James is obsessed with race cars right now. Every car is a race car. He even called my sister's minivan "Bibi's race car". He sang the Birthday Song yesterday, "Happy Irthday to you, Happy Irthday to you, Happy Irthday Queen and Mator, Happy Irthday to you....FFFFFFF" (Lightening McQueen and Mator are two race cars from the movie "Cars" (he saw this movie with Uncle Bryon back in June, and this is what jump-started his obsession with race cars) and the "FFFFF" part is him blowing out the candles. He does that at the end of that song every time.)

15. He has a very active imagination right now. He likes to pretend he's a race car, different animals, a robot, snake, etc. He will bite his cracker or sandwich and tell us what it looks like, which it always does! He also has conversations with Elmo or other stuffed animals that are word for word conversations that we had earlier with him. He even recently got his horse to "change" his cow's diaper, meanwhile making the two of them talk.

Fall Festivities

We had a busy weekend filled with lots of fun fall festivities. I just love everything about Fall, and it was nice to get to spend the whole weekend outdoors enjoying it with the gorgeous weather that we had! Saturday started out with my 10 year reunion picnic. I decided last minute to go and ended up enjoying getting to see friends and lots of faces that I hadn't seen in years. It's so hard to believe that 10 years have gone by since I graduated! Then we headed out to Crawford to visit the Ranch (pics on post below). The day ended with a fun and adorable 2nd birthday party for James' buddy Creighton.

More Ranch pictures




Creighton's Party



Nicki and me 10 years later! We are due 2 weeks apart!

Today we went to a Children's Garden Fair at the Carleen Bright Arboretum. This was a really neat event for kids with lots of fun activities to do, such as rock painting, a scavenger hunt, potting plants, popping corn on the cob, and lots of other things. We all enjoyed it, even though most of it was for kids a little older than James, and we even managed to get a few good pumpkin patch pictures of him (on our third try)!







A worn out boy listening to the violinist play one of his favorite songs, Edelweiss.

Hangin' with Mary Beth

James, Mary Beth, my mom, Josh, and I all visited a Ranch in Crawford today and had a great time. This was the same place we went last year, but this time the rest of the family was at an Alabama game. James and Mary Beth had so much fun together and just kept giggling the whole time! Here are some pictures of our little look-a-likes hangin' out together.

James is growing up too fast!

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Successes and Nurturing B-bear

I have been meaning to blog about this for a while now, but James is finally back to sleeping through the night!!

For two weeks now, James has been sleeping all night long again...even waking up later, because of this wonderful creation that I made up below...

I completely give God the credit, because this lightbulb only went off in my head after praying about the problem for a while one night as I waited on him to go to sleep.  It seemed too easy, but it worked like a charm!  Only one night in the past two weeks has he come into our room in the middle of the night, and I think that was just a random thing.  There are more details to this plan that I didn't want to bore you with, so if you are in the same predicament and are interested in hearing it, let me know and I'll tell you how we did it.  We are slowly phasing him off of needing this and will eventually remove it completely.  Anyways, we are so happy to be all sleeping through the night again!

I love to watch James interact with his "B-bear". He will boss him around, introduce himself to him, get him to kiss me, and other funny things like that. In the picture above, he told me, "Mama, take peek-ture of B-bear."  

I picked up this basket one day last week with his blanket on top and thought it was so sweet when I found his B-bear underneath! I asked Josh if he did that with him, and he said no. This morning, he layed B-bear into the basket and put his blanket on top while saying, "Shhhhh!!!!" I am loving seeing his nurturing side come out, especially since he will have a baby brother in just a couple of months!

We have also been pleased at how James has responded to the cutting back of the paci. When we moved him into his big boy bed a month ago, we told him that he could only have his paci at naptime and nighttime. He wasn't one who needed it in his mouth all day, so he adjusted really well to that. Right away, he even started giving it to me, very proudly, when he would wake up. Some days, when he wakes up in an extra bad mood, we let me "wake up" with it for about 15 minutes, but he's very into giving it back to us to put up now.

I asked my doctor last week if we could continue letting him do this for a while (maybe until he's adjusted to having a little brother), since it's working so well for us, and he said he definitely didn't think there would be any problem with that! He said since he doesn't keep it in his mouth all night long, there shouldn't be any problems with getting rid of it later. We were so happy to hear that!

Not much else is going on with us right now. I am finally 30 weeks pregnant and sooo happy to be 3/4 of the way there! In two weeks I'll get an ultrasound to make sure he is still growing normally. I still feel very much at peace about it. I definitely can FEEL that he's growing in there!! We put the crib back up to the top position yesterday, and we are so anxious to see our next little baby in there! I will let you know how everything goes after my ultrasound!