Easter card

Stationery card

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Brooklyn and Daddy

Big Boy Underwear!

We had to take pictures of James in his big boy underwear so he could look back on them 15 years from now!

Potty Update #2

James has done amazingly well! I lost track of how many times he was gone to the potty once we hit 20 (he sits on the potty every 20 minutes and has gone every time- we are loading him up with liquids). He has only had two accidents- one at the very beginning and one when we let him watch one cartoon (he insisted that he didn't need to go... I should have known!).

But the best thing is what happened at nap-time: he went down at 1:00 and at 1:20 he came out of his room saying he needed to go to the potty! AND he stayed dry while sleeping!! Yahhooo!

Now we will wait and see what happens during the night... I am anxious and not expecting a lot... and they say that the second day is always worse than the first. I am not sure what I have such a pessimistic attitude towards this, but so far James is proving me wrong! Hopefully I will continue to have good news tomorrow!

Sunday Pictures

Our cute kids in their church outfits :)

Potty Time Update #1

This morning we started potty training (something that I have been stressing over!) and it has been pretty good- 5 pee pees in the potty and 1 accident. It's just the beginning and I think the worst is still yet to come, but I am keeping my fingers crossed. I don't think he has had the 'light bulb' moment where he identifies the need to go pee pee and links that to going to the toilet, but hopefully it will come sometime today!

I am not sure what is the 'proper' way to potty train, but we have put him in just underwear, constantly filling him up with liquids, and having him sit on the potty every 15 minutes. He is eating lunch with Matt right now and I am very apprehensive about nap time. I am not sure if we should put a diaper on him when he sleeps or not. Right now we are not going to put a diaper on (just rip the bandaid completely off) him while he sleeps, but I am definitely going to be flexible.

I don't know why I am stressing so much- hopefully it continues to go well!

Tie Time

James and Brooklyn will be getting Easter pictures taken soon and he still needed a tie to match his shirt.... so I whipped out the sewing machine and made one... and an extra one just because they were so easy!

I have fabric to make some bow ties- hopefully pictures of those will be coming soon!

Brooklyn's First Food

Brooklyn is 5 1/2 months exactly when we decided to give her some rice cereal. She definitely loved it, but I am not sure how much of it she actually swallowed. I would give her a spoonful of some, it would look like she swallowed it, then it would dribble out of the corner of her lips. Then she would lean her whole body towards the spoon and make an "Uh-uh" noise showing she wanted more. We will be trying it more this week and hopefully she will be able to get more in her tummy!

Snow in Late March

In Portland it doesn't snow nearly as much as it did in Provo and snow something that (I think) James misses. So when it snowed in late March, I wanted to get James out there to enjoy it! When I asked James, "Do you want to go outside and play in the snow?", he excitedly said, "Yes! I love to eat snow!". So while Brooklyn was sleeping, James got dressed up and out we went! (with the baby monitor of course :) )

The reminder of living in the west NW soon hit us as we stepped into the snow... our foot sank into the mud which laid underneath the snow. That didn't stop us from making a snowman though! Here are the pictures of our snowy brown snowman (after it fell apart)

Daddy's Apprentice

I can't write enough about how much James loves Matt.

Throughout the day when Matt is at school James says, "I miss dad!".

He gets so excited to pick him up from school everyday.

He tells Matt, "Dad I missed you" and "Dad?" ("Yes James?" says Matt) "I love you" about 10 times when we pick Matt up from school.

The moment we get home from picking Matt up from school he says, "Dad- lets go play in my room".

Saturdays are James' favorite. James gets to sit on daddy's lap in the morning and watch cartoons together and then they get to play all day together.

James knows Matt is going to school to be a dentist, and this past Saturday James was able to 'be a dentist like daddy' because Matt brought some of his 'pretend teeth' home. Here are the pictures:

Pretty Eyes and Crazy Hair

Look at these gorgeous blue eyes! I love this little girl so much!!

Now look at this CrAzY hair! So hard to tame!!!

Here is a side angle:

Multnomah Falls on President's Day

Pedi's

Feb. 25, 2012

That boy of mine

James has grown up so much lately! Or in his words, "Mom I'm getting bigger everyday!". He loves to use his imagination and pretend. His vocabulary is leaps and bounds from where it was 6 months ago, and he has a memory like his father. Just like Matt, he randomly quotes his movies, and most of the time I have to ask Matt (when he gets home from school) where the quotes come from. He loves to quote Cars, Kung Fu Panda, and any other movie. Today he quoted the movie, Land Before Time, and we rarely watch that one! Here are some pictures of him this past month and a half:

Today while I was getting Brooklyn dressed for church, I found James in the upstairs hallway- I asked him what he was doing and he said, "I'm Lightning McQueen. Vroom vroom!" Brooklyn's bathtub had transformed into his race car! :)

I asked him to smile for the camera and this is the face his gives me:

James is always able to find the coolest stick at the park- I think it may be a 6th sense to him!

He insisted that he wear his sunglasses because the sun was just too bright!

Future model? :)

Elephant Fun

There is this one park that we go to sometimes that has an elephant surrounded by sand. Whenever we go, James always wants to play in the sand, but like a grump, I always say no (I just dread cleaning him up afterwards). One Saturday we went to the park with Matt and while I was still unloading Brooklyn the boys went on without me. When I got to the park, guess where James was? Yup- in the sand. James sure does have one fun dad who didn't mind cleaning him up afterwards.... no wonder James loves his daddy so much!

Valentine's Day Ice Cream

For Valentine's day, as a family we made homemade ice cream from an ice cream maker that I bought James (I typically NEVER buy James toys, but this was only $5 at Bed, bath and Beyond!)

James loved making ice cream and since then, we have made it several times- each time we make it we get progressively better at it, but on this particular night, we didn't have enough ice so it turned into shakes rather than ice cream. James still loved it! The toy came with sprinkles and James ended up having more sprinkles in his shake than actual shake, but we didn't mind :)