Happy birthday!

Jay woke up to balloons in his bedroom.

 We spent the morning cleaning up the house and playing with Christmas toys.

He took a nap with his new Dolly that Grandma and Grandpa Hoover gave him.

After naptime, we had some family over for birthday cake and ice cream - chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream as requested. He was so excited to have cousins over to his house!

very carefully getting a candle out of his cake

and then digging in

 

Seeing the excitement and pure joy in his eyes as we all sang Happy Birthday to him was priceless.

Happy birthday to my big boy.

Christmas tree

We went to Kidman Tree Farm on Sunday after Thanksgiving to pick out our Christmas tree. JJ loved watching the trains go round and round in the gift shop, and we discovered some trains they have running outside too. He liked the horse ride but wasn't so sure about standing next to them.

We decorated the tree a couple nights ago. We bought new LED lights this year. ooooo aaaaahh... They are really bright! JJ loved playing with my angel ornaments and wasn't too excited about putting them up. We found an ornament from Grandma Thimmesch that is a miniature music clock toy that you wind up in back to play a song. He has been playing it every time he comes in the room.
He seems to think he only gets one present for Christmas. He keeps changing his mind on what toy he wants- block truck, train, fire truck.
He keeps saying that some of his toys are "dray-druhs." We have no idea what dray-druhs are! They include his drumsticks, wooden trains, hammer, and camera. We will ask him to put his drumsticks away and he will say, "They're not drumsticks! They're dray-druhs!" Sometimes he makes shooting noises with them but not always. We ask him what they are and what they do, and he doesn't have an answer!

Park

I picked Jay up from daycare at noon and decided to make a quick stop as a surprise. He had a great time playing at the new (to him) park. Unfortunately, it was a little cold, and I was not prepared with hats and gloves for us. We still had fun running around and finding new ways to "go over, under, and through" like Umizoomi.

Row row

Halloween

I asked JJ tonight at bedtime if he wanted his covers on. He gently corrected me.
"It's not covers, Mama. It's blankie."
"Oh, right."
"It's blankie."

Jay decided he wanted to be a doctor for Halloween. He is still playing the part and is a bit confused on the fact that Halloween is over. Thankfully he seems to have forgotten about the mountain of treats we have left. We only went to a few houses on our block, but we ended up with a big box of candy that Grandma Thimmesch brought over. When you trick or treat in Ankeny, you are supposed to tell a joke before you get candy. Jay's joke was, "hey, guess what?....Chicken butt!" But of course he was too shy to say it to anybody! He repeats it about 20 times a day for us. He gets such a kick out of making us laugh.

Nick has been at PASIC in Texas for the last four days. I have taken some vacation time, so Jay and I have had a great time at home together. We have had a few days to ourselves, and he went to daycare for a day and a half so I could get some studying done.

And some pictures from playing in the leaves a few weeks ago.

Big tired

The weather is beautiful today, so we have been playing outside a lot. We just came inside to take a nap. Jay is sitting on the potty, sobbing because he doesn't want to be inside, doesn't want to use the potty, and most of all doesn't want to take a nap. I just told him that I am going to take a nap too because I'm a little tired.
He sobs, "you're not little tired!"
I ask, "well what am I if I'm not a little tired?"
"You're big tired." pause. "I little tired."
Well, okay then!
And now he's sobbing because he doesn't want the underwear with stars. He wants the red underwear. And now because he wants Papa.
It's interesting to see him develop from just crying to having reasons, no matter how exhausting or frustrating it may be in moment.

Vocabulary

Terrible. "My boo boo is terrible!"
Figure it out. He was having trouble fitting something in a box. Then he said, "I figure it out!"
Why? He broke out the dreaded question today for the first time. And second and third. Ugh.
ABCs. Jay won't let me sing the ABCs to him anymore for some reason. But apparently he has learned the alphabet! He can say most of the letters with a little prompting!
Today was my day off and I asked Jay what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to play with Mama. Then he blew me away. "Today Thursday. Mama day." I know they do calendar time at daycare, but I had no idea he could actually name the day without talking about it. And he called it Mama day!

And a little shout out to Aunt Julie for working with Jay on pronunciation. She finally got him to say "cake" instead of "pake". He draws out the c like he's really concentrating on saying it right.

Pumpkin patch

Okay, it wasn't really a pumpkin patch. Last year and this year, we went to Iowa Orchard to buy our pumpkins. We managed to resist the freshly baked apple pies this time.

trying so hard to pick it up

hiding in the pumpkins

Um, wrong way...

There we go!

Pretending

Jay was playing with some measuring spoons. He handed me one, and I told him it was a teaspoon. He looked at it kind of funny and said, "Go make tea!" and he ran off to the kitchen to make me some tea in the spoon. He came back with my tea in a spoon a minute later. :) Yum!
I already had a cup of coffee next to me, so then he asked me if I wanted sugar and started adding it for me with the teaspoon. I don't normally use sugar in my coffee, so he learned that from someone else. (Grandpa Hoover??)

Finger painting

School

I feel the need to mark my own occasion. Last night I had my first night of grad school. After a full year of taking more undergrad English courses, it feels good to be starting my graduate level education classes. The professors seem to know their stuff and hopefully classes will fly by. They promise lots of learning! I will be in class from 5:30-10:00 Wednesday nights this semester with lots of online components during the week as well. The online part is a big change from undergrad! There is an online classroom with required discussion posts, all of the paper materials like the syllabus, and a place to submit assignments and take quizzes and tests. As a teacher, this is a huge benefit - as a student, I'm not so sure about the additional class time during the week. :-P
I have four semesters of classes (fall, spring, summer, and fall), and then I will student teach in the spring of 2014. The following summer I will work on my Master's project. Then I will start teaching in the fall of 2014!

Quotable

all said tonight:
"Best. ice cream. ever."
"oh dear!" (when he couldn't have something, hanging his head on my lap)
"Mary goes here." (playing with a toy boat and naming people in the boat)
"Who's Mary?"
"you Mary" he knows my name?!?

Band camp

A few thoughts

Best part of the day
Waking up from his nap, I go in to cuddle with Jay. He grabs his Umi goggles with one hand and clutches on to them. With the other arm, he reaches around my neck and pulls me closer. He falls back asleep. I lift my head to look at him, and I consider leaving to go back to my homework. He grabs onto my neck to keep me there. Then his arm does the "I'm not falling asleep" thing where it falls and lifts back up.


Me: "Are you my son?"
Jay: "No! Sun's outside!"
Guess it's time to start teaching him about homophones.


I decided we should go to IHOP today so I could eat breakfast and Nick could eat lunch. In the car, Nick asked Jay if he wanted breakfast or lunch. Jay yelled, "pancakes!" That's my boy!


Jay has always liked cheese for a snack. Sargento cheese sticks have always been our favorites. Nick introduced Jay to American cheese slices a while ago and now he will insist on the fake cheese every time we offer a cheese stick.


Today is the first time Jay has been invited and allowed to go over to the neighbor's house to play. They recently moved in and built a play structure in the backyard. They also have plans to remove the fence separating our backyards. We may have trouble keeping him off their slide!


And finally, here are two pictures he took with my phone when he was bored at IHOP.

Accident

2 years, 7 months: First accident requiring a trip to urgent care.

Fell down the wooden steps onto his nose.

He is totally fine. He just freaked me out with a half hour of screaming and then he vomitted. But of course as soon as we were on the way to the doctor, he calmed down and started acting like his normal self.

Duh moment

Jay has been driving us nuts today with his whining! It took until 6:30 tonight for me to realize "hey, maybe those 2 year molars that I noticed coming in last week are hurting him!" A dose of Orajel and Tylenol later and JJ declares himself all better.

Water play

scooping water up with his elephant watering can

and dumping it out

a boy and his mama 

Rock star

Growing taller

November 2011

May 2012

More phrases

"I did it!" and "Great job!" have become well loved phrases for JJ. He gets both from an electronic game that Grandma and Grandpa Hoover gave him for his birthday.

Old Navy

Playing with the dog mannequin at Old Navy.


He had a mint leftover from lunch and kept feeding it to the dog.

The mind of a two year old

Upon looking out the sliding glass doors this morning, this is what Jay had to say.

Squirrel. Tree. Tree. Two squirrels! Tree. Two squirrels. Tree.
Raining. Oh raining. No rain. Yeah rain!
(unlocks door) Open. Open. Ma help. Open. (no) Close it. Close. (goes to back door) Shoes. Shoes. (gets shoes out of basket and brings them to me in kitchen. Sets them down beside me. Sees remote control.) Tv on. Tv on. Tv on. (pushes power button and turns on tv)


This is how I found his pjs this morning. Ha!

Happy Easter!

Great day

We had such a great day today! We started with doughnuts at HyVee for breakfast, then we did some grocery shopping. A man gave Nick a stack of coupons last week at the store that he said he wouldn't use. When Nick got them home, we realized they were all for free grocery items! So we broke up the stack into two and went off with two carts, loading up. We ended up with $285 worth of groceries for free!
This afternoon we enjoyed the beautiful weather by going to the park and then playing in the sprinkler in the front yard. After we had been inside a while we came back out and found three ducks hanging out in our yard!




Jay promptly fell asleep at dinner and is still asleep now at 7 pm. We are crossing our fingers that he is out for the night and doesn't wake up ready to go at 10 pm.
I have to include this picture as I found JJ's muddy footprints on the back steps tonight. Cute!

Food preferences

He's picking the tomatoes out of his food! Score one for Mary. Of course, he does eat pickles, so I guess we're tied.

New phrases

The good: "oh yeah"
Do you want more milk?
Oh yeah
Can you give me a hug?
Oh yeah

The bad: "no way"
Can you sit down in your chair, please?
No way
You can't have any cereal right now. Put them back in the cupboard.
No way (runs away from me with the cereal)

Washing the cars

Washy washy!

For Uncle Steve

JJ loves his chicken wings. Yes, they are spicy!

Frozen yogurt

A high temperature of 75 degrees warranted our first trip to get frozen yogurt this year.

Spring!

Jay is finding all the interesting sticks and rocks.

dusted off the camera this evening

I don't know why my pictures are all pixelated! If you click on them, they will enlarge and look right.