Happy Birthday, James!!

This is a picture taken today at the zoo. We celebrated James' 2nd birthday yesterday because Al had the ENTIRE day off!! I will post pictures of our adventures soon.

James is a sweet little guy. Here are some things about him at 2 years old:

- doesn't say much. And most words that he does say he uses just the vowel sounds of the word or just 1 syllable of the word. Crazy enough I actually understand what he wants a lot of the time!

- loves to cuddle, be held, get hugged, etc. He is just so lovable and squeezable.

- will not eat any form of a sandwich...unless it belongs to somebody else. If I make a sandwich just for him he won't touch it.

- loves, loves, loves his trains and cars. He literally plays with them every single day. He loves toys in general and plays with them a lot more than Avery ever did at this age.

- likes to take things to bed with him. Lately it is a Nemo stuffed animal which he calls "Mo." Last night it was his Thomas the Train hat :)

- is really good at coloring for his age. It still is a lot of scribbles, but while most kids just grab one color and scribble it all over James takes a lot of time and will use tons of different colors on one picture.

- knows many letters of the alphabet and loves to point them out on signs, in books, etc. He loves looking at ABC books or having me or Al draw the letters for him on the magnadoodle.

- would spend all day outside if he could.

- his favorite item of clothing is his rain boots. He wears them around the house, outside, to the store...every where.

- loves dogs and animals in general. He has a killer growl that he does :)

- his favorite foods are strawberries, grapes, cereal, pizza, cheetos, cheese roll-ups, chicken nuggets, and practically any form of sugar. I caught him several times this Easter season sneaking a cadbury egg from displays at stores. I only had to turn my back for a second and he would find one and have it in his mouth.

- he is fascinated by planes, trucks, trains, and anything that goes. If he hears an airplane while we're outside he has to stop and look for it in the sky, then he points to it and waits for me to acknowledge it.

- he loves little babies and is really soft and gentle with him. I still get nervous when he goes up to a tiny baby, but he is careful with them. It is really sweet.

- the same cannot be said for the way he is around toddlers or Avery... Sometimes he is sweet and hugs them. He really likes his friends "baby" Dean and "baby" Rhett. He calls his friends "baby." They are cute together. But there are also some hits that go down.

-loves blankets, or "Dees" as he calls them. Not sure how he came to that term for them. He gets so excited when I put him to bed and put his blankies on top. And he also loves to pull all of the blankets out of the chest we keep them in.

-he loves to laugh. And is easy to laugh, which is a great quality. He laughs at himself, at what other people do our say, funny noises in cartoons, etc. He loves to be chased, or to run away and that always makes him laugh too.

Anyway, these are just a few of the things I want to remember about James at this age. We love him to death and are so happy he is a part of our family. Happy birthday, James!!

Easter Sunday

We had a fun Easter Sunday. The kids woke up to their Easter baskets and were so excited for their treats and little prizes. The Easter bunny hid tons of eggs around the house but we tried to wait and find them when Al got home from work. When Al got home he was excited to see his own basket and then we had a nice breakfast together before he headed to bed. The kids were so into their baskets that they weren't too into the egg hunt, but Avery ended up finding the rest of them.

It was fun getting the kids dressed up in their Easter best and then we headed to church. James fell asleep on the way for the first time ever since we've moved to the later schedule and I have to say it was so nice to just hold him while he slept instead of trying to entertain him! Yesterday was my first day teaching my primary class and they were darling. I taught the Easter lesson from the manual and then we made little tombs that the kids loved. I liked Relief Society, but going to primary yesterday was a lot of fun and a nice change for me. It will be fun on the Sundays Al can make it to have him help team teach.

Dyeing Eggs

On Saturday night the kids and I dyed Easter eggs. The kids loved it. James loved watching the little color tablets sizzle in the vinegar. As I would drop one into each glass James would ooh and ahh. It was pretty cute. The dyes didn't work that great, but maybe that's what I get for buying the kit at the dollar store. I ended up adding some drops of food coloring to the ones that I could to help make the colors brighter. Avery was really good at dyeing her eggs and James just loved taking an egg and dropping it in each color. He would just stick his hand in the glass, swish the egg around, then pick up the egg and move it to the next color. I love how his one hand from the wrist down became a nice purplish/grey color. Needless to say, we went straight from the kitchen to upstairs to take a bath.

Egg Hunt/Potluck

On Friday a bunch of people from the ward got together at a park and had a potluck lunch and an Easter egg hunt. It was a really good turnout and it was so fun to see all of the little kids with their baskets.

There were a few dads that had the day off and came to the park and they hid all of the eggs while the rest of us ate lunch. The kids got restless and were finally turned loose on the eggs. The girls that organized the hunt didn't really get an opportunity to explain to the kids that they were each allowed to get six eggs. It was organized so that every mom brought six filled plastic eggs per child to contribute to the activity, so in the end everybody would still wind up with six eggs each. I took James by the hand and we wandered out to where the eggs were hidden. James was so excited to add the eggs to his basket, and even more happy to find that they held candy inside. We took our time gathering his six eggs and as we were finishing I heard another mom wonder out loud, "What happened to all of the eggs? We can't find any!"

Just a few seconds later Avery came running over to where James and I were with a huge smile on her face. She proudly presented her basket to me and I looked inside to find that her basket was filled to the top with eggs! There must have been 20-25 in there. So I told her about the 6 egg rule as I took them by the handful and scattered them around on the grass. Avery was a little upset at first but I told her that come Easter she would have so many eggs she wouldn't know what to do with them. And also that the other kids needed to find eggs too. She understood...but made sure that she kept the green eggs for herself :)

It was a great activity and I love that our ward always has fun things planned. The bottom picture is with our good friends Lincoln and Dean.