Reading Corner

So I had this idea a long time ago to make a reading/quiet corner for the boys. I have been saving the dust jackets from their books to make posters out of and just decided this week to make some pillows. Yesterday I finished this big one. I have one more to make but I am pretty proud of my work. I am now just looking for a small book shelf to put books and other quiet activities in.

It was an instant hit with the boys.

I caught James doing this the other day. What mother would love finding their kid doing this. (Yes, those are my scriptures.)

A Fun Visit

Yesterday we had Chad's family come and visit. Blake and Jordyn came over too, so we had the "Midwest regional Keyser family reunion" named by Blake. James wasn't feeling 100% so he was a little grumpy but we still had a really fun time. Mikey got to play with his cousin Noah. He seemed to really enjoy all the company and got very angry when he had to go take a nap and everyone else got to go outside.

The biggest news of the day is that James FINALLY drove in his jeep! He got this jeep from Santa and it has been sitting in his closet for the past 3 months because he wouldn't even get in it on his own, let alone drive it. So we got it out yesterday and had Lexi and Myra drive it around. At first he was content watching, but pretty soon he was driving it. Now if we could only get him to steer it. In the video it looks like Jordyn is pushing it, but she is actually only steering it.

We had a lot of fun playing games, eating, and talking.

If you didn't know this is our birthday season. It starts out with Jordyn (my sister) on February 19th then we have Doug's Dad, Tim(Doug's brother), my Dad, Jackson(our nephew who was born this year), my Mom, Amber(Doug's sister), Lexi(our niece) and finally mine to end it all at the end of March. Needless to say I think we will do all in our power to avoid having a baby in March. So because Lexi's birthday is next week and James loves birthdays and they were going to be here we decided to have a little birthday party for Lexi. I made her a princess cake, which was really fun because I don't every get to make girly stuff. Lexi LOVED it and kept asking to see her princess cake.
James loved it and was so excited when it was cake time. He turned the lights off when the candles were lit, tried to help blow out the candles, and turned the lights on when it was done. The only sad part was because he wasn't feeling well his signature "Happy Birthday" after the candles were blown out was too quite to hear on the video.

The funniest part as after the candles were blown out Lexi grabbed the doll out of the cake, which she had been excited for all day, and was shocked to find that it didn't have any legs. I had to take them off to get her to fit in the cake. But after we got her washed off and the legs put back on she carried it around the rest of the night and even told us several times she was going to sleep with it. So we had a very fun day at the "Midwest regional Keyser family reunion!"

All About Mikey

Last week I did a catch up post about James, so this week I am going to do one about Michael. Michael has grown so much lately and is doing so many new things, it is really fun. He is 10 months old, and he still seems so young to me. Maybe because he doesn't have any teeth and isn't crawling really, maybe it is because we have James who is so much older. Mikey LOVES his brother and any attention he can get from him. On nights that I am not feeding him he gets to read stories with Dad and James. He loves it, James isn't the biggest fan, but he needs to learn to share right.

He also loves bath time with his brother. They are complete opposites here too. James loves to splash and play, Mikey loves to just sit and relax, but they both love bath time.
Mikey also loves to eat. He loves all kinds of foods, as long as he gets to do it himself. I usually end up giving him cut up bananas rolled in crushed up cereal so he can grab on to them, or his mashed up baby food on a plate and let him just go at it. I also love that I can usually just feed him and James the same thing and don't have to get two different meals ready. Mikey usually eats more than James does.

Mikey loves to play Peek-a-Boo. In this video it was so funny because I was doing it with him and then stopped. So he started doing it on his own because he thought it was so much fun.

He is not really crawling yet. He usually gets up on his hands and knees but as soon as he starts moving forward he drops to his belly and does an army crawl. He is starting to get around pretty fast and getting more brave. Today I found him in the kitchen, which before he wouldn't dare go in.

And finally he is now very good at sitting up himself. He army crawls places and then sits up, which can get him in some pretty odd situations. Recently I found him sitting up in his bed, so at 10 months old we finally decided it was time to move his mattress down to a lower level. It is so hard not to compare him to James who had the mattress moved down at a much younger age because he had learned how to pull himself up. But we love our sweet, calm little boy.

James is "The Spirit of Adventure"

I was realizing today there there are so many funny "James" stories that I post on Facebook, but I don't blog about. These are definitely things that I don't want to forget so I thought I would go back the last few months and write down the stories so we can remember them later.

12-12-09 We were at our ward party and James was running all over the place. He found a little friend to play with. Bailey is a cute girl about a year younger then himself. They were playing together and decided to go out in the hall, I was following James and Bailey was with her dad. Her dad asked Bailey if she wanted to give James a hug. She did and went to give him a hug, but James had other plans. When she leaned in, he gave her a kiss right on the lips!

1-12-10 James loves playing with my wallet. He likes to take the cards out, which he calls dollars, and run them through the keyboard on the computer. Just like Mom does at the store! This particular day he got my debt card out and handed it to me "Want thirteen dollars."

2-5-10 James loves to clean the toilet. I often find the toilet brush sitting in the toilet. Doug and I were going to bed, we went back to our bathroom and there was the toilet brush on the floor, soaking wet and lots of small puddles of water, and my toothbrush, hmm...wonder what he did with that.

2-8-10 James new favorite breakfast is "yucky charms"

2-12-10 We were in Salt Lake for Doug's eye surgery staying in a hotel. I decided to share the bed with James instead of Doug so that Doug could get some good sleep. At about 3 in the morning James woke up and started acting out Up. He was yelling "Cross your heart, Cross it! Good you promised, no backing out!" He also got a story book to be is Adventure book and turned on the light so he could see better. Needless to say he woke up Michael and Doug and probably the people in the room next to us.

A long week: 2-23-10 James brought me the camera...broken 2-25-10 I was feeding Michael and James was playing in the sink in the kitchen. I heard James say "Where's your phone" and I thought "Where is my phone." So I went to investigate and found my phone in the sink in a bowl of water. Also this same week our couch broke again, not entirely James' fault but we are sure he had something to do with it.

2-28-10 Doug went to pick James up from Nursery and could see him. He asked one of the leaders who said he was with the other leader. He wasn't. They looked everywhere and could find James. Doug finally heard him and found him in the podium (in the Nursery room) with the doors shut. I am sure he was acting out some part of UP.

3-3-10 James' favorite things things to say are "Hey" and "That's mine" often we hear them together, "Hey, that's mine!" So this day James decided to play a game with me. He would bring me something, shove it in my hands, and the second I took it he would said, "Hey, that's mine!" and take it away.

3-4-10 Again I was in the other room feeding Michael while James was in the Kitchen. When I was done I walked in the kitchen to find this:

I guess James decided to make dinner. You would think I would have learned not to leave him alone in the kitchen, but no the next day I walked in the kitchen to find this:

James had emptied the entire syrup bottle onto his plate and was then eating it.

Finally 3-7-10 We were walking over to the neighbors to get some eggs. It was a really warm day so they had their chickens out. James saw a black one with bright red on it, pointed and said, "I found a snipe!"

When we were walking home he found a puddle to throw rocks in. It was so warm out that I decided to let him for a little while. It started out like this:

And ended up like this:

His clothes all came clean, except for his socks, but his shoes are still soaking wet! We have had a fun couple of months with this "almost three-year-old" As my sister-in-law said "Two-year-olds are exhausting!" So true.

Our New Camera and Uncle Tims Birthday

So last week James broke our camera. We don't really know how, or what he did, but it is broken. So this week we got a new camera. In the week that we didn't have a camera, as I predicted, we missed a lot of cute things: James cooking soup with mom (it was so cute), Michael crawling forward on his hands and knees for the first (and only) time, James and Michael reading bedtime stories with Dad, and a few other really cute things that I can't remember now. Yesterday our new camera came and I spent the afternoon trying it out.

Michael sitting on my lap, I am amazed that I can take pictures so close up and still get all of him in the picture.

Last night we had Uncle Tims come over for cake, since his birthday was yesterday. James of course loves birthdays. He couldn't wait for cake, and as soon as Mari and Jessie came there was no more patience left in his little two-year-old body, and he knew just what to do. He went in the kitchen, turned off all the lights, got out the matches, and climbed in his chair. So of course we had to do cake right then.

I think he is going to be so excited when it is his birthday.

"Mom, that was good cake!"

Michael can't have cake, but he loves balloons!