Learning to Share

We had a pretty fun Memorial weekend. Doug went to Logan on Friday and Saturday to help Chad with their tile and Shannon, Myra and Lexi came to stay with me and James. James had a lot of fun playing with his cousins.

Saturday after everyone left I gave James a bath and got him ready for bed. We went downstairs to play a little while we were waiting for dad to get home. James decided to play in the bathroom and went in and shut the door. When I went to check on him I found him in the bathtub with a bunch of toys he had thrown in there. He kept "climbing" in and out. He couldn't really climb in or out he would just get one leg until it was almost there and fall in the rest of the way. Then he would cry for a few seconds and go on playing. He is pretty cute.

On Monday we had some friends over for dinner. James and Jake don't always play that well together and James was really not wanting to share his Lightning McQueen car. He kept trying to push Jake off of it. I guess he needs to learn how to share!

James Loves Water

Today we went over to James' friend Zac's house. James and Zac had a lot of fun playing but after a while they both got a little grumpy so we decided to take them outside to walk. They soon found these puddles in the alley between the condos and had a ton of fun. It didn't take James long before he was crawling through the puddles and laying down in them. He even stuck his face in the dirty water and was trying to drink it. What am I going to do with this cute little boy!

I kept trying to get a picture of his dirty little face. But he was pretty stubborn and wouldn't look at the camera, so these are the best I have.

No Cute Videos!

I don't have any cute videos of James for this week yet because everything takes two people, one to help James do whatever he is doing and the other person to video it. So it is a little harder to get all the cute things he is doing on video, but we will succeed! So anyway I thought I would post these links to some fun websites I found.

http://www.blurb.com
This is a fun website that you download the program then you can create books with your photos or blog or whatever. The prices are not that bad either.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/
This is a website of a woman who puts recipes that she creates on it. They seem to be pretty simple and sound really good. Two that I would like to try are Pineapple Shrimp Skewers, and Apricot bars. Her directions can be a little annoying but the directions seem to be very complete and easy to follow.

Bruises, Parties, and a Near Escape from a Fire

We have had a very uneventful week, with nothing to write about, followed by a very eventful weekend! On Friday night James was walking around, that is pretty much all he does now, and decided that he needed to go play in his room. He climbed the stairs, opened the gate (it was not locked) and was playing in his room. I was putting groceries away and Doug was doing something downstairs. Suddenly we heard a loud noise and one loud cry come from James' room. Doug went to investigate and found James laying on the floor next to the changing table with his shampoo bottle laying on top of him. Not knowing what happened and hearing no more cries from James he brought him downstairs and sat him on the couch. A few minutes later I looked at James and he had this huge swelling on his forehead and the beginning of a bruise. I am actually surprised that it has taken this long for him to get a bump on the head. We decided that he was probably walking around and fell hitting his head on the corner of the changing table. On Saturday we went to Myra's birthday party in Logan. We left about ten in the morning and James slept for about 40 minutes in the car. We got to the park about 11:30 and James played, with no nap, and without being too grumpy until we left to go home about 6:00. He then slept for about 30 minutes and woke up to eat his first hamburger from Wendy's, which he loved! We thought he would be so tired that he would fall right asleep when we put him to bed, but he was still playing in his crib when we went to bed at 10:00! James had so much fun playing with his cousins at the park. He had fun opening his birthday present from them, and Lexi just had to help! He loved eating cake so much that when Myra was sitting next to him with a cupcake he just reached over and grabbed a handful of her cupcake! She didn't even get mad at him. It was so cute I just had to have a picture of them eating the cupcake together. Later when Chad had a cupcake James ran over to him and did some of the best begging I have ever seen!

A little background to this next part of the story. We have often gone in the 1/2 bathroom on the main level and smelled a very odd smell. We tried very hard to figure out what it was thinking maybe it was smoke from the neighbors whose garage is on the other side of the wall, or something coming out of the vent. It didn't smell like smoke really, I had even thought maybe there was a dead mouse or something in wall. But we never could exactly figure it out. Once we got home James got a cute hair cut. (I will put pictures on another blog.) I told Doug to just put he hair on the floor because I was going to vacuum. So after his hair cut and a bath Doug was feeding James some applesauce and I decided to vacuum upstairs. Usually I use an outlet in James' room but I thought it would be a lot easier if I plugged it in the bathroom so I could reach all the rooms without switching. I was almost done with James' room when I heard shouting from downstairs and Doug ran up and unplugged the vacuum. We went downstairs and the 1/2 bathroom was filled with smoke with more smoke pouring out of the outlet. Luckily Doug was downstairs and started to smell that mysterious smell and was able to turn it of before it caught on fire. It was pretty scary to think that we have lived here a year and a half and never knew about this problem. So Doug took off the outlet cover and the outlet and the wire connecting to it were completely burned. Luckily I live with a handy man and we were able to immediately go to Lowe's and get a replacement. We talked about replacing all the outlets and light switches when we moved it but never did it, so now we are really going to check and replace them all.

We have had a great Mother's Day! James had a new nickname, Monkey Doodle, and we have gotten lots of comments on how busy his is at church. His new favorite game is to climb the stairs like a big boy. No more crawling up the stairs for him, we have to walk. So his new favorite game is having Mom help him climb the stairs and when we go up Mom says "Up" and when we go down James says, "Dow" it is pretty cute. He also loves to give leg hugs. He always walks up to us and wraps his arms around our legs. It is so cute. We just love having James around. He is such a fun kid!

Rules of Milk

For those of you who don't know, Doug is a avid milk drinker. I have never met anyone who loves milk more then Doug. What I didn't realize when I married Doug is that he comes with a whole set of "Milk Rules" I am not kidding. We have rules about our milk. If the rules are not followed then the milk becomes, "rotten, festering milk" and we cannot drink it.

Rules of Milk
1. No matter how inconvenient it may be, milk is the last item in the shopping cart.
2. Once the milk is in the shopping cart we are not allowed to stop and get anything else. Even if it is right on the way to the checkout line.
3. Depending on how long the line is we may have to go and switch for "new" milk.
4. Once the milk is in the car there are no stops on the way home, no matter how fast they may be.
5. Once we are home milk is the first thing out of the car. (Yes, even before James)
6. We do not buy milk at Smith's. It doesn't taste the same.
7. Milk goes directly in the fridge. It does not get set on the counter.
8. When using milk you take it out, pour what you need, and put it directly back in the fridge. Milk should never touch the counter.
9. If you take longer then 10 minutes to drink your milk you are scolded for wasting the milk and if you then finish the milk you are asked, "How can you drink that rotten, festering milk?"
10. If you are going to have multiple bowls of cereal you pour some milk over your cereal and some in a cup to use on your future bowls of cereal. No need to take the milk out of the fridge twice!
11. The last glass of milk from the carton is disgusting. But not as disgusting as it would be had we not followed the milk rules.

It has taken me some time to learn and follow all the rules correctly. Doug often finds me rolling my eyes at some of his rules. He then reminds me of rule #11. So I had to laugh when I went to the fridge one day and found these labels cut out from the box that the milk comes in and stuck in front of the milk in the fridge.

Little Stinker!

James got the rest of his birthday presents this week. Grandma and Grandpa sent a cute turtle sand box with some trucks from Uncle Scott. At first I think he was just so excited to get outside that he didn't really pay attention to it. But after a while he was having so much fun playing in it and dumping the sand out. He even laid down and pretended he was in the bathtub. James also got to pick out a couple of toys at Toys R Us with some money he got from Great Granny and Grandpa. He picked a hammer toy that you hammer the pegs in. It is really cute watching him try to hammer. He grabs the end and hits with the top of the hammer. He also got the tow truck attachment for his ride on Tonka truck. It only has two wheels for when he walks around so it doesn't support him at all. But that didn't stop him from walking around with it. This proved to us our theory that he can walk he just chooses not to.

Today we saw that James can walk, on his own holding onto nothing. He was wearing his cute overalls he got for his birthday and wanted Dad to walk with him. Doug decided to just hold him by his overalls then let go. When he let go, James walked. Not just a few steps either. He walked into the kitchen turned around and walked back. So the little stinker has been able to walk for who knows how long and just wouldn't. Now that we know he has been walking a lot more on his own.

Look Who's 1!

James had his first birthday yesterday! Happy Birthday James! He loved when mom would sing "Happy Birthday" to him all day! James had a pretty fun day. He got to play with mom all morning, then in the afternoon we went to the toy store with his friend Jake. Jake wanted to pick out a toy for James and got him some stacking cups. James loves them!

James also got a new car seat for his birthday. He looks like such a big boy sitting in his big boy seat. He loves to be able to watch mom and dad while we are in the car.

When dad got home from work we ate dinner and then James got to have his cake! He didn't really know what to do at first and just looked at it. Then he started picking little pieces off and eating them. He never really dug in like we thought he would but he still got pretty messy. I have a really cute video of when he first started eating the cake but I guess it is too long to upload. So if you want to see it you have to come visit! After cake he had a bath which is his favorite thing in the world. We can't keep him out of the tub once he hears the water turn on. He plays until well after the water turns cold.

Today we went to the doctor. He weighs 20 lbs 13 oz. Still in the 25th percentile but big enough for his big boy car seat so that's ok. He is 30 in tall which is still in the 75th percentile. He is now allowed to eat whatever he wants, including peanut butter, and honey. So for dinner he had a PBJ sandwhich. He didn't eat much, just sucked on the bread and then fed the rest to the dog. She also suggested putting a little chocolate in his milk to get him to drink more. It has been so hard to get him to drink anything. She says that he probably needs about 20 oz of liquid a day and we are struggling to get him to dring 12-15.

Some facts about James:

• James has 7 teeth, we keep waiting for the other bottom one to come in but it just wont
• James loves to take baths
• His favorite food is Chocolate Chip cookies and he hates dairy
• We still don't know what color his eyes are
• His favorite toy is probably his Tonka Truck
• James loves to be outside
• His favorite show is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
• James loves dogs
• His favorite book is "Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you See?"
• He loves wrestling with dad
• Loves his bear blanket
• Still sucks on his two fingers