Thomas turns 27

Thomas turned 27 last weekend, and we had such a fun time celebrating his birthday. Emily was still there in the morning but she had to head back that day. Before she left, we had a yummy breakfast (baked oatmeal with craisins and walnuts)

yummmm

and Thomas opened his presents. Someone got seriously spoiled this year.

Jamie checks out the new presents

In the afternoon, we went to the zoo. We got a zoo membership in the summer, ostensibly for Jamie's birthday, but really it was mostly for Thomas :) Jamie had the most fun he's ever had! Ever since then, he's gone around saying "zoo" and listing all the animals he remembers seeing. Too cute!

 

We had pot roast for dinner and strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert.

 

Jamie particularly enjoyed the ice cream and has also been talking about that ever since!

We also had a birthday party for Thomas with some of his friends from school. We had dinner and cupcakes (plus I also made cupcakes for him to take to school. . . you know, like a 3rd grader :) I get really into birthdays and holidays, plus I'll take any excuse to bake!) and once again played my new literature board game (who's got 2 thumbs and totally won? This girl!). It was so much fun.

Happy birthday Thomas! We love you.

good bye Auntie Em

Thomas's sister Emily is leaving next month to teach English in Korea for a year! Last week she came and visited us one last time before she goes. We are so excited for her, but we'll definitely miss her! Jamie especially. He loves his auntie.

Also: Thomas's mom got me this board game for Christmas, and I think we played it at least 5 times while Emily was here. We LOVE it!

Anyway, we loved having Emily here, and while we hope she has the best time ever in Korea, we can't wait til we can have her back again. Good luck, Emily!

funny boy

I bought a potty for Jamie. No, I'm not going to try potty training any time soon, probably not for a year, but I knew we'd need one eventually and I wanted him to be used to it when we do get to that point. Plus this one was pretty cheap, cute, and had good reviews. I put it in our bathroom today, and he was so excited to have his own potty. He sat right down and grabbed a magazine (this picture was not posed!).

And of course his rabbit had to have a turn . . .

Tonight when I was putting him to bed, he pulled out his pacifier, looked up at me, and said "potty." Apparently it made a big impression.

He has been such a funny boy lately. Here are some other recent stories: 

I mentioned this on facebook but those of you not on there might appreciate it too. Jamie has really been into tickling lately. He tries to tickle everything . . . his stuffed animals, books, the washing machine, you name it. 

The other night we were looking at a world map together, and I asked Jamie where he'd like to go. He pointed at Australia, and I asked him why. He said "baby." Who knew the Australian babies were such a big draw?

He has been talking up a storm recently! In the past few weeks, he has started saying EVERYTHING. He will try to repeat anything we say. It is amazing how quickly it all happened! A couple nights ago Thomas was eating something and Jamie came up to him and said "more more please food." And at dinner a day or two ago he said "too hot." That time I think he was just repeating what we had said but it has been really neat to hear him putting more than one word together.

Jamie really doesn't like potatoes. He'll eat some mashed potatoes but pretty much won't touch them otherwise. Tonight for dinner we had baked potatoes, but he wouldn't try them. Instead his dinner consisted entirely of broccoli. That's right, my 19-month-old chose to eat nothing but broccoli for dinner. How did I get so lucky?

We love this boy so much!

Christmas Break part 3

The day after Christmas, we went to the Woehlk's Christmas party. We had so much fun! I think Jamie was slightly overwhelmed at first but he got over it and had a really good time.

The next day, most of my family left to drive to Utah for my grandpa's funeral. It was a difficult decision but we decided not to go because Jamie was sick. Jamie got to play with his cousins one last morning.

The one and only good thing about missing the funeral was that we got to spend a lot of concentrated time with Thomas's family while mine was away. Jamie loved playing with his Grammy so much (and his aunt and Papy but Grammy got the royal treatment). My family got back just in time for New Year's Eve and we got to spend a couple more days with them before everyone went their separate ways.

We also stopped by the Davis's for their New Years party.

Between Jamie's sickness (and the fun fun time of spending the morning of New Year's Day in the ER because no doctors were going to be open for a couple days), his passing it on to Thomas, my grandfather's death, missing his funeral, and seeing my siblings for a considerably shorter time than planned, our break did not quite go as we would have hoped. But we are very thankful for the time we did get to spend with everyone! Can't wait til we can see you all again.

Oh, and by the way, we took Jamie to the doctor as soon as we got home. Turned out he was starting to get an ear infection. They put him on antibiotics and within 2 days, all the horrible congestion, coughing, and eye goopiness that we'd been dealing with for 2 weeks cleared up. It is so nice to have a healthy boy again!

Christmas Break part 2

We loved getting to see my brothers and sisters-in-law over Christmas! We only get to see most of them once or (if we're lucky) twice a year. It is especially fun now because Jamie gets to play with his cousins!

(and of course with Grandpa too)

We always acted out the Nativity on Christmas Eve growing up, so this year we had the kiddos do it. It was pretty hilarious because 3 of the 4 kids are about 1 1/2 and had no clue what they were doing. Additionally, Mary and Baby Jesus were played by twins. Pretty great stuff.

Jamie played Joseph

Abigail as Mary

Elena as Baby Jesus

Adriana as the Angel

Mary and Joseph ride the donkey

Jamie actually sat still through the whole thing because he spent the ENTIRE time playing with Mr. Potato Head.

After we woke up on Christmas morning, we checked out what Santa brought at my house.

Then we went over to Thomas's house to open presents there. Thomas really enjoys waking Emily up by throwing Jamie on top of her. It has become a Christmas tradition.

Then we headed back to my house to open presents there. Jamie continued playing with Mr. Potato Head.

After Jamie's nap there was even more back-and-forth between the two houses. The day ended with our traditional pizza dinner, although I think Jamie just had leftover turkey. He did enjoy spreading out the dough with Grandma. Our main gift from Christmas was our new table and chairs but you couldn't really tell that based on how many other presents we got! We feel very spoiled and had such a fun Christmas. We feel lucky to have both families in the same town so we don't have to choose who to spend the day with!