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Tuesday, June 26, 2012

More Crawling...

Here is a video of Peter crawling that was taken a couple of days ago. He is getting pretty fast!

Monday, June 25, 2012

Growing up...

1 year:

2 years:

3 years:

John is 3!!!!

Hard to believe it's been over a month since John's 3rd birthday! His birthday was on a Wednesday this year, so we arranged to have his party on the following Saturday.

On his actual birthday, he ate on his special birthday plate for every meal. We gave him a few presents -  one being an upgrade from his car seat to a booster. He wanted to try it out and go for a car ride. Grandma Stockton and I looked at each other and had the same thought - Baskin Robins! So we took him out for a spontaneous ice cream cone treat around lunch time. It was a lot of fun! Then we had cheese cake for dessert at night! The day was filled with sweets!



We started his party day by going to the Armed Forces Day parade. Uncle Aaron joined us for the fun. There's something about parades... in my adult years I always cry when the first band marches by. I also cried when two elderly men walked by who were Pearl Harbor survivors and when banners displaying recent deceased military heros went by. I'm so proud of our military and honored by the mn en who have served and given their lives for my freedom!


Shout out to Kingston Middle School! I used to march with them!




Back to the birthday... John requested a Thomas the Train party. So I did my best to make a cake with Thomas on it. I used this marshmallow fondant recipe to cover the engine and passenger cars. Gravity took it's toll on Thomas' face, but John didn't care.



I also made Thomas the Train cookies to give as birthday favors to John's friends. I'm glad I did because when I was cutting the cake, all the kids said they wanted to eat "Thomas" - I was happy to tell them that they each got to take a Thomas cookie home with them. I made all the faces by following this tutorial





Balloons are probably the best toys for kids to play with at parties. I like having balloons scattered all over the house on the floor, just to be festive. But it seems that the kids always choose to play with the balloons over all the other toys we have. Fine with me! =)



John had so much fun at his party. He still talks about it! Thank you to all his friends who came to celebrate this special day with us! 

The best part for me was the morning after his party. Normally when he wakes up, he comes over to my side of the bed to get me up. But not that morning - I heard him open the door and quietly scamper out to the living room. Curious, I got up and found him joyfully playing with his new toys. I remember doing the same thing when I was little - I would wake up and think, "Did I really get all those new toys or was that a dream??"

Morning after... pure joy!

Sunday, June 24, 2012

John Quotes ~ Vol. 8

John: This is your choice Mama - do you want to play with me or... play in the sink with me. What do you choose?
- - -
His cousin gave him some Berenstain Bear books and he loves reading them. Whenever I ask him to pick out a book for story time, he picks one of those books. He calls them the "Bear-slene bears" =)
- - -
John: Mom, you can't play with me right now.
Me - pretending to be sad but secretly thinking of all the things I could do with a little "free time": What am I going to do???
John: Well... (pause), you can clean the diapers!
Me: Good idea! (not quite what I had in mind!)
- - -
John: Where's my lollipop?
Me: I threw it away because you weren't being nice.
John: Let me see... (looks in the garbage)... Oh - my - gosh, I can't believe you threw my lollipop away!
Me, stunned and holding back laughter: Well, John, you need to be a nice boy to have a lollipop.
- - -
John singing: ♫ a b c d h i k l m o p ... q r s t u v w x 10 2 3, now I know my ABCs next time won't you sing with me. ♬
(I love how numbers were inserted in the ABCs)

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Army Crawling

On May 31st, Peter started crawling - army crawling, that is! He has been mobile for awhile, in the form of rolling around everywhere. But now I've really had to baby-proof the house because he's been exploring.

He is starting to get up on his knees at this point, so I expect he'll be full-blown crawling very soon.

My favorite part about the crawling phase is that I get to see him exercise his will. I love seeing him crawl over to play with a toy or come over to me and reach out for my foot ("Pick me up!!").

Here is a video that we took the day he started crawling:

Friday, June 22, 2012

Peter's first hair cut


A few weeks ago, Peter had his hair cut for the first time. I like to cut baby and toddler hair while they sit in the Bumbo on the bathroom counter. I still cut John's hair this way. It makes it pretty easy to access all sides of their head and they like to look in the mirror. For Peter's first haircut, I didn't cut much off - it was really just a trim. But he felt pretty special!

Before:

After: