Blog-o-Bano: June 2011

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Singing Happy Birthday

Swimming with Daddy

I caught video of him singing "Happy Birthday" to himself :-)

Celebrating Jim and John's Bdays

We visited Kampai Japanese Steakhouse to celebrate Jim and John's Birthdays. James loved (not so much love from Dad or Uncle John) when the men came to sing Happy Birthday to them!

James mastered using chop sticks within 30 seconds of getting the helpers -- such a fine and gross motor genius, haha! (I mean, he's been gallopping for over a year now and I had kids in Kindergarten PE who couldn't do that)

More Toddler Room Art Work

We got some of James' old art work back as he has transitioned to the Young Preschool room. Kind of fun to see him hard at work almost 8 months ago!

Look at how good he's gotten at drawing lines -- and in both directions!

JoJo had to be behind this art project -- Go Team Canada as she would say

First Swim Lesson

Time for swim lessons! I want James to learn to swim the proper way, so now that he's bigger and can grasp concepts better, we decided swim lessons were a good way to learn how to swim properly and water safety so Grandma's pool is more fun for James and less stressful for me (kids with more exposure to pools have greater risk for drowning, certified lessons help reduce this risk). The first lesson started with SCREAMING for the first 15-20 minutes.

He calmed down and actually started to enjoy himself when I sat him on the side of the pool and had him kick water at me :-) Thanks to Daddy for being our photographer!

Each lesson since this one has gotten much better!

Lesson 2 :: James used a bucket to dump water on Mommy and even let me dump it on his back and would throw his shovel in the water and then "jump" to me and kick his way over to get it Lesson 3 :: Daddy got in this time and James was thrilled to dump water on him and swim after the shovel again -- he let Daddy pour water from the bucket on the back of his head (side note: baths have started to get a bit less traumatic again about this lesson)

Lesson 4 :: James and Dad did about 50 laps back and forth in our section of the pool after the sprayer -- lots of kicking practice for James -- James even put his mouth in the water to blow bubbles a couple of times!!!

Separate story :: Cash got his first phone call on Memorial Day :-) James "answered" the phone in his kitchen and then placed the phone up against my belly saying "Baby!!! Baby!!!?!?" Yeah, pretty much as adorable as it sounds :-) James loves babies right now and says "Hi, Brother" (when he doesn't insist 'No, Sister') as he pushes through my belly button and gives him kisses -- hopefully it continues after Cash actually arrives in our house :-)

Belly Pics

Jen and Dominic are expecting their first baby girl in June -- can't wait to meet Ms. Sofia!!!

Who says you don't carry boys and girls differently?!?! Jen is 37 weeks and I'm only 25 weeks in these pictures -- boy = all out front and girl = wrapped around nicely (and what looks more comfortably to me)! Our ham bone, James, had to get in on the photo session :-)

Jen and Dom watched James this night so Jim and I could cash-in their Christmas gift -- dinner at Melting Pot (yummy)! James had a blast playing with them!!! Unfortunately, after we left, I had Jim go downstairs to check on the fans we had running (we had gotten about 3.5 inches of rain in less than 5 hours and had seepage through the foundation)....I knew things were bad when I heard all the cursing downstairs -- the sewer clean out valve had popped as it was a "fill up" and at least all of James' bath water (and some yucky sewer water) had made it's way all over our basement floor. Ben and Rachel were awesome and helped clean up some of the water (I was useless downstairs anyways as pregnancy and sewage don't mix well) and the emergency plumber charged an arm and a leg to work for, literally, 7 minutes. Update :: sewer has been fixed, check back later to see those pics -- not a good way to spend a free day off work, but Jimmy did a good job with it all.

Daddy's Birthday

Me: "Happy Birthday to..."
James : "Daddy!"
James has become quite the singer -- Happy Birthday is one of his go-to songs these days, which worked out perfectly for Daddy's big day!!! Jimmy got hooked up with a new electric razor for his Birthday :-)

Above :: exploring the wrapping paper roll
Below :: two very handsome men!

Big Week of May 16

The week of May 16th was a big one! On Monday, James went pee on the potty at school all by himself :-) He enjoyed Gym Stars on Wednesday :-) On Thursday, in the middle of bath time (which has become very eventful and unpleasant for James recently out of the blue), James told Daddy "I go potty" and he sat and...went potty on the toilet :-) On Friday, he picked out the Monsters, Inc "DVDV" to watch (1st movie he's sat and watched through) and WENT TO BED WITHOUT THE BINKIE!!!! :-) I told him his binkie went in the garbage truck with his friend Mikey's, he was pretty distraught, but has been doing well....a month later he has FINALLY stopped asking for it when he gets overly tired/cranky :-) This kid has a steel trap for a memory, I tell ya!

Above :: our neighborhood fox was ticked after a huge storm that morning and was cleaning herself off in the neighbor's back yard
Below :: James "insisted" that JoJo "make foot pretty" like hers -- his first "ink" tattoo (we've randomly put temporary tattoos on his booty before to make his teacher's laugh, hehe

James loves to help put away the dishes -- you gotta be quick to keep up with him though! One of his best chores along with "clean up" (which he has a song for)

James loved to watch the men pull out the ugly bushes from between the columns....prepping for (eventually) the new front porch that we want to add on (update :: just got the call today, permit has been approved, I rock and should be a contractor, I tell ya, first try). This whole project got delayed because the sewer pipe broke at the foundation and we had a LOT of sewer water in the basement (a separate post)...ended up being a good thing we dragged our feet a bit until summer on this because the sewer line comes out the front of the house and they would have needed to cut up our brand new concrete to get to it! Now we have a nice, long, gravel-supported sewer pipe with clean out valve outside to hopefully avoid this again!

Had them remove a bush-on-steroids from the corner (couldn't keep up with it) and move the rocks from up front to back here -- I think I'd do well with "gardening" in the southwest, as I LOVE this -- the less gardening, the better!

We survived the rapture and went to dinner at the Grand Victoria Casino Buffet with Gma Chele and Uncle John....thanks for getting stuck in an elevator there and taking us with your passes, Gma! Yummy :-)

Above :: James got my camera, not too bad!

Below :: TROUBLE -- but SO DARN CUTE!!!

Mother's Day 2011

Enjoy some quality cuddle time with my JamesE on Mother's Day :-) Daddy made us a fantastic french toast breakfast, so we were both all smiles :-)

My favorite things ever :: home- or school-made art projects!!! Was so worried I wouldn't get one this year with James transitioning classrooms, but his Toddler teachers came through strong!

Such a cute poem and tiny hand prints! Gotta love the tongue sticking out in the picture of him -- going through a phase where he's "tasting" the wind (or trying to cool off like a dog) -- actually caused a good bite through the tongue a couple weeks after this picture (ouchie, but all healed up nicely)!

I got two beautiful new links for my mother's bracelet...a turtle (from James) and a blue baby carriage (from Cash) and some clay to make a new hand print keepsake for our new front porch (whenever that project gets completed -- long, expensive story there) :-) Thanks for making me such a happy Mommy, James, I....LOVE....JAMES!!!!

Our Lil' Sailor Boy

Showing off his six pack

Smelling the flowers

Jimmy (and John and most of the other boy cousins) wore the same sailor outfit at 2 years old -- James definitely has his chin, but I still think he's a pretty good mix of us both

Trying everything we could to get James to look UP at the camera

Sailor James gives his friend, Katie, the tulip :-) So sweet! Awwww!

And Cashew is....

A BOY!!!!

Yeppers, going to be WAYYYY out-numbered around here, but we couldn't be more excited! James and Daddy found out Cash's gender at the appointment but kept it a surprise from Mommy (I didn't want the anti-climatic ultrasound tech just telling me). They did a great job of keeping it secret and then Jim found an AWESOME way of telling me!

Jim took pictures of things around the house, blew them up (and got to play with his camera), used clear contact paper to cover them, then painted over them with a silver paint-water mix so I got a scratch off ticket at every stop. It took me 1.5 hours (dinner was in there) to find all of the clues around the house (some were extremely difficult and I had to get help)...but it was sooo much fun and very creative! The last one was a blow up of the ultrasound (which was just confirming what we both thought we saw within the first 10 seconds of the ultrasound).

Dancing & Taking Pic of Elmo

James shaking his groove thang to "Stronger" by will.i.am on Sesame Street...then telling Elmo and Grover to say "cheese" for a picture :-D So Sweet (and demanding)!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Easter 2011

On Friday, Aunt Jen brought over an egg decorating kit -- James loved to put on the stickers!

Showing off his work

The look on Jim's face is priceless here -- cracks me up every time!

James was very much overwhelmed by the kids at the Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday (again, it was pouring down rain, so it was inside)...we were about 2 minutes late (early morning out the door is not our forte), so James only got 1/2 an egg, but he didn't seem to mind.

Posing for a picture with Daddy...aw, shucks, the line for the creepy Easter bunny was around the gym, so we had to pass to get to our dr. appt on time (we were sooo excited to see Cash)!