Big Boy Room

Yesterday we got Jack's big boy room all set up for him. He did great last night in his new bed and slept all night long. We also helped him clean out his toys and he decided which ones were baby toys that he would give to his baby brother. 

Here is his new reading corner, and all of his fireman and cowboy clothes.
No more rocking chair.
And yes, I did cry at least twice at the thought of not rocking him every night anymore. 

Typically at the end of "nap" time every single one of these toys is out and on the floor.

Also, I haven't posted pictures for a little while so here are some other things we've been doing lately. This first one is for Grandma Pat. Our porch doesn't look nearly as good as yours always did, but I tried. 

Rocks are also pretty fun to play with these days. Jack likes to stack them all up in Grandma Pat's butterfly bath and then move them all to his bucket, and then do it all again.

Last, we went to Deanna Rose Farmstead a couple of weeks ago for a birthday party. It is a really great place for kids but it's pretty far from our house, so Jack hadn't been there since we moved to Liberty. They have all kinds of fun things to do. He got to go fishing, and caught three fish! He also got to feed a bottle to the baby goats. Here is a series of pretty funny pictures from that experience. As you'll see, he starts out feeding them on his own... but the goats were pretty aggressive and he wasn't a big fan of them by the end. 

Chinese Cabbage

I had a doctor's appointment today and Jack went with me. It was quite the adventure. He got to take his Lightning McQueen backpack filled with toys he picked out just for the doctor. Everything was just fine at the check-up and my trusty BabyCenter email tells me that our baby boy is the size of a Chinese cabbage this week. That is about 2 1/4 pounds and 15 inches. Jack got to hear the baby's heartbeat and he thought that was pretty cool. When the nurse asked him where his heartbeat was he told her he left it at home.

He is starting to talk about the baby more now. Yesterday at breakfast he told me he is going to feed his baby brother yogurt when he gets here. And today when I left him in his room for his nap, I could hear him going through his toys. He found an old teddy bear-lovey thing and announced that his baby brother would like to play with it. He also thinks he is going to be the one to carry around the baby when he gets here. Maybe he'll settle for rocking him in the swing!

Be Very Quiet

Here's a Jack quote for the day. At lunch we were sharing an apple and Jack says, "Where is the... I can't think of the word. That is a hard word." I knew he was going to ask where the caramel dip was because he likes apples lots more with that added, so I asked him if the word had something to do with apples. He replied with, "Mommy please be very quiet. I am trying to think of that word." Then he thought for a second and remembered his word -- he was very proud of himself. Sometimes you just need some peace and quiet I guess.

Omaha

This weekend we went to Omaha with some good friends to visit the zoo. We left early Saturday morning and got to the zoo about 10. We might have overdone it just a little at the zoo, seeing as we didn't leave until around 4. There was so much to see and the boys (Jack, Ben -- almost 4 yrs. old and Sam - 2 yrs. old) were having lots of fun. 


Despite all the great animals to see, I think their favorite thing was escaping and running away from us every chance they could get. They wore us out. We were asleep by 9:30. A few hours later we were woken up by our very loud hotel neighbors, who we then proceeded to get kicked out of the hotel because we complained about them. Too bad for them! Here are some pictures from the zoo. 

Looking at a very large gorilla!

In the jungle building. One of the few moments he wasn't moving. 

The aquarium was his favorite part. He has a few fish books from the library he loves, so he was very excited to see all the things we've been reading about for weeks in person. 

We also found some really neat slides in downtown Omaha that the boys loved. I think Jack and Nathan went down probably 20 times. He didn't want to go down by himself, which was probably a good thing because it was a very fast and steep slide. 

And here is one last picture that just kind of makes me laugh. Despite all the fun we had, we did have our rough moments too. He thinks he is such a big boy and will tell you all about it, but if he gets hurts he wants Mommy. When this picture was taken, he had just taken a little tumble when we were leaving the slides and it was just too much for him to handle. 

Sonogram and A Life Lesson

Today we had our second sonogram for the baby and he was much more cooperative today. They were able to get all the pictures they needed and everything looks great. He looks so big already and I could see him rubbing his eyes and mouth, and opening and closing his little fingers. And, he has Jack's cute little nose!

Now, on to the life lesson. This morning Nathan had a little talk with Jack about what is supposed to be flushed down the toilet. He hasn't thrown any toys or random objects in the toilet yet, but we know that day is coming soon. So Nathan explained if a toy or book fell in the toilet, then Jack needs to come and get me and tell me it's an emergency, but not to flush the toilet. So Jack thought about this new information for a moment and very seriously replied, "I guess if I fall in the toilet, is that an emergency?" Hmmm... I think the answer to that is yes.

Happy Missouri Day

This morning when Jack woke up I told him it was a special day called Labor Day and that means Daddy doesn't have to go to work today. He immediately told me, "No, it's not Labor Day. It's Missouri Day." So I asked him what you do on Missouri Day and he informed me, "You fight cheetahs." Of course! 


He is on a roll today... At breakfast I asked him if he was going to eat any more of his breakfast ice cream (a smoothie) and he told me, "I'm waiting for the chimes and then I'll eat more some." He was talking about the chimes in his read-along books that tell you to turn the page. 


And here's one more Jack quote for today. We went on a walk this morning to the park and he waited until he got home to go to the bathroom. So I gave him a kiss and told him I was proud of him. His response was to back away from me and announce, "I backed up so Mommy can't give me any more kisses. If you give me one more kiss you have to go to your room."

Bubbles

Yesterday the weather was beautiful, so Jack and I spent the morning outside. The highlight of the morning was bubbles. Jack's friend Sophie gave him the best bubble blower ever for his birthday (also the same kind they use at storytime), and yesterday he figured out how to blow hard enough to do it himself. This was kind of a big deal because past attempts had ended in a spitty bubble blower and no bubbles. But not yesterday. He spent at least 30 minutes blowing bubbles and chasing them, and yelling and screaming. He occasionally would let me blow some and tell me he wanted me to "Blow the bubbles up to the moon."

 

Colorado

We made it back from Colorado last night on our first real family vacation.  We all had a great time, but it was nice to sleep in our beds again.  I think Jack's words were "I'm so happy to be home!" 

We started out early last Saturday, and had made it almost to Topeka when the excitement started.  Jack decided that his breakfast didn't agree with him, and we (I) spent the next 20 minutes cleaning things up on the side of the road.  We had to throw away his clothes and the towel that I'd randomly tossed in on top of the suitcases as I finished packing the car.  I don't have any photographic evidence of this, but it was pretty remarkable that all that came out of someone so little.  Luckily, things settled down, and whatever was bothering Jack stayed behind in the ditch in Kansas. 

12 hours later, we made it to the YMCA of the Rockies, which is a nice family vacation spot.  Lots of on-site activities and tons for kids to do. 

like mini golf, which Jack decided was his favorite part of our vacation..

...and tetherball on the little playground across from our cabin

Here's us outside our coincidentally named cabin.

If you can't see the cabin name - it's the Heather cabin

Jack's room had bunk beds, which he really enjoyed.  He was still so excited the next morning when he woke up that he wouldn't come out of his room (which is very unusual).

We went on a hike almost every day in Rocky Mountain National Park, and Jack turned out to be a pretty good hiker.  He didn't do a lot of walking...he seemed to prefer to jump or run up the mountains and then get carried when he tired out.

The YMCA had these nice little carrier backpacks that you could check out

With a 2 year old and a pregnant wife, we decided that about a 2 mile round trip was our limit, and luckily, there were some really pretty hikes with mountain lakes and waterfalls that we could get to within our distance limit.

Jack on a little side hike off the main trail...this tended to extend our hikes a little

The climb up was usually ok..but the climb back down sometimes required a little assistance

We saw some wildlife - some marmots, chipmunks or "chickmunks" as Jack liked to say, ground squirrels and lots of elk, or "ilk."  We were driving past the golf course in Estes Park and had to stop to watch a very large, angry elk chase some golfers off the fairway on one hole.  One older golfer decided he wasn't going to move, and for a second, I thought I was going to have to cover Jack's eyes so he wouldn't have nightmares, but a guy in a golf cart sped up just in time to chase the elk away. 

We saw another elk outside a building at the YMCA the next day and Jack told me, very authoritatively, that the "ilk" was looking for a golf cart to chase. 

Jack and I walked through the trees to get this shot while Heather quietly freaked out in the background, sure that the elk was going to eat us or something

Jack did some fishing for trout in the same lake we saw the elk in.  We could see a lot of fish in the clear water, but none of them seemed to want to bite his bobber.  I tried to explain to him that we needed to put something beneath the bobber for the fish to bite, but the precautions the hook required cramped his casting style, so we just stuck with the bobber.

We didn't catch any fish, but Jack didn't let that get him down.  We all had a great time and even slept in late this morning, thanks to our bodies still being on Mountain time.  I think that may have been Heather's favorite part of our vacation.

Did He Just Say That?

Darling Jack just surprised us again at the things he says. He wanted me to move off of the chair in the living room so he could do a trick on it (which means he wanted to jump on it from the fireplace). He wasn't asking nicely so I wasn't moving. When nothing he was trying was working (he forgot to try "please") he finally yelled out, "Mommy, go make me some bacon!" So basically he was dismissing me to the kitchen. I guess he thought he needed to remind me that I need to make supper!

Tubes

Jack got his tubes this morning and everything went well. He tried to be brave, but it was still a pretty hard couple of hours. There was a lot going on that wasn't normal. We had to get there at 6:30 and pretty soon we went back and they started getting him ready for the surgery. His main problem was the pajamas he had to put on. That, and the two bracelets he had to wear. He wanted all of that off, both before the surgery and after. 

We tried to cheer him up by taking a picture of him in the special PJs but that didn't work. He only wanted me to hold him. 

The surgery probably only took about 10 minutes and we got to go back and see him while he woke up. He remembered he wanted those PJs off, and the bracelet and the oxygen monitor on his finger and the heart monitors... We had a rough few minutes while he woke up and before we were allowed to leave. But he calmed down when we got home and by mid-morning he was pretty much back to normal. The rest of his day was filled with "special treats," as he likes to say -- lots of watching Mickey Mouse, he got to take a nap with Mommy and we made cookies. He also played lots of legos with Daddy and we read some of his read-along books. They were mine when I was little and so far his favorites are Peter Pan and Robin Hood. We are glad he got the tubes so he'll feel better now, but we are also glad the day is over!