Spring Flowers

Joseph - 3.5

Joseph is officially 3 1/2 and such a big boy. He is excited about becoming a big brother even though I'm pretty sure he has no idea of the full repercussions.

Things we love about our 3 1/2 year old boy:

He loves trains. Our dining room is currently the train room and he loves to go in there and play and play.

He loves puzzles. Joseph has quite a few puzzles and can do most of them "all myself!"

He loves Legos and Lincoln Logs and anything else that can be used to build things.

He loves to ready books and will help with sounding out letters and words. He has known all his letters and their sounds for quite some time but is becoming very interested in how they all work together.

He loves his Georges. He currently has 4 Curious George friends. Red George (the first and favorite), Brown George, Blue George and Yellow George. They go to bed with him every night and come downstairs with him every morning. He has more friends that stay on the bed. Apparently they're good enough to sleep with but not to hang out with during the day.

He's just a little OCD. Things like getting milk in the morning have a routine that needs to be followed. The dish towel on the stove gets straightened quite often. He apologizes profusely for involuntary messes (throwing up) but ironically, not for the many messes he makes and doesn't want to clean up.

He loves going to school and is becoming a lot more interactive with his friends. He goes two days a week and enjoys playing outside, circle time and show & tell.

His imagination is going wild. He is always pretending to be a movie character of some sort. Most recently his character of choice is WALL-E although sometimes it's also fun to spin like EVE.

He is still a great sleeper. He sleeps about 11 hours at night and still takes a 3-4 hour nap in the afternoon. On school days he only gets a 2 hour nap (and I'm sure he doesn't sleep the whole time) which makes for an earlier bedtime on those nights.

He's still a sweet snuggle-bug. I love snuggling with him first thing in the morning and the last thing before he goes to bed. And I love that he loves to hug.

He's grateful for everything (almost). He is quick to say "thank you for my nummy dinner mama" and "thank you - that's my favorite!"

He makes up silly songs and loves to entertain people he knows well. He is still pretty shy around people he doesn't know well . . . at least at first.

Joseph is a sweet, adorable, precious, challenging, smart and funny little guy and we're so glad to have this sweet 3 1/2 year old as our boy.

Duck Parade

Christopher's parents are here to hang out for a few days before baby Jacob's arrival (and then to take care of Joseph while we're at the hospital). On Sunday morning we went to The Peabody for brunch and then watched the ducks parade to the fountain. Joseph found it very fascinating.

That Pesky Bug - Round 2

So - a mere 4 weeks after the first round - we've been hit with Stomach Bug #2. So far only Joseph has had it. I'm truly hoping it ends there. The first round hit hard and the gross part lasted about 12 hours. But the effects were long lasting. Christopher & I both feel that we still haven't truly recovered our energy from before. This second round has been a bit weird. Joseph threw up 3 times on Saturday night and then was fine and playing. 15 hours later we had another episode. And 15 hours after that (and more playing and acting fine) was episode #3. I type the following rather reluctantly - we've been episode free for 24 hours. Please, please, please, please let this been over. Please, please, please, please don't let me get it.

you spelled my name!

Every once in awhile Joseph likes to get on the computer and Instant Message his daddy. Usually this consists of typing his name and hitting the Enter (a.k.a. "send to daddy") button.

A little bit ago I sent the following IM to Christopher:
"Joseph just told me that he's sorry for me that baby Jacob is getting so bigger"

Joseph saw the message and then said the following:
"Mama - you spelled my name! You did a good job! Awwww - thanks for spelling my name mama. I love it that you spelled my name. That's so awwwwwesome."

um, thanks for those words of affirmation kiddo.

Crossing off the days

Joseph is excitedly counting down the days to two events. Currently the count is:
Nana, Papa & Katie's arrival: 9 days
Baby Jacob's arrival: 12 days

you have to write it down so you don't forget

. . . especially when you have pregger-brain.

at breakfast:

Me: "Joseph, I would like you to eat three more bites of eggs and then you can get down and play."
Joseph: "I can't do it."
Me: "You can do it. I've seen you eat and I've seen you count. So eating three more bites should not be a problem."
Joseph: "I just can't do it."
Me: "Why can't you do it?"
Joseph: "Because I'm scared."
Me: "What is scary about eating eggs."
Joseph: "Monsters will come out if I eat them."
Me: "I promise no monsters are going to come out."
Joseph . . . . eats a bite of eggs while trying not to smile.

Spanking time . . . I mean Dinner Time!

Joseph is most apt to disobey at dinner time. We're not quite sure why. He can be a perfectly behaved child all day long and then, put him up to the table, and he turns into a little pistol that talks back, shouts "NO" or clowns around. I would say he averages more spankings during dinner time than at any other time.

Last night he refused to come to the table for dinner. So we started off with a spanking before dinner ever started. However, this actually helped dinner time to be somewhat pleasant. After we were done eating, we again approached the subject with Joseph. Christopher explained that playtime was a good thing that we encourage. We encourage it before dinner and after dinner. But, when it's dinner time, that's when we sit at the table and eat. Then he asked Joseph a couple of questions to make sure he understood the lecture.

C: "Joseph - is it play time before dinner?"
J: "Yes!"
C: "Is it play time after dinner?"
J: "Yes!"
C: "But when we say that it's dinner time, what is it time for?"
J: "Spanking Time!"

yes. . . that does seem to be the trend. . . .

Bloomin' Tulips

My sister Megan gifted me with some leftover tulip bulbs she had at Thanksgiving. I was a little worried that I didn't get them in the ground early enough but they are in various stages of bloom . . . . and looking lovely!

Picture Day

Today is picture day for Joseph's class at school. We don't normally send him on Wednesdays but what kind of parents would we be if he missed picture day?! Red George always goes to school with Joseph but has to stay in the cubby until nap time. Joseph is usually (reportedly) very good about this. I'm not so sure how this will go today however, since Joseph told me this morning that George is going to need to "come out at school to take the picture." I tried to encourage him to leave George in the cubby and that we would recreate the picture-taking-scenario when he got home and would take a school picture of George. I guess we'll see how that turns out when we get the pictures back. But I really am hoping for one picture of Joseph without Red George in it. What do you think my chances are?

Baby prep

So I've been doing little things to get ready for Baby Jacob . . . besides prepping the nursery, clothes, etc.
Here is one of those little things: Individual Pies in a Jar
I have a dozen of these little cuties in my freezer. I haven't tried one yet but I'm looking forward to it!

little shopper

I usually reserve my shopping trip for Tuesday when Joseph is in school. But I realized this morning that I had forgotten an ingredient for tonight's dinner so Joseph and I had to drop by the store. I told him that we just needed a basket and not the big cart with the car on the front for this trip. He was pretty disappointed until he spied this little cart and asked if this would be small enough. Absolutely! And he was a pro at pushing it through the store.

code words

When Joseph says: "I don't want to talk about it right now!"

He's really saying: "I don't know the answer to your question."

I guess it saves his pride to just say he'd rather not talk about it.

36 week belly shot

Nursery is ready!

My first roman shade. I'm excited about how great it turned out!

I remade the bumper from Joseph's nursery and added a different fabric for the ties.

We repainted my grandmother's dresser and detached the mirror from the back. We are getting a new mirror cut for in the frame and that will be mounted on the wall above the dresser.

There is no mattress in the crib yet. Joseph is still using it in his toddler bed. We figure by the time Jacob is ready to move from the bassinet in our room to his crib, we'll have Joseph's new room done and he'll be sleeping in his bunk bed.

Bassinet is ready!

Another BC Wedding

We made a whirlwind trip to Nashville this weekend for a wedding. Two members of our Breakfast Club got married and it was great to be able to see a bunch of friends. It's also funny how we have gone from our original group of a bunch of single people, to a bunch of married people . . . and now a bunch of married people with kids. In fact, 4 more sweet babies are being added to our group this year.3 of the expectant mamas.
Paul & Tiffany Alberstadt - they are due with their first sweet baby on the day of my c-section.