Week by week 21

(November 15-21). This was a week full of events starting with James' birthday and ending with our own celebration of Thanksgiving. Here are a few photos of the boys when we weren't celebrating. We even ventured outside into the cold a few times.James enjoyed playing the guitar and singing, making recipes (I was trying different things out for Thanksgiving), reading his new birthday books (especially Go, Dog. Go!) and running in the leaves while playing leaf-blower.

James is 2?!?

Yes, it is true! We have a two year old! James' birthday was November 15th and we celebrated it in style. Sick style. James got sick right before his birthday and so we all just chilled at home and had a lazy day celebrating James. Here he is unwrapping his pile of toys. I think we went a bit overboard but James has been singing the Happy Birthday song since his cousin Max's birthday in September. He was so excited! He got a kitchen and a ball tent from Daddy (both a big hit). And from mommy he got some play dough, a baby (boy) doll (James named him Johnny), a little frog game, some balls and a remote control car (he actually plays with them all). He also enjoyed "helping" daddy put batteries in the toys and put them together.
He was also very excited about blowing out his candles. He ate the frosting off his cupcake but that was about it. He asks for candles almost every day now and he still sings the birthday song daily.
Just a quick comparison! Can you believe how big he is? I can't believe how much he has changed and grown in the last 2 years. What a great 2 years it has been! We couldn't love him more!
Some of James' favorite things right now are:

Leaf blowers! Loves them! and loves pretending to blow leaves.
Johnny-Lu. Loves to lay and watch the baby (and sometime he likes to taste the baby).
Music! His favorites right now are Beethoven, Bach, Handle and Dvorak. He requests them all day long! He also sleeps with a toy guitar and a toy electric piano.
Running and Jumping. He gets so excited when he does some great physical feat all my himself and always yells triumphantly, "did it!"
Friends. He asks for friends every day! He he loves going to see friends and having friends come over and meeting friends at parks and other places to play.
Daddy! Probably his favorite person in the universe! He gets so excited whenever daddy is around. Most likely cuz Brian plays so good with him.

Week by week 20

(November 8-14) Guess who loves music? His favorite song? Well, that would have to be Happy Birthday! Ever since his cousin Maximus had a birthday in September and we got to sing that song followed by blowing out candles and--gasp!--eating real cake, James has been singing that song regularly. What is on his playlist right now? The Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Christmas CD, Joy to the World and some Dvorak. And yes, we do often hang out in our underwear. He is my child, after all.We had an awesome visit to Hippo Park again this week! The weather was amazing and the fall colors were BEAUTIFUL! James had so much fun. His friend, Cado, was awesome with him. They played frisbee and played on the Hippos and in the leaves. James was in 7th heaven. And Johnny-Lu was happy to be along for the ride.
The next day James got sick. But that didn't stop him from going outside to watch the men blowing our leaves. It was a two day job and James was content to sit on the balcony watching and waving to them. Of course, the hot chocolate afterward wasn't too bad either. He actually came inside and said, "Mommy, hot chocolate, please." I couldn't resist since his little voice was all scratchy from being sick.
Since we were stuck inside for the remainder of the week, we did a lot of playing in the kitchen making recipes. We tried out a roll recipe for Thanksgiving dinner (which I hosted but will post about when I get there). James loves to "help" with the kneading and stirring and adding the ingredients and tasting.
Brian and Bubba got industrious this week as well and decided to lower the mattress in John's crib. James loves "helping" in this way too. I'm sure Brian would have been done 3 times as fast without any "help" but they had fun doing it together. And it was loads of entertainment for Baby who was watching from our bed.
I also invented popsicles this week. Well, Bimmy is always asking me for popsicles and since I refuse to give them to him (too much sugar and sticky mess) I decided I would just freeze some H2O in a cup and give it to him. Loved it. And especially in the bath.
I must say that lately I have been seeing a lot more side of my family in James than I ever did before. I think that when Harm took their pictures I just started seeing my sister in James so much and now it seems so obvious to me. Of course, there is still plenty of Brian in there too. I am just finally seeing what my mom says is so obvious. I guess James looks a lot like I did when I was little. (Of course, this can not be proven as I am a cursed second child with utterly no documentation. I mean no pictures. I will just have to take her word for it.)

Family pics...of the boys

Here are a few random pics that Harmony caught of the boys while we were having our family pictures done. Enjoy.
James playing in the leaves.John-Luke responding to a tiny amount of attention. He is so easy to make laugh and smile. And he is super ticklish too!
James searching for grapes to eat in the vineyard. He "ran away" from us and thought he was so funny.
Have I mentioned how much I'm loving this Picasa collage thing? Loving it! I can make a collage super quick and just upload one picture to the blog. So much better!!!
(If this is old news to you then sorry to be so excited about it but I am!)

Family pics

We had family pics taken on Halloween. We went to a nearby town called Genthod and took advantage of the beautiful fall colors. My friend Harmony is a great photographer and she needed someone to take pictures of her family. I used her camera and took some pictures for her and she took ours too. It was a great day! Hope you enjoy them. I love fall!This was our attempt at getting some pics of the boys together. We should have started with it and not ended with it. Still they are cute.


Brian attempting to get a picture with the two boys. Funny!


I love this picture. Too bad J-L was mad and James wasn't looking at the camera. This was toward the end of our shoot!





I love these pics of Brian and Bubba! James thinks his daddy is the coolest person in the world!












I just learned how to do this collage thing in Picasa. Fun eh?
Hope you enjoyed these. We had tons to choose from. It is so hard to decide which we like best. Thanks, Harm! You rock!

Week by week 19

(November 1-7). Lazy week here. James loves it when the baby wakes up. I swear he has dog ears. As soon as he hears the tiniest noise from the baby he goes running and screaming ("baby wake") to him. And then he flings the door open and clicks the light on and says "lay down." This means he wants to climb in the John-Luke's crib and lay there staring at him and generally mauling him awake and saying "I lub you, Baby" and other funny things. Can you tell that John-Luke wasn't really "awake" quite yet? His eyes are still almost closed. Poor kid. He is such a good sport about it. This is one of James' favorite past times. Staring at Baby.This week (by some miracle) I have more pictures of Johnny-Lu than of James. How did that happen? Like I said, it was a miracle. Love those funny faces and that handsome smile. And especially that irritated look at the bottom left!
James had an interesting week. He tried on my shoes. He painted...himself. He got some bubble whiskers. We made a "recipe chocolate" as he calls anything we make with cocoa powder like cookies or frosting. Enjoy the full moon!
Now that I have figured out how to make this whole posting process go so much faster, y'all can expect some mega catch-up! Don't forget to keep scrolling down for recent posts you may have overlooked.