JD-boy

This kid cracks me up everyday. His personality is a lot like mine so he drives me nuts (and vice versa) but I totally love him.....he is too smart for his own good and STUBBORN (Mom, did you ever tell me "I hope you get a kid just like you"? He's here!).

 

He already figures out how to get around the rules - for example tonight I told him not to pull the chair up to the sink (which he was doing so he could play with water in the sink) so instead he figured out how to drag a laundry basket in and use it to climb on the counter and thereby get his way without pulling the chair up to the sink. I can't help but be proud of those little wheels turning in his head even though it exhausts me!

 

This is the kid that at 18 months, when I said "JD, Don't touch that," he would look at me with a mischevious grin and put his finger 1/16 of a centimeter away from whatever he wasn't supposed to touch, and then giggle. What a tease.

 

He also gives the best kisses, makes awesome truck and motorcycle noises, takes great care of his teddy bear, Mr. Stinky (JD puts Mr. Stinky's paws together at night so he can say a prayer and makes sure Mr. Stinky gets tucked into the covers so they can fall asleep together), and thinks I am AMAZING because of how high in the air I can throw his ball. He likes to jump off the back of the couch (I give up), climb, jump, throw, stomp like a dinosaur (like grandma taught him) and play the drums (any stick-like object against a hard surface will do). He is strong and coordinated and already attracted to sports.

 

His best words are ball, boat, car, truck, Jeep (and yes he knows which cars are Jeeps, no idea how he learned this), please, Stinky (what he calls his bear), helicopter, plane, moon, cracker, and dog. He can also communicate impressively with a series of different toned grunts.....

 

Happy 2nd Birthday JD-boy. You are super fun and a really good kid.

Kiss

Eating a picnic dinner and watching the waves 

Maia goes in for a kiss

Is this not the sweetest thing you've ever seen?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh and in case you are wishing you could see the sunglasses Maia is wearing (which I had to beg her to let me take off her face when she went to sleep tonight!), they are this cute - thanks Debbi for the awesome birthday gift!

Julie

Word has it on Facebook that it is national infertility week. And I keep thinking about my good friend Julie. I was terrified to go the invitro route, but she was pregnant with a baby girl from just that. She talked me through the process, gave me the inside info on all the ups and downs, and encouraged me with her own courage. She even referred me to the reproductive endocrinologist who created all this in a science lab in Newport Beach:

 

Julie's daughter was born about nine months before JD & Maia. Her son was born just 6 months ago. A couple of months ago, we were at the park, letting our kids play and catching up on life. We hadn't seen each other and our three hour play date included laughing, crying, hugs, and chasing our toddlers around mid-conversation. Julie was healthy, happy, strong, and energetic.

 

So I couldn't believe it just 2 weeks later when I got a text from a mutual friend, asking me if I had heard Julie was in the hospital, diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.

 

I haven't seen her since that playdate - she is busy taking care of two babies while battling for her health and her life and her chance to raise those babies into adults - but I have, with thousands of others, been following her story here. For the past six weeks, whenever I've had what I feel is a bad day, I am inspired by Julie's hope, genuine honestly, and courage in the face of what would be a terrifying experience. If you want to be uplifted, read her thoughts and the ways her faith has strengthened from an incredibly difficult time.

 

I don't know if I would have gone through with in vitro if Julie hadn't been there to hold my hand along the way - thanks dear friend. :-) Praying for you and thinking of you often.

 

 



good hair

I have horribly fine hair that is impossible to do anything with, I can hardly even put it in a ponytail and it would never hold a braid even if it was ever long enough to try.....so Maia don't thank me for this....Seriously how lucky is this girl? Can you believe she can have her hair french braided at 2? Cutest hair ever.

 

Cute Things That Come Out of My Daughter's Mouth

Miss Maia is quite the little talker, even when she is not speaking clear English, she is babbling or singing.

She calls herself "Naia" instead of "Maia".

Apparently I say "alrighty" a lot, which I never knew, but every time I say it I now hear her little voice in the background saying "aw-wighty, aw-wighty".

She doesn't say it on her own but will repeat one word at a time, "I. Wuv. You!"

Purple. This girl loves purple. She points out everything she sees that is purple. Purple car. Purple flower. Purple plate. Purple crayon. Purple cup. Purple shoes. Purple, purple, purple.

She can express a lot in her brother's name....she says "JD" affectionately when she loves him, "JAY-DEE" sternly when she is mad at him, "JD" in tears when he steals her toy. She has a certain tone when she's teasing him, and will even repeat his name while sharing something with him, as in hand him something and say "JD! JD! JD!"

Dog. On walks or anywhere in public she gets excited over every. single. dog. She either happily says "dog! dog! dog!" or will just bark. "ruff ruff ruff!"

Her only known and favorite characters "El-mo!" and "Bi-Bir!" (Big Bird)

And of course my favorite would be the many ways she says Mama. :-)

She also calls all four of her grandparents "ga-ga" and her girl cousins are "Aud-ee" for Audrey and "Baby" for Hazel.

Fish

We took a day trip with Grammy, Aunt Jen & our cousins to the Long Beach aquarium. JD & Maia make awesome animal faces/noises, the fish face being one of my favorites....right up there with "dooo dooooooo" for rooster and JD's roar for a lion. I really need to get all that on video. They made their fish faces everytime they saw fish, which was a lot.

 

For the record we took all five kids and three adults in one car, Jen's ginormous and incredibly practical Sequioa. That's three full car seats and two boosters. It was awesome.

 

 My kids do not yet understand smiling for pictures. In fact JD looks pretty stoned in this one.

 

 

 Is it just me or does Max look like a male model?

 

 

 For the record I have tried to cut these bangs and she is not interested in cooperating.

 

 

Checking out the birds (who knew there was an aviary at the aquarium - the kids loved it!)

 

 And of course, all toddlers have a gift of finding water everywhere they go. The aquarium had a cool park with water spray to play in.

 

 

I had brought pajamas to change the kids into for the ride home...but since they got wet, they had to change before dinner. I didn't want JD walking around in just footies so he is sporting the cool shoes-over-striped-footies look. He enjoyed his dinner at Chili's dressed like this....what a stud.

Birthday Eve

JD & Maia's birthday is right up there with Christmas and Easter on my list of favorite holidays....I seriously could not get enough celebrating this week!

 

Happy birthday my loves. :-)

 

We celebrated with Mama's family, our friends, and now Papa's family....lucky 2 year olds!

JD was so-so about the cupcake but eyeing the ice cream....

Yum!

Sweet girl opening her new sand toys

ICE CREAM

We are finally getting the idea of opening presents - as long as we are faster than our cousin Audrey who loves to help!

Could he seriously be any more handsome? This little guy is going to break a few hearts!

14 more years until she gets her drivers license

Watch out

We love our cousin baby Hazel!

Check out JD's crusty look - dude, if you are going to drive a pink car, you shouldn't get upset about your pink-loving cousin Audrey joining the fun.

TWO!

Twinners

Cousin-Mama-Twin jumping fun. When I was a kid I thought it was so bizarre that my mom had to pee every time she jumped on a trampoline. One twins pregnancy later, and I get it...!!!

 

2 at the Park

We had a little park play date birthday party this morning at JD & Maia's favorite park. The kids had so much fun but at the same time we were SO sad to see Grandma and Grandpa off, straight after the party back on their way home to Utah....the house was pretty quiet and lonely tonight without them here!

Perhaps the immense amount of cake I've consumed this week is why I can't sleep and find myself blogging.....

My coworkers have dubbed Debbi's cakes "au pair cake" but wait just a minute....this time I baked too! :-) I have a burn on my arm to prove it to any doubters. I can't take credit for the awesome design and decorating though, that's all Debbi. Themed after one of our favorite books of course, The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar.

Singing Happy Birthday

How come my kids hate smiling for pictures?!?!?

Guess how fun it is to change diapers after toddlers have eaten bright green frosting

Maia thinks she is JD's mom and always wants to push him in strollers and toys.

 

Thanks to all our friends who helped us celebrate. :-)

Two

Two days before two and Maia found a pen in my car (which I am of course currently trying to sell, and which my dad spent hours cleaning this week) while playing "driving" in the front seat with JD. This is a common game I let them play while I am unloading groceries etc. I should have known there was something wrong because it was a little quieter than usual....silly me, I thought that they were just getting along especially well in my front seat.

The work of the budding artist (this is the passenger seat - light grey leather accented with bright blue pen):

 

After an hour of scrubbing with 3 Mr. Clean Magic Erasers it's about 75% cleaned up....thank you Jen for sharing your tips on cleaning pen off leather, since apparently this type of artwork is genetic and Maia's cousins had a similar idea on a beige leather couch.....

Birthday Begins....

Let the second birthday celebrations begin......Aunt Alli made cakes for the kids last weekend and we decided to go first-birthday-smash-cake style and let them just dig in. Maia didn't make as big a mess as she did last year, but JD was a lot more interested in his cake (or at least the cool Cat tractor) and made a bigger mess this time around.

 

Maia liked sucking the sugar off the orange candy that made the fish fins, more than the cake itself.

 

It's a pretty good birthday when the cake starts more than a week before the actual day :-)