September Update

Just wanted to take a minute and write out a short update of our lives. First, I'll start with US. Reuben finally took the plunge after a year or so of debating and switched jobs. It has been different than expected, but we're trying to hang in there. Too bad he doesn't get paid hourly bc we'd be millionaires, ha ha. Let's just say I am really used to going to bed about 2am now. Anyway, we're hoping things get better down the road. As far as real estate, the beginning half of the year went fairly well for me...now I am in the process of doing some marketing in hopes for some referrals. I could use one right now. It's my Realtor income that helps keep us afloat in tough times!

Jase as "Dash." We did a photoshoot for his bday invites in his costume.  He is so cute! 

Do you love this? This is one of his super silly dance moves! LOL

Jase: He started preschool on September 6th. He goes for 2.5 hours, twice a week. So far it has been awesome. He seems to love it and so do I! I love that he's finally around children his age (he loves friends) and learning as well. I also love having a mini break while he's gone...hee hee. It's nice because it allows me one on one time with Ian, which I rarely get these days. Jase is growing like a weed! He's grown at least 3 inches so far just this year! He's about a size xs/4 in boys (tops and pants) and size 11 in shoes! He loves riding his bike (he wants to learn without training wheels) with us on our walks. He is a very busy child and likes to have things to do, so I'm trying to plan out more things to do with him so that they actually get done. I did manage to take the boys to this place called "Kangaroo Zoo" yesterday. It's a warehouse filled with inflatables bouncy houses, slides, etc. He loves it! He was quite the sweaty mess by the time we left, hahaha. Ian liked it as well, but ended up just pushing my stroller around like a car. Jase is a smart little guy...always surprising me with the things he can do! It's ridiculous! Ha ha. He is still obsessed with keys, locks, cars (the real ones)...basically, anything mechanical. I taught him to memorize my cell number because I am paranoid he is going to run off one day and get lost. We're working on our address as well. He loves to sing songs with daddy at night before bedtime, and loves to make people laugh. He will "fake laugh" once the real laughter dies out, just to keep everyone laughing--what a goon! His favorite "game" to play is to have me or Reuben run and try to catch him and tickle him. He is such a funny little dude. Oh and I forgot something else! He is obsessed with fleece footed onesie pajamas. The kid will wear them all day long, everyday, if I let him! Even in the summer! His birthday is coming up, so a Halloween-themed costume party is in the works! And this year he actually has little friends that he can invite! Before it was always family and/or my friends. Heh heh. So that is exciting! The problem is I might have too many friends on the invite list! I haven't figured out how to tackle this just yet.

Ian, taken Aug 20th. This pic is kind of old. I've noticed I take a LOT less pics of the 2nd child than I did of the first. Probably because I am MUCH busier now, hahaha. I'm slackin'!

Ian playing at the beach. He was having so much fun. I still can't get over the blond curls!

Ian: He's almost 18 months old. I can't even believe it! I meant to get his pictures taken at a year old but didn't (lame) so I'm hoping to schedule a session sometime in the next week before his hair gets too long again! He started walking at 15 months and now walks pretty well, though sometimes has a hard time keeping his balance, so I call him my little drunk man! He also has been "talking" a bit more lately. Let's see what some of his words are...he tries to say "there it is,", mama, dada, bopbop (that's his nickname), ow, oh yeah, wow, tries to say "book" and "ball"....He points at EVERYTHING and goes "ooooooh." It's pretty darn cute. He also makes what we call the "stinky face" if you fuss at him about anything. He's definitely good at throwing little fits, too. If he doesn't get his way he usually starts wailing and throws himself back onto the floor. One of these days he is going to crack his head open. He still likes his nunu (binky) but just since last night I am trying to take them away. He slept fine without it and he's napping right now without it, too, so this is a good sign! Update on the binky--I took it away and he's been doing GREAT without it. I think I took it away just in time before he became a full blown addict! Ian definitely seems to be a little momma's boy right now. He is pretty much always RIGHT next to me--which can be either endearing or annoying, depending on my mood. I was supposed to bring Ian into the doctor for a well visit at 15 months but it was about then that Reuben changed jobs (along with insurance carriers) so I had to give up my fabulous pediatrician and I still haven't made an appointment with a new one. It's all a bit of a pain...plus he is sick right now and I don't want him getting any shots until he is all healed up--so hopefully I can get him into a doc soon enough and then we can get some more stats on him posted! I'm assuming he's about average for his height/weight, but we'll see. For now, I will keep running my fingers through his blonde curls and wishing he'd stay young forever. My little sweet one.

Latest Pictures by Jase

While I was going over stuff with the babysitter, Jase was running around with my camera taking pictures. Had to post them (oh man, I accidentally deleted some! Oh well, here's the few I have left)!

View from our front porch.

Wow, very artistic shot! Right??

Destruction left behind by a 3 year old and a 15 month old. Sigh.

You Won't Believe!

Yesterday Jase had the cutest little bout of pretend play. He grabbed the hose attachment on the vaccum and told me to come and help him put "gas" in the "car" with it. The car was our loveseat sofa. Gas tank was a plastic bowl. So I started helping him and he was making gulping sounds. When I started to wiggle the hose he said, "No mom! Don't move it or the gas will spill out!" Uh, ok. So then he asks me to come sit down next to him in the "car." He asked me for the keys and started up the engine. Vroom, vroom. I turned to him and said, "Jase, where are we going?" and he said, "Mom, I am taking you to the greatest restaurant you won't believe!" "Oh where??," I said. "Chopsticks!," he replied proudly. (Chopsticks is a newer Chinese place out by us that we've been to 2 or 3 times but it's been a few months since we've gone there). This whole pretend thing was cracking me up! He was so into it. So then we have to take off our seatbelts and get out of the car. He then has me walk over to a small child's picnic table which ends up being our table at the restaurant. We got our "menus" (plastic candy wrappers) and ordered our food. I got lo mein noodles and he got some kind of roll (LOL). We started pretend eating and I asked for a taste of his. "Sure mom! It tastes kind of spicy. And salty," he says. So funny! Then he makes a quick "call" to our waiter to let them know we are done and we are leaving. Bwhahahah! I had to post this bc it was so cute to see him that imaginative. He doesn't do things like this very often.

New Orleans, May 2011 trip!

Jase chillin' on the plane, watching a movie on the iPod

I haven't been back home to visit in just over 2 years. Last time I was there, I was able to see one of my dear high school friends (Maria) get married! Yay! Seems like I am never there long enough, and I cry my eyes out when I leave. Reuben had too much work going on, so I took myself and the boys, along with my mom (big help to me on the plane!) down for about 7.5 days. I had to make a deal with my mom to get her to stay that extra day bc she works full time and it is hard on her to leave. I wanted to stay more like 10 days, but I was terrified of flying alone with the boys. Jase ended up being really good on the plane, but Ian, as expected, was very restless and fussy. This is mostly due to the fact that I don't rock my babies to sleep, so they are not used to being held while falling asleep. Works great for when you are home, but not so great on a plane! Ha! My mom finally pinned Ian down and he yelled for about 2 minutes, then went out like a light. Hee hee. Problem solved. Anyway, I digress!

Jase swimming for the 1st time using floaties at Ashley's in-laws' pool. He would not get out of the pool! Ha!

I stayed with my sister, Ashley, who just had a baby boy 2 months prior, and my mom stayed with her cousin Rodney. She ran around and did her own thing, and so did I. However, we did meet up a few times to visit with my grammy, who fell and broke her hip last November (more on that later). We also met up to take the kids to Storyland (cute play area in New Orleans City Park that I actually played in as a child myself), Audubon Zoo, and once to meet up with my Grandpa Lucien (mother's dad), my Uncle Lucien (mom's brother) and Aunt Colleen and 2 of their kids for lunch. We also got stinkin' L-U-C-K-Y with the weather! The first 2 days were fairly warm (80 degrees and lots of humidity) but then cold front came through and the weather was more like 65! What! It was actually cool and I was wearing cardigans! Nuts! But I was happy about it except that we didn't really get to go swimming much due to the cold!

Me and my sister, Ashley (she favors her mom and I look more like our dad!)

Cousins Jazz & Jase at the rehab facility visiting Grammy

Jaxon and big sister, Jazz--visiting Grammy

I had the chance to meet up with my old high school buddies at Maria's house. She got us takeout from a place called "Zea's" and I'll never be the same! It was delicious! We had a good time hanging out (also flew by) and letting our kids play. I love that we are still good friends after all these years. I just feel so sad that I don't get to see them more often. Thank goodness for Facebook, bc that helps me keep tabs on them a little bit better than in the past!

Ian, Amiee, Laci & Maria (High School friends), Max

Overall it was a GREAT trip, except for the fact that Jase and his cousin Jazzmyn fought like cats and dogs. Oh my goodness. My sister and I were at our wits end with it all. They would purposefully tease and torment each other with a few shining moments of getting along...Oh and I forgot to mention it took about 2 full days to get Ian to adjust. He would not sleep well for naps at first and then just cry and cry. But after the 3rd day he was fine! Phew!

Ian playing on Aunt Ashley's porch

The other thing that is hard for me when I go back to Louisiana is trying to see everyone and do everything and fit it all in. It's nuts. I feel crazy. I cry a lot. I feel like I am hurting people's feelings all the time bc I can't see everyone when I am there (still have plenty of family in the area). My sister lives a good hour's drive from New Orleans (which is mainly where everyone is at except my dad, thank goodness), so it makes it more difficult with the drive time, traffic, and not to mention two 3 year olds (Jase and Jazzmyn), a 1 yr old (Ian), and her 2.5 month old baby (Jaxon). Coo-coo town!!!! I get so wrapped up with making everyone happy that I just break down. And my poor sister is like Amiee's Shuttle Service! It's like I just want a normal day where I can just chill and do nothing. Or have nothing scheduled to do. But then again, I do like seeing people and visiting! I think my main problem was that in order to prevent us from having the long drive into the city, I would schedule as much as I could with family/friends during the day and that is what made it tough. I felt rushed from thing to thing to thing, instead of being able to just relax and thoroughly enjoy my time. I will try to remember this for next time I come down. I will probably need to rent a car and stay for a month! LOL!

My mom with Ian in front of the Little Pigs' House at Storyland in City Park, NOLA

Jasey with one of the 3 Little Pigs at Storyland, hee hee

My sweetie niece with Snow White!

So I mentioned my grammy earlier in this post. She fell and broke her hip last Nov. and is 89 years old. Since then, she has been in and out of a rehab facility and the hospital. She'll be doing just fine, but then all of a sudden something will happen and she'll be whisked back to the hospital. Recently while at the rehab place, she fell AGAIN, which has hindered all the progress she had been making. It was so good to see her, but tough emotionally at the same time. I hated seeing her in that lonely rehab place. I hoped the staff was treating her well. I am really close to her and I have never seen her this weak and frail, wheelchair bound. The great thing is that she is still of sound mind, so you can still talk to her just like normal.  She had also never met Ian, so this was a big deal for me as well. Although she had a hard time seeing him due to her cataracts--so I held him up to her face really close, LOL, so she could get a good look at him :) I visited her as much as I could while I was there (she was also in the big city), so that was difficult as well with 4 children.

Hopefully learning some wisdom from his Great Grammy!

A couple days before we left she started complaining of not feeling well. Back to the hospital. My sister sat in the car with the children while mom and I went up. I was not prepared for the emotions that followed. She looked just miserable. I thought surely she was going to die that very night. I did. She was hard to understand bc she had an oxygen mask on due to not being able to breathe very well. Turns out she had pnemonia (sp?). I tried to find the words to say since I thought it was very likely that this would be the last time I'd see her on this earth, since who knows when I could come back? I think I sputtered out something about how much I love her, and I'm sorry she was feeling so badly, and I'm so glad I got to see her...then the tears came. I couldn't stop crying. Ugh. I left feeling just, well, sad. I left the day after that, and she was eating well, in good spirits, and had come through the whole sickness thing! What! I couldn't believe it. But my dad and sis tell me that she has been there many times, and always bounces right back! Guess the Good Lord isn't ready to take her just yet! I'm glad I got to see her and get some much needed pictures with her and also with my boys! I have so many more pictures to post...and some of the best shots are on my mom's camera and Ashley's camera! One day I will get them! Oh and I am missing pictures with so many people! What is wrong with my brain? Dad! Did we take any pictures with you??? OMG so dumb! Ha ha ha! 

Easter Eggs

I bought a couple of Easter egg dying kits and Jase has been begging me to let us dye them. Well he snuck into the packaging yesterday and took out the dye tablets thinking they were candy--and ate one! Lovely. So his teeth, tongue and lips were hot pink! Why I didn't think to take a picture is beyond me. Anyway, I finally hard boiled a bunch of eggs so we could dye them. I was able to show Jase the right way to use those dye tablets (haha) and let me tell you, he LOVED doing it. I wish we had more eggs to do! He was so good and so into it! Here's some pics of the experience...and I'm happy to have hard boiled eggs for snackin' and tuna fish! Mmm.

 Aren't these so cute? We used a wax crayon to draw words and pics on the eggs before dipping them in the dye.

 Master egg dipper right here.

Catching Up...again

Wow has it really been a month and a half since I last posted??? Holy camoly. That is bad, very bad. I am not documenting my poor boys' lives very well here...am I? I have had a very stressful work situtation that basically consumed my life for a month--so that took up ANY extra time I ever had during the day. It was great working with the client, just really tough dealing with the other agent. I'm not going to get into here online, but many of you already know about the drama. Anyway, I am thrilled to announce that it's overwith and I'm happy to move forward. I have another listing that just went under contract over the weekend (woo hoo) and I could NOT be happier. And so far, that agent is GREAT to work with. Thank goodness! Ok enough about me...

Ian's birthday is fast approaching and I have been going back and forth trying to get things together for that. I decided on a "fishy" theme (after a ton of deliberation), since Ian reminds me of a fish when he gets excited while lying on the floor on his tummy and sort of "flops" like a fish. It's so funny! I found some cute themed stuff on etsy.com that is super simple and just, well, cute. I always have grand ideas that never actually all get done bc I swear I don't have the time and/or I'm really crappy at making time to do things. I'm also trying to do foods that I can do AHEAD of time instead of running around at the last minute preparing...stay tuned!

Besides that, Jase is just dying for summer and for some outside play time. He also desperately needs friends (big downside of living out so rural like we do). I think I will try to put together a mommy playgroup at the park this summer and do it at least once a week. I love getting out of the house and it's so good for Jase, too. We took him to this "fun center" for a friend's birthday party a few weeks ago. It had a skating rink that you could ride tricycles/scooters on, tons of bouncer houses, a huge climbing gym thing, and gigantic blow up slides! EVERY night since then, when I tuck him into bed, Jase says to me, "Mom, I have to tell you something. Thank you for letting me go to the skating center place." Shut up how cute is that!!??? I gotta take him back there--he had the time of his life, seriously. I need to call somebody and plan to go back there!! Why haven't I done this already? Oh yeah, bc my life has been insane. Jase comes up with the funniest stuff, I swear this kid is a crack up. I need to start writing down his little sayings. He loves to laugh, LOVES to be chased around the house, getting tickled, racing me to the kitchen sink, and getting as much attention as possible from Ian (at all costs, I might add). I am planning on getting him into a nearby preschool 2 days a week (about 2-3 hours each time) in the fall. I think he'll be more than ready by then. I'm excited for him to make friends! And we are so having the coolest bday party for him this fall! With preschool friends!! Yay!

Ian is getting so big and soooo good at getting around things, into things, crawling over objects, pulling himself up to his knees (so cute, he'll do that and play with little toys for a while just kneeling)...he still doesn't do an "official" crawl but then again he kind of does sometimes...but why when there's no need since army crawling has become a pro sport for him! Ha! The only downside is that his clothes get super grubby from all the exposure to the floors (am I admitting fault from having gross floors? Uh, yes.). He still has his 4 teeth and the top 2 still have a little gap in between (hee hee). I bet it'll close up once the other teeth come in. I've been trying to teach him to clap or wave good-bye but so far, not working. He is currently the biggest momma's boy you'll ever see, so if I draw attention to myself in any way he'll come beelinin' just for me. It's kind of endearing, though. Poor Reuben had asked me the other day if Ian even liked him! Ha! Of course he does! I really think it's just his age more than anything else :) Or that I'm just too cool for school! He's been on straight formula since February 1st, so that's been really nice for me.

Quick Pics of the Boys

Jase, 3 yrs old. He's a bit big for this seat, doncha think? ha ha ha

I took this pic bc for whatever reason Ian was looking so adorable to me. It came out cute of the both of them.

I love this picture of Ian in his striped romper. Man, I just want to kiss him to death!

A few weeks ago we had an awesome snow storm come through and I thought Jase would love making a snowman outside. WRONG! The entire time he was trying to destroy it. Boys. Well at least I had fun and I was able to bribe him to take this picture!

Another pic of Jase "having fun" in the snow. Ha ha ha. He normally loves it, I guess today was just a grumpy day. But he looks halfway happy in this picture so I should keep my mouth shut. :)

Cute pic of Jasey clowin' around at the table. What's new?

Ian in his black football hoodie. So cute, so big. He's 9 months old in these shots.

Great faces, right? ha ha ha

Another wrinkly nose shot...hee hee

Jase's 3 yr old Stats



jase on christmas morning

As of 12/15/10...

Weight (omg I just realized they left everything in kgs, really???)= 97th percentile
Height = 96th percentile

I finally had enough of our old pediatrician and asked around to find a new one. It's a female, and I think she's German (couldn't quite place the accent). She's 100 times better than our old pediatrician. She was VERY thorough and so cute with Jase. Loved it. I think I will take Ian to her for his next appointment.

Anyways, they tested Jase's eyes (my favorite part-it was sooo adorable seeing him stand on the line and take turns covering his eyes and "reading" the shapes off the chart on the other side of the room) and some other basic knowledge (like colors, shapes, counting) and he did great. He got his blood pressure taken for the first time, too (cool). He was a bit silly & shy for some of the stuff, but for the most part he was really cooperative and spoke well. Oh and he got to wear a cute hospital looney tunes gown! At the end the nurse/aid had to give Jase 3 shots to get all caught up. I warned him it was going to hurt a little (must have because he totally cried, it was so sad) and later he told my mom (gramma)that it hurt A LOT. Lol. But he was over it after about 1 or 2 minutes!

He got to go to McDonalds germville playland for his reward. Let me tell you, it was TOUGH to get him to leave. I had to eventually pick up a screaming & kicking Jase under one arm while toting Ian in the carseat in my other arm. I am sure we were quite the sight to be seen! But once I finally tore him away, he did well getting to the car. We got home and he took a super long nap (yes!) so it made the McDonald's trip of terror all worth it :)

He's not due back for another year! Let's hope he stays healthy so he doesn't have to go back before then :)

Jase & Ian, Catch-up

Man, I am soooo far behind with blogging. Just overwhelmingly so. I almost want to just give it up, but I know I can't. This is pretty much the only "family history" I have for us. I can't quite finish (or start) any other projects that I want to do like Jase's baby book, for example. LOL. It hardly has a thing in it! And poor Ian never even GOT a baby book at all! ARGH! I need an assistant. Oh well, I will try to do my best and keep this updated as much as possible.
Jase. He's 3. Still 3. He went through a phase for a couple of weeks that was VERY difficult for us. Oh my goodness! He was so defiant and sassy! But lately he's back to his normal self...says the funniest stuff, can be so loveable, and can also manage to drive ya crazy from time to time. Like I said, normal. He loves giving and getting hugs! And he's into telling people that he loves them. We built him a huge snow hill in our backyard that he can go sledding on. It is too cool! He loves it, and it's a good way for him to get out some energy. Jase loves Ian, and loves to get reactions out of him. He is always making some kind of noises to see how Ian will respond to them. That response varies from smiling to crying, LOL. Jase wears about a 4T in tops and 3T or 4T in pants. His shoe size is 9-10! Jase's current favorite movie is "Despicable Me" which he is constantly quoting. (We love that movie, too. It's adorable.)

Ian. He's the sweetest thing. Just a few days away from 9 months old. I love how "easy" he is these days. Just keep him fed and he's good to go. He eats soooo much food, it's kind of scary. He can roll around and army crawl, but still hasn't figured out how to really crawl just yet (and i'm ok with that!). He still says "dada" and just yesterday said "mama(or baba, i'm not quite sure)" and makes all sorts of other noises. In the last week or two, he can finally sit up pretty well by himself. He also learned how to do the pincer grasp and feed himself little bits of bread or Gerber baby puffs. I love watching him do this for some reason. It makes me happy. His hair has gotten a bit thicker, and I think soon it will be moving into that "wispy" phase that I LOOOOVE! I can't wait! When he gets excited, he holds his hands up in the air and wiggles his fingers. It's so cute! Right now he wears about 9 month sized clothing, and a size 4 shoe. It's really easy to get him to laugh, too, which is so fun. We still haven't figured out who in the world he looks like?? I guess the milkman's kid? Hee hee. Well it doesn't matter anyways since he's so adorable!

Potty Training Tales

Thought I'd do a summary of what's been going on this week with Jase and the potty training. He's three now, so I'd been thinking about doing this for quite some time. I have heard a million horror stories about potty training, so I was completely dreading it and fearing the worst. Because of this fear, I had been very careful not to PUSH it with him at all over these last few months. We talk about it a lot, rented some videos from the library, show him how to do it, ask him if he wants to try, but never forced anything or made it seem like a chore.

I use the Babywise book to do sleep training when my kids are little, so I bought the follow-up to that book called Toddlerwise. There's a chapter in there on potty training. I decided to try out this author's idea instead of spending hours and hours reading other methods, etc, and wasting more time. Here's the synopsis of his do-it-in-one-day potty training:

The day before you are going to start, take child to store and let them pick out special treats/candies and some cool new undies. Jase seemed totally disinterested in choosing any of these things. So I "helped" him choose. That night, you role play with a doll on how to go to the potty. We put Jase's undies on Buzz Lightyear (hilarious) and we had Jase offer him a drink. Later we took him to the potty and I had a small container of water hidden in my hand to make the experience more realistic for him. Jase thought that was pretty cool! You also talk it up like it's the coolest thing since sliced bread, and put his treats/reward toys out where he can see them.
His overall point of potty training is that you want your child to keep their undies CLEAN (no pee) and DRY (no poop). You actually reinforce this the entire time you are training. I had never heard this before and I thought it made lots of sense and was pretty cool. So periodically throughout the training day, I would ask if Jase's undies were still clean and dry, and if he said yes, he got a treat. This seemed to work REALLY well. Then we they actually go in the potty you give them double the treats and say "Oh look, bc you went in the potty your underwear are still clean and dry! Good job!"

Anyways, there's a few more things to it but basically you get the idea. So day#1 was harder than I anticipated. You are supposed to give them sugary drinks like kool-aid so it will make your child want to drink a lot (that worked!). My first mistake was not making him go to the bathroom every half an hour. The child had so much to drink he was just peeing all over the place! Ha! But the good part about that was that he quickly learned that it felt yucky to be wet. After his afternoon nap, I started setting a timer to take him into the bathroom and let him sit on the potty. I would read stories, play games, be silly until he went! Roob and I would take turns doing this bc it started to get a bit taxing on me spending all day in the bathroom. Ugh. I'm so impatient!

Overnight he did well (we brought him straight to the bathroom as soon as he woke up) and I was so excited! I had church that afternoon and was completely nervous about taking him with it only being day #2 of training. Well he did GREAT! I took him to the bathroom 3 times which prevented any accidents. I think he had one accident that second day (it's getting hard to remember now). By day #3 he was definitely going on his own initiative for number "2." Ha ha ha. I figured bladder control would be harder to learn (it was). By day #4 or 5 he started going to the bathroom on his own for number "1." Hooray! I made sure not to go anywhere those next few days after the initial potty training day just so he'd have more of a chance to get everything down pact.

We bought a couple of bigger toys that he picked out (one of which was the weeble wobble treehouse--go figure) that we used as motivation to keep him clean and dry for an entire day. I think that was day #3. He got his toy guns that day and the next day was able to earn the big Weeble treehouse. We also had a bunch of hotwheels cars that he got along the way for staying dry...
Yesterday (day #6) I decided to head out to town to get some shopping done. Besides FREAKING OUT about him touching EVERYTHING in the public restrooms, he did GREAT! We left the house at noon and got home about 7pm. No problems! Though, we did take him to the bathroom at least 4 times :)

Anyways, I could not be any prouder of my boy!!! I am still trying to be aware of the bathroom thing, especially if he is playing or doing something really fun that he may not want to stop and go potty...but overall I have to say things went WAY better than expected and I will definitely do this same method when Ian's good and ready. Hopefully that is a long time from now ;)