Pictures!!

This will mainly be pictures....Jonathan has discovered Daddy's hats, and loves to play with them and model them....also we went to the zoo yesterday with my mom, my brother and my cousin, Jonathan's favorite part was probably the petting zoo. It was really sweet, he actually was petting and hugging the goats, in the past he wouldn't get very close to them, so he's obviously getting more comfortable with them. He also tried pulling their ears and pulling up their legs!! Yikes! Thankfully the goats must be used to a fair amount of prodding. And I'm not really sure what I think of him hugging goats, but it made for cute pictures at least :) And sorry, they are going to be in random-ish order, I'm not spending the time right now to resort, but all are pretty self explanatory :)

July 4th camping, parade, Music in the Park in pictures

We tried our hand at camping with Jonathan last weekend, and while overall I can come home and say we had a fun time with our friends, I am not planning a camping trip with a 19 month old again. - Please remind me of this if I ever talk about going again. He was determined that sleeping in a tent was not for him, especially not in his pack n play, and would not go to sleep until after midnight. So, the adult thing sitting around the campfire, playing games, talking at night, not so much a part of my trip. Oh, and that I was pregnant didn't help, I was exhausted by the time we got up there and honestly didn't recover until after bring home for a couple of days. Oh well, we did it, we can say we did it, and did have a nice time with some very good friends that I am so grateful are in our lives.








We took Jonathan to his first parade on July 4th - now the Anchorage parade isn't exactly the greatest parade ever, but we still had a nice time and not surprisingly, he loved any group that had music, and there were a couple of drum playing groups, in which he would dance and clap to the beat. He also waved at the people going by and it was just fun to watch him experience something new.






We also went to Music in the Park on a beautiful finally sunny and warm day last week. It was great to sit and listen to some music, catch up with family and friends and enjoy our lunch outside. Oh, and Jonathan got to dance and play with his friend Kaleb. :)



And a few others...

New Sewing Home and Post #100

Wow, just saw that this will be post #100! That seems like a milestone of some sort! Hmmm...how to celebrate? Well, I will talk about my new sewing area :) - a post about me!!

You know when you have an idea and it actually comes together like you think it should? Well that's what happened this last week? I had this brilliant idea to move my sewing table into my living room - we spend all of our time upstairs, I hate having the machine on my kitchen table (I have these fantasies that we actually use it for eating occasionally - which we are getting better at), and I have never seemed to enjoy going and sitting downstairs to sew. And, I was ready to move my living room around - I sort of like moving around my furniture, but my mom LOVES to move furniture! BONUS for me! So I give her my idea, bring her over, make some iced tea and she is awesome at helping me make happen what I want to happen. On top of that I decided to move our armoir out of our bedroom and switch it with the bookcase that was previously living in the corner. Then I have somewhere to store my sewing stuff, not quite as accessible to little man and the bookcase is in our room, holding books and not quite as victim to his new found climbing antics.

We got this done on Friday and by Saturday I was getting to sit down and work on a quilt that has been in my WIP (work in progress) pile for awhile now. How exciting! SO, I have wanted to make a quilt from old jeans for a long time now and have been saving and collecting old pairs of jeans for a number of years. And then I recently decided I wanted a picnic/outside blanket for us to take to Music in the Park, baseball games, etc. and found some cute sports flannels at Jo-anns a few months back when they were on sale for about $2.50/yd! So, I put the two ideas together and got my jeans/outdoors quilt. It is a rag quilt, I still need to finish cutting the seems, and wash it so that it will fray and have that rag quilt look, but I am so thrilled that all the pieces are cut and sewn together.

Cutting the jeans was a lot of fun, it was fun going through them and remembering them and when I had worn them. I even had a skirt in there that I had worn in high school! And also some of my favorite jeans from college days, so it's fun that they are incorporated into this quilt now.

I'm excited about my new space and re purposed pieces of furniture. And looking forward to it being easier to pick up a sewing project - at least for the next few months before little one comes.

One of those days...

Learning to Drive - hanging out in Uncle Goo's (Danny's) Bronco

Lunch with friends - moms were planning camping trip, so kids got to all play together

Ready to play baseball - another current favorite, when we are at my parents house, he goes and finds a baseball bat and helmet and wears them around.

More driving experience

It's only ten am, and it's already "one of those days" - you know, the one where you wake up, great mood, going to get tons accomplished, life is looking good, etc. And then, little bit wakes up and is raring to go! I went to get him and he already had his pants and socks off, curtains in a tangle, kleenex box knocked off night table next to him, but I still was determined that it would be a good day. The sun is out, I quickly made plans to go to Music in the Park downtown, so at least we have an escape from here shortly. WE get upstairs and he immediately goes to an open cupboard with the cheetos and tries to convince me that would be a good breakfast. Nope, I win this one. Meanwhile, I get him breakfast going and he eats a good meal, so that's a plus but when he gets down from the highchair it is full steam ahead! The current source of contention is the dishwasher. He has learned how to open it and thinks that is great! And yes, I mistakenly was allowing him to at first, also thinking it was cute, however, cute quickly turns to a nuisance, turns to annoying, turns to frustrating!!! AGH! So I started yesterday with deciding it was no longer allowed. And when he went to open it, was spanking him for it, stern NO and moving him away from it. Well, we continued this for a long while, and another thing he has started doing is he pats/spanks his own leg after I do!!!! Seriously child?!?!? So, today when he went to the dishwasher I started with just a "no", he closed it, clapped his hands for himself, then spanked his own leg. This did continue for a few times until he moved away from it. Then while I ran out to the garage to look for my camera and came back in, he was standing on the dishwasher door and had spilled my coffee all over himself!! Thankfully I put enough creamer in it that it wasn't too hot, and I never get it drank very quickly, so it obviously didn't seem to bother him. However, I was still trying to get him to obey me over the dishwasher, so while I was cleaning up the coffee mess, I attempted a timeout on the rug in front of the fridge right near me, of course that was just an invitation to see how quickly he could get up and run across the living room and boy was it fun to see how quick mom in her pregnant state could get out of her crouched position and chase his across the room. AGH!!! This happened a good 10 times I would guess. He was racing over to the couch and literally started launching himself from about two feet away to jump on to the couch. Maybe he thought if he got on the couch it was a safe zone and I couldn't get him. He finally sat still in a timeout and I got the mess cleaned up - thankfully a majority of it did land in the dishwasher, and gave me good reason to clean the cupboards, since I was already down on my hands and knees. While I was finishing this, Jonathan did come over to me and gave me a big hug and kiss, his way of saying sorry. So, maybe I slightly got through to him.

We then headed downstairs to change his clothes, and my footstool was in front of his crib, so he used that and pulled himself up and climbed into his crib!! I stood and watched in shock, he can get those little legs moving so quick and so determined, it is quite impressive sometimes. I took this as a hint that he really wanted a morning naptime, but by the sounds from the monitor, doesn't sound like that is happening, but this momma needed a few minutes of rest.

Stories and mornings like this really do amuse me, and maybe that's the hardest thing, I'm trying so hard to work on discipline and obedience, yet at the same time some of the things he does cracks me up! Seriously, do you know how hard it is to spank your child especially when it obviously doesn't phase him, and he then does it himself?! So, I'm going to be having to figure out some new form of discipline.

So, here's to hoping the rest of the day goes a bit smoother and maybe he just needed to chill in his crib for a bit and have some time to himself.

Other goings on....

Enjoying a smoothie!

So just a few other fun pictures from our last couple of weeks. Jonathan LOVES any type of music, which is really fun to watch. He has found our guitar hero guitars, and loves to pull them out and "play" them. He even sings along with whatever he thinks he is playing. I did buy him a little ukulele in Hawaii, which he LOVES, however I don't have any pictures of it yet, sorry. He also enjoys that the guitar hero guitars have a strap on them. Anything with a strap gets hung around his neck and he walks around with it, my purse, bags, etc. Yes, I am careful and watch him :)


Guitar was a little stuck - but he figured it out.


Really talented - playing with his foot even


Guitar is on, and ready to rock out!


I love any sleeping baby pictures. This was sweet I thought, as he pulled his blanket over his head and fell asleep while we were driving.


Hmmm...weird, I don't know why when he got my cell phone from me he immediately went to his car and got on it and started talking on the phone!

Hawaii!!

So, maybe my last post was a little wordy, but ultimately this is also for me and my memories, so you, my lucky readers just get to deal with that occasionally. :)

So, a BIG secret that I'd been keeping for a couple of months was that I was flying to surprise my mom and grandma in Hawaii last week! My mom's brothers and her and her mom got together for a family reunion of sorts. I wasn't planning on going but through some careful, secretive planning with my dad, Jonathan and I showed up at their condo and surprised everyone!! The shocked looked on their faces were priceless. And I'm pretty sure I loved my brother's response the best, he came out front with my dad to meet us when the shuttle dropped us off and the driver opened the door: "What the crap are you doing here?" I could feel the love! :) Only a few people knew we were going, and my dad later even said he was impressed I kept the secret as long as I did!

Jonathan and I had a blast and it was so fun to be with the family there. I also got to spend some special time with my mom and grandma, and we even got in an afternoon of shopping together! Something we must always do! :) We spent the majority of our time at the beach, in an ocean or by a swimming pool, I even got to do some snorkeling which was a fun new experience. I loved getting to walk along the beach right in front of the condos in the morning, and overall the relaxed atmosphere. And waking up and putting on a bathing suit and heading to the ocean isn't a bad way to start the day! And Jonathan LOVED all the water time! He loved the waves splashing on him at the edge of the ocean and quickly learned that he would rather be in the hot tub than the swimming pool! And having so many relatives around was pretty great too! Grandma and grandpa, Great Grandma, Uncles, cousins, Great uncles and a great aunt! So much fun!

Cruising in style

Breakfast outside - loved that we could eat outside, and this at probably 6:30, as J had no desire to sleep past 6 on vacation, way too much to do!

And, snoozin' in style!

I do have a few pictures to share, however, I pulled my camera out very little, and will be relying on my mom's photos to eventually make my photo book of this trip, but will share the few that I do have.

Jonathan was also a great traveler. We had a six hour flight from here to Honolulu and then about 30 min to Maui. On the way down (which was during the day), he managed to stay awake for the ENTIRE flight! All but the last five minutes, literally, right when we landed! There were so many people to entertain and meet, and wanted to take full advantage of that opportunity. One nice thing I've learned is that people on an airplane don't tend to mind how friendly your child is, and they tend to quite enjoy the friendliness, as long they aren't screaming! So, I'll take friendly and not sleeping over screaming. Thankfully though, it was the opposite on the way home, which was a nighttime flight and he slept the whole way!

Me trying to get a pic with Jonathan and my lei, but he wasn't a big fan of wearing it!

A gorgeous sunset out our window - but they happened quickly, a little different than out three hour sunsets here!

Another cool sunset picture, this was right after we were leaving dinner. And although it looks like it, they really are not throwing him in the water, they were swinging him and catching him, which he thought was way too fun!

Jonathan enjoying breakfast outside.