Thursday, March 31, 2011

March 2011







Our annual Dr. Seuss celebration was terrific! I had the joy of having a Dr. Seuss celebration in my classroom. We talked about all sorts of rhymes, made hats, and enjoyed a variety of Seuss books during the first week of March.




One of the pleasures we have of living in a complex is that there is a park only a short walk away. We got out to enjoy some spring sunshine as a family. Michael and I were getting ready to head to the park and told Joshua to go get his shoes so that we could go bye-bye. Not expecting much of a response we continued to get ready. Joshua goes running to his room, comes back and proudly announces "shoe" and holds it up! We were so excited for him. We then suggested that he go get the other one. He came back not only with a shoe, but the match. We celebrated convinced he is such a smarty-pants.

Shoes are not the only accessory that our son has come to love. He is now all about sunglasses. He wears them anytime and anywhere. Joshua has more than once grabbed his sunglasses and shoes and went to stand by the door waving bye-bye or blowing kisses because he's ready to go.






We made our second trip to St. Augustine last weekend. I was apprehensive because last time we went Joshua was tried and crabby. We left right after church on Sunday; it turned out to be a delightful day. There was an amazing park across the street from the parking garage. We will definitely go back.





We were practicing for Easter today. I took out the baskets, eggs, and ears, and Joshua walked around with the bucket and the eggs. He is learning how to jump, but certainly said, "hop, hop, hop."


March has brought added vocabulary which has been so fun for Michael and me. Here are some highlights:

"Roar"
I have struggled to get Joshua dressed in the morning so I have tried to get him excited about what he is wearing. He has a lion shirt and said, "Joshua look at the lion, he's so cool. He says Roar." During the day he would point down to his shirt and roar. He tells everyone when he's wearing his fish shirt also.

"Amen"
Joshua has been folding his hands to pray for a while, but now he has the amen down. Along the same lines his daycare teacher Mrs. Kim told me about Joshua unzipping her sweatshirt to see the cross. He said, "Jesus" and folded his hands.

"Jesus"
He has said Jesus and used the sign language for Jesus. We were singing with Joshua the songs we knew he was singing at school. We were singing "Ittsy, Bittsy, Spider" and "The Wheels of the Bus" but he just kept making the same hand motions. That's when Michael said isn't that the sign for Jesus. As soon as we started singing "Jesus Loves Me" he smiled.

We love how much Joshua loves music. We are singing all the time. Just this week while singing and doing the actions to "The Wheels on the Bus" Joshua did the baby on the bus "Waa Waa Waa" It was adorable!


One last cute story from March: Joshua and I went up to church and while I was making some copies I heard a knock and thought, who would bang on the church doors like that? When I went to look I should have known it was the turkeys pecking at the windows. I quickly grabbed Joshua and rushed over to the window to show him the turkeys. He chattered and pointed and was very interested. Of course it wasn't long before the turkeys went running away. About 5 minutes later a man from our congregation came. Joshua loves this Steve, he's like a grandpa. Joshua rushed Steve over to the window pointing and chattering. He knew that seeing the turkeys was something exciting and he wanted to share it with Steve. It was too bad the turkeys were gone.

Friday, April 30, 2010

A Variety of Short Films


Joshua's first steps. 

Joshua and a balloon. 

Peek-a-Boo

1...2...3... JUMP!

APRIL

Chronologically they are backwards again... but I did figure out how to write captions between each of the pictures.

Chunky cheeks


Easter picture with mommy


Joshua on Easter morning. (Yes, I will use this for blackmail)

Joshua's Favorite Song

I sang this song to Joshua pretty much from the day he came home from the hospital. As you can tell he enjoyes it!!

March Madness


(Notice the bald spot in the back of his head from spending too much time on his back)
March brought Dr. Seuss' birthday! We celebrated by wearing our t-shirts. I have one with One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and Joshua had two shirts for the day. His Horton Hears a Who and The Cat in the Hat. I will even admit that on that day I had ham and eggs as we read some of my favorite Dr. Seuss stories.
It started to get warm enough to go outside without running back and forth to the car. We only live a block away from church so on a Wednesday afternoon for the Lenten Service I would carry Joshua up the hill in the carrier so we both could enjoy some fresh air.
Joshua's sleeping patterns changed again. He began to no sleep as well as he once did. Putting him to bed now became a project. He was eager to sleep on his stomach, but the doctor told me that until he could roll over and decide for himself that he wanted to be on his stomach I should let him fall asleep that way then turn him over, so that's what I did. My dad, step-mom, and grandma came at the end of the month. I hadn't seen family since Christmas (except via Skype) so it was a wonderful visit. They enjoyed seeing how much Joshua had grown.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

"Playing Catch-up" Feburary Highlighs






I'm disappointed that I haven't been faithful in posting. I'd like to get better not only so others can see what we're up to, but also because it's nice to have a little detail about some of the pictures for myself. That being said, I'm going to try to catch up on the past few months.

I'm not very savvy when it comes to blogging so my pictures go in reverse chronologically and I have to write about them that way instead of captions underneath them. (Maybe I can get Michael to help me with some formatting things)

February was the Superbowl! Joshua was being a crab because it was getting late, but the thing that would calm him down was if he was facing the tv. It was the funniest thing. We would turn him away and he would start to cry, but if he was watching football he was happy. It was probably the moving and the noise that he found so interesting, but Michael was beaming with pride that Joshua found football so interesting.

We sent out a little Valentine to family showing off Joshua's fun smile.

Joshua started showing an interest in books. I try to read to him at least 5 min everyday. I try to let him "read" some on his own too so that he can explore how books work, look at the words, see what they taste like, that sort of thing.

Near the end of the month Joshua made the transition from bassinet in mom and dad's room to crib in his own room. I choose to make the transfer on a weekend when I didn't have to work in case I missed out on sleep. It was a pretty smooth transition for Joshua, I think I was the one who struggled more. Those first couple of nights I would wake up just to listen to the monitor to see if I could hear him breathing, if I couldn't I would sneek over to his doorway and peer in to watch his chest rise and fall.

The top picture is one of my favorites! It was taken moments before Joshua rolled over for the first time. He and I were home alone and he looked at me like I was crazy as I jumped around celebrating and congratulated him on his accomplishment.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Eight Weeks: It was a busy week!



My sister-in-law Rachel who lived with Michael and I came to visit from Tulsa, OK. She lived with us for almost two years. Rachel was here through my entire pregnancy, but received a job offer and moved a week before Joshua was born. It was great to have her and she was happy to meet Joshua.

I went back to work this past week. During the week I only worked 4 hour shifts, but over the weekend I have a full shift. The eight hour shift was much harder for me to handle. Michael stayed home with Joshua while I was away. They enjoyed the time bonding. I was a little concerned about how it would go. Before I went back to work Michael had only changed one diaper and never changed Joshua's clothes. When I arrived home Joshua was in clean clothes and a clean diaper. (Although Michael refuses to use the cloth diapers. He is happy we have disposable ones on hand.)

Today Joshua went for his two month well being check-up and immunizations. I'm not sure if he cried more or if I did. It wasn't for long, but his cries were hard to handle. He is a small little boy. He's only in the 13 percentile for weight. I thought at 10 pounds he was doing pretty well.