Backyard Fun at Aunt Neen's House

Cool Jack (takin' a break)

Juice break

Jack would rather follow and hold the tractor than ride it. This is where he's more comfortable.

Takin' a turn. He still wouldn't go too far. (Love the John Deere hat on backwards - so Kentucky)

Nicholas and Jack pretend "grilling". Jack loves his cousins.

Nicholas and Nathaniel

Aunt Neen, Nathaniel and Aunt Jen (before going on our sister night out).

The Never-ending Birthday

Jack is going to think that his birthday is not just one day but a couple of weeks. We celebrated at the Mall, with Granny and Grandpa Eugene, with Sam and I here in Illinois, then on July 19th at Aunt Neen's house. We had a big family party at the Melvin's. This was the "big" birthday party where he got his new toys.

I love the patient look on his face here

Nicholas, Madison and Lauren partying

And the winner is. . . remote-controlled "mater". I believe this was the favorite toy of the party.

Rippin' into his new Thomas toy.

The cousins (minus Nathaniel who never wanted to get in the pictures)

Serious business opening aunt Shee-sha's gift.

LEXINGTON VISIT (2 weeks of pictures to come) One thing I do know is. . .

I have great-looking nieces and nephews!

Madison and Lauren





Nicholas

Nathaniel

I have 75 digital photos and 48 disc photos to sort through so my Lexington posting will come later. Here is a preview of my precious nieces and nephews.

. . . more birthday and Granny's visit

Jack received this "four wheeler" spiderman, battery operated ride-on. It's just the right speed for him. A gift from mom and dad. (We let him run the neighborhood in his skivvy's). There's a video below of him getting his 4-wheeler.

His other big gift is this Clubhouse climber I found on Craigslist. It was less than a year old and perfect for Jack. Just what we were looking for. There's a phone inside and he calls everyone. This is the way most of the conversations go: "Hey aunt Jen. Nice to meet you. I have a clubhouse, bye-bye." Hilarious. Watch video below to hear a conversation.

Granny came to visit the weekend just before his birthday. She brought Jack a dump truck that he LOVES. We exchanged her other gift (it was too old for Jack) and he picked out another Lightning McQueen car. I love this picture of Jack and Granny.

I forgot to mention that Grandpa Eugene drives a BIG pick-up truck. We had to go out a few times each day to get in the back.

Jack opening his dump truck with Granny. Grandpa Eugene looking on in the background.

Clubhouse chit-chat video

4-wheeler video

More Birthday Celebrating

Balloons Memom sent and the cookie cake from Makenzie and Mrs. Jessica.

Jack and I went to the mall to meet his "girlfriend", Makenzie for a train ride and lunch. It turned in to a surprise birthday celebration for Jack. Mrs. Jessica (Mak's mom) surprised Jack with a giant cookie cake. It was so thoughtful and oh-so fantastic. After eating cookie cake, the kids played.

Getting them to sit still was extremely difficult

This is Jack NOT liking the train ride. He said, "I don't like this, I'm ready to get out."

Sittin' this train ride out and watching

I love how Mak seems so chilled out and laid back here.

Ahhhh. . . cookie cake. Yum.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JACK!

In the last three years, I've learned:

• It's not easy to get pregnant.
• Morning sickness will sometimes make you wish you weren't pregnant, or just scare you in to never wanting to be pregnant again.
• Babies don't sleep through the night when you bring them home from the hospital.
• You can read a million books to prepare for baby, but if your baby hasn't read the book, it's really pointless (not really).
• Just when you think you've got them on a routine. . .
• Losing baby weight is easy if your child has an allergy. You can't eat when your baby has explosive diarrhea 10-12 times a day.
• As great of a parent you think you are; your child is going to be the one that screams for no apparent reason and hits other kids. (It's really great for playdates and going out to dinner)
• Toddlers love to be the center of attention.
• I now get what all the fuss is about.
• Boys love their mama's.
• Of course I've learned way more than I could ever write.

I love the bible verse: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart..." (Jeremiah 1:5)

Enjoy the little slideshow I put together of the last three years. (Some of the pictures are really blurry - not sure why).

Sweet Conversation

Jack has been favoring reading his toddler bible lately. I can tell he is listening to the stories as this was a conversation we had this morning:

Jack: "Did God make us?"
Me: "Yes, He did."
Jack: "Mommy, who made me?"
Me: "God made you."
Jack: "I want to show God my pajamas."

I'm going to eat this boy up.

Spiderman...nobody knows who you are...

It's in my nature to be full of details, so here it goes. . .

A few nights ago, Jack woke up screaming, I assume from a bad dream. He typically goes right back to sleep after such awakenings, but this night he said, "mommy, I need to pee pee!" So at 3am we're going potty. I was so proud of him. I told him that I would buy him something special at the store the next day. As soon as I said that, I was a little concerned about getting something started with middle-of-the-night potty breaks. So, I back-peddled a bit and said, "how about some spiderman. . . plates?" He was thrilled with the idea. The next day on my grocery trip, I bought some spiderman paper plates. Today, I'm trying to coax him out of the playroom for lunch by getting him excited about eating off of one of his spiderman plates - all while singing the spiderman (cartoon) song. One of the lines is, "Spiderman. . . nobody knows who you are. . ."

Jack immediatley loved the song and sang that one line over and over during lunch. . . roll tape:

Potty Trained! (and "Jack-isms")

After numerous months and ups and downs with potty training, Jack seems to have finally gotten it. I'm so proud to announce that just before his 3rd birthday, Jack is pee-pee trained (#2 will hopefully follow). He has used potties at the gas station, subway and at church so there's no home-court-advantage. He is telling us each time he needs to go. Clearly he now knows what it feels like to need to pee. I couldn't be happier as diapers have gone up $2 (just like everything else). He's so big, it's just killing me.

Okay, so other things: If you follow the blog fairly regularly, you know that after we put Jack in a big-boy-bed, he began putting anything he could find in his bed. When we would get him up, whether in the morning or after nap, there was no telling what we'd find in bed with him. The novelty of that wore off for Jack and he no longer was "bed-hording". I kind of missed it to tell you the truth. It was fun. Well, last Thursday, I went in to get him up from his nap and he had on his rain boots. Black rain boots. He was just laying there like it was completely normal and looked up at me and said, "hey momma". I ran and got my camera. This was the best picture I could get as he was more than ready to get out of bed. I call this type of thing a "Jack-ism". Read below for more.

Wearing his tool belt around the house without pants. He likes to go pant-less and shoeless these days.

Jack-ism:

Jack met a little boy at the pool last week. He is 8 and was very good playing with Jack. His name is Blaine. His Grandma put sunscreen on him and then had him lay on a lawn chair for a while to "let it soak in". This was last Tuesday. Today (Sunday), we went to the pool and after playing for a while, Jack got out of the pool and laid out on a lawn chair. He was laid back and relaxed - head back. I asked him if he was ready to get back in the pool and he lifted his head and said, "I'm letting my sunscreen soak in". He doesn't miss a thing! And what kills me the most about this stuff is how serious he is about it.

Then. . . (sorry this is so long)

After going to the pool, we went to Subway. On the way there, he announced he had to pee. While I ordered the food, Sam took Jack to the potty. When I was done getting the food, Sam and Jack were coming out of the bathroom and Jack was loudly proclaiming he had pee-peed in the potty. I, of course, was so excited for him. On the way out the door, we saw three different sets of people coming in and he told all of them individually, "I pee-peed in the potty!" as loud as he could without screaming. He obviously is proud of it, too.

Lexington - (it's about time)

Well, it's taken me too long to get a new post up. I've been really busy lately. I was in a wedding in Northern Ky. I went to Lexington early so that I could get Jack settled before leaving him at Memom's for two days/nights. We did alot of playing with Nicholas and Nathaniel, they played so well together; shaping up to be big buds.

After needing several days to recover from all the traveling and moving around (Belleville to the townhouse to mom's to N. Ky hotel - back to mom's then back to Belleville - ugh!), we had a party at our house to welcome the new residents starting in July. I needed a reason to get my house nice and clean.

Enough excuses. Here are some pictures from our trip to Lexington:


He kills me in these pictures. He's so big. Aunt Neen bought him a new lawn mower. Here we're heading out to play with Nicholas and baby Nate.

Playing cars nicely together.

Watching TV

Baby Nate's reading Thomas on the concrete outside. I don't think he wants his picture taken.

Nicholas takes cutting grass very seriously. He "mows" with Uncle Casey all the time; follows right behind him with his own lawn mower. Here he's on his tractor doing a once-over on the back yard.

Aaahhhh. . . peacefully watching TV and enjoying Memom's "special" cookies (as Jack calls them). They look like they're watching us land on the moon for the first time :)

Home Repair Stories

Our house is still under warranty as it is just under a year old. We have all of our end-of-the-year repairs being done today by different contract workers. I gave Jack plenty of warnings that there would be lots of men in and out of the house today. He was excited and called them all, "men". "Hi men" he would say. When they would leave, he'd say, "where'd the men go?". One of them came while we were playing "cars" on the front porch. This is what Jack said when we had to come in the house:

"Is that man NOT going to play with my cars on the porch?" and then later, "Is that man NOT going to eat lunch with us?"

Okay, so then later on I have a man in the house fixing nail-pops. He is on a ladder and Jack is giving him the play-by-play of what he's doing. "I'm reading books with my mommy", etc. Then Jack grabs my hand and starts grunting and pushing (we all know what he's doing), face red and all. When he's finished, I'm thinking to myself, 'oh gosh, I hope he doesn't share this tid-bit'. Well, as soon as the thought was out of my head, Jack is walking over to the ladder and looks up and says, "I pooped". I was really embarrassed (you know since my child is the only one on earth that poops). I give him a few minutes to make sure he's done going #2 and quietly tell him we need to go change his diaper. On the way up the stairs, Jack tells the man, "my mommy is going to change my poopy". Lovely.

Ahhhh......the Corn! (try sounding like a Pirate when you say it)

Jack had corn on the cob for the first time the other night. He was so proud to have corn with handles. Here are some great pictures I managed to get and a video at the bottom. (He's so country).

Big bite!

This is one of those instances when Jack puts food on his face (yogurt here) to make us laugh. Just sits there like this until we notice.

"The corn tastes good for me".

Supermarket Sweep!

Niko came over the other night and Jack had his grocery cart out. Amy had to run home and get Niko's cart (this is how it works with toddlers). They ran around the court like maniacs with their grocery carts. I looked at Amy and said, "it's like they won five minutes in the grocery store, they're runnin' around grabbin' whatever they can". Sam perked up and said, "yeah, that gameshow, 'Supermarket Sweep'!

Swappin' grocery items

Look at 'em go. . .

Trading out more items

Aaaahhhh. . . playing nice together.

Weekend With the Boy Cousins

Janeen, Casey, Nicholas and Nathaniel came to visit us for the first time as a whole family. It was tons of fun. The boys got along so well and just had a blast! Jack was so happy the entire weekend and did so well sharing all of his toys.


Nicholas looks as though something may be bothering him here. This picture is priceless. I'm sure it will go in the archives and come out about the time when they start dating.

Baby Nate climbing the curtains.

Playing "coffee" in the baby pool with bowls and a pitcher.

Here they're playing "restaurant" and Nate is the waiter. (such a crack up)

Little blonde studs

Busy playing in the playroom.

Pool time!

"Kuncle Casey" (as Jack says), Nathaniel and Nicholas at the pool.

Drying off with Aunt Neen. What a great weekend!