Leftovers

Jay and Truman at a puppet show. The guys thought Hannah and I were crazy to expect our wild men to sit still for 45 minutes but they did great!  Sat there the entire time and were mesmerized. So we officially have another kid-friendly activity to do in Columbia!

of course, we would never dream of skipping snack time...even for a puppet.

If you don't have time to read, the rest of the pictures are below my rambling. :)

Sorry for being absent lately, my camera died and I haven't been taking pictures, which is why the majority of these are ones I found on our phones or leftover from the memory card. And things have just been crazy lately. With the weather being so nice we have spent so much time doing outside things that I just haven't been in the house much.

As far as what Jay's up to: his usual tricks, still very stubborn, but has given the constant arguments a little rest. Key word there being "constant" as they are still a frequent part of our days. :)

As far as his little brain, I am surprised daily at things he says and does that I had no idea he understood. And hearing him talk to Jake about what he is thinking is precious. He uses a very confident tone, like there is no question of complete understanding between the two of them. As far as numbers, colors,& letters go, I have a hard time deciding what he knows. He is so wild and hardly stops to say hey, so when I tell him to stop and count with me or tell me where the letter 'E' is, he just mumbles and runs off. But then I'll catch him at a calm moment and he will run through things without missing a beat. So, as far as I can tell, he can count to 10 (but always forgets the number 4), knows colors when asked to point to a color but recalling a specific color is more difficult. He usually just says, "red" until I correct him and then will remember it from then on. He refuses to sing the ABC song, has never liked it for some reason, but picks out letters when I ask. They learn a new letter each week at school and he loves coming home and showing off his new knowledge.

Other random things:

I forgot to strap him in the car seat the other day and as I was backing out of the driveway he started saying, "buckle? Jay buckle? mama buckle jay?" I was so proud of my careful little man for reminding me!

every time I pick him up from school he runs over and gives me the biggest, tightest hug, then says, "jacket? jay's jacket" and shows me where it is.

When he gets on the couch, whether he has shoes on or not, he starts saying, "no shoes on couch, no shoes on couch" which is the first rule he actually obeys with consistency.

We haven't pushed potty training any more. I am going to plan on a week in the summer so he can just run around naked and I have all week to focus on it.

He is getting sweeter and sweeter (other than the whole bossy and non-compliant thing) by the day. He loves to hug and kiss, and asks to hold my hand while in the car, watching tv, or going to sleep. I am still waiting for him to say "i love you" though. He told me today that my watch was cute...and it melted my heart. Yesterday he was brushing my hair and when he was finished he rubbed by head and said, "cute mama". He also said something sweet about Mimi: I told him that his picture was pretty and he responded with, "Mimi's pretty" and I said, "yes, Jay, Mimi is pretty" and he said, "pretty Mimi"....we had not mentioned Mimi so I'm not sure what made him say it but, Mom, you would have melted too. :)

Other little things he says that are super sweet:  "tanks" when I give him candy, "sorry jake" and pats him on the head if he runs into him, "baby wa sleeping...shhhhh" with his finger over his mouth when we babysit, "otay" when he finally finishes a task he was carefully working on, "hands?" when we sit at the table and are about to pray, "hey mama!" when he hasn't seen me for a few minutes around the house...his tone is so tender and genuine that I can't help but get all sappy inside. "mama kiss it?" when he has a boo boo....as soon as I do, he smiles and says "bye bye boo boo!"

And here are the rest of the pictures....not anything new but old ones I found to buy time until I can get more recent pictures.

Jay thought he needed to lay with Joshua and play.

This is a picture from my trip to Valdosta. We went to visit my friend Shannon (a youth minister) and Jay pulled this book out of the hundreds of books in her office to carry around with him and "read". The title is "How to handle my Emotions"...we thought it was perfectly appropriate.

Another pic of the redneck stroller. As you can tell by his face he sees nothing unusual about our system.

Uncle Alan is pumping air in jay's belly button...a hilarious game for a toddler obsessed with air pumps!

Reading to Joshua...one of the 20 books Jay thought necessary to show his little buddy

This is a little blurred but Wes took it when they had a "boys night" at Moes. It was kids' night so Jay got a Helicopter balloon...he was very proud. He fell asleep on the way home and woke up the next morning asking for "heltopter?"

Showing "baby wa" how to eat....as you can tell Jay does most of the "babysitting"...i just keep him from manhandling sweet Joshua.

On the riverwalk the other day

Sooooo fun!

These are leftover from our big train ride a while back. We were waiting for the train to come and jay made sure to tell each and every child out there that he was going to ride train.

Running in circles

There they go!

This is when the motorcycles and helicopters came by....his dream come true!