Naked!

Jayden is oddly fascinated with being naked lately. If he could be naked all day long I think he honestly would be. He is quite the nudist as of late. I don't know why, he just is.

The other day I was at the BX with my friend Allyson, and of course Jay was in tow. We had walked around for a little while and decided to head over to the Christmas section. As we were walking down the aisle I noticed the toy and bike section so I told Allyson we should walk down the aisle through the woman's clothing dept and the sport clothing dept. At the end of the aisle, where it comes to a "T" there is a Victoria Secret section with a mannequin that has just a bra and underwear on. Even though we walked away from that section, Jay was still facing that direction since he was in the shopping cart and all of a sudden he yells "Mommy! She naked!!" And I look at him and he's pointing to the mannequin. Allyson and I started busting up laughing. We walked a few feet down the aisle, and Allyson askes "Jay, where is the naked woman?" and like a stud, points at the mannequin with a look on his face that I swear said "Oh yeah, I'm that good". Haha!!

Today Brandon got out of the shower and walked out of the bathroom with just a towel on. Jay was so excited he was up (he's been sleeping the during the day and working at night so Jay really only sees him in the afternoons) and followed Brandon into the bedroom. Brandon takes off his towel and Jayden says, more like yells, "Daddy! Naked! Put pants on!!" ... I was in the front room and could even hear him. I started busting up and Brandon says "Ali, do you HEAR your son!?" ... I couldnt even respond I was laughing so hard.

Hopefully this fascination ends soon, but since he is a boy I highly doubt it ;) :) LOL.

Bowling and Monsters!

Bowling

The other night we went bowling with our friends Allyson and Dustin. This was Jay's first time bowling so I was pretty excited to see how he would take to it. And oh my goodness, he LOVED it! The lightest ball I could find was 6 or 7 pounds and he still insisted on carrying it on his own. At first we would get the ramp all ready for him and he would place it up on top and then push it as hard as he could. And he loved doing that. Until he saw all of us adults actually throwing it down the lanes and wanted to do to the same. :) He would squat down, put the ball on the floor and then push that ball as hard as he could, and even then it would inch down the lane, taking what seemed forever to get to the end. He seriously loved bowling! It was SO cute! And he did NOT care about how many pins he got down, he just wanted to get the ball down the lane. And he was not content to take turns. Every time someone bowled we had to keep telling him it wasn't his turn. We finally taught him that his turn was after Allyson's ... so after Allyson threw her first ball in each frame, Jay would get so excited and jump up and say "My turn!". it was too cute. We played four games but the middle of the last game he was definitely getting tired and was preferring to sit in the chair and play games on Brandon's iPhone. And here's the kicker ... Jay would beat 3 out of the 4 adults in every game we played! Not even joking! I think I won the first game, beating Jay by 9 points, Dustin won the second game beating Jay by 10 points, and I think Brandon won the last 2 games - but I couldn't tell you by how much because honestly, all of us were just trying to finish the frames by the time the 4th game came along cuz we were all tired and ready to be done! I was so glad that Jay had such a good time! I can't wait to take him again! :)


Monsters Inc.

Jay and I were sitting at the table this morning after eating breakfast and he looked at me and said something I seriously could not understand. I looked at him, and told him I didn't understand. He said it again. I still didn't understand. So he crawled down from his booster seat, walked over to do the DVD stands and starting opening and closing the drawers that hold our DVDs. He opened and closed probably 7 or 8 of them until he found what he was looking for. He pulled the whole drawer out, dumped the DVDs onto the couch and pulled out what he was looking for: the Monsers Inc DVD. He grabbed it, brought it to me and said, what I can only guess now, was "monsters!". "ooh, you want to watch Monsters Inc?" I asked him and all I got from him  was "yes!" while he jumped up and down. :) He is so stinking smart and quite the determined little bugger! But those are a few of my favorite things about him!

No PJ's, just pants, thank you!

Twice this week or so Jay has thrown a fit about going to bed when its time. I give him ample warnings ... "Jay, 30 minutes till bed time!" ... "Jay, 15 minutes till bed time!" .... "Jay, 5 minutes to bed time!" "Jay, one minute and then we're going to bed" ... and after every warning "bed time? ok mommy!" and he goes along doing whatever it was he was doing. But once I get him all changed and hes said goodnight to daddy and the doggy, said prayers and read 2 books and get him all tucked into bed, he starts to throw a fit the minute I close his bedroom door.

These last 2 nights that I'm talking about he has thrown a *huge* fit. The first night I finally went back upstairs to put him back in bed. I found him sitting in his little blue chair - with nothing on except his diaper. And holding a pair of pants and a t-shirt. I asked him what he was doing and he responded "pants on. pleeeease" So instead of fighting with him, I saw no harm in him wearing a pair of warm pants to bed. I got him re-dressed, very sweetly he said "thank you mommy", gave me a kiss and then into bed, and he fell asleep within 2 minutes, go figure, lol.

The 2nd night, he once again threw his fit, but this time it didnt last as long. Now I always check on him before I climb into bed myself. Make sure hes IN his bed for one, lol, and that he has his blankets on him or that hes not half in, half out of his bed, lol. On this particular night, I crack open his door and sure enough hes in bed with his blankets on. Just as I'm shutting the door, I see his PJs ... on the floor ... in the middle of the room. "Oh boy" was the first thought that came to mind and then "Oh please have your diaper on" lol. 


Sure enough he had his diaper on ... and a pair of jeans (which were actually put on correctly, surprisingly) and no shirt. I couldn't believe it. I guess he decided to take matters into his own hands tonight! haha!

Candy Snatcher

So today Jay and I hung out with our friend Tami. We dont get to see enough of her it seems like, but Jay *loves* the days that we do get to hang out with her.

Today we made a stop at Globus. For those of you not in Europe, its kind of like a Super Walmart or Target, but I think its actually bigger and then they also have other stuff inside like bakeries and travel stores and clothing stores. But anyways ... we went there to get some small gifts that Tami had seen a few weeks ago that she wanted to get for her nieces and nephews. So we grabbed a cart, and lucky for Jay, Tami grabbed one of the carts that has the little car in front. Jay absolutely loves those carts cuz he gets to drive and honk the horn, lol. So we're walking around the holiday section that is 99.9% candy - candy canes, chocolate sculptures, chocolate of all kinds really and every other holiday candy you could ever want. Jay had tried to grab a couple things but we would catch him in the act and quickly take it away from him and then we started to keep the cart more towards the middle of the isle and when we did have to park it we would park the front in somewhere where he couldnt grab anything, lol.

So we've been walking around in circles for maybe oh ... 10-ish minutes, and we cant find what Tami is looking for. They're all sold out apparently and the guy that worked there had absolutely no idea what Tami was talking about so he was no help in even trying to find what we're looking for. So we decide to just leave and call it quits. I look down to look at Jay and low and behold what does he have? A chocolate sculpture of Santa Clause ... 1/4 of the way eaten, foil wrapper and all. I couldnt believe it! Tami and I just laughed! Sneaky little boy had grabbed a candy and neither of us had noticed and started eating it! And he was so proud of himself. lol. He kept telling me it was yummy and that it was his. 

I guess Jay has a sweet tooth, just like his mommy, lol.

Food Fight!

As I was making one of my all time favorite dinners tonight, (my sister Jessica's Chicken Tater Tot Casserole, just had to throw that in there, lol) Brandon came into the kitchen and started to be a little smart alick to me. I was washing my hands and I warned him to stop or he would be sorry. Of course, Brandon being the man he is, continued to be a smart alick. So since my hands were still wet, I flug a handful of water at him. He just kind of stood there, mouth open, a little stunned that I had done that, so I did it again and just started lightly laughing. Brandon goes into the bathroom, Jayden following him of course, and grabs a cup of water. As hes walking back into the kitchen I tell him he better not throw that whole cup at me since I hadnt thrown a whole cup at him. So he sprinkles me like I had him. 

Cue Jayden ... he walks into the kitchen, with his own cup of water, and threw it towards Brandon. Mostly the floor got the water, but Brandon's back side got a good amount of it too. I started laughing *SO* hard while Brandon just stood there, mouth open, not moving.

A few minutes later, Brandon was still continuing with his smart alikeness. I of course, wasnt appreciating it too much so I told him to stop. He continues. I tell him that he obviously didnt learn the lesson the first time and he would get another lesson if he didnt stop. What does he do? Continues to be a smart alike. Since at the time I was using a spatula to finish spreading the soup part of the meal into the dish, I flipped off the excess off, and turned towards Brandon. He didnt take the hint, so I flung what was left on the spatula onto Brandon. Again, with the shocked look on his face, more exaggerated this time though, he just stood there. I started laughing again. He leans over, grabs what he can out of the bowl that was left, and flung it at me. I couldnt believe it. Of course, as I'm getting what I can out of the bowl with the spatula, Brandon goes running into the bathroom and locks the door. I walked out of the kitchen to try and catch him anyways, but of course didnt catch him. Jay comes running out a few seconds behind me with his hands outstretched but I didnt think much of it. A few minutes later Brandon comes walking into the kitchen.


Cue Jayden ... he walks into the kitchen behind Brandon, and slathers the soup mix that was on his hands all over the back of Brandon's leg. And then he started to evily giggle.


I was laughing *so* hard. I could hardly believe it. Now I dunno about Brandon's side of the family, But I do know my family is known to have water fights and food fights in the house, and even at the dinner table (and yes, I can think of at least one water fight that was initiated by my mother, lol) so I guess Jay does take after his moms side of the family after all ;) :)

Such A Smarty Pants!

Jay is SUCH a smarty! It seriously amazes me how smart our little 2 year old boy is :) For example:

Jay asked me for juice the other day. He already had a sippy cup out from a previous drink a little while ago so I told him to go get it. He came back and told me he couldnt find it and then proceeded to walk into the kitchen. I quickly whipped out my phone and turned on the camera just to catch his next couple moves. Granted, I also had to hold him back while the camera loaded, but I knew this was something I had to catch and share. Just watch for yourself:

Also, the other day we were driving down some of the back roads through the fields near our house. There are more tractors here in Germany then I honestly think I have seen anywhere - and Jay is very good at pointing ALL of them out. So we were driving down the road and I hear "Mommy! Tractor! Tractor!" I reply with "Yes, I see! How awesome!". A few minutes later I hear "Nother tractor mommy! Tractor!" and again I reply with "Ooooh, yeah! Another one!". Few seconds later he points out another one, "Tractor! Tractor!". "Yup! Look at that! You are so good at finding tractors Jay!". And then, all of a sudden I hear "Tree mommy! Tree tractors!" ... Translation: "THREE mommy! THREE tractors!" I was stunned! I whipped my head around and looked at him and said "what did you just say!?" And he replied "Tree!". I couldnt believe it! All our counting of cars and fish and toes and fingers was finally starting to pay off! I was SO happy!


On the counting note, we were watching "The Blind Side" the other night. If you havent seen that movie you should, its AMAZING. I honestly LOVE it! Anyways, theres a part in the movie where Mrs Touhy (Sandra Bullock) askes Big Mike to tell her everything about him. And when he wont, she says "Ok, just tell me one thing Big Mike. Just one thing about yourself". Jay is sitting on the couch, and looks at me and holds up one finger and says "one thing mommy, one thing. One." Again, I was shocked. SO STINKING SMART!


He is definitely gonna be something else when he grows up, that is for sure!

"I'm A Bird!" "I'm A Bird!" .... Our Lil Parrot

Well it has begun. Jay has started repeating EVERYTHING. It doesnt matter what it is, or if you think he's listening or not. Oh trust me, he's listening! Even when you definitely think hes not, or if hes in another room, or on the other couch ... oh trust me, he's listening!

"Ali, stop it!" ... "Stop it, momma! Stop it!"

"Brandon, dinners ready" ... "Dinner ready! Dinner ready daddy!"

"Say "no no daddy" .. "No No Daddy! No No!"

"I'm gonna go feed the fish" ... "Feed fish? Feed fish!"

"Dang it!" ... "Dag it!"

"Crap!" ... "Cap!"

It seriously *amazes* me how much his vocabulary has e*x*p*l*o*d*e*d* ... even in just the last 6 or 9 months. He went from only saying a handful of words to not being able to get him to be quiet, especially if hes excited about something - which is almost anything and everything while we're in the car - and even holding a somewhat conversation while on the phone.

I can't wait to see what the next 6 to 9 months bring us ... everyday is a new adventure!

Routines

Jayden LOVES his routines. Don't get me wrong, I think routines are very important. But Jayden has taken them to a whole new level! Example:

At night, we get him in his night time diaper and PJs. Then we brush his teeth and head upstairs to bed. We then kneel down next to his bed and say a prayer. Every now and then he'll just jump on his bed and I'll say "no prayer tonight?" and he'll say "ut-uh", but the second I start to put his blankets over him, he scoots his little ta-hooney off his bed and kneels down next to me. So we fold our hands, and mine have to be the exact same way every time. If I try to change it, he fixes my hands for me, lol. During prayer we have a list of people we pray for every night - Mama, Papa, Nana, , Grandpa, Uncle Josh, all the aunts and uncles, Tami, Hannah, Sarah, just to name a few - and if I forget to mention someone, oh heaven forbid, Jay will let me know! Sometimes he even has me pray for someone twice if he thinks I haven't prayed for them yet. After we have finished prayer its time to crawl into bed. I have to put his blankets on him. I have to give him his sippy cup. I have to give him kisses. And then he gives me kisses in return, first a kiss on the lips, then on the cheek, and if I've kissed his forehead, he HAS to kiss mine as well. I have to turn off the bedroom light. I have to turn on "moon" ... the night light. If Brandon tries to do any of these, then he says "ut-uh! Mommy do it! Mommy do it!" And trust me, mommy has to do it again, or he wont go to sleep without throwing a fit, lol.

Gotta love getting kids into routines, right? ;) :)

Monkey See, Monkey Do

So last weekend, we had a couple friends over and Brandon was telling one of them that we've been having problems potty training the dog. Seriously, Jay is picking up potty training a WHOLE lot better then the dog is! Anyways, the friend, who works with dogs, told Brandon that if he peed in the corner of the patio that the dog wouldnt pee in the house or all over the patio, he would pee where Brandon peed, trying to re-mark his property - something to do with being the Alpha male :-/

So, not to be outdone and out-Alpha-maled, what does Brandon do? Yup, you guessed it. So Jay and the dog are watching Brandon mark his territory, being the Alpha male and all, with this look on their faces like "what ARE you doing!?" Brandon quickly finishes up before anyone can see him and walks back into the house. I look out the back door, not 3 minutes later, and see a little pair of butt cheeks. Jay is standing right where Brandon was standing with this underwear down around his ankles and is peeing in the same spot. Brandon and I just stare, mouths open, and watch Jay. When he was done, he pulled his undies back up as far as he could, which was just above his knees, and came bounding into the house with a great big smile on his face! He was so dang proud of himself! lol. I had to explain to Jay that that was a ONE TIME THING and that he is never to do it again - but let me tell you, trying to tell him that without a smile on my face is a pretty hard thing to do!

***Sorry if this embarrassed you Brandon, but it was just TOO funny not to share!! ;) :)

My Little Fish!

Jay and I used to go swimming at least twice a week with our friends Sarah and Hannah when we lived in Washington. Jay got to the point where he LOVED being in the water and would seriously JUMP off the side into the water and into my arms.

Since we've moved to Germany, its been a whole 'nother story. We havent been to a pool since we got here - until last Sunday. Our friend Traci took us to a pool that is only about 20 minutes away from our house and after he got reaquanted with the pool and the water, Jay LOVED it. At first he was a little nervous to jump off the side. And the first few times forgot to hold his breath, so when he came back up he looked really surprised! But after a while he was starting to get the hang of it and was really enjoying himself. He was even helping me count to 3 when he was jumping off the sides. :) The pool also has some big and major slides. He was a little uncertain of them at first, but by the end of the slide on the first run, he was running to where they keep the inter-tubes and wanted to go back up again. Such the little dare devil I have, lol.

By the end of the 3 hours that we were there, Jay was having so much fun, i had to seriously DRAG him out the pool with the promises that we would come back. Jay asked me all day yesterday if we could go swimming, So that's what we're doing today! :) I must say, we're BOTH really excited to go!

If It's Not One Mess ... It's Another!

Mess Number One:

This morning I was woken up by the sounds of of little "clanks" and the sound of various things being tossed around. "What in the world is that?" I thought to myself. Just as I was coming out of my bedroom Jay comes running out of the front room - with bright pink hands and saying "Mess, mommy! Mess!" and pointing into the front room. Sure enough, there WAS a mess ... of all my cake decorating supplies that WERE in my "Cake Caboodle" but were now all over the front room. And to top it all off ... Jay had gotten the bright pink and bright green food coloring out, and dropped dropletts of them onto the only rug we have in the entire house. Forget the tile we have the first floor! Thats too easy to clean up! Our nice rug, along with Jays hands, the bottom of one foot, the front of his pajamas and one cheek bone, were now smeared with either pink, green or the mixture of the two all over the place! :-| 

Mess Number Two:

Shortly after the first mess was finally cleaned up, I was in the kitchen cleaning up the breakfast mess when Jay walked into the kitchen asking me to read him a book. I looked down at him and he is pant-less - again. (I swear, this boy would be naked all day long if I let him! He LOVES to be in nothing but his underwear!) So I'm looking at my little boy, who honestly just looks so sweet, smiling up at me waiting for me to answer him, when I realize he has this ... sheen on his legs and kind of in his hair. "Thhaaaats not right" I think to myself. I leaned down and took a little sniff, and what did he smell like? Oh yes, baby oil! Awesome right? "Jaaaay, what have you been up to?" I asked him. "Nothing mommy" is his reply. "Jayden Lawrence, what have you been doing? Have you been good or naughty?" He looks up to me with those big beautiful brown eyes and says "Naughty mommy, naughty". I grab his hand and he leads me up the stairs to his room where there is a BIG puddle of baby oil almost in the center of the room ... with little foot prints that lead to his bed ... and baby oil all over his sheets. Yeah, that mess took quite a few paper towels to clean up!

Mess Number Three:

I had seriously just come down the stairs from cleaning up mess number two and was walking from the bathroom to the front room when I hear the sound of lightly running water coming from upstairs. The only thing ... I KNEW the bathroom door upstairs was locked. Taking the stairs by two I run up to stairs and turn the corner to find Jay standing, with his undies around his feet, peeing into the tiny, table size grill that is sitting on the floor in the hallway. I yelled "Jayden" and he looks at me, realizing he is caught in the act and runs off into his room! Yet another mess to clean up!

Mess Number Four & Five:

I ask Jay probably 50 times a day if he needs to go potty. Usually the answer is yes, but occasionally the answer is no. And when its no, its followed by 2 more questions of "are you sure?". This series of questions happened again today ... and you would think I would've learned my lesson by now to follow my gut instincts and just taken him to the bathroom, but no, I didn't. :-\ So what happens? Yup, he peed in his undies onto the floor, too preoccupied playing with his toys to remember to go potty in the toilet. So I go and get a few paper towels and the 409 out of the kitchen to clean up the potty mess he just made ... when i hear in the kitchen "squirt squirt" noises. I peek around the corner and find my oh-so-helpful 2 year old boy squirting Windex on the floor. I ask him "Jayden! What do you think you're doing!?" and his reply? "clean mess, mommy" as he continues to clean the floor (which really wasn't messy to begin with) with a paper towel and Windex and a cute little smile on his face. 

If its not one mess, its another!! Needless to say, maybe we should buy stock in paper towels! They come in handy for ALL kinds of messes!

Shake That Thing!!

As you probably already know, Jay LOVES to dance. Get any song on the tv/radio/iPod that has a good beat to it and you will find Jay dancing :) We were watching "Country Strong" and Gwenyth Paltrow performs a song called "Shake That Thing" in the movie and Jay LOVED it. He even asked me a couple time to play it over and over, lol. This is one of the times he danced to it. Every time I watch this it makes me giggle :D

Pretty dang cute right? lol.

On a side note: Jays potty training is going EXCELLENT! I'm SO stoked about it! He is going pee in the "big boy potty" every time he needs to go pee now. He's even started telling me when he needs to go! The only exception is pooping in the potty - we're still working on that. But from what I've heard thats pretty typical so I try to keep my frustration of cleaning poopy underwear to a minimum hehe :) We no longer have a baby boy - we have a BIG BOY!! :D

Potty Training and Race Cars

Potty Training

Today is potty training day! Jay is equipped with his "big boy undies" - Thomas the Train, Super Heros and Spiderman undies - and he is so happy with those. He got to pick them out himself at the BX

He is DEFINITELY ready to be potty trained. He is ALWAYS taking off his diaper, especially if its poopy. Just the other day I found him at the top of the stairs with no diaper on and his diaper sitting next to him ... and poop smeared on the floor from where he was sitting in several different places :-/ This little boy definitely does NOT like to have a poopy diaper!

Today we have so far gone through 2 pairs of underwear and hes only been out of diapers for 3 hours. Hopefully this potty training thing will go better by the end of the day we'll be at least mostly potty trained!

Race Cars

Jay is in LOVE with Lightening McQueen and the movie "Cars". He is constantly playing with his cars and pointing at the exhaust on them and saying "vroom vroom!" and crashing his cars together.

The other day he was trying to tell Brandon "race car!" while looking directly at him. Brandon looked at me and said "What is he saying!?" I couldnt help but bust out laughing - because his "race car!" sounded like "retard!" and he was saying it over and over again at Brandon.

This Is How We Pray

Jayden is very good at reminding Brandon and I to pray. Especially at meals (sometimes its even a few minutes into the meal and he wont continue to eat until we've prayed, lol) and when its time for bed in the evening. There are times when he stops what hes doing and says "Mom, prayer" for absolutely no reason at all. I think its very sweet and cute to see my little man wanting to pray :) He also has a list of people and things he wants to pray for on a daily basis. Very cute.

The other day, Jay and I were sitting at the table about to have lunch and he did his "Mom, prayer". So I folded my hands and started with "Dear Heavenly Father" when Jay said "Mom!". I looked at him and he was looking at my hands. Now, usually I fold my hands so my fingers are intertwined but that day, for some odd reason, I had folded my hands so that my fingers on my right hand were on top of my pointer finger on my left and this obviously had Jay very upset, lol. With a slight scowl, he leaned over, grabbed my hands and fixed them to how I typically fold them, leaned back in his seat, folded his arms, bowed his head and then said "ok, pray".

I seriously laughed for a good 30 seconds or so. I thought that was one of the cutest things Jay has said/done. I think its funny how matter-of-fact he is about how we pray. :) It truly brings a smile to my face, and I wouldnt have it any other way!

What A Mess!!

Jay has been having a hard time going to bed lately. Not exactly sure why, but he has. We put him in bed at 8pm every night and lately, he's been getting out of bed and playing in  his room until 9 or 9:30. Usually, as long as he stays in his room we dont mind too much. He usually crawls into his bed and falls asleep when he sees fit ;) 

Last night, before I went to bed I went to check on him, like I do every night. Last night I walked into a room that did NOT look like it did when put him into bed! It was a disaster! It looked like a tornado went through the room! All the contents from the cupbard and the drawer in Jay's dresser (plus a few things from a box of clothes that are to big for him still) were scattered all over the floor!

 
I sighed, shook my head and thought to myself "dang it kid!" and took the picture - all with a smile on my face. :) And yes - he will be the one picking up the mess! 

As I'm walking out the door, I noticed a little puddle on the ground. "Oh no" was the first thought that came to my mind. I walked over to Jay's bed, pulled Jay's blanket down and you know what I saw?? I little bare butt! That little stinker had taken off his pants and diaper (again!) and had piddeled on the floor - a couple times! 

After picking up his puddles, getting a new diaper on him and putting his PJ pants back on, I'm walking out the door and I hear this little voice, "mommy?". I turn around just as I'm about to shut the door and I see my little BamBam blow me a kiss :) I blowed a kiss back, told him I loved him and I hear a little "Love you" back as hes falling back asleep.

Oh the joys of being a mommy! Wouldn't trade it all for anything ... most of the time ;) :) haha.

Lets Try This Again

So shall we try this again??

I know it's been a while (ok, a year and a half-ish) since I last updated this ... but I've decided to keep updating again. The stories or posts (whatever you would like to call them) may not all be very long, perhaps just a paragraph or so, but I figure that's better then nothing! So I will try, every couple of days, to put something on here that Jay does. Cuz we all know that Jay is a crazy and does something outrageous almost every day! haha. And I figured with all our family and friends all being half way around the world now, you all might appreciate it :)