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!