Blue Eyed Boy

I love this picture I captured of Justin the other day!  He had just taken a bath so his hair (that really needs a cut) was styled and he was playing on his bed in his diaper as I was chasing him around to get him dressed.

Goodnight Kisses

I have probably said it a million times, but my kids hate sleep.  Really, they do.  It's like pulling teeth to get them to actually go to sleep.  I have been working really hard to get Justin to sleep through the night lately.  While my parents were here, we weaned 100% from nursing, and I'm still hoping that is going to help us (although I have yet to see it do much good) and I have been trying to get him to slowly learn to fall asleep on his own.  He is now in a toddler bed (which he does like much better than his crib) so I have been rocking him for a few minutes while reading stories and then I put him in his bed.  I was laying in it with him, but this week I started sitting next to it and leaning over some onto his bed (and slowly but surely I'm hoping to move towards the door). 

Anyway, I say all that just to give you an idea of where we're at, but the point is that now he is pretty used to being put in bed awake and although I have to tell him and sometimes lay him back down several times, he is falling asleep eventually this way.  Last night though he thought of a way to keep getting up.  He would lay down for a minute and then pop his head up and make a smacking sound with his lips reaching over for a kiss from me.  He kept repeating this and of course it totally stole my heart for a few minutes until I realized he was never going to stop because he found a way to keep from falling asleep.  I finally had to say, "Okay, Justin, last kiss goodnight and then it's bedtime."  He tried to kiss me once more, and I had to tell him it was time to sleep, but he did crash after that.  It was absolutely adorable though!  I am sure one day he'll turn his nose up when I even ask for a kiss goodnight so I'm going to soak all these kisses up while I can!

Sun-shiny Day!

I love, love, love days like today.  It was sunny and around 70 degrees today, and the kids and I had a blast all day today!  We started our day off early with some errands so that we could get home to enjoy the rest of the day outside.  We were outside playing most of the day!  This was our first picnic of the year (something Katelynn loves doing so much that we do it in our own backyard A LOT).  I let the kids stay out late and then they took a late nap, woke up, and we went back outside to talk a walk on the greenway with friends to the park.  We didn't come in until 6:40 p.m. (which is almost bedtime around here!).  It was such a great day!  Come on, Spring!  Please, please stay!

I'm not sure if Katelynn was more excited about playing outdoors all day or the fact that I let her wear flip flops for the first time outside!

Justin loves the slides on the playset, but today he discovered the mulch and dirt, and I think that is his new favorite thing to play with outside.  Such a boy!

Corn on the Cob

Tonight was Justin's first night trying corn-on-the-cob, and he LOVED it!  I remember this being a favorite of Katelynn's (and really she still loves it) around this age too!  He ate his piece down to the last bite and then ate some of Katelynn's too!

Happy 5 years to US!

Today is our 5 year wedding anniversary.  Sometimes I can't believe it has been five years since we got married and then sometimes I look at how far we have come in five years and can't believe it has only been five years!  :)  This is going to sound really corny, I know, but in five years time Jonathan has made my dreams come true.  I have a wonderful husband, two beautiful kids, and the best job ever- staying at home raising them!  Sometimes with the stress of life it's easy to forgot how lucky we are to have everything we do!!

But.. enough with the gushy stuff.  So for our five year anniversary, my parents were here visiting so we left both kids at home and went out to dinner and a movie.  This is honestly the first time since Katelynn was born that we have done this, and it was so nice!  We really need to make a point to go out once in a great while together more often!

Uh-Oh!!

Those are seriously the cutest words ever right now!  It's Justin's new favorite thing to say, and I don't know what it is about it, but I love hearing him say it.  He'll say it over and over and over again, and it never gets old!  Of course everytime I try to video it, he stops talking, but hopefully I'll get to post a video of it soon!

To date, he says the following words:
- Katelynn (although it doesn't really come out exactly that way)
- Mum-ma
- Da-da or da-dee
- Hi
- Ball
- Uh-oh
- Cook-ee (cookie) [This just goes to show you how different life is with your second child.  Katelynn didn't have a clue what a cookie was at his age, but he knows all too well what they are thanks to his big sister.  He even knows that when he goes to the grocery store, he should be able to get one.]
- Ni-ni (night, night)
-vroom (for cars, etc)
- Bi-bi (bye, bye)
- hot (again, not completely the way it is supposed to sound but I can't think of how to type the way he says it)
-quack,quack (for a duck sound)
- sock

... and possibly more that I can't remember right now, but I'll update this list as they come to me!

One Track Mind

If you have been to our house in the past few months, you know where Justin's favorite place to play is.  He makes it pretty clear everyday with his requests to go play in the basement playroom.  He loves it down there.  From the minute we get up, he is begging to go down there by standing at the door whining.  A few times he has even said the word, "Down" if we pretend to ignore the fact he wants down there, and he's persistant too.  You can't really change his mind about going down there with any distractions.   We even have to watch when we say the word basement because as soon as he hears it, he's off to the door and ready to go down there that minute!  I really need to get our safety handle back on the door because he's pretty close to being able to reach the handle!