puzzle boy

Judah has discovered puzzles...not those wooden ones with knobs but actual puzzles. whoa. I think he started doing them because he kept on seeing Ethan do them...and this kid (Judah) is actually REALLY good at them! And he gets soooooo excited when he gets it to work:)
We were given a Thomas the Train puzzle for Christmas and Judah LOVES to do it! I love to watch his little brain process everything and find the right place for each piece.

Remember my post about Ethan's puzzle craziness? The puzzle brains must've been passed to Judah too! It amazes me:)It takes him a while to do the whole puzzle - and sometimes he loses interested before then - BUT I'm still amazed at his strange ability to figure where the pieces go! Way to go my littlest man! I like to think that they inherited some of my math brains....a girl can dream right? :)

10 on Tuesday - Birthday Party Style!

1. I'm a little (a lot) late on posting about my littlest guys 2 year birthday parties...so it's getting it's own 10 on Tuesday for it!

2. His first party was at my parents house - Joe and I made a "Train" themed cake and Judah loved it! We kept it hidden from him till the party and when he saw it he kept saying "Choo-Choo!" 3. On my side of the family, after we sing "Happy Birthday" we chant "Not gonna stop till you skip around the room, skip around the room, skip around the room, not gonna stop till you skip around the room......." while the birthday person literally skips around the room! Well, we did this for Judah and he knew exactly what to do! He RAN around the room soooo fast! 4. He almost hit his head...key word: almost...I caught a pic of his just barely missing the table! He didn't want to stop running!

5. Then he enjoyed his cake....hmmmm6. Think he likes cake much? Yeah he does:)

7. His next party was at Joe's parents house - Joe and I made a "Fireman" themed cake - once again, we hid it from mr. Judah until the party and he kept saying "wee-ooo-wee-oo" *his firetruck sound*8. I made 2 different types of cakes and layered them...we had an over abundance of cake! hmmm yummy:) 9. Judah enjoying his birthday cake - this kid could eat cake everyday if I let him (which I most certainly will not!) 10. At Christmas, Ethan got a big boy bike from Joe's parents..when Judah saw it he asked Grandma "Judah bike?" asking if he was getting one.....he didn't get one for Christmas...good thing his birthday is shortly after! He got his own bike too - he was SO excited! We had 2 wonderful birthday parties for our wonderful 2 year old boy!

STATS

here's the stats for my littlest man:

Height: 2'7.5" 1.34%
Weight: 25 lb 13.22%
Head Circumference: 50 cm 81.10%

HOORAY! My little Judah made it past the 1% for height! Remember his 18 month stats? He was under the 1% for his cute little height:) I love my short, little man!
He passed all his developmental marks with flying colors and even 'impressed' our doctor with some antics in the exam room - that-a-boy!I love you Judah!

10 on Tuesday...err Wednesday

opps. Tuesday came and went and no post was made - can I blame it on the fact that Joe is done with school so I no longer have to wait up till 11pm on Tuesday nights? *hence my 10 on Tuesday posts!* (He had class Tuesday nights in case anyone missed that connection - hooray for being done!)

onward...

1. I won a $25 gift card for Mr. Tai's Asian Restaurant this afternoon! Hip Hip Hooray for a free dinner!

2. They have been using Facebook to get their name out there (smart move I say) and had a photo contest of sorts; they posted a photo of a nature scene that was taken within their delivery area...first person to correctly guess the intersection where it was taken wins a $25 gift card...

3...you guessed it; I guessed it! There were like 9 guessed before mine and then I correctly guessed it! I wasn't thinking I would win at all (since the photo was on a snowy wetland - those are everywhere around here) but I DID!

4. We enjoyed a delicious take-out meal of: sweet and sour chicken, sesame chicken, Kung Pao Beef and Beef Lo Mien! hmmmm and we have LOTS of leftovers:)

5. Ethan decided to sport my snow boots on his feet and my 'fashion' snow boots on his hands and walk around like a bear. Normal toddler behavior right? It is in my house:)

6. I went to a Mosaics class with my mother-in-law this past Saturday and it was a blast! I made a mirror and Theresa made a wall panel. We chose the tile, cut it (if it needed to be cut), patterned it however we pleased and then glued it!

7. They sent us home with the grout to do at a later time as the glue needs to set overnight; I still need to do that part:) I am excited to see what the finished product looks like though!

8. I made mine with the colors of our bedspread (browns, greens, tans) with hopes to put it over my nightstand...I think my plan with work!

9. I have SO many pictures to load off my poor camera and onto the computer...I just don't have time; and then when I do have time (aka right now) I lack the motivation. See...when I put it on the computer I make myself put it on our external hard-drive so I know it's backed up...and I lack the motivation to do that. argh.

10. When I DO get more motivation expect posts on Judah's birthday parties; his recent doctor visit (which was today); superman jammies and more! Ohhhh the anticipation...

Resourceful

Ethan displayed his resourcefulness to me this afternoon....

...I had set him up with a movie and a snack for rest time and I was in my room; it was quiet for a long time (rest time should be that; so nothing wrong here) and then my phone rang. I went out into the living room to get it.

Apparently, Ethan must've still been hungry after the snack I gave him. He decided to get himself a snack instead of bother me....his choice of snack is the interesting part.

I looked over at him on the couch, happily watching his movie while eating out of a

BAG OF SHREDDED CHEESE.

ok. I asked him why he was eating shredded cheese (and making a mess with it too) and he said he wanted cheese but couldn't cut the 'cutting cheese' (that's what we call block cheese; because you cut it) so he decided to eat shredded cheese.

I chose not to get mad and offered to cut him some 'cutting' cheese. He was pleased with that and continued with his rest time.

I found it very cute how resourceful he was!

10 on Tuesday

1. My house is a wreck. boo. It's not abnormal though...most days this time of night I think the same thing. I blame my two toddlers;)

2. I made beef stew today! Put everything in the crock pot this morning before ECFE and went about my day - lovely meal was ready for dinner! yum.

3. We still have 1/2 of Judah's birthday cake from Saturday leftover; Joe and I have been trying to eat a piece a night to use it up! Probably not the best time to eat it - ah well:)

4. Judah's vocabulary has EXPLODED the past few weeks! He's a talking maniac now!

5. I now have TWO VERY TALKATIVE TODDLERS. oy. Let's just say I really enjoy talking to Joe in the evening when they are sleeping....no toddler interruptions.

6. Judah's poor lip is soooo dry and chapped it started to bleed yesterday! I put some of my scent-free chapstick on it and he seemed to enjoy it:)

7. I'm ready for Summer. I'll even take Spring:)

8. Mine and Joe's FIVE year anniversary is coming up soon! (Feb. 4th) WOW that went fast!

9. Library run tomorrow! We'll see what kind of good finds we'll find:)

10. I need to upload pictures and then I'll have a lot to blog about:) Birthdays, cute boys, and more!

Bubble Bath

With these COLD winter days and nights the boys have been taking A LOT of warm baths! Bubble baths to be exact:) They were given some bubble bath for Christmas (in Buzz and Woody containers!!) and LOVE to play in there!

I don't mind at all: warm water, warm bathroom, happy kids, clean kids, tired kids after....win win!

BUNK BEDS!

A little over a week ago my two big-boys got BUNK BEDS! They LOVE them:)
I was worried that Judah would get out of his bed; or miss his crib; or any other possible thing that could go wrong and NONE of those happened! YEAH! The first night there he stayed in his bed; slept through the night (well, 5am that first night) and LOVES his bed!

Ethan loves his top bunk - or as he calls it...his 'fireman station' :) He hasn't showed any fear of being up high (and by high I mean under 5 feet; they're short bunks)

Judah even NAPS in there - just like I was hoping for:) I was worried that he wouldn't transition from napping in his crib to napping in his bunk but he did it like a pro! I 'helped' him fall asleep the first day and since then he cries for like 2 minutes then he's out! woot!In other news: Ethan got new Super Man pajamas for Christmas and LOVES them! We have a cape (from before) that he constantly wears with the jammies....watch out - here comes Super Man! And here comes our mini-Super Man (sadly, he didn't have his Super Man jammies on that time...he does have some though!) One of these nights, I need to put them both in their super hero gear and catch them on film running around! There he goes - flying to the rescue!

10 on Tuesday

1. Opps...I forgot to do a 10 on Tuesday post last week....Holiday weekend overload:)

2. Judah had his first of two birthday parties last Sunday - his second party is set for this Saturday...you can expect a party post coming soon after!

3. In my extended family when it's your birthday you have to skip around the room after the 'happy birthday song' to the chant of "not gonna stop till you skip around the room, skip around the room, skip around the room, not gonna stop till you skip around room....." and when we did it for Judah OH MAN he RAN! He knew exactly what to do and ran around that room with a huge smile on his face!

4. I think he knew to run from watching ALL the birthday parties that happen in my family (6 kids, 2 in-laws, 2 parents, and 5 nieces and nephews = lots of birthdays:)

5. Ethan and Judah got BUNK BEDS last week! They LOVE them:)

6. No one has fallen (yet) and Judah hasn't gotten out of his bed yet. (He moved from a crib to the bottom bunk)

7. Ethan calls them his 'fireman station!' too cute.

8. I peek in on them every night (so far) to gaze at them....I love seeing Judah sleep in his big boy bed - so grown up!

9. Because the crib is out of their room they have SO MUCH more room to play!

10. It's so weird to check them in at the YMCA and say ages 2 and 3. Wow that time went by fast!

Christmas Recap!

A few days (err week) late..here's all about our Christmas 2010! We celebrated over 2 weekends and attended many fun parties:) Here's the short(er) recap:

Saturday before Christmas (Dec 18) we had an extended family gathering for Joe's mom's side of the family. The Host cleared out their garage and put carpet down, tables up and left the service door open to the house - talk about smart and resourceful! It added another large room to the party - and they had bins of toys out there for the kids - our kids had a blast!They had a Birthday Cake for Jesus and each kid got an anonymous present (from an assigned adult) - both my boys LOVED their gifts!

The next day (Dec. 19) we had my mom's extended side family gathering; it was at my grandparents house - we each brought something (or two) for the appetizers and meal...we had quite the feast!The boys got a lot of wonderful gifts - these slippers being one of the faves! Ethan has Spiderman and Judah has Cars - can't go wrong with those! The other 'boys'..aka my 3 brothers and Joe...got pocket knives - really? Of course they had to use them with everything they did - including drinking their coffee....Boys will be boys I guess:)

Our next party was on Christmas Eve Day at my parents; I have a large family (I'm one of 6 kids; 2 of us 6 have kids so it's getting big!) it's hard to coordinate everyone being together on the holiday at the same time - well, we could ALL be together Christmas Eve Day so that's what we did! For our siblings we bought fair-trade gifts from other countries; we went through Ten Thousands Villages; all the proceeds went to the crafts people directly! We got my brothers musical instruments (which is fitting as they are in a band together) - I could (and probably should) do a separate post on ALL the gifts we got; I must say they were pretty cool!

Speaking of gifts - I got these sweet slipper boots! LOVE 'EM and have them on right now:)
We stayed at my parents house through dinner then went over to Joe's parents for a short visit in the evening (Christmas Eve still); it was the only time we would see Joe's older brother and wife over the Christmas weekend as they were going to her (my sis-in-law) parents the next day. So, we hopped over there and had dessert and the boys got a few presents. I love how the other kids (Ethan's 2nd cousins) are hovering over the cool gift! Handy Manny was a hit this year! We stayed at Joe's parents for a few hours then went home to call it a night.

The next morning (Christmas Day!) we woke up and had a lazy morning (our mornings start EARLY around here..) and then the boys opened up their stockings from US. Yep - US not Santa. Short nutshell of why we don't do Santa: he's not real; we won't lie to our children; he has nothing to do with the 'meaning' of Christmas. nutshell done. Then it was off to Christmas Breakfast at Joe's parents house - we had a delicious egg bake with fruit and yogurt...hmmm...

It was a quieter gathering with just us, Joe's parents and Joe's brother Tom. We opened presents and everyone got wonderful gifts! Judah loves his firetruck! He calls it his 'weee-ooo-wee-ooo' (imagine a toddler creating the sound of a siren) I got some new winter snow boots! I was so excited! Since my boys are older they want to play outside more..and my old boots were dead. Ethan got a big surprise...A BIKE! He was super pumped and wants to ride it now...spring will come soon enough (I hope:)

We hung out at Joe's parents till early afternoon then headed back to my parents for our annual Pannekokens! Pannekoken's are a baked, fluffy, giant pancake (sorta) that you pile high with yummy goodness - our goodness of choice: ice cream, powdered sugar, fruit, syrup, etc..Joe is cutting that one in half for us. He got one half and I got the other - it's big but it's sooo good. It's the whole meal! I tend to plop all the toppings on and gobble it up where my hubby makes his a piece of art first...then gobbles it up:)

After Pannekoken it was game time - I got in on a game of Golf with Tess, grandpa and Jordan....Such a fun game! Me and my sister, Tess...I think she's scared that I'm beating her in Golf...or maybe not:)

As you can see/read we had quite the Christmas season this year! Lots of family, parties and food - good thing I enjoy all of those! We came home with wonderful gifts from everyone - such a huge blessing! Our boys were troopers and did AWESOME at all the parties! I'm still in shock that it's 2011....oh boy. Happy New Year everyone:)