This little boy  turned 2 years old today.

I took him to the doctor before we left Reno, so as of September 24th, 2009 he was

29 1/2 pounds (75-95%)

35 1/2 inches tall (95th%)

He didn’t write down his head.

Jameson can do so many things. He is an ace on his scooter, jumps on the trampoline or bed or couch, talks in sentences, learns new skills after you show him one time, he’s defiant, and loving, and everything in between. He will literally shake it off after getting hurt, but still wants me to kiss it. He loves watching movies, but gets scared. This doesn’t stop him, he just makes me watch the scary part with him. Right now his movies rotate between The Rescuers, Jungle Book, Cars, Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, and Lion King. He wants to do anything his dad does, and will sit on the counter to watch me cook. Mostly he just wants to get treats out of the cupboards. He looks for the baby in “mommy’s tummy,”  and loves his books. He knows so many animals and their sounds (our favorite is a lizard). He loves to sing in the car, and always wants “my songs.” Maybe one day I can get him on video singing. He will also count things saying, “one, two, one two…”

We actually celebrated his birthday on Sunday with some friends. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, since he won’t remember, but we did have cake.

I found a cute dinosaur pan, so that’s the kind of cake he got this year. I was going to use a lego dinasaur we got him last year, and decorate the cake a little different, but when I went to get the legos out, I realized I never unpacked them. Oh well, Jameson still liked the cake. He had a few presents to open: a boat from Grammy Brazell, a camera from us (so he’ll stop taking mine), a scuba man to go with his boat and a Cars tin also from us, and a fire truck and puzzle from the McCulloch girls. He loves playing with these girls. He insists on sitting between them and holding their hands when they’re walking anywhere. He’s never had girls to play with really. He still loves to see pictures of his boys, though.

     

He was so cute blowing out his candle. We missed a picture the first time, so we lit the candle again, and did a take 2. He knows how to blow, because he likes to blow in our faces. He thinks it’s hilarious.  Well, he also knew the candle was hot. So he got about a foot away from the candle, held up his hand, said “Hot,” and then tried to blow it out from where he was. Kevin tried to tell him it was ok to get closer, but it took a few tries.

They were so excited to decorate their dinosaurs. I pulled them off the cake and made colored frosting for them. We made sure to send them each home on a sugar high. 🙂 Jameson ate his entire dinosaur, I believe. Pretty sure that was all he had for dinner that night.

Today, we didn’t do much for his actual birthday. We did go to the post office and pick up our mail which had a box from Grandma and birthday cards from his great-grandmas. Here is Jameson checking out his box from Grandma and Grandpa Gordon.

   

He was so excited. It was a box full of Lightning McQueen. Here is a video for them to see. (Sorry it’s so unsteady.)

He was spoiled this year by everyone as he was last year. We just love our little man. He’s definitely one of a kind, and keeps us laughing in between his time outs. We can’t wait to see what new thing he will learn that day, as he picks up on everything.

We were asked to speak in church on Sunday. The topic was gratitude, or gratitude in adversity. Well, anyone that has seen me talk in church knows, that’s not my best time. I am fine until I stand at the pulpit, and then I start crying. I cry the entire talk till I sit down, then I’m fine. Don’t ask me why, and I’d rather not have the opportunity to work on this. Well, when the counselor actually called us in to talk to us both about giving a talk, he looked at Kevin and said, “I already know how your wife feels about talking in church, but how are you?” (He had called on the phone while Kevin was in Reno.) A little puzzled, we both turned and looked at him.

The counselor looks at me and said, “When I called the other night, your phone wasn’t hung up all the way and I heard you say, “Daaannngggiiittt!” Wonderful.Well, at least I didn’t say anything else, right? So note to self, don’t say anything until your phone is back in standby mode.

We got ready and headed to church. Jameson looked adorable in his new outfit from Grammy Brazell. See for yourself…

We sat on the first row so we could easily get to the pulpit, but trade off sitting with Jameson. There was a youth speaker before me, and she actually gave a good talk which took 10 minutes. So I get up, and yes, start crying as soon as I talk. Having to talk about your adversities isn’t so much fun either, but the whole time I’m talking, Jameson is yelling and waving. I could hear, “Hi mom!” I could also hear, “Pig! oink oink!” This doesn’t help while your trying to concentrate. Anyways, I give my talk, the choir sings, and then Kevin gets up. I was trying to keep Jameson busy, but 5 minutes before the end, he got away from me. He ran away before I could catch him, over to the base of the stairs leading to the stand.

So here are my thoughts…

-I could run and grab him and bring him back, although he’ll probably cry and make a scene, and I’m on the front row.

-I could run and grab him and just head out, because I don’t want to take a chance of having him make a scene.

-I can hope he’ll just come back

-If I get up, am I fast enough to grab him before he makes a mad dash up the stairs?

All these thought ran through my head in about 10 seconds. Well, Jameson turned and looked at me, so I gave him “the look” and snapped my fingers at him to come sit down. At first, it looked like it worked. He turned back towards me, took one step, then turned, smiled and ran up the stairs. He found the stool next to the pulpit for children, hopped up on it, stuck his chest out, and grinned ear to ear at the congregation. Let me just say it’s a good thing he looked adorable. I jumped up and went to grab him, along with the bishopric. Instead, Kevin picked him up and finished his talk holding our son. Jameson was so proud of himself. So like I said, we like to keep things entertaining.

Needless to say, everyone in our ward now knows Jameson. We also got a few invites to Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe it was because people felt bad this pregnant girl got up and cried at the pulpit for 10 minutes, and mentioned her family wasn’t close. I’m sure it was because our ward has been very welcoming. Each week people come up and introduce themselves to us. It’s been nice not having to reach too far out of your comfort zone to meet new people.

So Thursday, I was waiting for Kevin to get home from work. About 5:30 pm I heard Kevin unlock the door downstairs and come in. I had just taken Jameson in to change a dirty diaper. Kevin never came up. I was wondering what was taking him so long as I told Jameson his dad was home, and then had no dad walking through the door to prove it. Finally, as I am mid diaper change, Kevin yelled for me asking if I could come downstairs. Umm, no. I yelled back I was right in the middle of the diaper change and that wasn’t gonna happen. He yells back, “Ok, I’ll come up.”

So in my head I’m thinking, what is he doing? What is the big deal? I was a little annoyed, not gonna lie. So I hear someone come in the door behind me, and I turned around only to see…

SARIAH! (So I realized we don’t take any pictures together. Might have to work on that.)

Kevin decided to surprise me, and flew my best friend from Reno up for the weekend. Since I was missing out on my previous wards girl’s night out, he decided to bring it to me. He bought tickets for the midnight showing of New Moon for us!

Then he coordinated with some friends here so the four of us could all go see the movie. Sariah got to come with me to a baby shower, first, where we got asked to write down the gifts. Let me just say, you should never ask the new girl and her visitor to try and write presents and who they are from. We had no idea who people were if they didn’t provide a card. Luckily, Sariah would just ask.

After the shower we killed some time and got to the theater an hour early. We figured we would be ok. Umm no. We got there, had to go to the third story where the theater is to pick up our tickets, and then came the bigger questions. There were lines on every floor. I asked the ticket lady how many screens the movie was playing on. Oh, All 16. So then I asked how many people that would amount to. She told us there were about 3,000 people there and the line was down on the first floor. We followed the line down and ended up here…

Yup, we are standing in line in the parking garage below the building. By the time they let us in the theater it was 12:05. Then they told us to pick any of the 5 screens in front of us. Well, considering we just walked up how many flights of stairs, we were aiming for the closest theater which was also an IMAX. Our seats weren’t too bad, and we were able to get some snacks before it started.

Occasionally, I asked Sariah if she wanted to borrow my “Team Jacob” shirt. I mean, who wouldn’t? We had so much fun, and made it home around 3 am.

The next morning, we woke up, and Jameson found some birthday presents from the Free family. He hasn’t ever really been into opening presents. Well, we showed him how to open the first one, and he loved it. He played with his car, and was content, so we headed for the shower. When I came back to check on him after, he had a box in his hand and was yelling, “Mom, a cow!” I was confused till I realized he had opened all his presents while we were in the shower. Funny kid.

 

After we got ready, we headed out to explore the shopping. We went to 3 or 4 malls, and Jameson wasn’t too bad. All things considered, we did really well. For how many stores we went to, we really didn’t spend any money. 🙂 Toward the end of the day, Jameson got to spend some energy on the playground at the mall.

   

I’m so glad all the malls here have little playgrounds for the kids.

Saturday, we went to a baby expo. I actually ended up winning some jewelry from Cookie Lee…

www.cookielee.com

We were so close, like 5 inches, to winning an orbit stroller. Too bad. They had some really cute items there, and we got lots of ideas. When we got back, Kevin and I took Sariah and Jameson to the park. Sariah got to witness how up close and personal the ducks can get. Here is the progression of our tree…

   

(October through the end of November)

Sariah flew out Sunday morning before church (our church is at 12:30). We had tons of fun, and can’t wait for the rest of the family to come visit us some time soon. Hopefully we’ll have better sleeping arrangements by that time and Sariah won’t have to listen to Jameson talk in his sleep. 🙂

I also have to add that I have the best husband. Not only did he fly up my friend, and buy us tickets, he also watched Jameson almost the entire weekend. He knows me so well. My only clue, was Thursday morning. He asked me if I liked surprises. I told him yes, then went back to sleep. He asked me at like 6 in the morning, and I just ignored it. He has surprises for me all the time. It’s never because he is trying to make up for something, either. He also never expects anything in return. I love this man so much!

Jameson loves his “donkey.” He takes it everywhere with him and bounces all over the house. This was taken last Tuesday, November 17th. Sorry it’s sideways.

Thank you Grammy Brazell for giving him a toy that wears him out!

After a busy weekend, today was spent on the couch. Plus, the fact it was raining all day didn’t help my motivation to do anything else. Jameson cooperated with me, though, and played with his new toys or sat and watched movies.

They love each other, can you tell?

Saturday was spent shopping with Kevin’s parents. Jameson was completely spoiled by his grandparents. They got him a few toys for his birthday, along with adorable clothes for church. I was really excited he received this toy…

At the expo I went to a couple weekends ago, this toy was present. It’s called a Rody. It bounces like the hop balls we had as kids, but has feet and is more stable for smaller children. Jameson kept trying to take this toy with us, and would get mad when I told him it was not ours. The toy store we went to had them, and Grammy was excited to get it for him. He hops all around on his “donkey.” Last night we even caught him having a converstaion with it. We were visiting on the couch, Jameson was hoping around, and fell over. Then I hear this…

Jameson- “I sowry donkey.” He set his donkey upright again. “I sowry. Soft (as he pets his donkey).” Then he gave his donkey a kiss, hopped back on, and kept bouncing.

Today he has insisted on bringing his donkey up stairs and down stairs with with him. Not so fun for us.

Baby girl was also spoiled. She received a few outfits and shoes, along with this adorable dress…

But we couldn’t stop there.

We had to get Jameson the matching tie.

It didn’t really occur to me to have matching outfits. Usually you match your boys or dress your girls the same. Not that I haven’t seen brothers and sisters match, I just haven’t thought about it. Well, now I am, and I can’t wait!

Jameson had to try out his toys with Grammy and Papa. This alligator is a little scary. You push his teeth until he snaps his mouth shut and then your out.

(Don’t mind me in the background. It had been a lond day of shopping, and I was a little tired and sore.)

We were also able to take Kevin’s parents to the EMP (Experience Music Project). The displays this time were not as fun as when we went on our honeymoon, but I still think Kevin’s parents enjoyed it. They also have an area you can play instruments. Jameson loved this sections. He played on the keyboards with his Grammy for 10 minutes and did not want to leave. Unfortunately our time was up in the booth.

Jameson also loved his Grammy’s iphone. She has downloaded toddler games on it for him, and he never forgets that. She downloaded a new one for him, which Kevin (my husband) thought was too advanced for him. You had to drag the “puzzle piece” to the correct spot. For example, place the cow piece on top of the cow outline. At first Jameson was frustrated, because he couldn’t drag them just right. Within a few tries, he figured it out and proved his dad wrong. By the end of the night, he could finish the puzzle after a minute or two and would want you to start it over. If anyone knows of a touch screen hand held device that’s not a phone, for kids let me know. We totally need one.

The weekend ended with the missionaries over for dinner on Sunday. We had some good steaks, sent them on their way, and then enjoyed the rest of the evening with Kevin’s parents. Debbie got to show Jameson some of the other toys she got him.

This morning Jameson woke up, and the first question was, “Papa here?” Well this was pretty much how every morning has started this weekend. I had to tell him he would be coming soon. They stopped by for about 30 minutes before they had to leave for the airport. Jameson was sad to say good-bye. We had so much fun this weekend, and can’t wait for more visits.

Thanks again for all the treats and fun this weekend!

Wednesday we found out Kevin’s parents were coming for a visit this weekend. We made the mistake of telling Jameson “Papa” was coming. He got so excited, and we realized a 2 year old doesn’t understand “in a couple of days.” We told him he had to go to sleep first. So Thursday morning I went in to get him after I heard the, “Moooommmm?!” yell coming from his room. I walked in, he looked up and asked, “Papa come?” Sorry kid. One more day. So yesterday I didn’t bring it up, and we waited till after his nap today to remind him Papa was coming. Kevin’s parents got here about 5:30, and Jameson couldn’t wait.

We showed them around our little place, then got coats and headed out for dinner. We ended up eating at the Crab Pot which sits on a little lake, litterally. The place is on stilts over the water. It’s more like a pond, really. Anyways, it was delicious. Basically, they bring you a pot of seafood, dump it on the table, and you have at it.

Jameson loved to help all of us crack the crab shells.

He was also fond of playing with the clam shells, and making them bite things. He was really good at the restaurant, thanks in part to Grammy’s farm app on her iphone.

 

It was delicious. Even Jameson’s chicken wings were good. We’ll see what the rest of the weekend brings.

Yesterday was a beautiful fall day. The sun has been out the last few days, and it has only rained at night. After Jameson’s nap, we walked down to the park to enjoy the sunshine. I’m posting these sunny fall pictures, because I’m sure soon I’ll need proof the sun does shine here.

 

There was even a father leading his family to the water for family pictures. From what I heard his family was not too excited.

The sun was hitting the trees just right across the water.

Jameson found the ducks on the other side of the bridge. They followed him up and down the beach, but wouldn’t get out of the water. He was getting mad they wouldn’t come on the land so he could run through them. I tried to explain we didn’t have food for them today, so they were going to stay in the water. He was still not happy about it, and kept asking for bread.

 

It may have been beautiful, and sunny, but it was cold. After a few runs down the slide, I told Jameson it was time to go. I couldn’t feel my ears anymore. He was not ok with leaving until I told him we’d have soem hot chocolate at home. Then it was ok that we were leaving. I still had to carry him most the way, or he would run off. That’s starting to get uncomfortable. Plus, he’s getting heavier, especially uphill.

Last Friday, we headed to the Bellevue Square mall to spend some time in their kids center. Jameson loved it. They have a small wall completely surrounding the area along with benches to sit on. Jameson got to meet a few friends there. He ran and climbed all over the boats until he saw his friends had a snack. They all sat down for a minute, but would not all look at the camera at the same time.

 

Last week, we received a package in the mail. Our first bit of pink came from my Grandma Judd.

We received this cute blanket for our little one on the way. Grandma wrote, “Some pink for your little one~ we’re all happy for you! Love- Grandma”

Grandma Judd is always so good to send cards and letters. Jameson received a Halloween card from her, too. We love you!