The boys were particularly happy (and well behaved, which made it fun for all of us) at the dinner table the other night, so I thought I’d share a couple of the cute pictures.
I had to make this one big to show off what a sweet and handsome little man he is becoming. Doesn’t he look so grown?
We finally put up our Christmas tree the other day. Josiah was really excited about it because he helped Grandma and his cousins decorate hers and he’s seen them in other various places and so he was excited to have one at our house. Here are some pictures of the event.
I would show you a picture of the finished product, but it isn’t finished yet. We rushed to do what we did because we had somewhere to be and what was done has been largely dismantled or rearranged by Josiah’s little fingers since. Elijah has mostly left it alone. Maybe I’ll finish it this week.
Last Tuesday Jacob and I celebrated our 15th year together and on Friday we celebrated 11 years of marriage! We turned 30 this year and the fact that we have been together literally half our lives already is both scary and sweet. He’s the love of my life, the only one I ever wanted to be with, and a great blessing to both me and my boys.
We celebrated our dating anniversary with work and him taking another woman out to dinner. Never mind that she is a widow in her 70’s and it was a church function that he participated in as a deacon in our church :) He even bought her a corsage. I had a dozen red roses and a card waiting for me at home. Josiah insisted they were from him!
We both took off Friday to get ready for our weekend Christmas celebrations and to celebrate our anniversary a little. We are hoping to do something with just the two of us after Christmas, but for now we did took our little family on a short hike north of Alachua and then went to Conestogas for lunch, complete with an ice cream shared between the three of us. The rest of the day was spent wrapping presents and packing. I lucked out again with a beautiful necklace and some chocolates. We are, however, debating trading in the necklace for stud earrings to be more work and baby friendly so that I’ll actually wear it rather than breaking it.
These pictures aren’t really centered around us as a couple, but they do represent our life and our fun times.
I’ve loved my 15 years with my hero. Sometimes I am amazed that God gave me such a perfect match for my needs. He’s truly a gift. I can’t wait to see what the 16th year brings! (16 years…gulp!….I’m getting old)
Josiah is two-and-three-quarters of a year old! He is such a great little boy! His vocabulary and communication skills are awesome and he plays in such big boy ways. Josiah is a fantastic big brother and a wonderful son. He’s still mostly the ideal little boy, but the terrible two’s/three’s are in full force…at least I hope this is full force.
I love having full conversations with Josiah. The best scenario to have a great conversation is while pushing him in the swing. This is where I learned that he can count to 10 – when he wants to. (He’s also great with shapes, but we are beginning to wonder if he is color blind since he consistently misnames reds, greens, and blues, but that’s another story.) One subject that always manages to eek its way into conversation is the fact that he REALLY wants a horse trailer to go with a specific truck he has. His babysitter’s daughter has the same truck with the matching horse trailer and horses and he loves playing with it whenever he is there. He talks about it constantly. So…guess what he’s getting for Christmas.
Fortunately and unfortunately, Josiah really picks up on words quickly. He talks a lot at home, but in public he often just sits back and observes. I’m convinced he learns a lot this way. He confirmed this for me the other day when he blurted out his first cuss word! I was floored. I have no idea where he learned that. To make it worse, he said it in response to me asking him where he learned about being drunk – something he said about himself after losing his balance. I’m trying to not be too worried as I know he will be exposed to things just by being in this world, but it has heightened my awareness to an over-protective status!
We are in the beginning stages of potty training and have had some great successes. Unfortunately we can only work in short blocks of time which stresses me out a bit, but I’m trying to be laid back. We have had a few setbacks with his GI troubles and this has complicated potty training efforts, too. Hopefully we’ll control that factor again soon.
Josiah tends to have one favorite song at a time and he insists that no other song be sung until he chooses a new favorite. His current favorite is “Jesus Loves The Little Children”. We sing it every night (multiple times) before bed. During prayers and at other random times he lists off practically everyone he knows. It is very cute and endearing. Then he rolls over, puts his arm around whoever is putting him to bed, and tells them to sleep with him.
As I said, he plays in such grown up ways now. In addition to acting like a typical little boy, he also likes to act like a daddy. Ever since we had Elijah he has practiced his fatherly duties. He has a stuffed bunny rabbit, appropriately named “Rabbit”, that he takes extremely good care of!
(By the way, Josiah also likes to carry a pretend purse, push a stroller, and cook. He learns from me, too :) )
Josiah has always been a very well behaved little guy and I love him to pieces, so I don’t want my “terrible two’s” complaints to make him sound bad, but since they are playing a role right now I may as well acknowledge it. So, the other morning after a disciplinary run in with him, I was eating breakfast and he was sitting across the table from me eating some of my cereal dry. We were eating in a comfortable silence and I was thinking about how I need to stop thinking of him as my adversary and instead as the perfect little guy I know he is (don’t laugh!) who just needs some direction. (I’ve been working on the concept of just changing the way I view him and deal with him and have been amazed at the changes it produces. I’ve been wanting to blog about it, but I need to practice more first!) In efforts to converse with him, but still with those thoughts in mind, I jokingly asked him if he was my adversary. I about choked when he growled at me! I know he has no idea what that means and he did it with a smile on his face, but it sure was ironic!
I could go on and on about this handsome little guy with all the little things he does and everything I love about him, but I know they are only that special to his mother. Here are just a few more random things: He cracks me up because he is at that age where everything he says is in a loud voice. He’s not being bad. It’s just that life is so exciting, why stifle it? It can be difficult when Elijah is sleeping though. He also finally has a mind of his own and we have to be creative to get him to eat all the right things and use rewards judiciously so that he thoroughly appreciates them…so fun to watch! Josiah has entered a stage since watching Elijah being fed that he often likes to be fed, too. I can’t help but indulge him because since he finds it fun I can almost feed him anything – and a lot of it. Lastly, he calls himself “Siah”, Elijah is “Jijah” and he likes to tell me that I am pretty and that he, his Daddy, and Elijah are handsome. Mmm…mmm...mmm…I love that little boy!
On one final note, Josiah has his first career ambitions. He wants to be an astronaut! This is specifically because he wants to touch the moon. Every morning and night we have to talk about how the sun/moon is awake/asleep. I haven’t yet told him that Obama has squelched that opportunity unless he becomes rich enough or knows the right people to do it privately :) I just think it is cute that he’s rejecting all other career ideas and sticking to being an astronaut.
Last weekend we celebrated my Mom’s 60th birthday! I considered not posting her age, but there is a picture of the cake and she hasn’t made efforts to keep it quiet and actually seems quite proud! Here are a couple pictures of our fun. Admittedly, most of these pictures are of kids, not so much of Grandma.
Checkin’ out the cake together. I hope they have lots more fun times ahead together.
I gave this candle to Josiah to lick the icing off and apparently he thought it was a treat!
All mom wanted for her birthday was to put up her Christmas tree and take her annual Christmas picture with her grandbabies.
We decided to try to get a Christmas picture of our family, too!
I loved this little face, so I cropped it out and blew it up! Can’t you just hear him saying happily -
“Happy Birthday Grandma!”
