Songs about Violence...Learned at Preschool

Well, I got one video on here.  And this one is actually from today, so we're getting a lot more current!  Would you believe that Paul had never heard the Litte Bunny Foo-Foo song before???  Poor deprived kid.  And this one is for Jed, I know he will be so proud of his cousin's skills on the guitar.

Joshua Turned 2......Six Months Ago

If you don't like excuses, just skip this first paragraph.  I have tried a few times to do a new blog post and I could not get the videos to work.  So I got frustrated and just deleted the whole darn thing, several times.

But....that just means there are LOTS of pictures and videos that you get to look at now.  And I'd like to start off by showing a few pics of Joshua's second birthday.  It was pretty low-key.  My mom was in town to visit, so we went to see the butterflies at Meijer Gardens.  And I made some fabulous cupcakes.

I'm pretty sure there was a sign by these plants that said "Don't touch the plants", but Joshua can't read.  Luckily the butterflies were too fast for him.

 

I thought it would be fun to have cupcakes for Joshua since there were only 4 of us there to celebrate.  They did not turn out so well.  I am no longer going to make anything from a box.  You would think that would be easier than making cupcakes from scratch, but not for me apparently.  They have about 20 times the oil they were supposed to have, and came out a little flat.  Joshua thought it was yummy, though.  And he wanted green frosting, so that's what we got.  After the cupcakes came out looking so awful, I gave up trying to decorate them attractively, so the finished product looked something like this:

 

Good thing he's not too picky.  The rest of us didn't even try them.  Poor kid.  But before you feel too sorry for him, he did get some pretty cool presents out of the deal.  A tricycle and a sandbox!  

Next we took a trip to Illinois to visit for Naomi's birthday.  We stopped by Grandma and Grandpa Twidell's and Joshua got the grand tour.  He got a trip on the lawn mower with Grandpa and a tea party with Grandma.  You really can't think about those two without thinking about lawn mowers and tea parties. 

I bought Naomi a jewelry set for her birthday......with lots and lots of very tiny pieces.  Caroline was thrilled.  It turned out MUCH more successful than Caroline thought it would, though.  Most things usually do.  (Love you, little sister!)

Next came Easter.  Lots of Jesus celebrating, egg hunting, cat petting and horse riding were involved.

 

And here's a few photos of random silliness.  Joshua's always good for alot of these moments during a day.

Joshua's gotten to go to the zoo three times this year, twice in Grand Rapids and once in Minneapolis.  Here's a few pics of our trip to the zoo with Caroline and Naomi.  

Now those are two good-looking guys!  And a bald eagle in the top corner, for those of you who were looking forward to the zoo animal pictures.

We walked past the camels, and Joshua took one look at them and said "I wanna ride DAT!"  

So they did.  And with that, I am signing off for now.  I am still very frustrated, because AGAIN my video I wanted to put in here did not work.  And even after I did the test video!  I guess pictures are better than nothing though, right?  Maybe I'll try the video by itself.  I might just have too many pictures on here.  We'll soon find out.

Testing.....testing.  I've been boycotting my blog because it won't let me do videos.  We'll see if it works this time!

Too Busy to Take Pictures

OK, maybe it should say "Too Lazy to Take Pictures."

I decided to try to do a post since we're now well past Christmas and even past Valentine's Day. So I popped open iPhoto on the old Mac, and found about 2 pictures I could post that I've taken since Christmas. Hmmm.......

I do have one super-cute video though!

I spend alot of time reading to Joshua, which doesn't lend itself to picture-taking. I don't know why it seems like "our" thing, but it does. Perhaps because I used to spend hours upon hours upon days upon weeks reading when I was a kid. I was very shy, and we also lived in the middle of nowhere. I know this because when I brought Paul home for the first time, he said "Wow, this is the middle of nowhere." I couldn't run across the street to play with my friends, so I spent alot of time reading during the summer. As I grew older and started taking gymnastics, I also spent alot of time reading while standing on my head. I'd lean up against the couch and just do a headstand while I read Nancy Drew. I got so good at it that I won the headstand contest in my gymnastics class. My sister and I left the other girls in the dust and battled it out for quite a while before she "got bored" or so she claims and ran off to do something else. I still assert she could smell defeat and gave up.

But back to my two (OK, three) pictures. Paul is the one who does all kinds of activities with Joshua. They built Joshua's first snowman this winter. I thought that snowmen were made with only three big snowballs, but not Joshua's. Notice the ridiculously tiny head. And yes, he is kissing his snowman. I asked him to.
And one of Joshua's new favorite things are the "ambliances" at mommy's work. Don't tell Mr. Meijer, but he even got to drive one.
And this is one of those moments that make being a parent so wonderful.....

Wait, I Thought Christmas Was Over

I do realize that Christmas is over, but I figure that if we still have Christmas decorations up, I can still post Christmas pictures on the ol' blog.

Speaking of decorations, this was what Joshua was doing when we put up the tree. He managed to break three ornaments before we even got the lights up. So he decided since he made a "mess", that he was going to "clean it? clean it?" I'm not sure why everything is a question for him right now, but that's how he talks. So he got out his broom and pushed the ornament fragments around the floor until daddy helped him actually get them into the dustpan.



He was quite fascinated with decorating the tree, and we actually managed to keep him from breaking any more ornaments for about 4 weeks. I call that a success for the first Christmas that he could walk.

We traveled to Illinois again for Christmas. It was so good to see all of our family, but Joshua does not seem to understand that he can sleep as long at Papa and Grandma's house as he can at our house. He woke up at 3:45 the first morning, and at 5:15 the next morning. I was REALLY sick, so it was not fun sitting in a recliner trying to get a little boy back to sleep at 3:45 in the morning. He held out for about an hour and 10 minutes before he finally succumbed. Stinker.

We celebrated Christmas with my mom's side of the family, and managed to get a picture of my grandpa and four of his five great-grandchildren. We missed Rocco, but we were thinking about him! I am very proud of myself that I got a picture of everyone's face turned toward the camera. Grandpa is the only one who felt like smiling when we took the pictures, but he is a pretty joyful guy, and he smiles alot anyway. My grandpa's laugh is one of my favorite things in the whole world. The kids were trying to figure out which of the 7 cameras to look at while we all snapped away. I love how different they all look. They've all got the same blood running in their veins, but you can't tell it by looking at them.


One thing I love about both sides of my family is that they can't have a Christmas party without singing. When I was little all of the cousins used to do programs, either singing or playing the various instruments we all learned how to play. So after we ate, and listened to the Bears game, we sang Christmas carols. I spent most of the time wiping away tears. It was beautiful, and I hope I can pass on a love for music to our son.

We had our "Christmas Day" a couple of days late, because we were waiting for Chris, Emily, and Jed and if there aren't 500 people in my parent's living room, it doesn't feel like Christmas. Joshua was feeling quite festive, and needed no prodding from anyone to stick the bows on his head and wear a ribbon necklace.


Joshua and Jed both got cowboy vests and hats from my parents. Joshua wouldn't take his off. I'm very proud of his style sense. Pajamas, straw cowboy hat and cow vest. Lookin' good.


There was a rocking horse close by, but why would a cowboy ride a horse when he can ride a firetruck that has a siren?


Uncle Chris can sit and play the guitar for hours. Not kidding. Joshua's pretty intrigued by this and he loved to sit on Chris's lap while he played. We bought him a little cheap guitar to play around with until we think he's capable of not breaking a more expensive one. Now every time he sees it, he says "Guitar? Uncle Chris?" Again with the question statements. I think it's pretty cool that he still talks about his uncle, he IS a pretty great guy after all.


Naomi got a sled for Christmas. It's the perfect size for all three cousins to fit in. Azeem pulled them around the house in the sled, which they all thought was even better than being in the snow. Snowpants are just a pain in the neck. Especially for the adults trying to put them on. Joshua's kissing Naomi's panda puppet. He's really into kissing lately. So far I don't think he's been chasing any girls around the Orange Room at Appletree. He seems to prefer stuffed animals for now.


Joshua likes to dance, but he doesn't have the stamina of his cousins Jed and Naomi. Those two can do dance marathons. Joshua needed pink gloves just to keep up. I did manage to catch a few moves, though. You have to be patient until the end of the video.




OK, we're done with Christmas. It's rare I can get a close-up of Joshua that's not blurry, so this is it. I think he's in a scone-indused coma. He loves scones. Normally we get them from Starbucks, but I made some cornbread scones to go with some chili, and Joshua got the last one this afternoon. If you look closely you can see the crumbs around his mouth.


And last, but not least, one of my favorite things that Joshua is doing lately is that he's starting to sing. The other night I was singing him Silent Night (sorry, not quite done with Christmas), and I got to the "sleep in heavenly peace" part and he just went "HEAVEN!!!" in a little voice that was as high as he could go. It sounded more like a soft scream, but in his defense, it IS the highest notes in the song. Hopefully he wasn't just copying how mommy sounded. It made me happy.

No.....A REAL Smile

We're struggling a bit lately with getting a real smile out of Joshua. As soon as he sees a camera he does this.....


You may say it's funny, but believe me, as a mom trying to get a good picture of her son, it gets old fast. I suppose it's still better than some of the expressions we get, though. The dazed look is also popular..........



(Notice the shopping cart, I had to buy that after Joshua visited my parent's house and was pushing Naomi's pink baby stroller all over the place. Papa, Daddy and Joe all told me that we couldn't have that, so it was on to Mr. Hooper's Sesame Street grocery cart. I fail to see how this is much more manly.) But back to pictures.

My personal favorite is the picture that needs to come with a sound effect. Yelling really loud for no apparent reason.....
Although I am a Halloween humbug, I did make one small concession this year. I bought a pumpkin. I love to encourage Joshua as he tries new words and he would go crazy every time we walk into D&W past the pumpkins for sale. I decided that it couldn't hurt to have a pumpkin in the house, so I got one. I was wrong. Joshua loved the pumpkin until he figured out that he couldn't lift it. And if he can't lift it, that means......mommy has to lift it. Over and over and over and over. And over. I realize that I could have just said no, but really, which is worse? Lifting a pumpkin? or listening to your child scream "Munkin!!!!!! Munkin!!!!! Uuuuppppp!!!" while crying as if someone was tearing out his toenails?So I bribed him with bunny grahams and bought him one of these.

Now the normal-sized pumpkin is "Mommy's munkin" and the little one is "Yosh-ya's munkin". Daddy doesn't have a pumpkin, but I don't think he cares.

What We Do For Fun

Hugs are really fun. We love hugs.
I don't know how THIS picture got in here. Driving with women is not fun.
Playing with toys at the Children's Museum with my best buddy "Momi" is pretty fun, but a few more inches would be nice.



Reading the mail is fun.Sitting 5 rows from the Cubs is fun. Seeing them win is even more fun. Fun.....shocking......take your pick.
Aaagggghhhh!!! Derrek Lee in a Braves uniform is the opposite of fun.


Stomping in puddles that you can barely see is fun.