And some more of my little guy.....

Hello, All!

And here he is, the 19 month old in all his silly happiness. He's grown up SO much since his first birthday. He says words like "Baskaball" and "kitty" and "toot"(fruit), "ah-done", and of course, "Mommy" and "Daddy" we hear loud and clear. He still naps ridiculously long in the afternoon, but I think that's because we play a LOT in the morning. I think he's the coolest little guy around, but as you know, I am his mommy!




~Em

At the Shedd aquarium

title, anyone?

18 months

Eh??
What's that?

Em's actually posting something new on her blog?!?!?!

Yes, internet. That is right. I'm back.

And so is this absolutely adorable face:



No, it has not been 18 months since I've posted a personal post, but that IS how old the J man is now. And boy, he is a busy boy!

Here's a rundown of our summer so far:
Warm and sunny, with some really amazing, awe-inspiring thunderstorms. Which makes for lots of weeds growing in my garden. J man is taking swimming lessons again this year. And he totally freaks out. Yeah. Last year he was a dream- kicking his feet and swinging his arms. Now he cries.
A LOT, people.
And crying in a huge swimming pool is not by any means quiet. He did settle down when they brought out the water balls. For, Like, 5 minutes. Anyway, we're going again tonight!
We went to Noah's Ark, too. For $11. Amazing how much money you can save when you go as a church group of around 75 people. It was a TON of fun, and I even got to go down a few slides by myself! Cuz I'm a big girl....

Anywho, the photography thing is just working out beautifully this year. I have a full summer of weddings, quite a few senior portrait sessions, and a number of family photos. Enough to keep me busy, fo'sho'.

J hubby's still working the 3rd shift thing, but hopefully will be finding something new SOON. (pray for that, too, please!) This is just not easy on our marriage, and he is such a different, happy person when he actually is able to sleep. Which isn't during the day. It's at night, when normal people go to bed. But, well, he works hard, and it's helping me to keep doing what I love to do, too. I just want him to find something that he loves!

We also took a trip to TX to visit my sis-in-law and her hubby. What a great time! We went tubing, horsebackriding, saw the Alamo, remembered it, and did all other kinds of tourist-y things. And I got sun. On my skin. I don't think I've ever been this dark in my life. Dark as in, hi, I am not pale anymore, but still am white as white can be. But not pale!

J man is walking, talking (about basketball, mostly) and absolutely adores his daddy. I love the sound of him saying "daaah-deee". He says it SO clearly, and wonderfully, it makes me smile just about every time.
So, with that, I will end this post.


More to come soon, internet, have no fear!

~Em

One more.....

.....from inside the barn. :)

Barn

A perfect place to play...and take photos!

My folks just purchased some additional land adjacent to theirs, and it included a barn. A beautifully dilapidated barn. Awesome, from a photographers point of view. To a kid? A whole new world of spectacular fun.

J walking, baby video

This video is actually from a few weeks ago, when he just decided that he wants to walk. Yes, he is 15 months old, and yes, he has been crawling for a really, really long time (his worn-out jeans prove it!)

The day had been warm, but when we were out on our walk, the weather turned cold, fortunately we had our jackets with us, just in case! The day after this video was taken, we had more snow on the ground. Hopefully that's the last of it for a while.

Anyway, back to the video. The little guy is scared of cracks, even if the level of the cement doesn't change- he sees the crack, and doesn't want to walk over it. It's kinda funny!
Enjoy~

Em

Another warm one!

So what did we northerners do???


we donned our sunscreen....


climbed some stairs....

and we went outside!

and of course, we hit up the swings....

Do you think we had any fun?
Oh yes, we did!!! Went over to NPH for story hour, where we met up with Ruthie and Katie, and then headed over to a nearby park where we hung out with ducks (yes, we had ducks sitting with us), went on the swings, went down the slides, and played with the balls we brought along. A great time was had by all!!

~Em

Guess what we did today?

We went OUTSIDE!!!!

Can you tell I'm excited about the warmer weather? no?
Well, I am SUPER excited about it. Really. I cannot wait for buds to explode on the trees, and flowers to bloom. It will be beautiful soon!

Can I hear a cheer? hip-Hip- hooray ;)

Good Reading

A boy and his cat.

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When I was pregnant with J man, I became a little wary of how well my cats would adjust to him. There was a scary moment for me when my friend, Diana, came over to do my final maternity photo session. She brought her son, Sam, with her, and while we were taking pictures, he suddenly came screaming to his mommy, with two scratches on either side of his face.
Now, Sam is one of the most gentle little children that I have ever known, so I know he wasn't tormenting the cat. Diana thinks he was just giving the kitty a hug, and that freaked the kitty out. The cats are great around big people- in fact, the most social cats many people have ever hung out with. Really, the cats will come to any random person (as long as they are not a child) and snuggle with them. I mean REALLY snuggle. But they just don't like kids.

Needless to say, I was worried that the cats would be territorial with the baby. There was no question that if they got violent around him, they would be given to my parents or another home, but that would be difficult.

My worries were unfounded. This little boy LOVES the cats, and will come up to their sleeping spots, put his head down right on top of them, thumb in mouth, and "sleep" with the kitties. And he plays with them, and they play back. Usually. They will still run away if he gets too loud, but I'm perfectly happy with that.
They are good buds, and that's more than I could have ever hoped for!

~Em

"I'm going to GET YOU!!!!"

My Little guy loves to play, and this series was taken while I was chasing him around the house- hence the really, really happy look on his face. Generally he doesn't smile a whole lot for the camera- since he likes to point at it and say "dah?" I try to distract him while taking his pictures, so I get a more natural smile :) that, and I like to play, too!

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Good Morning, Daddy!

It is no wonder why little J man really likes it when Daddy wakes up for the day...

Wouldn't you be this happy?

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I'm pretty sure I would be this happy. In fact, I know I am this happy.
Good Morning, Daddy!

Party it up, boy!

This post is mostly pictures, so bear with me.
It was a pretty long, exciting day on Saturday- we had over 30 guests at J man's 1st b day party (the party was a week earlier than his actual b day, but really... who has time the weekend before Christmas?)
It went SO well, with plenty of Ribs (which, yes, I grilled out in the snow!) and fresh-baked carrot cake* with cream cheese frosting to go around.

*I spent 3 whole hours on that thing...

After the gift-opening, the chillens* went downstairs to play in the balloon room- we blew up almost 70 balloons, and then went outdoors to do a little sledding. Josiah even went down the hill- about 7 or 8 times- he LOVED it! He was able to manage that because he got an infant's sled- yep, you heard (read) me right- a sled made for babies. It has a super-wide base so it's nearly impossible to tip over, and it has straps to hold the baby in place, much like a high chair. Well, it worked like a dream! Hopefully I'll get a link up, or pictures emailed to me, or something- since my Dad took the pics of his first sledding experience. I was the one lugging him up the hill, so no camera for me!
Anyway, enough talk, on to the pictures! (since I promised that oh so long ago....)

*children. there were 8 of them.

The little guy had a MOUNTAIN of gifts to open. I opened all of them. Can a 1 year old really open all those gifts? No. The answer is no.
How blessed is my little one, though! We have such generous friends and family, thank you all SO very much! (yes, thank you, too, even if you got him a "noisy" toy :)








I made the sign, too, out of fabric remnants I picked up at Hancock fabrics a long time ago, and random buttons. It was totally fun!

Happy Birthday, Baby!

Whew!

It's been a long, LONG week.
Mostly cuz I've been dealing with a sick little J man. He started a fever last wednesday, we figure. He felt pretty warm, but was acting completely normal, so I didn't really think anything of it.
But then on Thursday, while he was at the babysitter's house, he apparently tried napping on their floor and was acting kind of miserable. This is odd because he had just woken up from his nap when he got there.
We had our usualy thursday night get-together, and he was just SO clingy- didn't want to even play with the Duplos- which is also very unusual. When we finally got home, I took his temperature, and it was over 103 (under the armpit- so really we should add one more degree to that, and it was over 104) Despite alternating Tylenol and motrin every couple of hours, the fever rarely dipped blow that point. So we took him into Urgent care on Saturday, where they diagnosed him with an ear infection, which was a surprise for them, since he wasn't showing any other symptoms like pulling on his ear or runny/stuff nose.
They prescribed amoxycillan and we were good. 10 days, every 8 hours he would get a dosage of the awesome pink stuff.

But then on Sunday, the poor little guy started getting little raw, red spots EVERYWHERE on his torso, neck, face, and some on his legs. And on Monday it was worse. So I stopped giving his the amoxycillan, and called his regular pediatrician. She was able to squeeze me in right away to take a look at him, and sure enough, the red stuff all over his body was an allergic reaction to the medication. But then she looked into his ears- and said that the infection was mild enough that his body should heal itself on its own. No more meds.
I'm good with that!

So, long story short, $65 copay to get into Urgent care on Saturday, $14 for the medication, and then a $35 copay to see his pediatrician on Monday, and now we are back to where we started from. No meds, letting his body heal on its own.
Small price to pay to know my baby will be well :)



Oh, and on Thursday night, my sister, Mandy, had baby #4 :) We are SO happy to see you, Miss Jordyn Grace! Can't wait to meet you in person~
If you want to see pictures of her, just click here



Em

WHOA!

He's 10 months old already!

A picture My hubby wanted me to get

and for some reason, J man goes for the low notes- every time.
That's all.
Have a good night!

Em

I normally don't encourage this....

.....but I just couldn't help myself.


Em

Play me a song on the piano,(J) - Man

My good friend, Andy, took this video on Wednesday night while my hubby and I were on a date!
Yes, I actually took him up on his email-proposed date (which was mentioned in the last post), but we had to move it from Tuesday to Wednesday since he had church meetings on Tuesday he had forgotten about (but for some reason I remembered)
Anyway, we went to see "UP!"- a totally cute, family-friendly film by Pixar. I almost cried during the beginning, though- there's this montage about the couple's life, and part of it she finds out she can't have kids... I kinda know that feeling.
I have been incredibly busy the past couple of months- hence fewer blogs. I've been keeping busy with photography, art stuff, teaching art to grades 1-8, and chasing after my super-fast baby.
Sarah and Billy came by for a surprise visit at the beginning of this week- crazy, since they live in CO. Coming to WI is no small feat, especially when they had to battle with black ice to get to the airport so they could make it here.
So that's pretty much it in a nutshell. This weekend we're on our way to the Mad town with some friends to visit more friends. It's sure to be a good time, although it is homecoming for UW....we may well have a loud night.
I guess I'll just have to let you know how it goes!

em

Feeling the wind through his hair.

At least what hair he has (it's there- really silky strands that are slowly but surely filling in a little thicker every day...)
Anyway, we spent some time up by my sister's house with her family- and we hung out at a couple of different parks- so J man got to play around on the baby swings.


The little daredevil of my baby decided that it would be WAY more fun to lean as far forward in his seat and pretend he's Superman.

Either that, or he was just fascinated with his moving shadow.

At any rate, he had a great time.

Until he got too tired. Then we went back home.

Oh, and he got 3 new upper teeth this past week. Whew!


~Em

Photo Challenge #31

My son discovering his world on this
brand new day.