I’ve been out of this Foto Friday thing for a while. It’s fun to join in, but I just haven’t taken the time to do it in a long time. This week’s theme is HANDS.
This picture was from last month, but I took the same picture last year. If I don’t lose that little front loader, I’m planning to take this picture every year. Here’s what we have so far:
Click on over to Lori’s blog to see other Foto Friday entries for this week. Have a great weekend!
Recently, Jack turned 3. Did you know that he also turned into a little man? He says thinks like “that’s unfortunate!” and “How in the world did that get there?” His vocabulary is incredible, and I love having conversations with him.
After catching up with my favorite blogs in my Reader, I saw that a bloggy friend’s daughter just turned 3 this month as well. She did an interview with her daughter and plans to do this every year to see how things change. I love that idea, and I’ve seen it around other places and have been meaning to do this before. Here is my interview with Jack, my just-turned-three year old.
1. what is your favorite color? Green
2. what is your favorite toy? John Deere
3. what is your favorite fruit? Grapefruit (really? it’s not the blueberries or strawberries you ask for EVERY DAY?)
4. what is your favorite t.v. show? John Deere or Winnie the Pooh (I asked it twice, and got two different answers)
5. what is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? grapefruit (again, really?)
6. what is your favorite outfit? John Deere pj’s (he doesn’t own any)
7. what is your favorite game? Marbles (he just finished playing a magnet marble game that he never plays)
8. what is your favorite snack? fish crackers (I never buy these, but he knows about them!!)
9. what is your favorite animal? fish or zebras (I asked it twice as well, and the answers were different each time)
10. what is your favorite song? I can’t say
11. what is your favorite book? Otis (By Loren Long is currently on loan from the library. It’s about a tractor)
12. who is your best friend? Roo (from Winnie the Pooh)
13. what is your favorite cereal? Frosted Mini Wheats (he likes to eat just the frosted part)
14. what is your favorite thing to do outside? play in the mud (we don’t play outside all that often)
15. what is your favorite drink? milk
16. what is your favorite holiday? Christmas (I’m surprised he knew what holiday meant)
17. what do you like to take to bed with you at night? Pooh
18. what is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Frosted Mini Wheats (really? Not the pancakes you ask for EVERY DAY?)
19. what do you want for dinner on your birthday? No answer
20. what do you want to be when you grow up? A TRACTOR!!!
The final answer was my absolute favorite answer of all time. I love my little tractor boy!
Jack had a birthday last weekend. I can’t believe my little guy is 3 already! Here is a collage of his 3 birthdays
We had a very small celebration the morning of his birthday. Rick and I had decorated the kitchen after Jack was in bed, and we laid out his many presents for him to see when he came downstairs in the morning. He was surprised, that’s for sure.
We don’t do a big Christmas – only three presents each – but we love to do big birthdays. Actually, I should rephrase that. We don’t do a big Christmas for JACK, but do do big birthdays for JACK. When it comes to us, we still do birthdays pretty low key. It’s so fun to lavish Jack with presents! It’s also hard to resist the toys in the toy aisle when everything you look at shouts “Jack would LOVE this!” So, we over did it. I’m not worried about it.
The other big part of Jack’s birthdays is the cake. We love being ‘creative’ with his cakes. When I had a minor computer crash last year, I lost very few photos. We were really lucky. But the one set of photos that we did loose were last year’s birthday pictures. So, if you want to see our AMAZING (well, impressive perhaps, but amazing, I’m not sure) train cake from last year’s birthday, please check out last year’s birthday post. We were pretty proud of that one. This year I found a cake on Pinterest that I knew had to be Jack’s birthday cake this year. The original is so much prettier than mine, but ours turned out much better than I thought it would. This was a super easy cake to put together!
The fun part was that the inside was a surprise- it was construction colors. If you go to the original link, you can see how much better hers was. And you can see a picture tutorial on how to make the diagonal cake design from one of her links.
The best part is that Jack loved it. He wanted to help the backhoe dig up the cake.
Jack’s such a big boy now. He’s completely potty trained – even at night. He talks up a storm, using words and phrases like “I realized I had the wrong one..” and “I’ve been thinking about ….” He uses utensils like a champ when he eats . He listens to chapter books at bedtime now (Magic Treehouse). He wants to do everything himself and he’s usually pretty good about doing it right. He helps us cook and even puts the toothpaste on his own toothbrush without smooshing too much out on the brush. We’re very proud of him and hope we haven’t ruined him yet in his first three years. Hopefully he’ll get a little brother or sister this year. That was our hope last year, but it looks like this year will be more likely. Fingers are crossed!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JACK!
Well, here’s a picture (or 11) of what’s keeping me away from the computer these past few days. And it’s also what’s going to keep me away for the next few days. Maybe weeks. Who knows how long this will take….
This is my living room furniture. All in one big ‘pile’.
We’re Rick’s pulling up all our carpet to put down new hard wood laminate flooring.
We’re putting the same flooring all throughout our first floor, which means the kitchen will be next. While the floors are up in the kitchen, I’ll be painting the walls.
Yellow. One of these yellows. (the colors are crappy in the picture)
Oh, and maybe one day painting those cabinets a nice creamy white color. Maybe.
While we’re in a state of mid-construction, Jack is forced to wear his new boots. He LOVES his boots, so that isn’t a hardship.
While the sub floor is showing, I decided to write out some scriptures. We’re supposed to stand on the word of the Lord, right?
Now, everyone who ever walks on our floors, and anyone who ever owns this house will be standing on a firm foundation.
Jack wants to help with EVERY step. He’s a pretty good helper too. Rick is *mostly* patient with him., too.
He was the first one to walk on the new floor.
He even got to help pound in the boards. What a good helper!
Someday, hopefully before Christmas, I’ll show you our AFTER pictures. I can’t wait!
Yes, we’ll have mismatched woods in our home. I can live with that!
I have a few pictures for you today.
This week’s theme for Foto Friday is “silhouette”. (which I never spell correctly the first time!) I was going to take a new picture of Jack this week for this prompt, but I was too lazy decided to pick one from my archives instead. This is one of my favorites. Jack was 6 months here. My little virtuoso.
A friend of mine (and her friend) started a new photo challenge. This one has prizes, so I thought I’d get over my fear of submitting photos alongside REAL photographers and submit one this week. I like to support my friends, so I’m only partially in it for the prizes. Here is my best photo from this week.
Since we live very close to a military airport, we see a LOT of KC135s and C5s. They routinely do “touch and go’s”, which is when they come in for a landing, but just touch down, then go back up in the air again. They’ll circle around and do that over and over again. Each time, this is the view that we get. (This is a C5 –the largest airplane in operation)
Have a great Friday! And a really great weekend.
Yesterday was a HUGE Growth Chart Moment for Jack. We cleaned out his big toy box. and donated toys to Goodwill. While we picked through every last truck, train, and car, I asked if he wanted to give it away or keep it. More times than not, he said “give it away!” I told him that there were other little boys who didn’t have any toys who might like to have the ones he didn’t want anymore. Little did I know how generous my son is!
If I had to guess, I’d say that 3/4 of his toys were placed in the ‘give it away’ pile.
One toy he chose to put in that pile made me tear up a little. He has a toy Mack from the movie Cars who he plays with All.The.Time. He has a Lightning McQueen that goes with it (Mack’s trailer opens up for Lightning to drive up into). When he put Mack in the ‘give it away’ pile, I said, ‘But you play with this all the time! What about lightning? Where will you put him now?” He looked up and said, “Oh yeah!” He then ran to get his Lightning McQueen race car and put it in the pile with Mack. I guess they go together. He made me cry a bit with that one.
For clarity, I kept saying “you know, you’ll never see these toys again. Ever.” He didn’t seem to care about that. He kept saying that other boys needed toys to play with.
I have a lot to learn, and I think he will be the one to teach me!
I didn’t take any new pictures this week for this prompt, so I had to go back into my archives. In truth, I didn’t actually TRY to take new pictures this week. I immediately thought about these pictures that I love, so that’s what I’m sharing.
*Picture Overload*
Jack’s first Halloween. 9 1/2 months old. Our LIttle Jack-O-Lantern.
Jack’s first fall. Oct 2009. 9 months old.
One of my all-time favorites of Jack. 9 months. Oct. 2009
Fall 2010. 21 months
I like to call this one “mom of a boy.” This (like all of these pictures) was before I got a new camera. My little 5 year old Sony Cybershot was a pretty good camera-I didn’t do any editing to this one.
Jack’s 2nd Halloween. Same Costume. That’s called “getting your money’s worth!” Oct 2010.
Last year we went to a pumpkin farm that had a corn sand box. Jack loved it. This editing is pretty funky for me, but I like how it makes the corn look soft and fluffy.
I have to say that I was pretty nervous going into Potty Training Week. I had read this post from Marriage Confessions about her Potty Camp, and I took a few ideas from her training for Jack’s training. . I’ll try to make this short, sweet, and to the point., but if you’ve been a reader for long, you know that I don’t seem to try very hard at that.
How did I know Jack was ready to potty train?
The biggest clue what that he started running to the bathroom to poop in his diaper. He’d stop what he was doing, run to the bathroom and just stand there, grunting. Every time he did that, we’d ask if he wanted to poop in the potty. “No.”
He also went to the potty right after we saw a friend of his use the potty. He didn’t have any issues sitting on the big potty without any seat adaptor, so I knew he didn’t have any fear of the big potty anymore.
A lot of when you potty train (as a SAHM) is admitting when the mom is ready to put the work in. I knew it was a lot of commitment on the part of the mom, so I waited until I was ready to put in the time that was needed. That helped a lot.
What tools did I use?
I borrowed a seat adaptor from a friend. I knew Jack could sit on the big potty, but I also thought it might be easier on him if he didn’t have to hold himself up the whole time he was sitting. This was invaluable for training I think.
I made a potty chart. It was a sad little potty chart. I wrote “Jack’s Potty Chart” on a piece of paper and taped it up by the potty. Then I got a sheet of (45) smiley stickers from my sticker pile. (ex-teachers have LOTS of stickers). I put one sticker up on the ‘o’ of Potty so he knew that a sticker went on the paper somewhere when he used the potty.
I bought a jug of Gatorade. This stuff goes right through Jack and makes him need to use the bathroom a LOT. I figured that if he was going to get the idea that ‘pee goes in the potty’, it wouldn’t hurt to have a lot of opportunities to see that in action. I diluted it with some water.
I set my phone alarm to go off every 20 minutes and downloaded a ringtone called Potty Dance. From Katie’s post, I liked that she took her son to the potty every 15 minutes. I changed that to asking him if he had to go every 20 minutes. He got pretty annoyed with that, so I stopped this after day one.
So, How did it go?
Day 1
It went much better than I expected!! The first day, I took his diaper off after his morning change and didn’t replace it. He was uncertain about that, but I said we could sit on the potty if he needed to potty. He didn’t have an accident that morning at all. But he didn’t want to poop in the potty, so I put the diaper on him later in the morning when I knew he’d probably poop.
That afternoon I put underpants on him. He forgot that they weren’t diapers, so he peed in them. If he didn’t have the underpants on, he was fine and remembered to run to the potty. So I left him without anything on the bottom for the rest of the day. (If I left the house, I put a diaper on him).
Day 2
The next day he didn’t want to leave his diaper off, but I kind of forced the issue. I just didn’t put a new dipe on him. He didn’t have any accidents, and he even pooped in the potty. Day two and he was already pooping on the potty!?? That was too good to be true!! He was happy to be rewarded with stickers and saying “YAY!!” after he flushed.
But it was too good to be true. that afternoon, he pooped in his underpants. But he kept saying he did it on purpose. He knows that when I change his poopy diaper, I go plop the poop into the potty. (I didn’t mean to use alliteration, but that’s a fun sentence to say…go read it again) His idea was that if he pooped in his underpants, he could just plop it into the potty. He tried to. I asked him how that worked out for him and he said “not good”. Since then, no more poop accidents.
Day 3
The next day he had a pee accident, but it was because he was upset about having to come inside after having played outside for about an hour with no bathroom time. He was so upset, he peed as Daddy brought him in the house. Poor guy. Poor Daddy.
Day 4
The next day we went to Kroger to do some grocery shopping. I did put a diaper on him, but told him that he could use the bathroom at Kroger if he wanted to. He did!! It was our first ‘out of our home/foreign potty’ experience. He loved it. That morning he had finished up his sticker sheet. That means he had used the potty 45 times in about a week. That Gatorade is powerful stuff! And he only had three accidents. That’s pretty good in my estimation, so I let him pick out a new toy. He was very happy to pick out a new semi truck!
Day 5
The next day, we went to work at my church office for a few hours, and he went to the bathroom there 3 times, even pooping once! I think he’s good to go without a diaper now if I know there will be bathrooms around for him.
He did it!!
I know he’s not even three yet, but I could tell he was ready to start learning to do his business on the potty. We are still wearing diapers at night, and they’re still pretty soaked in the morning, so we’re not nighttime potty trained yet, but I’m okay with that. I thought that I might be sad about him being out of diapers – you know, growing up and all – but I’m so happy for him. He’s so proud. He’s getting the hang of pushing down his pants and can kind of pull them up by himself too. He’s Mr. Independent for sure.
Now if we could just figure out how to get him to go to sleep by himself…..
Jack has a few buddies his age that we love to hang out with. Jack is the oldest, and these three boys are almost all the same age –born the same month I believe. Of course, I’m friends with their mamas, whom I love to hang out with as well.
I thought I’d show you some sweet “Best Friend” pictures I’ve captured recently while the boys were hanging out.
Tiny
Ben
McCager
Did I ever mention that I like the back of my son’s head? I feel the same way about his friends too. Little boys are meant to be pictured like this. It shows off their curiosity and sense of adventure. They’re always on the go!
This week’s theme is Around the Yard/Garden. Seeing as how I don’t have a garden, I picked a picture of my cute little subject who loves to play in the yard. Since the temperatures are back up well into the 90’s again, we’ll not be visiting the yard today. Mommy’s pretty much a wimp when it comes to hot temperatures and would rather stay in the air conditioning.
I edited this with my favorite actions “Heist” from Paint the Moon and “Miracle Makeover” from (I don’t remember – Kim, help me out here). Really, I LOVE these actions. “Heist” seems to be my go-to action these days. That being said, I do think it looked better on my screen when pulled up in photoshop than it does on this blog. I’m not sure why. I may have to go take some more brightness out again before I order them for my wall. This is going to be my next framed picture of him I think.
*Sorry for all the photo-speak. I just figured that some people like to hear how I processed my picture this time.
Have a great weekend. I hope you get to do something fun for this long weekend. Stay cool!
