Shave and a hair cut...

For those of you who actually read last week's blog, you might remember that we tried to give Jay a hair cut, which didn't go over so well and resulted in very uneven bangs. Here is a picture to remind you of the results. We had to fix it somehow, so we finally borrowed some clippers with a long enough guide (1" - I didn't want to go any shorter than that, and its still short enough to spike.) Daddy did the job - I couldn't bring myself to take away those long silky soft locks.


Here are the end results. We can now spike Jason's hair, but have learned that when we do put gel in it, Jason just touches it himself and messes it up, so it never looks quite as spiked as it does in this picture.


Unspiked, it's just a short crop of hair. I miss feeling how soft his hair is, but he's still my little buddy and cute as can be.

And now for the Two Bits part of this shave and a hair cut. Two little videos for you. The new things this week I don't have videos for are butterfly kisses, and finally saying the word "Please". Daddy got him to say it yesterday. I have yet to get him to say it. But I do have videos for two new antics that keep us entertained. Sometimes Jason will take one hand, grab the fingers of his other hand, and wiggle his thumb. That is his way of indicating he wants to sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider". When on the phone with grandma or daddy, he will often do the motion, and I let them know on the other line, and they sing it over the phone to him. He LOVES it. The other video is his attempts to jump on command. He sometimes squats, sometimes does this quick head nod/jerk thing - kind of reminds me of a high speed "I dream of Jeanie" head bop. More often then not, he loses his balance. But he loves to try. Hope you enjoy the videos!

A little bit of this, a little bit of that, a lot of personality

So this post is just a random collection of photos and videos from the last month that showcase many of Jason's little tricks, quirks, etc. Is it any wonder we love him?

A few updates I don't have footage for. The last few weeks, he has just starting "talking" more and more. He is babbling sentences on end that we can't understand, but its a fun game we play where one of us will talk to him, and the other will interpret what he says and we carrying on the conversation that way. But he does clearly say: Hi, Bye, Mom, Daddy, Uh-oh, Thank you, Get Down, No, Owie, Huh?, Eye, Nose, Mouth, Stop, Hot, Three, What's that?, Cheese (whenever he sees a camera) Alright! (while giving hi-fives), Night-night, and Behluhdedaluhduhmahdah. (But like I said, we can't figure out what that last one means.) What he says may be limited, but he seems to understand EVERYTHING we say. Close the door, go get your shoes, where's your milk, take off daddy's socks, do you want a time out?, etc. It's amazing to us.

He learns so much every day. Just last Friday I was amazed as I watched him play with the same shape sorting toy I have tried for hours on end to teach him about to no avail. I gave up weeks ago when no matter what I said or did, he pushed my hand away because he wanted to shove the circle piece into the square hole over and over and would still just throw a fit of frustration when it wouldn't go in. But three days ago, out of the blue, he was just sitting on Daddy's lap putting the circle in the circle hole, over and over, and the triangle in the triangle hole, over and over. When did it finally click? I have no clue. But its seemed to have just happened over night.

He also loves to climb on EVERYTHING, has taken up coloring, has mastered going down the stairs by himself while holding onto the railing, loves tickling people and being tickled, loves to bring you a book and be read to, has gotten his fourth bottom tooth and is currently getting both his top canine teeth, and loves to open the pantry door, get out a box of cereal, and either dump it out on the floor or bring it to me so I can get him some. He especially loves eating all the crunch berries out of the Captain Crunch.

Here are some other funny things he does these days. Hope you enjoy.

A month or two back, Jason started "folding his arms" anytime we said "Prayer". This is what folding his arms and kneeling for prayer looks like for Jason.

On an emergency library trip to get a video Daddy needed for class, we got to play at the park while we waited for the library to open. Jason LOVES playing at the park.


While babysitting for the Weidners, I noticed that all the kids but Jason were with me in the living room. I went looking for Jason, and found him in the master bedroom, doing this. I guess my 100% boy has a nurturing side as well. :-)


We finally went to the park to use the shovel and pail he got for Easter. It took him a while to get the hang of the shovel, but soon he was able to dump sand in the bucket on his own, with out ALL of it blowing away in the wind (just most of it)



For date night one Friday in April, we went to Chuck E Cheese as a family. Jason didn't smile as much as normal, and just wanted to spend the whole night sitting behind a wheel in some vehicle. He loves anything with wheels, especially if he gets to pretend to drive. He got really mad when we tried to take him out five minutes later. What a nut.

If you notice from the previous pictures, Jay's hair was getting quite long and getting into his eyes. We decided it didn't make sense to pay a lot of money for someone else to cut his hair when he wouldn't hold still for them, so we tried it ourselves before church. He didn't hold still for us either, and his "bangs" are quite uneven. One of these days we'll get some longer clippers and buzz it so it can be spiked. Meanwhile, at least we saved some money and its out of his eyes.


Jason LOVES dogs. This is Pippen, the Beck's dog, and he loved hugging, kissing and tickling his new canine friend.
One of Jason's latest tricks is being able to identify various body parts. (there's a video later) We just added "Where's your tongue" to his repertoire, and here is his response.

Jason really does love to sit and ride anything with wheels, whether it was meant for that or not.


Jason was so proud of himself for figuring out he could stick a fork in his straw and get it to stick. Is he silly or what?!

Out to lunch at Joe's Farm & Grill with the Becks. We all wore our Super Spence shirts (check out www.mysuperspence.blogspot.com for details). We're rooting for you Spence! You're our hero!
We just recently went to a surprise party for a friend's 30th birthday. Jason stayed outside the entire time. He didn't play with the other kids, but rather just sat or stood on various wheeled vehicles. Didn't know how to make them move, but for fear that someone else would play with it instead of him, he just sat or stood on it. We're talking 20 minutes on end, not talking to anyone, not playing with anyone, not letting me feed him. Just monopolizing the vehicle so no one else could. He's weird like that.

Now here are some videos. Some mornings, Jason wakes up screaming and cranky. But other mornings, he is just the happiest little camper. The first video is how I caught him one morning.
The second video is Jason showing off his mad "Where's your...." skills. The third video is a little look at his new juggling trick. He LOVES when daddy juggles, and will bring the balls to him so he can do it. Then he tries to juggle himself, which is just him flailing his arms around without ever letting go of the balls. But he won't juggle without the juggling song being sung. Not the best video to showcase his juggling, but the best I could catch on camera. The fourth video is his attempt at throwing a Frisbee with Dad. When Jason throws things, he "counts" to three, which means he does a few practice throws and grunts each time before he finally gets the three and lets go for real. Video #5 is self explanatory if you listen to Dustin's narration. Hope it makes you laugh. And video #6 is just a small glimpse into the world of tantrums that is my everyday life. We've been battling a biting spree (it is getting better) and he still likes to hit, throw, and just whine and scream when he doesn't get his way. Sometime he will want to play with a toy and have fun, and then he remembers he is "supposed" to be throwing a tantrum to teach us a lesson, so he goes back to pretending to be miserable. The terrible twos are coming early I fear. But there's a lot of hugging and loving mixed in with the gnashing of teeth, so it's bearable.

Hope you enjoy the pix and the videos. I promise to try and be more frequent in updating this. Thanks for your patience!

Easter

Good Friday was good indeed, as we spent it celebrating my Grandpa Mel's 80th birthday. All 7 of his children were there, which means LOTS of cousins, some of whom I have never seen, or only seen once in person. (I am the 4th oldest of 30 grandkids on the Owens side). It was fun to have everyone together and watch a picture slideshow of his life and hear stories from all the aunts and uncles about having him as a father.

Here's the birthday boy with his ravishing lady by his side.

Jason was thrilled to play with all the younger cousins, as well as spend some quality bonding time with Uncle Tyler. More fun than throwing the beach ball around was taking rides on the chair cart all around the gym. The two seemed to enjoy spending time together.

After the evening, we stayed up at my parents house to watch General Conference and celebrate the rest of Easter. Jay had a rough time the first night and kept wanting to get in bed with us since we were sleeping only a foot away from his playpen. Thankfully, he stayed asleep after we got up. He was tuckered out for sure!

Easter Sunday introduced Jason to marshmallow Peeps! He loves them!


This Easter was also the first Easter Egg Hunt Jason got to do. He seemed to enjoy the thrill of the hunt, and loved carrying around his new shovel and pail, which doubled as his easter basket.

Daddy helps Jason scout out some eggs.

Found it!


Getting worn out by the festivities.



Here's a video of him first doing the Egg Hunt. Enjoy!



After the Egg hunt, Jason really loved spending time with Atticus (the other great-grandchild in attendance) and sitting at the "big boys" picnic table for lunch. Not being strapped into a high chair was really fun for him.

General Conference was uplifting, as always, and spending time with family was great. We know that our Savior lives and feel so blessed to have the knowledge of His Resurrection in our lives. We hope you all had as great an Easter as we did!

Adorable

Okay, so I owe you all some pictures from last week. It was spring break and to celebrate it, we bought ourselves a new king size mattress, really nice, and are happy to no longer be sleeping on a very old a worn out mattress on the floor (our bed frame broke last month). Then on Monday, we went to Tuscon for the day. We had a blast at the botanical gardens, esp the butterfly exhibit. Then we went to the zoo down there and really enjoyed feeding the giraffes. The next day, I enjoyed crafting with my sister Katie and letting Jason play with mom and jennie. However, Jay got sick that day, and through the week, me, Dustin, Mom, Katie, Chris, Dad, and Jennie all got sick as well. Amid the rotating sickness (and it was pretty bad, trust me, you don't want more details than that) we still managed to paint our kitchen (I owe you pictures for that too) and go out and see Alice in Wonderland to celebrate our anniversary.

However, tonight we are having a birthday party for me at our house, and Dustin is gone all day taking a test to officially get his credential transferred to AZ. So I have a busy day of cooking and cleaning by myself with Jason to prevent me from doing much. So I don't have time to detail all our Tucson trip and painting pictures for you. (Tucson pix are on my facebook page if you want to go see them).

But I couldn't resist putting at least these pictures up. I took Jay to get some photos done 2 weeks ago, and I think they turned out great. Hope you enjoy too, and if I don't find time to blog before next week, Happy Easter as well!

Home Sweet Home

Recently, we have made some bigger changes to our downstairs area. Aside from extensive cleaning this weekend in preparation for some visitors, we have also done some decorating and furniture reorganizing.

Specifically, thanks to Katie and Chris, we got some new-to-us leather sofas, which went in the family room and meant we could move the blue sofa into the living room with the matching chair, and move the piano to a new spot to make room for the sofa. I finished sewing all the curtains and matching pillows (minus the round ones, I bought at Ross - perfect color matches!) for the family room and dining room, bought some wall decor and hung it, moved the piano, and got some nice decor stuff on top of the cupboards. We even bought bar stools and assembled them, as well as reupholstering our chairs.

We still need to paint (not sure what color yet... we're open to suggestions, esp. to compliment the burnt orange wall), and we plan on getting a brown ottoman instead of a black one, and eventually see an entertainment type center where the TV is, as well as refinishing the kitchen table and chairs to have brown wood instead of white.

But I thought I would post a few pics so you can see at least our downstairs area. Let me know if you have any decor suggestions!

Do you have my name?

On February 27th and 28th, we had the privilege of being reunited with some of our favorite people in the world - Denny and Tina Niumatalolo. These musical Maori friends of ours started a choir in California called Latter-day Ambassadors. Those rehearsals and firesides were the highlights of our Sundays. Tina writes all the music herself, just words on papers and she plays the songs by memory. None of her music is notated. So we learn to sing all the parts by ear in rehearsal. And she can play the songs on the piano in any key. She doesn't realize she's playing it in the wrong key sometimes and just quickly transposes it. She's amazing.

Denny is a spiritual giant and conducts the choir. His testimony is the sweetest thing you've ever experienced. The way he loves each individual just pierces your soul and overwhelms you. And of course, they have great senses of humors, contagious laughs, and always throw an amazing potluck.


Unfortunately, they moved to Utah and the choir in CA disbanded. They formed a new choir in UT and are blessing the lives of those singers and everyone they preform for. Well, Last weekend, they came down to Gilbert AZ, to two chapels 15 min from our house, and preformed a special fireside called "Do you have my name?" on family history and temple work. We were invited to join them, and some of our CA friends from the choir made the trip out.

We were so grateful to the Wyzlics and the Somes for watching Jason both nights while we preformed. Dustin had a speaking part he had to memorize of a young confederate soldier. Hearing him speak in a southern drawl was quite entertaining. Overall, the whole presentation was moving, and it was such a treat to get to be a part of Ambassadors again.



We even got to go to an "after party" of sorts Saturday night. We picked Jay up from the sitter and brought him with us where he slept on the floor soundly, despite dozens of loud adults and a "jam session" going on 2 feet away.



Jason eventually woke up and had fun with the dog of the homeowners where the party was at. He loved to give the dog kisses.


During the "jam session" Dustin got to sing a solo in one of our favorite songs "What would you do." We got it on video. The lighting isn't ideal, but it will give you a feel for the type of music, as well as the nature of the group we were with.


Oh how we miss the Ambassadors already! We can't wait until the next reunion we can attend.

Boogers and headbands and fetishes, oh my!

Since birth, little Jay has had a clogged tear duct in his left eye. This has created constant eye boogers and eye crusties, sometimes being so bad that his eye is sealed shut when he wakes up in the morning or after a long nap. We were constantly wiping out gunk with our fingers, so much so that since the new year, Jason has been fighting back and poking everyone else in the eye with his finger, to see how they like it. No drops or massaging was working, and it didn't clear up on its own, so finally we went in to have it surgically fixed.

Here is Jason's eye before the procedure.


On Tuesday, February 9th, Dustin took Jason to Desert Banner for his surgery. Mommy was too sick to take him herself, and didn't want to be around Jason because if he was sick, they would reschedule the procedure. The procedure was pretty simple - light anesthesia, stick a probe down the tear duct, puncture the membrane that never opened, squirt some saline solution down the duct to make sure it was open, and let Jay wake up from the anesthetics. He was home a few hours after he left. No adverse effects from the anesthesia and he was eating and playing like normal that afternoon. Here he is just come home from the hospital. His eye already looked so much better. The pen on the forehead was to make sure they did the correct eye.


Otherwise, Jason has just been his normal, loveable self. He loves exploring all things new, such as the drivers seat with all its gadgets and gizmos.

He is going through a shoe fetish and just loves putting mommy and daddy's shoes on.

He has even gotten fairly good at walking around in them.



He also has taken to wearing Mommy's headband as a necklace and weighing himself on the bathroom scale (he's about 23.5-24 pounds these days). If he can do it naked, all the better.

He also dances whenever he notices music. We just love to watch him. We hope you do too!