The Little Man is 3!

The day finally arrived! Big fun at the zoo in the morning. We loaded up and met some of James' friends (Abby, Sophie, Spencer) at the Houston Zoo. It was a fun morning and the boys loved it!


That afternoon as James played with his new markers and begged for his finger paints (do my friends hate me or what?? =]), I created this masterpiece. Although it didn't turn out at great as I had hoped, it was still cute.




James insisted on Fettucinni Alfredo for dinner and since we only had 2 oz of fettucinni left he is the only one who got it. The rest of us had gnocchi...yum! Then the big moment arrived...the presenting of the scooter (well, actually that came before dinner, but you get the idea). We decided on the Radio Flyer mostly because the other two y'all voted on could not be found anywhere and this one I ran across in Walmart.

James also received a doctor's kit, a turtle helmet with pads, Candy Land, and of course books! Happy Birthday to our big 3 year old James!! (who is now sick in bed...it's tough being 3)

Not quite yet

As I have been telling James all week...today could have been your birthday, but it still isn't. Last Thursday was his due date, but alas his birthday is still one more day away! If he hadn't been so content to stay put we could have had a celebration already and he would be scooting around the neighborhood. =]

So as we wait for one more day I will share James' new career in life...a comedian. He began making up his own jokes this week...

Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because there were too many cars.

Why did the monkey cross the road?
Because he swung on the tree.

Why did the goat cross the road?
He swung on a tree too.

Why did the couch cross the road?
It had a goat under it!

And so I asked myself, why DID the chicken cross the road??

President Hinckley

My 100th post is dedicated to President Gordon B. Hinckley who passed away yesterday evening. I would like to express my graditude for all he has done to strengthen my faith and testimony. He was a great man and I love him very much.

Last night after hearing the news I could not help smiling all night long...he must be so happy to be with his beloved wife and companion, Marjorie. That was all I could think all night. I have shed some tears and I will miss him and his words dearly. But thanks to our loving Savior and His atonement, as well as the wonderful blessings we receive in the temple, our beloved prophet continues to live on with his sweet wife.

Eating food is fun to do, fun to do

I have yet to capture on the blog Matthias' incredible eating skills. We have mentioned his ability to feed himself...even complicated foods like yogurt and baby food...and have received incredulous looks and exclamations. So I post the following, the first being taken this morning, but the second recorded over two months ago before Matthias had turned one:



The second refusing to give me it's embed code...sorry!

EDIT:
Ah, hah! It works...


Now please note that James was not feeding himself this well until at least age two. I cite three reasons for this,

1) As I only had one child there was no need for James to make a big mess to learn how to feed himself because I was perfectly capable of feeding him without a mess.

2) Matthias sees James feeding himself and wants to copy.

3) (and most importantly) Matthias' number one love is food. He always wants to eat, no matter what. Nothing is more interesting or more important. This kid would eat continuously all day long if we let him.

Lately he has decided he will not eat however, if we try to feed him. He knocks the spoon/fork away and refuses to eat. Until you hand over the eating utensil and then he will happily feed himself.

Enjoy my amazing self-feeding baby!

Are YOU pregnant?

Yesterday I was asked yet again, "Are you pregnant?"!?!?$?!?%?%?1

So my question to y'all out there...do I look like I am gaining weight? Have you seen me sneaking the boys' church snacks? Am I participating in any other possibly suspicious activities?

Or is it simply because I am a 25 year old LDS woman whose youngest child is now over a year old? Does this alone qualify me for suspicion? To all of you curious people out there I answer yes, I am expecting...

Expecting to have more kids someday, but not today, not even 9 months from today. I'll let you know when I am good and ready. And in the mean time...I really love eating the boys' snacks, I have actually not gained any weight, I love driving a mini van with only two kids in it, and baby girl clothes are always cute!!

My conclusion: maybe you are pregnant and so are suspicious of everyone else...

James Speak

Sorry for two in a row, but this kid is just hilarious...

James hates fruit pieces in his yogurt so he only eats key lime flavor. Today we were out of key lime, so he opted for vanilla over strawberry (because he knows strawberry has little pieces of fruit in it). As he is eating the vanilla yogurt...

James: Is there any yucky stuff in here?
Mom: No, it is just vanilla.
James: There are no yucky vanillas in here?


Then, about two minutes later during the same snack time James was eating a piece of zweibach toast leftover from Matt's younger days and said...

James: Zweibach, it's like Bach.
Mom: Do you know who Bach is?
James: He writes music and goes bock, bock.

James Speak

Kristi: You can play for 5 more minutes and then Matt is going night night.
James: But I will be lonely

Taylor: Do you want pink or hot pink?
James: Cold pink.

James said to himself while eating a half piece of bread...
"I wish it was a whole donut, but half a donut is better than nothin'."

Stolen Post

I am stealing this post from Jill who in turn stole it from others. Enjoy.

(If you'd like to join the fun, here are the instructions:
Type your answer to each of the items listed below into a Google image search and post a photo from the first results page.)

Favorite Animal:

One of your favorite places:

Place you would like to visit:

Your college major:


Favorite holiday:


A bad habit:


Name of past pet:


Age you will be on your next birthday:


Favorite food:


Middle name:


Favorite color:


Where you live:

Sweet Baby James

After checking on James Monday night I commented to Taylor, "James is so big now. I don't even remember when he was a baby and soon he will be all grown up!" Taylor said to me, "Watch some videos of when he was a baby. Not right now. In the morning." So, here you go...





Isn't he just the cutest little thing. His hair was super red and he really was as skinny as everyone kept commenting. Back then he just looked like a baby to me. Now after having Matthias, he looks super scrawny! But oh so cute! He still has that same great James laugh. And that adorable white skin! =]

I am also adding this video that does a wonderful job of capturing his pre-English speaking communication...for all you who remember the ever present "da, dadada, da, dada", Enjoy!

Stick Boy liked Match Girl
He liked her a lot
He liked her cute figure
He thought she was hot

But could a flame ever burn
for a match and a stick?
It did in a hurry
They fell in love quick!

(adaptation by Kristi Harvey from Tim Burton's "Stick Boy and Match Girl")

We're in a band!!

About three months ago the boys and I visited Music & Arts to pick up music for one of my piano students. James always gravitates towards the drums and on this day a worker and I had to sort through several boxes because the book I needed had just arrived. So James took the opportunity to wander over and start banging on a drum.

Another worker was sitting in the store just messing around on one of the guitars. So James went to the drum set by him and started to hit it. He has really good rhythm and starting keeping a steady beat. At third worker said he could sit and on the stool and that he should have some drumsticks.

Now James was really jamming out and because his beat was so steady the worker playing the guitar starting playing along with James' tempo. It actually sounded pretty sweet. James started shouting "We're in a band, we're in a band!" "I play the drums and he plays the guitar. We're a band!" It was very cute!!

Of course my first inclination after this was the run out and buy the kid a set of drums, but Taylor convinced me otherwise until we have a room to actually put them in. Personally I think he was just trying to spare his own ears.

James Speak...

While doctoring Taylor and looking in his ear....

I think there's a sea lion and a bug in your ear.
There's a T-rex in your ear that says "Roar, I'm the King of the building."

Behind, but still running

Been a few days since I posted, thought I would put something up very quickly. Have a couple funny stories to share about boys...they come tomorrow or Sunday. In order to feed the still prevalent (yet false) rumor of the state of my uterus I share the following..

Chinese Birthing Calendar

This is quite accurate when accounting for my mom's six kids, but fails on James and on Taylor...them both being conceived while their respective mothers were 21. Try it out on yourselves and let me know if it works. We might try it next time around if I can decide whether I can give up my toy room for a girl or better just stick with another boy as we have space for four in the current bedroom! =]

Also, check out this video. Cooler than it sounds!

Missing Tests...

I searched for the BYU Idependent Study site today and have already started a free course! I am really excited about all the great things I can learn using this resource. I probably will enroll in the gardening class next. I love learning!

We are a Happy Family

Our house currently contains two sleeping boys, one very happy wife, one amazing husband, and one fixed and working washer!!

Breastfeeding and Anxiety

I have figured out why I have so much stress and anxiety thanks to this article. Sorry Matthias, I may have doomed you to a stressful life! I am sure there are ways to overcome stress...if I could just calm down enough to look for some. =]

I am a Child of God

Old Faithful

We traded in the Grand Am yesterday for our new van. Because the Pontiac has been such a faithful old friend we had to put a post paying tribute.

Taylor drove the Grand Am in high school. We cut off a ribbon Matt Spencer tied to the antenna those many years ago.

The Grand Am has served us through 4 1/2 years of marriage and allowed us to live almost three of those years car payment free.

The Grand Am drove all the way to Texas and back at the ripe old age of 12.

She has driven Taylor to work for the last year and a half.

Our Pontiac turned 15 this year and we knew it was time to give the old gal a rest. (Basically because we are constantly worried she'll go caput in the middle of the freeway.)

Goodbye old friend!

It's official

This week has been long! I have spent countless hours searching the internet looking for a great deal. We purchased this today. We did not pay nearly as much as MSRP. We also used a toyota college graduate rebate and traded in the Pontiac (sigh, sniff, sniff...the Pontiac was a good and faithful friend) using the Texas Aircheck Program to get another discount.

I love the trendy green color. I am excited to see what it's nickname will be in 14 years when James and Matthias are driving it to high school. But the best part is we have 10 cup holders and 4 bottle holders...with only 8 seats and currently only 4 passengers. Think how many different drinks we could all be simultaneously consuming.

Deficient?

Yesterday at the grocery store my bagger kindly pointed out that Matthias pokey up, feathery hair is a sign on Vitamin A deficiency. (See exhibits 1-3 below...yes, Matthias does my laundry for me. It's his rent.)

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

Exhibit 3


Now seriously, does this kid look deficient in anything? I did some research though...

"Vitamin A is essential to vision, wound healing, bone formation (e.g., teeth), healthy skin and growth, mucous membranes, and lactation. Further, it may also be a factor in preventing cancers. It is important to the immune function, and has been shown to have antiviral properties." ecureme.com

Having heard nothing about this from my doctor, I looked for symptoms. This site list some symptoms of Vitamin A deficiency. Matthias has none of these symptoms.

My diagnosis...lots of static electricity. I think it's cute. We'll go with it.

After having read the symptoms, if you do suspect Vitamin A deficiency in yourself, try out some of these foods high in VitA: vegetables, milk, eggs, kidney beans, fish (cod and halibut), and liver. (Yum, liver)

Taylor pointed this out to me as we are in the process of purchasing a new mini-van...I'm not sure what his point is?

Learning

James has a book with a page of famous people in American history and as we were looking at it I realized that I actually know next to nothing about quite a few things, but in this case Pocahontas and Sacagawea. So I decided to find out what I could. While some information was not well kept and it a little controversial, I enjoyed learning more about these two women.

Matthias learned how to take care of babies yesterday. While we were watching a friend of ours (Chloe aged 6 months) she started to cry. Matthias kept trying to give her a binkie and when that didn't work he finally took the binkie out of her month and gave her a doll bottle. He was very cute learning to be soft and share toys with her.

James and I talked about Math yesterday for Preschool. As he put it for Dad, "We learned counting." He can now count to 5! We also talked about shapes, sizes, and sorting. And played some I SPY.

Taylor is learning about washing machine pumps and how to fix them. I will keep you posted on how successful his learning is. Keep your fingers crossed! For now we are wearing an interesting assortment of clothes (I did go do a batch of undies at a friend's house). =]

Hope you learned a lot today too!!

Remember

Well, I should be asleep, but I wanted to type something that has been on my mind and I just reached a great conclusion to...

Several days ago I mentioned to Taylor how sad it was that James and Matthias weren't going to remember this time in our lives. I mean, how many memories do you have of being one or three years old? And this is my whole life right now...everything we do I try to remember (well, most things). All the laughs and games and smiles and help and learning...it is all being stowed away in my memory (and in this blog). These kids crack me up, they teach me, they love me, they humble me. And they are not going to remember it!

James won't remember that he cried for his binkie for an hour this morning, he won't remember that his friend Spencer brought him a cookie and he was so excited, he won't remember that we danced to country music all morning or built towers with Legos. He probably won't even remember Gugi and Conco (his imaginary friends who are sleeping with him right now).

Matthias won't remember he was so brave to go down the tallest slide at the park, he won't remember that he was so excited for his ice cream tonight, he won't remember the fun songs we sang at Family Home Evening. He won't remember the very memorable country music dance or being rocked to sleep by his daddy.

And I was sad.

But then I knew that they will remember mom stayed home and played with them every day, that daddy always came home and tickled them. They will know that they are loved beyond measure, that I will do anything for them and I tried my best to help and teach them. They will know that Heavenly Father loves them and Jesus Christ lives. They will remember that our home is full of love and peace and happiness.

They will remember they are loved.

James Speak

Lots of James' speak, only 1 minute until church, so...

Kristi: Your face is so cute. Where did you get such a cute face?

James: From heaven and Jesus.

Juke

To see a demo of my cool new phone click here. I ordered the teal one.

Now that is pretty sweet, eh.

Taylor got a grayish KRZR.

We're pretty excited about our new phones since our old ones have been through quite a bit and do really weird, quirky things these days like go blank, buttons don't actually work, calls never connect on our side, and overall pretty poor sound quality. Although, for having been dropped in a swimming pool mine is quite a feat of modern technology.

Which one, which one??

I am having a ridiculously hard time deciding which scooter to get James for his birthday...so I am turning the vote over into your hands. Please carefully consider the following two scooters and give me your feed back...

Nextsport


Razor



Price is a non issue, as is shipping. This is strictly functionality and coolness. Just leave a comment with your vote. Thanks!