Family Birthday

The birthday boy wanted Spiderman cupcakes for Preschool.


He got his first ties and dress shirts from Granny and Papa.


Here he is loving the money from Grandma and Grandpa. He ran and put it in his bank and said it was only to be used for Chuck E Cheese!


Opening presents from Mommy and Daddy. (Thanks Walmart after Christmas Clearance Sale!)



At his Birthday dinner



Leftover Spidery cupcakes double as the 'birthday cake'. He was quite concerned about the fire.


We LOVE the birthday boy!!!!!


James' not-very-exciting reading of Grandma and Grandpa's card :)

Somebody had a birthday!

Turned 4! Eating peanuts at his choice of birthday restaurants. When we asked him where he wanted to go he said, "Does this town even have a PF Changs?" :) Yeah, so his 2nd choice was Texas Roadhouse even though he's only been there one time.


Turned 3! I am admittedly really bad at picking out presents for this kid. Most of my "big gifts" turn out to be really bad ideas. He's only been on the bike 3 times in a year.

Turned 2! Here we are at the park on his birthday. Hard to believe he actually needed a jacket. It is NOTORIOUSLY windy on his birthday here every year. This year I decided to have his party indoors, and yep, it's been calm all week.

Turned 1! He wouldn't eat that cake! He ate a few bites of frosting if it was fed to him, but otherwise, he was content just to smash it around.

Sweet baby just born! He had a GIANT head and GIANT feet. All the rest of him was giant in no time!

Easter Fun

This child is going through a "I can't smile normal" phase.

James and Lilly got together for some egg coloring fun...

Easter morning: Once again full of strange smiles-this time a bit sleepy, too.

Ben's Easter Basket for me...A nest made out of a new body pillow, a new book, a booklight, a duck and some "eggs" that the duck laid. I'm a lucky girl :)

James enjoyed playing conference bingo while we watched on TV. It was funny because even when we weren't playing bingo, everytime I heard a new topic come up, I shouted it out-in my head!

Another day of fun!

Ben and I went out to dinner to celebrate the end of the phd!!! We had a wonderful time!

To celebrate James' upcoming birthday, we all went to Sesame Street Live today. He was sooooo excited and we had a great time. It is a super fun show!

First of the springtime fun!

Despite the fact that James looks like he's in pain in the first 3 pics, we had a great time today! We had a lunch/playdate/egg hunt adventure at Brooke's house. The winds were blowing like none other but that's what you get here in the Spring.

YAY FOR DR. BEN!!!!!!!!!

For those of you who didn't see my gushing on Facebook, Ben just passed his dissertation defense this afternoon! I'm sooo proud of him!

Please no comments asking me what it's about. I've proofread it multiple times and I still don't know :)

Now if the job fairy would visit us...

YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!!!

Kids say...

As I walk into the office, James yells, "Mommy, don't look at what I'm doing! Go away!"

***
Me: I don't think I want to know why this is wet.

James: It's just cause I peed on it.

***
James comes into our room at 6am and pokes me awake, "Mommy, it's so lonely in my room. Only one person sleeps there and two people sleep here. I'm alone." (insert pouting here.)

***

While playing Wii anything, "I've got MAD SKILLZ!" If either Ben and or I play badly, "Oh, that's too bad, you've got Sad Skillz."

***

He's very sassy mouthed lately. He often says, "Mommy, you already told me that and I don't want to hear it again. Stop talking." Then the timeout starts.

***

He came into our room last night shivering because he had a fever. He says, "I....I...I...can't...can't...stttttooopp...wwwiggling." Poor baby.

Vomit and an apology to my mother

When I was a kid, I would get the stomach flu occasionally. Sometimes, when it struck at night, I remember the following scenario.

Me (shaking my mom to wake her): Mom, I just threw up.

Mom: (In a half asleep daze): Where?! Did you throw up on the carpet? Your bed? In the hallway? The bathroom rugs? Where?!

Me: I made it to the toilet.

Mom: Oh, ok. Poor baby, how are you feeling?

I always thought it was hilarious that she inquired about the furnishings first. When I was older and devious, I would bring these little stories up at opportune moments (shopping, etc.) as a way to secure things I wanted.

Evil, evil Carolyn. Sorry, Mom.

Last week, James had the stomach flu and yeah, I was quite occupied with every surface that kid was throwing up on. Our bed and bedding, the carpet, the towels, pillows, clothes, etc. Man, that kid was puking every 20-30 mins all day. He wasn't showing any signs of dehydration, but we worried about him because he couldn't keep ANY liquids down. He fell asleep around 6:30pm and we called his ped. She said to let him rest for a couple of hours and then give him pedilyte again. If he couldn't keep that down, then we should take him to urgent care.

Well, lo and behold, we had to go to urgent care. Except all the urgent cares closed at 9pm so we had to take him to the ER. It was actually a delightful visit to the ER. Yep, I said delightful. There was not 1 person in the waiting room and they got us in immediately. James was assessed and they gave him some meds to stop the puking. After the medicine worked its magic, they gave him water and it stayed down, yay!

The medicine turned him into a total goober. He took the disposable vomit bag and turned it into a puppet, a hat and other fashion accessories. When the doctor came in to check on him, I swear he was batting his beautiful lashes and practically asking for her phone number.

We went to the El Paso zoo a couple of weeks ago. It's not a great zoo, but we had a good time.

It was weird

Monday was so weird this week. It had the potential to be quite stressful since Ben was out of town and it was the first day of the (ESL) semester, but all these strange things kept me entertained.

Before I got to work, I found out that one of my students is here b/c of political asylum. Said student was being hunted by some unsavory characters in their country. I got a notice that a film company is shooting a documentary about this student for the Discovery Channel and that they would most likely be filming in ESL. I have two questions....If people wanted to shoot you down, why would you want to appear on national TV and Can you please put a little black square over my face? I guess we'll be out of Las Cruces by the time they finish and air it, but really? I like life.

I got to class and met my new and returning students. I was thinking one of my students had a twitch because everytime I looked in his direction he winked at me. I observed him from afar and realized that that, no, he didn't have a twitch, he just likes to wink when he answers my questions about English. Lovely. WHY?

After class I was walking through the cafeteria and noticed a guy eating his lunch. That would be pretty normal, except he was eating noodles and veggies with a fork right out of a Walmart sack. No container, no plate, just a big ole bag of stir fry out of the plastic sack. Why? I really almost stopped him to ask WHY?!?!?!

As I walked home from class I noticed that my neighbors' cars are now advertising a lovely new business: Dog Poo Cleaners. The thing is, I'm not even kidding. Each of their cars has those big advertisements on all sides announcing that they will come clean up dog poo at your house. I don't know if that means carpets or grass but WHY?

James' first talk in Primary

Today was James' first talk in Primary. The topic was "Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love me." Yesterday we helped him decide what he wanted to say and we planned to have him hold the pictures while Ben whispered in his ear, but he informed us that he could 'do it all by himself!' He read his own talk in Primary. He was afraid of the microphone at first, but as soon as they turned it off, he did just fine. (I was teaching Gospel Doctrine so I couldn't be there to see it.)

We can't take credit for his reading; we continue to be amazed ourselves. I think it's a combination of Leap Frog DVDS, Starfall.com, Pbskids.com and his BIG OL' NOGGIN! The really good thing about him reading his own talk is that there was no room for improvisation. He didn't have a chance to say something embarrassing like, "My mommy likes to watch ICarly." or "My daddy snores like a chainsaw."

For Family Night Ben taught a lesson about "scriptures" since we just gave James his first set on Sunday. We were examining the books when...

James: Hey, my name is on this book!

Ben: Yes, it's the King James version of the Bible.

James: I'm the king of the Bible? HEY! I'M THE KING OF THE BIBLE! I'M THE KING OF THE BIBLE. I'M THE KING OF THE BIIIIIIIBBBBBBLLLLLEEEE! (Runs around the room like a chicken with his head cut off.)

Ben: Come back! We're not done talking about the scriptures.

James: I'M THE KING OF THE BIBLE!!!!!

(Finally got him calmed down to listen to the rest. I'm pretty sure the only thing he got out of it was that he is the King of the Bible!)

Someone save me

James: Hey, let's play the gas game!

Ben: How do you play it?

James: Whoever makes the most toots wins!

Ben: *gasping and not able to breathe from laughing so hard*

Me: Welcome to manhood.

(As I'm typing this, James is reading over my shoulder insisting that I write that HE had the most toots and that HE won. It's true.)

First Day of Primary!

Tried to get a decent pic of James today for his first day of Primary. His was happy but quite disinterested in posing. I was *told* that he was really well behaved today, but it's probable that's what they tell all the mamas of the Sunbeams. His class shouldn't be too bad since it's just him, his Bff Lilly and one other cutie boy.

We got him an inexpensive set of scriptures and Daddy gave him his case.

Sniff. He's growing up. When we were walking to the car after church, this is how it went down:

Me: Did you have an awesome day at Primary?

James: Yep.

Me: How was your teacher?

James: Really nice.

Me: How was the class?

James: Same ol' Same ol'.

(Am I already raising a teenager?!?!)

Christmas 2009

The first thing you may (or may not) notice as you look at these pics is that James is wearing pjs in every single one. We spent Christmas in Kansas this year and we passed around the gift that keeps on giving: Stomach flu. James got sick the 2nd day we were there, and as he was getting well, Ben got it; and as he was getting well, Grandma got it. (Knocking on some serious wood here: I never got it.)

We had fun despite all the sickies and enjoyed our time not only with Grandma and Grandpa, but also Uncle Jared, Aunt Nolita and COUSINS! James was once again in cousin heaven!

James jumping up to express his excitement about the marble run he got for Christmas. Daddy always makes the best designs. (The dark area on his pjs is from vapor rub...)

Ben at the height of his sickiness, accompanied by Grandpa at naptime.

James looking sicky. Just included this pic because this is how Joshua spent his holiday...in perpetual motion!

James yelling out, "Merry Christmas, everybody!" as we were opening gifts.

James was a bit nervous about Rocky the Robot Truck. We all LOVE this toy! Worth the money!

The best way I could capture the happiness on Christmas morning.

Kids table on Christmas Eve. James was still feeling icky and would only eat Asparagus for dinner.

Elizabeth is a dear cousin! She spent many patient hours doing things with James.

Grandpa Swan gave James his sign from his parking place at the library. What an awesome gift!

Opening gifts with cousins....Joseph entertained that child forever!

Christmas morning waiting for the presents to be passed out.

This Christmas was full of magic for James. Anytime we drove past a house with ANY minimal Christmas lights, he yelled at the top of his lungs, "LOOK! THEY ARE GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS!" or simply, "CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!" It was enough to make us almost wreck several times. I tried to use the whole, "Santa is watching you" threat sparingly-and it worked! He loved talking to the Santa at the mall in LJ over Tthanksgiving and once again at the church Christmas party. When I asked if he had thanked Santa for his gift at the party, he insisted in waiting in line again so that he could tell Santa thank you up close and personally.

And true to his recent trend of declaring everything the "best _______ ever!", all day Christmas he declared, "This is the BEST Christmas in my whole life!"