Jaylen update- almost 18 months old!

Here's a few things Jaylen is doing lately:

He has a Baby Einstein book that has a few animals in it and Jaylen loves to imitate the noises they make. He can successfully do a dog, cat, chicken and pig. My favorite is his piggy noise, because he crinkles his nose and snorts. I brought this book to church with us today and Jaylen was snorting and going "bacc, baccc, bacc.." (his pecking chicken noise) through the sacrament. Maybe not the best book to bring to church anymore...

Last week at church, Jaylen totally took us by surprise and holded his arms for the closing prayer. We said to "fold your arms" and he promptly crossed his little arms and gave us a big smile. It was adorable. Aaron and I couldn't stop grinning through the prayer. He now folds his arms (at least for a second) when we say prayers on our food at home.

I can hardly believe it, but FINALLY.... JAYLEN WILL BE IN NURSERY NEXT WEEK!! Shew, we've been taking him in there and he loves it, so it won't be a problem. It'll be fun to actually hear a lesson...

He's very good at counting to three if we start him off with "one." Its really cute. We say, "Onnnee" and he goes "Twoo" and "THREEeee" enthusiastically. He always gets the biggest smile on his face. It's the best.

Jaylen also loves knocking on doors. He loves to come over, knock on our bedroom door and say "DaDDY!" to get Aaron to come out and play. Any door he sees with a knob- he knocks on. Its really cute- until on the way out to the car he runs over and knocks on our neighbor's door. I'm sure they love us..

Jaylen is obsessed with our vacuum. He's absolutely terrified of it when I'm using it and either I have to be holding him or he sits dead still on Aaron's lap. Once it's off and I'm far away from it he'll go up to it and play with it. He has learned within the past few days how to say "vacuum" and he non-stop points to it (opens the closet to see it), comes over and makes sure we're looking at him and points to it and says, "vacuum, vacuum, vacuum!" over and over.

He's still obsessed with phones, puts everything in his mouth, says "Pee YOU!" when he's stinky, picking up new words everyday like, "Yuuckkky," calls me and Aaron, "DaddY" (in the cutest little way), eats like crazy, and is growing out of alot of his 18 month clothes (he's getting too long). We also just bought him the next size up (4) in diapers yesterday. He's growing fast and there's no stopping him!!!

Fun photo shoot with Jaylen

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Jaylen has a bit of a diaper rash, so I took his diaper off and let him run around. His little body is just too cute. He has the best skin, beautiful blonde hair and those gorgeous brown eyes I wanted him to get from Aaron so bad! I pulled out the camera to try to capture just how sweet and cute he is, and I'm always somewhat disappointed with pictures because you just can't capture that fun personality and the in-person cuteness. Oh well, I think these do it somewhat...

Mer-man

I've decided Jaylen is half fish and has gills somewhere I just haven't found yet. I know I posted a little bit about this earlier on the blog, but hadn't taken a video yet. This is a short clip from yesterday at the pool.. Jaylen causes quite the commotion in the baby pool; loves to jump in, float in the water, splash like crazy, crawl on other peoples' baby's float toys (while their baby is in them of course..), cruise around holding a kick board, blow bubbles, and the other day he was crawling on older kids backs and going for a ride around the pool. In the big pool, Aaron and I will stand apart from eachother and push Jaylen under water back and forth to each other. Jaylen loves it! Within the past month or so, I've began to feel pretty confident that Jaylen can handle the baby pool pretty well without me having to constantly pull him up and make sure he's okay- He's gotten good at knowing and being able to come up when he needs to and knowing when it's too much. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely still on watch with him- but he's getting alot smarter about his abilities in the water.

July Mischief

Jaylen LOVES blueberries. By the time he's done eating them they are everywhere! He can't get them in his mouth fast enough. We tried getting a new kind of frozen blueberries and they sure are juicy and messy, but Jaylen loves them!

I heard Jaylen shrieking and he was butt down, hanging on to our laundry hamper for dear life. How he got that way, I'm not quite sure, but he found a fun hide out for himself. He likes to sit in there, being able to see out, and laugh when I walk by without knowing he's in there. He's quite the fan of peek a boo, and hide-and-go-seek is a game we love to play around the house...
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These pictures came up out of order, but here are more of his blueberries...

He gets a real concerned look on his face when they run out on his tray...

Jaylen is obsessed with any type of phone. This morning he had one of my old cellphones on his tray while eating breakfast. He had it open and talking on it while shoving cereal in his mouth. It was quite the sight. I heard him this morning early, and when I went to get him I paused at his door and heard him talking like he plays with the cellphone- I opened the door slowly and he was "talking" on his sippy cup we left in his crib. If anyone wants to talk to somebody, Jaylen is always more than happy to "talk" on the phone..

One more story about talking on phones, my mom's birthday was last Wednesday and Jaylen grabbed the phone and Aaron and I said, "Say Hi Grandma" and sure enough he said it exactly and clearly. We both were speechless and wouldn't have believed it unless we were right there and heard it... My mom was happy!

Jaylen, Jaylen, Jaylen. He found my powdered sugar while I was making dinner and dragged it onto the carpet and poured it out. He was licking it off his arms, hands, toes, carpet.. anywhere he could get the sugar from. He was extremely upset when I vacuumed it away, and then I got extremely upset when the vacuum stopped working and I had to scrub it out with a sponge. And of course, this was done 15 minutes before I had to leave for training.


There is no stopping Jaylen at this stage. He climbs on EVERYTHING, gets into everything, and sure has alot of fun doing it. He is saying more and more each day.

We've taken him into nursery a few times to get him used to going in a couple weeks and he loves it. He doesn't even care or notice we are there. He's fun to watch and see how he interacts with other kids. If another kid takes a toy away, he kinda stares at them, then finds something else to play with. He's pretty easy going as far as that goes. He has yet to fine tune his seating on his seat for snack time and only eating his own snacks, but I'm sure he'll learn quickly! Its sooo sooo much better than chasing him down the halls. Its perfect timing since Aaron teaches Elder's Quorum fairly often and I'm now teaching the Beehive class (which I've only done once so far, but I LOVED IT!).

CRAZY BABY!

I had to record this story about Jaylen; we got such a kick out of it...

I was carrying Jaylen in to child care at work a couple Saturday's ago, and as we walked in there was 3 older children running around playing on a play set and as soon as they saw Jaylen, they started yelling, "Oh NO, it's the CRAZZZY BABY!" As soon as I put Jaylen down he started chasing these kids as they kept saying, "Crazy baby! Crazy baby!" It cracked me up- I guess Jaylen has quite the reputation amongst the kids in there. From what I hear he loves chasing the other kids around, loves throwing sand in the sandbox, plays like crazy on the little cars outside and loves to eat everyone's snacks. I've also seen Jaylen play with the kids in the baby pool outside, and they all love watching him, fearless in the water and love calling him "crazy baby" in there too. Jaylen loves watching the other kids and mimicing what they do in the pool. He's so silly.

What a funny kid. He's such a fun-loving, curious, always on the go guy. We sure love our little "crazy baby!"

Isotopes and Dance off

We had a fun night last night at the Isotopes game with a girl Aaron baptized on his mission, Jill. A client of mine at work has some great season tickets right behind the catcher so it was great to feel like we could actually see what was going on in the game. Somehow Aaron got Jill and I signed up for the "Dance off" on the dugout during the 2nd inning. I don't really dance (well that is), so I broke out the worm I learned at a stake dance years ago- It was pretty fun. I won a membership to Defined Fitness, which I'm sure my work would be thrilled about (they're each other's biggest competition). It was a beautiful night and such a fun time, and the Isotopes won!

Hungry, hungry hippo

Jaylen loves to eat and we love watching him eat. We've been working on letting him use a spoon to feed himself more, which is difficult for me cause he always makes a mess, but its rather funny to watch him learn. Our favorite is yogurt (pictured here). He loves yogurt and can't get it in fast enough. He tries to use his spoon as much as he can, but sometimes he gets frustrated and tries to dig in with his hands. He's just like his mommy and daddy- happy at meal time!

A bad case of road rash..

Poor Aaron. Saturday afternoon after work he was on his way home and hit a rather large pot hole that caused his scooter to tip over and slid on his left side on the street. No fun at all. Luckily, he's fine, just some road rash and some sore, bruised muscles. His shoe laces on his left food were burned down the middle and wore a hole through his sock- luckily, he was wearing a helmet so no burns on his head. Makes me happy to be moving closer to work soon so we don't have to worry about him driving so far on his scooter!

WHOA

I had the craziest realization yesterday. I was sorting through some of our things to prepare for our move (we're moving closer to school/work soon- still in Albuquerque) and I found a bag with some of my coats/maternity clothes and some summer clothes I wore last summer. I bought these capris last summer (about 4 months after having Jaylen), that I remember being kinda tight, not bad, but not loose by any means. I was excited to see them hoping I could use them again this summer. I slid them on and couldn't believe it. As I looked down into my pants I couldn't believe I ever actually filled them all up and was ever that size!!! I was really, really taken back and frankly shocked. I know that the scale has been telling me that I've lost 25 lbs since the end of January, but I just never really realized how much that was till trying on these pants I loved so much last summer. Wow, that 50 lbs I gained with Jaylen (before giving birth at least!) was no joke! I got home from the gym tonight and showed Aaron and he snaped this picture... Needless to say, the pants are going in the trash and hopefully that weight is gone forever....

Hard work

After a fun filled afternoon of play- Jaylen was out! Too precious!

Pee YOU!

I'm sorry if this is a little much for some of you... but it was hilarious and I have to record it. Jaylen is really starting to figure things out little by little...

So Jaylen followed me into the bathroom this morning and suddenly crinkled his nose- he left and came back and handed me wipes and a diaper and as he handed it to me said, "Pee YOU!" I couldn't help but to bust up laughing. Silly boy. In fact, he's been pretty good at telling us "EeeeWWW" when he's stinky, so I might attempt to start introducing him to a potty. We'll see, he seems really young, but he's pretty in tune with his "movements," if you know what I mean..

Coming home from Portland..

Sorry, these post are all out of order.. Here is some from leaving our hotel in Portland for home...

Jaylen spent over 1/2 an hour playing with the pay phones in the airport while waiting for our flight..

Jaylen with the flowers outside our hotel in Portland

Our sweet boy...

Seeing Portland with Aaron Hill

It was so fun to be able to see one of Aaron's best friends from college, Aaron Hill, meet his cute little family, and be able to have him show us around downtown Portland for awhile before we flew home from our family reunion! We love having such fun, good friends!


Aaron and Emily, and Aaron and Jaylen!

Bum tubs

Aaron and I in Portland

Happy 4th of July!

I feel so extremely fortunate to be an American and live in the United States of America! I love the freedoms we enjoy here and feel so much pride for my country. We had a fun day of a party at my work's pool, full of food, swimming, a fun hike, a nap for all of us, and watching fireworks.

Jaylen was so fascinated with the fireworks. He loved them and kept saying, "Ooooooooo." It was adorable.

We found some sparklers we saved last year for Jaylen to see.. Jaylen wasn't sure about them...


A flag they gave to Jaylen at the party-- made me laugh and shake my head...

Sunset over beautiful Albuquerque

Aaron and Jaylen at the end of our hike (It was super windy and Aaron's head was freezing!)


Looking out over Albuquerque

Albuquerque is so beautiful!!!


Aaron doing the "beer dive." He made alot of instant friends after passing out his winnings.

Jaylen wasn't sure what to think..


Arriving at work for the party

I trained a couple people in the morning and when I came back at 11 am this is what I walked into home seeing. So cute! Guess they had a fun, hard morning of lots of play.