Jaylen almost at 21 months

Gosh, I feel like I've been posting all the time, but there is just so many cute/funny things going on with Jaylen right now! He is just exploding into becoming his own little man! Talking all the time and mimics everything. I just wanted to record a couple stories from lately that I want to remember later down the road.

About a couple weeks ago, Jaylen pointed to me and said, "Mommy, you're HOT!" in the funniest way. Throughout the day, he kept saying, "You're HOT!" I have no idea where he got this from since Aaron and I don't refer to each other in that way at home. Its the most random, but funny, thing ever. So at church last Sunday during the sacrament, Jaylen points to a little girl in front of us and says, "You're HOT!" Oh dear. The parents looked at us slightly shocked (we're still new to this ward and don't know this particular family) but what do we say? The only guess I have, is that he's obsessed with things being "hot." So if the stove is on, he says, "Hot, hot, HOT!" Or this past week while I was sewing my quilts, he'd say "Hot!" whenever I turned it on. So maybe when I hold him he feels I'm warm and then decides to tell me I'm hot?! Who knows. Whatever it is, its really random and completely funny.

Jaylen's still obsessed with the vacuum. Its absolutely ridiculous and about drives us nuts (1- he won't stop saying vacuum, 2- he bangs the walls up with it and scuffs up the vacuum itself). So, we've had Jaylen say "Good night" to the vacuum and retire him to the bathtub whenever he pulls it out and becomes obsessed. So at least a few times a day, Jaylen gives the vacuum hugs, blows it kisses and repeats, "Bye, bye vacuum (comes out dacuum)" as I put it in the bath tub. Whenever he walks by the bathroom, he says, "Night, night vacuum!" He also loves to melt Aaron in the morning when he leaves for school by saying, "Bye, bye Daddy" and waving to him all cute like.

Jaylen is such a snuggler. Whenever he sees an animal on TV he runs over and puts his face to the glass and makes a cute little whimper sound (I can't explain this sound, but its really, really cute!) as he tries to hug the animal. He loves to pick up his toy monkey and bear and give them a big hug and do his snuggle noise. A couple days ago he crawled up into our linen closet and pulled down my duster. He walked around with it for over an hour and would randomly hug it and make his cute snuggle noise. He also says, "Meoooow, meoooooow!" as he pets it. Any animal he sees "meows" and it cracks me up since Aaron has such a dislike for anything cat, but Jaylen can't get enough. He randomly meows at the end of something he says. He really makes us laugh when he does that.

Jaylen is a monkey when it comes to climbing. He has learned to open the drawers on the side of the vanity in the bathroom, and climb up each drawer to get on the bathroom counter. Then, of course, loves to put everything in his mouth, including soap, my lotion, q-tips, toothpaste and anything left on the counter. Its really, really irritating because baby proofing can only go so far (and putting things on the counter has been part of baby proofing!) but he sure is proud of his ingenious ways to get where he wants to be.

I went to get Jaylen in child care at work and one of the ladies was laughing. I guess Jaylen got all the other kids to put their heads on the ground, bums up and plow back and forth along the carpet. He's always doing silly things and the other kids love him. A common phrase from some of the kids when we come walking in is, "Its silly Jaylen!" He's such a happy boy and loves to just do his own little things.

I joke that Jaylen's going to be a crackhead because he loves finding and messing with anything that's white and powdery. Jaylen has successfully dumped baby powder, corn starch, powdered sugar, regular sugar, flour, and recently white country gravy mix all over our carpets/home. Hopefully we'll get his fascination for those type of substances out of the way before we're really in trouble.

We were practicing saying, "Happy Birthday!" one day, and he loved saying "happy." He came up to me in my room and kept saying, "You happy?" and it finally involved into, "Are you happy?" He still does this, and its a heart melter for sure. I think he knows how to get me all soft because he says this, then goes and breaks something. Errrr.

We were sitting on the lovesac last night, Jaylen crawls up, pulls my shirt out, points down it and says, "Boobs!" and started laughing. Aaron and I exploded into laughter. He's picking up a little TOO much I guess.

Days now are full of random, funny, little events like this that give us a glimpse into his cute little world and all he's learning. He is a lot of fun right now, a lot of work and patience building also, but a lot of fun, sweet moments.

One of our favorite games is hide and scare. Jaylen loves being scared silly. Its really hilarious. He gets us on occasion to if he can keep himself from giggling from his hiding place. Here's a quick clip in honor of Halloween this week...

Trunk or Treat!

Jaylen was a cute little chicken for Trunk or Treat this year. We never got to sit down because he was busy running around going, "Cluck, cluck, cluck." He was hilarious trunk or treating because he would walk up to someone holding candy and give them his really eager look. It was really cute. He's never had so much candy in one night. His favorite are the lollipops.





Aaron was an 80's rapper wearing his wig, hair pick, a huge clock on a "chain." (This was before we walked in the gym and no adults were dressed up- so he happily handed his accessories to a couple boys we brought with us.) I was Cindy Lou Hoo from Dr. Suess.


What a fun Halloween this will be this year. Its so fun to see Jaylen excited about his candy and costumes. We can't wait to do some more trick or treating fun next week on Halloween!

Like Father, Like Son

Jaylen's one cute kid. Today he was "shrieking" at me while I was making lunch, so I put him in his room to cool off. When I didn't hear any noise coming from his room I went to check in and found him happily reading a bunch of books he pulled off his shelf. One of his favorite books right now is an old Michael Jordan book. Like father like son I guess! Jaylen loves any thing that involves a ball. Its adorable- all his cute references to sports. He says b-ball, baseball, and football in cute, distinct ways.

Remembering Grandpa.

I've been working on some quilts made out of my Grandpa Parker's clothes the past couple days. My favorite, most memorable piece of clothing my Grandpa wore was these overalls I'm wearing below. He loved wearing overalls and this was his hard working summer pair. Further proof how absolutely skinny my Grandpa was, since these were quite a short fit on me- and he was a whole lot taller than me. Made me laugh to put these on. I'm think I'm going to save this pair to wear on Halloween, so I can be a farmer while Jaylen can be my little chicken.


Here's the back of my Mom's quilt...

Quilt #2- for my mom.

Quilt #1-

Not funny.

Jaylen loves to get into anything and everything. Here he pulled out corn starch. Our front room was covered. Not funny little one.

Pumpkin fun

It was a beautiful night out, so we carved our pumpkin and roasted the pumpkin seeds. Jaylen had fun playing with the "yucky" pumpkin insides and absolutely loved eating the pumpkin seeds once they were out of the oven.

Food

I'm obsessed with food. Lately I've been struggling with my recipes I've had for 5 years or so. I've been branching out to try new recipes and am extremely excited about some recipes we've tried the past few weeks. I had to share a couple of blogs I'm loving in case anyone else out there needs some new food to their dinner lineups.

My favorite:
http://foodbringsfamiliestogether.blogspot.com/

http://karaskitchencreations.blogspot.com/

http://jbeanrecipes.blogspot.com/

http://just-cook-already.blogspot.com/

Yum, Yum!

Potty Time!

Nothings cuter than a little boy sitting on his potty clapping his hands in excitement because his pee-pee just peed. We got Jaylen his own little potty seat on Saturday because hes usually aware of when he's "yucky" and takes his morning poop around the same time every morning (Jaylen will love this news being public in the future I'm sure :)- so we thought we'd at least introduce it. Jaylen loves it. He doesn't have any idea what he's doing so far- but we'll just get him used to the potty for the time being. He was asking to go into the bathroom on Sunday- I put him on the potty and he actually peed in the potty! He was giggling while watching his pee-pee do its magic. It was pretty funny.

Balloon Fiesta 2009 videos!

Here is some video I took of the first balloons going up during the Balloon Fiesta this year!

"Ashes! Ashes!"

One of Jaylen's new favorite games is Ring Around the Rosies. He comes over and grabs our hands and says, "Ashes! Ashes!" to get us to play. He never gets tired of it. Its really cute. Before playing Ring Around the Rosies, he loved spinning in circles until he got so dizzy he fell over. We loved watching him do that! Now, whenever we start singing the song, he starts spinning around. Here's a taste of our night time routine.

BALLOON FIESTA- SPECIAL SHAPES!

Wow, wow, wow. What an awesome experience. I am sooooo glad Jenn came out and we could experience this awesome fiesta together. Thursday morning was the "Special Shapes Rodeo" and since Wednesday was cancelled they also lifted off the "Nations" balloons that were supposed to go off the day before. It was truly amazing. Everyone is allowed to roam freely between the balloons and watch them inflate, get pulled up onto the gondola, and eventually float off in to the sky. There is a million pictures here, but it was just so cool and amazing...

First balloon of the morning being lifted- the first 2 balloons had huge American flags on the bottom that took off while everyone listened to the Pledge of Allegiance. Its great to be an American!

Rise of the Nations balloons coming onto and off the field..


So amazing watching the "Rise of the Nations" balloons first coming off the field!



Jaylen was so in awe. He sat on Aaron's shoulders perfectly still just looking at the balloons for over an hour! Unheard of!

All the special shapes blowing up and lifting off. So many original, fun balloons! Everything from cars, trucks, bugs, witches, spaceships, Darth Vader, haunted houses, banks, mugs, cans, animals, and anything else you can think of was represented by a balloon. It was amazing!







Cliff looking at the balloons!

Cute bees!

All the balloons are up!

What a fun filled morning. Such an unreal experience. It was great to be able to experience it with Jenn and Cliff. Jaylen had such a fun time running around he fell asleep on Aaron's shoulders on the way to the car. We finished off Thursday with a yummy lunch at Sadies, an authentic New Mexican restaurant and some R&R before dropping Jenn and Cliff at the airport. What great last couple days!

Wednesday fun..

Wednesday with Jenn and Cliff here was a rather crazy, yet really fun day. It started at 4:45 am- getting ready and out the door with our two kidos bundled up to see the mass ascension of the Balloon Fiesta. Unfortunately, it started raining and an hour and a half later, they announced no balloons would be going up so we headed back home after eating some breakfast burritos. We ate, took naps, then headed out to the Botanical Gardens, Aquarium, Zoo and Old Town. Fun, fun, fun!

Here's Jenn with Cliff at the Balloon Fiesta.

Jenn at the shark tank.

Jaylen in Old Town.

Sisters in Old Town.

Cute Jenn

Botanical Gardens

Jaylen cooling off in the spray ground

Jenn and Cliff on their camel ride at the zoo!


In the botanical gardens

Silly boys in the tub.