Hungry Hippo

I have a feeling Jaylen is going through a huge growth spurt right now. Here's why:

Me: "Jaylen, what did you learn in nursery today??"
Jaylen: "How to eat a little snack, with a little drink."

Last night, I woke up to Jaylen whispering in my ear at 11:30 pm, saying "Mommy, mommy.... I too hungry!" I tried to pull him into bed to snuggle, but he was completely resistant and was dead set on getting food. We went into the kitchen, where Jaylen ate a large piece of cheese, a bowl of cottage cheese, some mango slices, and ended with a whole hot dog. He's been eating like a wild animal all week. I'm not even joking- we have a savings account setup for his college and an account for "savings", which is beginning to turn into a teenage food fund.

After cutting off a slice of banana bread, I went to go put something away. When I came back, Jaylen had eaten the slice, and with a full mouth said upon seeing me, "So glad you liked your bread mom!"

Speaking of, Jaylen just brought me a yogurt he wants to eat and will gnaw it to pieces if I don't open it asap.

Patty Cake

Jaylen loves patty cakes...

This is how I found Jaylen and Aaron after I got done training at 5:30 am..

Recent silliness

So alot of the funny things that Jaylen has been saying recently, I spaced on the last post. Here's a few:

Me: "Jaylen, ready to take a nap?"
Jaylen: "Nah, mom. I don't think I'd like that."

He's really good at keeping quiet for a couple hours and not even taking a nap. You would think with this stuff all over, he'd be noisy, but I swear I hardly heard anything. His room was clean, and this is after I opened the door from a "nap."


After the gym one night, we dropped by the ATM to put a check in, and Jaylen asked Aaron what I was doing. Aaron told him I was "dropping off the bacon." So now, every time we leave the gym, Jaylen says, "Lets go get bacon!"


Jaylen's memory is incredible. I think he might have gotten that from Aaron (he remembers everything!!). As I was driving Aaron to the airport Thursday, we drove by the street to go to the Lobo's Pit and football stadium. Jaylen randomly says, "Gunna go see the Lobos??" We were impressed he'd remember that- since it was a year ago since we've been to any games. Crazy.


Jaylen's been really cute when I drop him off in childcare recently. He's got this whole routine, where he asks me for a hug and kiss (and he gives the best kisses ever!) then walks me to the gate. When I close the gate, he asks me for a hug again, so I lean over, pick him up and give him a big hug. With a big smile on his face, he goes running off to play. Its adorable.

We love calling Aaron in the mornings, where Jaylen very cutely says, "Good morning Daddy!! I miss you!! I love you (yahh youu)" His little elmo voice just melts my heart.

I've been craving German food like no bodies business, so after dropping Aaron at the airport, I took Jaylen to eat at Dagmar's. The only German place in town! I can't believe how big my little boy is getting. He sat in his own little chair, with his own little plate, sipping on his own little drink. We had a little conversation. I don't know why it surprised me so much how he's turning into his own little man. It actually made me quite excited. I hate to see him grow up (since he hit 2- I love this age!), but getting a glimpse of having him be a big boy, able to go out and do things with me, makes me excited.

I love this kid. Seriously, maybe my hormones are just plain wacky, but I can't even count how many times I've gotten all teary eyed just thinking about Jaylen and my relationship with him lately. After having a rough 2 years adjusting to parenting, its nice to finally love it. Jaylen has definitely added a whole new depth of feelings to my heart and life just feels more complete with him. Even with Aaron being gone to Maryland (which I'm hating by the way), its nice to have Jaylen's little face to remind me of Aaron all the time.

Well, I'll stop being ridiculously sappy. I feel really grateful. How I lucked out getting the best (and cutest!) boys ever, I'll never know, but I'm very thankful.

Here's Jaylen being silly with his flashlight. Can you tell what he had for a snack?? (Blueberries!)

Elephant Butte with the Collins

Man, we are spoiled with some fun friends. Steve and Ellie invited us to the lake this weekend to have fun on their jetskis and boat. Aaron got to come this time, and LOVED the jet skis. He was a mad man out there! It was a beautiful day, we all had an awesome time, and of course, the food was delicious. Jaylen ate most of a Costco bag of Cheeto puffs and had about 10 or so Caprison juices.

Zoe (their daughter's boyfriend's sister) playing with Jaylen..

Playing out in the lake and on the sand..

Steve out getting waterskiing ready (which was way fun!) and Sarah and Jaylen coming in from a swim..

This picture cracked me up- it looks like Steve body slammed Jaylen into the water. Jaylen loves being tossed!

Aaron swinging Jaylen around. He loves it!

It was an awesome time, and we are completely exhausted today. In fact, I don't feel like moving so hence why I'm blogging. Jaylen's having a blast sitting on my lap looking and remembering all the pictures.

Sneakin in the fridge and lovin like crazy

One morning when I was training early- Aaron woke up to find Jaylen doing this:


He loves yogurt (or yoggies as he calls it) and couldn't wait to get some so he took it upon himself to treat himself to it for breakfast. He's pretty proud of himself when he can do things by himself.

Here's some funny stories of late I wanted to jot down:

Jaylen came into the room saying, "I'm sorry Mom, I'm sorry." (Which he's very good at doing when he knows he did something wrong). So I asked him what he was sorry for, and he said, "Ohhhh, I pee-peed on the fridge!" We went into the kitchen and sure enough, I think he opened the fridge without a diaper on, and the cold air might have prompted him to pee on the fridge. Luckily, there was no food on the bottom shelf, but it was rather funny to hear Jaylen's apology.

Jaylen really enjoyed his package from Grandma Merilee- especially his fire truck book.

It seems like we're constantly saying, "We really need to record that" and its becoming hard to remember all of them. If more stories come to mind, I'll jump on to write them down.

On a more personal note, I've been thinking a lot about raising Jaylen, and Sunday school today brought it back to my attention. My thoughts here will probably be scrambled.

I've thought about how I will never be the perfect parent, and I definitely make mistakes and will continue to do so. I've been thinking about my childhood and it wasn't awful, but I don't feel warm and fuzzy about it either. I want Jaylen to have a different experience. The one big thing I've come to really want for Jaylen, is that if I do nothing else right as a parent, Jaylen will know that I love him like crazy, no matter what. This might be a very simple determination I've come to really want for my children, but I feel very, very strongly about this.

Working as the laurel adviser and being in Young Womens, I am constantly amazed at the struggles of the different girls. So many of them lack parent love and attention. After asking parents about talents and gifts of the girls for my lesson today, I could tell who really gets the love they need at home, and who doesn't, and it correlates strongly with the self-esteem and struggles of the girls. I love the mom's who could have talked for over an hour about the good qualities of their daughters, instead of the one who said, "What else does that little twit do?" (Sad, huh?!)

Anyways, maybe this is basic to most homes and not new. I feel like I was loved as a child, but not told or shown unconditionally and in depth as I want Jaylen to experience. I've struggled with feeling maybe a little on the resentful side of my growing up experience and know I don't want this for my children, knowing the struggles its brought me. Aaron always has said that he definitely felt that throughout his life he was loved unconditionally, and he has had an awesome experience through life with little negative thoughts. He is so confident, well balanced, not afraid to take on the world, and is just plain awesome.

So, one thing I vow never to be accused of is not loving my children like crazy. They will know it and never doubt it. I feel like I'll be successful as a mother if I can accomplish this. Of course, this little guy doesn't make it hard to do (at the moment! :)

Jaylen singing Popcorn Popping

Jaylen making his "recipes."

Who ever thought pizza was dangerous?

Sorry Aaron, but this one definitely has to go down in the books.

I got home late from training one night last week, and Aaron had a pizza cooking in the oven. He took it out and couldn't find the pizza cutter, so decided to use a knife. Almost done cutting the last quarter piece, it dropped on his foot on the floor and thats when I heard him scream like a girl. Jaylen and I run into the kitchen to find pizza all over the floor, and Aaron with his foot in the sink. We proceeded to laugh, and Jaylen said, "Daddy's soooo crazy!" It was pretty funny. Well, until I realized we'd lost a 1/4 of the pizza. (Totally kidding- but it definitely didn't sweeten the deal). I must say, it was rather funny seeing Aaron ice his foot all night over dropping an oven pizza on his foot (Poor guy). At the lake, the group got quite a laugh out of it, seeing that Aaron's foot looks like this days later...

Sorry, Aaron for our lack of sympathy. Its just too funny.

Silly Jaylen

Jaylen is such a cute, sweet, active, silly little guy. We love seeing his personality coming out more and more. Here's a fun bath time tonight..



Jaylen has been crazy about his flashlight lately. We went to check on him after putting him to bed and we found him snuggled up to his lobster and flashlight. What a cute little kid. We sure love him!




Some recent stories:
A stool fell and hit Aaron in the leg at dinner and he immediately started grabbing and yelling about his leg. Jaylen and I started laughing at him, and Jaylen said, "Oh daddy.. he's so crazy!!" It was hilarious.

Jaylen loves doing silly things then saying, "I'm so silly!!" or "I'm so funny mommy!" or "I'm so crazy, mom!"

Explora!

We had a fun time at Explora, a child's science type museum. Jaylen had a fun time, enjoying the water exhibits and trains the most. He played at the train table for 30 min+ and cried the whole way home after we had to pry him away from his trains. I guess we know what to get him for Christmas!

BUBBLES! Jaylen loved doing the bubbles- he almost fell in and was completely sticky, but he was in heaven.


I did the suspended bike! It was quite the interesting feeling biking on a cable way above the ground!

This was quite possibly the biggest elevator we've ever seen. It was the size of our bedroom. Incredible and very comfy!!

Jaylen spent most his time at the turtle tank hugging and kissing the turtles through the glass. He's got quite the thing for turtles lately..

He loved this little toddler room where he could put balls into tubes..

We love spending out Saturdays together doing fun things!

Playing with Daddy

I came home from training this morning and Aaron had taken these pictures of Jaylen. I love coming home to seeing my 2 boys having such a fun time together. Jaylen's lucky to have such a playful, fun Daddy!

"Its soooo cuuuteee!"

Jaylen has this thing now days with turtles and stuffed animals especially. He also likes to say, "Ohhhhh soooooo CUUTEE!" to everything from ants to pictures in books of bugs. Its really sweet, and he does it all the time recently. I tried to tell him that the way he thinks his turtle in his book is soooo cute, is the way I think about him. He just stared at me and said, "Mom, turtle is cute, okay?"




Jaylen has also really started to use his imagination. He likes to make us "recipes" on his bike, and come ask us for extra spices, and other random things on it. He'll come feed it to us, and blow on it to cool it off, and gets pretty excited when we play along. He specializes in making pizza and salads.

He also loves to make a "blender" out of his blocks and act like he's hand mixing things. He loves to "make" smoothies.

He also loves to do Aaron and I's hair with my blow dryer. He doesn't plug it in, but makes the imaginary noise of it being on and helps to do our hair.

He is such a fun little boy, and we love watching him grow up and do new, fun things!

Jet Skis!

Aaron had a Sharp Shooter basketball camp he was working/playing at this weekend, so Jaylen and I went with Steve, Ellie, Sarah, and Mike down to the lake to play on their new jet skis.

Jaylen was amused by "Sprinkles" for a few minutes, but quickly got tired of the licking all over his face. Dogs are great- he completely cleaned Jaylen's carseat and his face..

Steve took Jaylen out on the skis and he LOVED it. He wasn't hesitant at all and was all smiles. He learned quickly how to use the gas.


Jaylen LOVED the lake. Steve and Ellie brought a shovel and pail, some paddles with balls, and Jaylen kept busy the whole time playing in the sand and swimming in the lake. He loved the waves and Steve and I took turns throwing him up in the air. He was so cute out there.

I really enjoyed the jet skis. It was a very exciting ride. We found a rock that sat out of the water about 25 feet and I climbed up and jumped off. I love that kind of stuff. I'm excited to have Aaron come with us next time. Aaron really enjoyed coaching at the camp put on by an Albuquerque native ex-NBA player.

More crazy naps..

Steve got Jaylen this alien gun in Roswell, and I took this picture of him falling asleep with his hand on the trigger, and afterwords realized he had his hand on BOTH triggers. Yikes. I wish he wouldn't do that. It grosses me out.

Jaylen likes to sneak out into the hallway to fall asleep..

Asleep on the floor, snuggled up with his bear..

Such a snuggly little guy..

Rolled out of his bed..

Hiking Volcanoes

Happy boy on the way to our hike on the west side of town..

We went to hike the petroglyphs on the west side of Albuquerque, but had some logistical backups, so we made our way over on the other side of them to hike the old volcanoes. It was a perfect hike for Jaylen. Wide open space to roam, 1 trail to follow, and lots of dirt, ants and lizards along the way!

Here's the top of the first one that had a "cave."

Jaylen walked the entire time by himself! My guess, over 2 miles. I was impressed. He loved it, and really enjoyed not having to be restricted in where and how fast he went.


Bear Grylls in the making..

He loved chasing lizards, or as Jaylen called them, "Wiizzzzzards!!" We found this big one that we had to keep Jaylen from getting his hands on.

Walking back from the 3rd volcano

Jaylen loved the wide open spaces he could explore. He loved kicking the dirt and looking for "wizzards."

Definitely a hike we would do in the future with Jaylen. He loved it and therefore so did we!

Family kiss!

I've been wanting to get this on video for awhile. We started doing "family kisses" months ago, and we LOVE IT. We do it anytime we can, but its routinely done after Jaylen's night time prayers before bed. Out of the blue, Jaylen would say, "GUYS, GUYS!! SHHHHHHH!" and put his finger up to shush us. My only guess is that when they make that much noise in child care they tell the children to "shhhhh." Who knows.
I love these moments cause I know they won't last forever!

Happy half birthday, our sweet little man! We're so glad you're ours to love and take care of!