just braggin' a little...

For your enjoyment today, just a few random photos of my boy...

I HAVE mentioned how hard it is to get a good sharp photo of him these days, right?  Yeah, I thought so.  We were just hanging out in the office/craft room listening to Daddy play his drum one night and I decided to get the camera out.   

 

I think I caught him mid-word here.  :)

 

Just had to share these -- his faces crack me up.  Especially when you look at them all together.  This was the exact order that we took them.  I think maybe in the first (top left) he was waiting for the flash?  I don't use flash if I can help it.  I most definitely didn't in these.  The bottom left is probably where I was trying to get him to smile so I told him to say "cheeeese".  It looks like he did.  :)

 

Y'all would not believe all that this kid can do at almost 2 years old.  This is probably the heart of every mama but I am SO proud of him.  :: heart bursting ::

 

I've always talked about him being a chatterbox and that hasn't changed -- it's just that now we can understand maybe 75% of what he says.  He's still got a little bit of that "japanese" he speaks going on, but he will attempt to say anything we ask him to.  And some things we DON'T ask him to, if you know what I mean.  :: raises eyebrow ::

 

He's close to knowing all his body parts and where they are.  He most definitely knows his first name and is just beginning to say his last name when we prompt him.  The way he says "Wenzel" is so cute.  :)  Well, that pretty much goes for anything he says, in my opinion.  He sings A LOT.  To himself, or with us.  I think his faves at this point are "Twinkle, Twinkle", the ABC song and he still likes "The Wheels on the Bus".  Jeff recently taught him "Jesus Loves the Little Children" and he likes that one, too.  He can finish parts of all the songs we sing together if we stop singing.  Such a smarty.  :)

 

He also knows who the best his fave baseball team is.  If you ask him who his fave baseball team is, he says "yyyyyyaaaaankeeeeees!!"  It's adorable how excited he gets.  We watch a lot of Yankees baseball in this house so he recognizes the Yankees logo and even the MLB logo, hello!  Jeff loves that!

 

He is especially into trains, specifically Thomas, right now.  He likes trucks and fire engines (which are referred to as buses, for some reason -- I guess they do look more like a bus than a truck...), and still loves to sit in your lap and look at books.  He's beginning to let us read to him more than just wanting to flip through the pages as fast as he can and move on.  He's still got that 10 sec attention span, but he will actually point out things on the pages to us, or answer questions that we ask about what's on the page.  I'm so glad he loves books.  :)

 

We FINALLY got him to say the number 1!  Right up until this week, probably, he would NOT say "one".  When we would ask him to say "one", he would skip right to 2.  Well, now he's started counting with 1...2...4...6...7...9...10.  We're missing some numbers, sure, but the important one at this point is 2 and he's had that one for AWHILE.

 

There are so many little things -- triumphs, sweet (as well as frustrating) moments, etc. that I haven't included in my general summary here of life with our toddler but we are enjoying every single moment, watching Deacon grow and change.  I just wanted to share a little of that with you.  :)

 

[22 months]

1st Father's Day...

We celebrated Jeff's first Father's day in a big way!  And that's just the way I wanted it.  Since this was his very first one, I wanted it to be pretty memorable.

I think I accomplished that.

Yes, we went to New York City!  But not only that, I got us tickets to not one, but two (count'em, peeps!), TWO Yankees baseball games!  Jeff is a big Yankees fan but has never been to a game.  And we had talked off and on over the last several years about how we should take a weekend trip to NYC -- a place neither of us had ever been -- and go to a ballgame and maybe a show or something.

And we never did.

And then we had Deacon.

When baseball season started this year, Jeff was ALL.ABOUT.IT.  He usually is anyway, but for some reason he was super-excited to get the season underway and kept talking to Deacon about the Yankees (as if he understood exactly what Daddy was talking about :).

Well, that's really when the wheels started turning and I started considering us going to NY and going to a Yankees game as his Father's day gift.

Long story short (cuz there are many more details to this one), we flew up on a Thursday (Deacon's first plane ride!) and back on a Saturday and we got to see two games.

Well, that's technically not exactly true...

The game on Thursday, against the Boston Red Sox, ended up being on a 3 1/2 hour rain delay.  We were so bummed to see the rain tarp already on the field when we got there.  We had gotten there about an hour before the game started at 7pm so we could walk around the stadium, take photos, etc.  So 4 1/2 hours later, the game finally starts but Deacon is not handling things well at that point...

He had just fallen asleep at 9pm (much later than his usual bedtime) and that was right about the time they decided to put the NBA finals up on the big jumbotron for our viewing pleasure.  Which is fine unless you have young, rowdy (read: LOUD) guys sitting in front of you who make a ruckus every time a play is made!

Because they wake your sleeping child up.

And he cries.

And then there's another play right as he's falling back to sleep.

Grrr.

So I'm over in my seat thinking, "Okay, should I be a good mother, or should I try to get my money's worth out of these dang tickets??"  Plus, it was the Red Sox and I know Jeff really wanted to see the game...I did, too, for that matter.

But we finally decided, after 2 innings and being able to see everyone in the Yankees lineup bat, that we needed to go on back to the hotel.  It was close to midnight after all.

The game Friday against the Cleveland Indians was SO.MUCH.BETTER.  It started on time, there was no rain, the rowdy boys weren't there.  We had a great time and Deacon did so much better this go-round, falling asleep and taking a good 4-inning nap so that when the game was over and we went walking around Times Square at 11:30-12am, he was good to go!

Gotta say, though -- didn't see too many folks pushing strollers around at that hour...  :)

One other thing we kind of stumbled upon was this:

You may or may not know what this is, but to us, it's a BIG DEAL.  We used to watch Orange County Choppers, the reality show, on TV all the time and even got to meet some of the family and employees down at Bike Week in FL one year.  It was really neat to be able to look around in what we watched them build on the TV show!

The trip in itself was, um, an adventure.  I wouldn't say I had a blast, nor would I say that I hated it.  There were a few "what was I thinking?" moments, and if I had it to do over again, I would definitely change some things.  But all together, it was neat for Jeff and I to be able to experience something new together and Deacon really did so well.

So glad he's got his Daddy's temperament.  :)

The trip was actually a couple of weekends before Father's day so on actual Father's day, this is what Jeff got:

Happy Father's Day, babe!  I am so proud of the Daddy you are to our son -- you are doing an absolutely wonderful job with him, and he and I both love you for it!