Father's Day #2...

I have some of the best dads in the world in my life.  Just sayin'.

My Daddy?  Well, he's just great -- for the last 33 years of my life (ahem, that would be ALL of them), he's been just what I need.  Someone to fight for me, someone to listen and also to teach me, an awesome lap to sit in, neck to hug, role model to look up to.  I just love him.  :)

Jeff's dad is great, too.  I mean, for me, all I have to do is observe my husband to see what kind of father he has.  I hope he will take that for the high compliment that it is.  I love him, too!  :)

:: this is what I made for our dads for Father's Day this year ::

And my husband, new as he is to this parenthood thing, is just such an awesome daddy to our Deacon.  We are learning together, but he is so good with our son.  I love him the most!  :)

:: this is what Jeff got, along with scratch-made blueberry muffins (my Gram's recipe) and a foot massage! ::

My kid? He's busy.

I hope ya'll have memorized my kid's face by now because THIS is mostly all I get now:

This kid is Mr. On-The-Go.  Busy, busy, busy.  Running everywhere he goes.

Did I mention he's fearless, too?

Yeah.

Oh, THERE'S that sweet face.  :)

Mother's Day #2...

This was my 2nd mother's day and it was just as special as the first, in different ways.  I got almost a whole weekend out of it, but it really started a few weeks ago at a Girls' Night Out.  Some of my girlfriends and I got together at a paint-your-own-pottery place and I made this:

It was quite a challenge to get Deacon's little handprint on it (probably the last year I'll be able to get it on a mug this size), but I think it turned out okay, and I'm SO pleased with how the mug came out!  What a treasure this is to me!  And I reckon I'll be drinking out of this for the next 20 years or so...  :)

So then this weekend rolled around.  Saturday we went to the beach together and it was a GORGEOUS day!  The perfect day to go to the beach -- it wasn't too breezy at the beach, it wasn't too hot.  Seriously, I could've stayed all day long!  But after about an hour we headed home for lunch and naps.

 

 

Well, my boys napped while I went to get a pedicure!  We have a new place right up the road that I wanted to try and I left there a very satisfied customer.  :)  Aaahh, it was so relaxing!  My poor feet were in desperate need of some TLC and the sweet lady at the salon did not disappoint.  She painted my toes with a beautiful color of pinkish-purple and then added a pretty design (she painted it by hand):

Sunday morning, we got up and got ready for church as usual but I found this on the table for me:

After church, we picked up sushi for lunch (that was a big hit last year!) and then took naps all around.  Sunday evening, we ended up at a place in Surf City for dinner -- Mainsail Restaurant.  It's not a new restaurant, but one we've never eaten at before.  It was a great atmosphere with great service, and the food was wonderful!

I loved spending lots of quality time with my boys this past weekend -- they are my most favorite in the whole world!  Being Deacon's mama is the absolute best job I've ever had.  He is my heart, truly, and I'm so humbled and blessed beyond measure that God would choose me to raise this most special little boy.

18 mos old...

SO.HARD.TO.BELIEVE. we have a child who is a year and a half old.

I took Deacon to his 18 month well-check last week and he did great, of course.  The doctor said he was right on track for doing, saying, eating everything an 18 month old should be doing, saying or eating.  He's such a busy-body that it was pretty difficult to hold a conversation with the doctor, but she's a mom, too, so I guess she understood that I WAS listening, even if my attention was on making sure my son didn't flip off the table.

So his stats at this point haven't changed much in the last 3 months:

Weight = 23 lbs, 11 oz (21%)

Height = 31 inches (21%)

He's progressing on his own chart exactly as he has been doing (no huge jumps or lags) so the doctor says he looks great.  And no shots this time, yay!  He'll get his next booster shot at his 2 year appt, and then nothing more for a couple years, I think.

His vocabulary has ramped up a little bit, though he still speaks lots of Japanese, if you ask me.  :)  He can now say/sign or sound the following:

eat (and he does the sign, too)
more (just the sign)
please (just the sign -- which looks a lot like "bath", too :)
ba (bath)
mama
da (daddy)
shh (shoe)
cah (car)
cruh (truck -- it's weird but he looks right at a truck when he says it)
chh-chh (choo-choo train)
chh (cheese)
night-night
nap
nack (snack)
hot (as in "the food is hot" or "the oven is hot")
up
no
uh-oh
whoa
yay
apple
nana (banana)
wa (water)
Deacon (oh, my word -- it is the cutest thing!)

new toys & new tricks...

Jeff and I had the opportunity to go to NYC in mid April.  Jeff needed to head up there for work, so I decided to tag along with him.  Jeff's mom came down to stay with Deacon for our little getaway.  He's at the age now where he's too young and too old at the same time -- too young to listen, and too old to sit still.  :)

So we decided maybe we'd better leave him home this time.  We sure missed him, though!

We knew he was in good hands with his Grandma Sherry.  I think she had a ball with him all to herself.  :)  One of the things she told us before she got here is that she wanted to get him some kind of toy that he could play with outside.  Now that we have the backyard fenced in, he does need some things he can play with out there.

She settled on a little push lawnmower that (supposedly) blows bubbles as you push.  You know the one -- we had them when WE were kids...

A guy needs the right equipment for his yard, right?

Hard at work...seriously.

Pretty sure he got the whole yard.  :)

Thanks, Grandma Sherry!

In other news, Deacon has a new trick:

We have a monkey on our hands, for sure!  He will climb on anything -- couches, chairs, coffee table, upside down laundry basket, his push-behind racecar, his toy tool bench (found him on that today!) and yes, his picnic table outside.

We're gonna need good insurance on this one.  :)

Easter 2012

For Easter this year, I decided to try to coordinate all of our outfits (as some are prone to do)...

Don't we look cute?

Jeff already had his shirt, so I grabbed it and took it with me to find matching/coordinating shirts for me and Deacon.  Success!

Sundays are always pretty busy for us in the morning, getting ready for church so we decided to give Deacon his Easter basket after we got home from church.

He got a little remote control (the boy LOVES remote controls!) and some bubbles (he also LOVES bubbles!) with a hand-held bubble-blower.

It was a beautiful day on Easter Sunday, so we took the bubbles outside to see how the bubble-blower worked...

In the words of my husband, "This thing is the HEAT!"  I'm pretty sure Deacon loved it...score one for mama!

Spring Fling 2012

This year's Spring Fling at our church was MUCH different than last year's, considering Deacon was almost a whole year older for it (17 mos vs. 6 mos last year).  He had the same time as last year for his egg hunt, 10:30am, but it meant something completely different.  We couldn't put him down until the whistle blew cuz he would make a bee-line for those eggs!

It was a lot of fun chasing him around the yard, watching his reaction to the eggs and other kids.  He still doesn't have the concept of gathering eggs yet, of course.  Last year he was chewing on eggs.  He was still doing that this year, but he could pick them up himself.  Then he would lick them a little, drop them back on the ground and move on to the next ones.

Nice.

So mama was following him around the yard with the basket, grabbing the ones he licked to put in his basket.  No need to spread those germs around, even if they are from my sweet boy.  :)

After the egg hunt, we went over to get in line for the tractor rides!  Oh man, did Deacon like that!  We got on the trailer that was hitched to the tractor that my boss, actually, was driving, Pastor Jimmie. 

Jimmie loves him some Deacon Wenzel.  :)

We sat right in the back of the trailer, so right next to the tractor and Deacon just watched it the whole time.  It was really a nice ride, longer than I thought it would be, and we had really nice weather -- windy, but very sunny, and not a cloud in the sky.

After the tractor ride, we went to get a hot dog and some popcorn for lunch.  By the time we finished up, Deacon mama & daddy had pretty much had all the fun they could take so we headed home for naps all around.

Of course, you know we took tons of photos...

Special thanks to our sweet friend, April, who volunteered to take photos for us during the egg hunt!  Gotta love thoughtful friends!  I'm looking forward to returning the favor for her after their first baby arrives in July!  :)