one year older and wiser too...

Happy Birthday to you too Rachelle!

jamesy anson

Two years ago you joined our family.

And a year ago you were already making messes.

And today you are TWO!!!

Ever since we told you what two-year-olds do, you've been trying your best to do them. You've been eating so much better and last night you didn't wake up once! You keep telling us, "TWO!" I think you're excited to be a big boy like your brother. You want to do everything that he does. And just so I don't forget, here are some other things you love to do lately:

*Skipping... sometimes when you run you have an extra little skip. It's so cute.

*Whistling... you love to do it especially when William is.

*Jabbering... lately you've been "talking" up a storm. Most of the time I can't understand what you are saying except for a word or two. The other day when you came to tell on William you told me "yellow ball"... and sure enough, that's what he had taken from you.

*Rolling hands... you love to roll your hands and say "round and round" so that we'll sing "The Wheels on the Bus." In fact you are getting good at all the actions to that song. You love to sing about the baby and the mommy the best though. It's fun to see you say "shh! shh! shh!"

*You love babies

*You know what you want. You are so particular whether it be food, songs, or movies--you let it be known your opinion.

*Reading books... all of a sudden you've taken an interest in books. You love to read them over and over again! One of your favorites is "Goodnight Moon"... you love to look for the little mouse.

*Singing... you love "The Wheels on the Bus," "Old McDonald" (which you request for Dad to sing when you take a bath), "Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam," "Jingle Bells," "Once There Was a Snowman," and "Popcorn Popping." You also love to get out the xylophone and while banging on it sing "e-i-e-i-o" again and again.

*Shrugging your shoulders... I don't know where you learned this but I think it's adorable!

*William told me the other day, "James likes to beat me up." And it's true. You love to rough house with William.

*Helping... you love to be given a task to do--and you're very willing to help out with whatever we are doing.

*Cooking... you especially love to help in the kitchen!

*Obeying... for as crazy and mischievous as you are you are surprisingly obedient!

Happy Birthday James!

March Madness

March is a crazy month for our family. We have 4 birthdays within 1 week of each other. Plus St. Patrick's Day... and last year they threw Easter on top of all that. Another fun thing we look forward to this month is filling out our brackets for the NCAA tournament. This year we even had William fill one out. It's not surprising that he has BYU and Texas in the final game. I was just pleased that he picked BYU over the Sooners! Rich and I collaborated on one and called it James'. So here you go, the moment you've all been waiting for (or at least Ron has been waiting...), our 2009 brackets:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had a fun, very green, day. William has been patiently waiting for "the day we wear green" ever since we made this treat jar. Today we breakfasted on green pancakes. We wore green. We made and decorated these delicious pistachio cupcakes. And we dined on lots of green food. Yum.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

learning to be more optimistic

Friday, as we loaded in the car for our weekly shopping trip, William remarked, "It's a nice day today." Now, those weren't exactly my thoughts as I stood shivering on that 46-degree-no-sun-to-be-seen day. "No it's not, it's freezing," I replied as I buckled James into his seat. As we started to drive William expounded on all the reasons why it was indeed a nice day. "There's no tornadoes or rain or dark clouds. No trash cans falled. Houses didn't fall down." Well, when you look at it like that, I suppose it really was a nice day.

Kids, so often, help us to see a new perspective. It's so easy to point out all the unpleasantries--the slightly chilly weather, the overcast sky--that we often miss the good things (or lack of bad things). It reminded me again of President Hinckley's talk on optimism where he reminds us to "stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I am suggesting that as we go through life we “accentuate the positive.”'

So that's my goal this week... to accentuate the positive and find those moments of sunshine throughout my day.

rock-a-bye Jamesy

*artwork by KatieJeanneReim found on Etsy

For some reason James thought it would be LOTS of fun to wake up in the middle of the night and play for a while. No. Longer than "a while"... closer to 4 hours! He talked to himself, found toys to play with, read some books... We tried everything we could think of to get him to settle down. Whatever we tried, James found hilarious. Finally, I just had to sit on the floor next to his bed and watch him until he fell asleep (if I laid down he would jump up and start the craziness again.) Rich and I were exhausted yesterday morning... he got less sleep than I did.

This boy has the silliest sleep/bedtime habits. For instance, when we first got the bunk beds, he thought it was fun to climb up onto the top bunk and fall asleep. We often found him there during nap time.

At bedtime we always put William to sleep first. One night we heard James laughing hysterically. We later found that he would climb up the ladder and beat on William. William is such a heavy sleeper that he would never wake up! James thought it was hilarious to beat on his brother when he was defenseless.

His newest thing is turning on the lights. Again, it's a good thing that William is a heavy sleeper. He used to get whatever he could find to stand on to reach the lights. When we took all those things out of the room, he discovered he could stand on his tiptoes and still reach the switch. He really is too smart for his own good. Most of the time when we open the door to turn the lights off he's on his bed reading books (one of his new loves).

I wonder what he'll come up with next.