Zzzzz

I posted last time that we had converted Jansen's crib to a toddler bed. We haven't had much luck with him sleeping in it though. Today he finally slept in it and with the help of the body pillow didn't fall out! He's getting to be such a big boy that I couldn't resist a quick snap of him in his bed all snuggled up.

Jansen a.k.a. Dragon Walker

This dragon is a pot-belly bank that Laura and Chuck got Jansen for his birthday. Lately he likes to "feed" it (that's how the change gets in it) and then walk it around the house. It doesn't move very smoothly though since it's just made to stand in one spot and he gets frustrated when he transports it. It doesn't stop him from trying though!! Here's a progression of getting it into the kitchen to show me it's "hungry" and needs to be "fed." I'm going to need a second job soon if this dragon doesn't stop eating soon!

MOVE Dragon!!!!!

A new tactic... two hands and a sideways approach!

There, NOW it's push-able AND Mommy can see how empty his belly is so he can be fed!

Climbing

The newest favorite thing to do is climb up on EVERYTHING! Jansen uses the kitchen chairs as a jungle gym right now! Anything is fair game if it can be climbed upon right now! I have found him standing on the kitchen table in a matter of seconds already! AAAHHHH!!! We now have to toddler proof all counter tops, cabinets, and table tops! I didn't realize this was coming so soon! The hardest part now is that he wants to come up and "help" me cook and I'm afraid he's going to grab something hot pretty soon! I've been eagle eyeing it so far, but he's so fast that it's scary! Today a kid in WalMart (probably about 10 or 11) watched as Jansen climbed from the "basket" part of the cart, over the back of the seat part, and leaped into my arms at the handle part all in the matter of about 3 seconds. The kid said (with eyes bugging out at Jansens), "Holy cow that baby can climb!" It was pretty amazing and even I was a bit shocked by his speed given the obstacle! He also likes to drag the chair to the kitchen window and watch the dogs playing in the back yard! That one is really cute and I promise a pic soon of that! Here's just a couple of the newest adventure!

"Hi! I'm almost as tall as you now!"

"Um... You're not supposed to see me doing this."

(Actually when I first saw him he was totally oblivious to the fact that I was watching him. He started to step down when he heard the camera come on. He WAS standing full up on his scooter and trying to step up on the handle bars when I turned on the darn camera. Next step after this was that he brought over his push toy and tried to put a foot on/in each to see if that worked better. It didn't, by the way.) (Sorry about the mess. This is the catch all area with the old computers. Since they don't work it seems that the junk piles up over there and it doesn't help that Jansen has designated the floor area as his "kitchen" toy spot which includes old paper bags!)

This is how we look at the end of a long day of climbing! Can you say BEDTIME!?!?

TP Stretch

Jansen has unrolled the TP plenty of times, but this particular time he had a record! The video doesn't show it all because the camera was full so it's only a few seconds, but that trail continues around the corner and into the back part of the bathroom about another 10 feet! I was pretty impressed that there hadn't been a single break in it until I had to roll the whole thing back up. Ugh! It was a brand new roll!!!

Behind. Sorry. :o(

I have been behind here lately! It has been a really busy couple of weeks. I get to Sunday and realize I have no new pics to post! I'm so sorry. I'll try to do better! I have been in rehearsals 3 nights a week & 2 early-early mornings a week, , get a workout in at the very least 3X a week, and get our next day all set up each night before bedtime, then the weekend hits and I have to play catch-up on my pigstye (ahem... house). Amongst all that priority one is to get a moment or two with my beloveds. There are definitely moments that have been photo-worthy, but things have been so crazy I just don't have the camera nearby most of the time.

I'm getting all geared up to take my PALs class to a conference on Feb. 5th, 6th, & 7th. It will be my first time leaving Jansen for more than just overnight. Now, he will be with his Daddy so it will all be fine for them. It's really just me that will be having the issue I'm sure! I did leave him overnight once with Daddy for a lock-in that I hosted, but I didn't even head to the lock-in until it was nearly Jansen's bedtime and I was home right after he got up. This will be different. I'll not only be gone the whole weekend, BUT I won't even be in town!! I'll be 6-7 hours away!!! AAAHHHH!!!!

We will officially be heading to Chicago the weekend of May 8th for a very special event! Rhet and Burnetta are getting married and we just got our tickets so we will be seeing lots of family that weekend! We won't have seen many since Jansen was 7 months old so this will be quite a treat for us all!

I'm hoping that it will work out that Jansen and I (hopefully Jonathan at least for some of it) will be able to spend at least a few weeks this summer in Wisconsin. I'm still working on details, but I would really love to spend some quality (unrushed) time with my family. I haven't been able to really do that since moving out of state nearly 15 years ago. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

I officially put up Jansen's 6-9 month clothes today. There are a couple of shirts he can still wear, but the pants are getting too short. Even some of the 6-12 month things are too short now. He is officially in 12 month clothes. Not too bad for a 17 1/2 month old, I guess! :oP He really needs a 6 month in the waist, but a 12 month in the length when it comes to pants. He's so skinny! To look at him he's got a belly, but he's just so tiny in general that most of his 12 month pants slide right down, but he really can't wear his 9 month pants anymore without them turning into high waters or capris! This is one child that almost NEEDS summer to get here so that he can wear shorts and not worry so much about the length of his britches! :o) I'm either going to have to start pulling out the sewing machine to take in the waist of his pants or else bribe him with cheeseburgers and cookies to get him to fatten up! I'm thinking the sewing machine even though that's more work. He's got plenty of time to fatten up! If he's anything like his Mama then he'll be a skinny mite until his mid-20's then he'll make up for it with a metabolism that grinds to a screeching halt. I'm hoping that he inherits his Daddy's metabolism through his 20's instead!

Now that 18 months approaches, we have a bit bigger vocabulary. We are officially saying Mama, Daddy, Bye-bye, Hi, Thank You, Please, Vabu, Vubu, Nose, Eyes, Uh-Oh, Kiss, Dog, Eat, and Love You. He has said some other things, sometimes quite clearly, but they aren't repeated often enough to count as official words yet. Tonight he said "Yum" and it was sooo cute! He recognizes many, many things, but just can't quite make the words yet. He also gets angry really easily. I'm not sure if they have anger management for toddlers, but WOW. He'd probably be a candidate! He's gotten rather naughty in church now too. Last week we thought that maybe the noon service that we had been going to was whacking out his nap schedule so we went to the 10 am service instead to test it out. HUGE mistake! I mean... 1000 times worse! He screeched and squealed. I had to take him out of the worship area nearly right after we got there. Usually I don't have to take him out until a little over halfway through the service. By half way through the service that week I was having to wait for Richard and Jonathan OUTSIDE!! He was still carrying on so much and so loud that we had to stand outside the church building until they were finished! He even bit me 3 times, so hard that I am still bruised! I couldn't even believe how terrible he behaved! We went back to our noon service today and though he wasn't "well behaved," he wasn't the pill he was the week before. We did sit through the service and only after communion did Richard take him out for the tail end of the service. I love that he's an animated personality that chatters alot, engages others in what he's doing often, and takes some risks, BUT when you need him to be calm or quiet he is quite resistant to that! So far we haven't found the magic trick that keeps him calm and quiet for an hour or a little more. We're not giving up though... still working on it, bite marks, broken ear drums, and all!

Rainy Saturday

Yesterday was dreary and rainy. It wasn't a bad day, we even got a couple hours of a family nap in, but just rainy. I did have muddy footprints throughout the house all day from the dogs, but otherwise things were OK. Later in the afternoon, shortly before the sun was going to get ready to set the rain stopped and the sun popped out for a little bit. When we peeked out the front door a spectacular sight was set out before us!!! A full rainbow, but not just one!!!! A DOUBLE RAINBOW!!! I really don't know if it will read well on here, but it was AWESOME! Richard couldn't get the whole thing in one shot so he video-ed it too, but I don't think in all my 35 years I've ever seen a full one, let alone a double, and it was right out our front door! What an amazing Heavenly Father we have to create such beauty after keeping us inside all day on a Saturday! WOW! Jansen and I stood on the porch and just marveled at it for a good while. We actually watched as it faded away when the sun was setting. It was a truly spiritual experience!

To the left...

To the right...

Right straight ahead and up above us!

So beautiful!

Yoga Baby

Jansen was a bit cranky when we got home the other day. He flopped down on the floor before we could even get his coat off and was carrying on, sooooo Daddy grabbed the camera and right away Jansen started posing! Bad mood averted! These molars are stealing my Little SugarBear and replacing him with a Booger at times! I just have to remember the camera trick more often I think!

Yoga Pose!

Giggling...

We want YOUUUUUU to come to see us soon!!

Jonathan's Christmas Gift

For Christmas from Oscar and G-Pop Jonathan got an OU shelf. It's really cool! Daddy put it up for him the last time Jonathan was here!

Concentrate...

I hope this sucker is straight, 'cuz I'm making holes in the wall!!

Hey Daddy, I'll help you! I even brought a screwdriver!

Since you won't let me do it, I'll just have to find something else to fix in Big Brother's room!

Looks good Daddy!

All finished and with a happy Jonathan to go along with it! Thanks Oscar and G-Pop!

Saturday in Jammies

The boys and I were playing in Jansen's room last Saturday while we waited for Daddy to get up. We decided to stay in our jammies extra late, just because! It was pretty fun!

Getting taller, but still kind of a shrimp!

Can you tell that Jonathan is wearing one of Jansen's bibs? Crazy kid put on the "I Love My Big Brother" bib that we had pulled out! He's getting to be all legs!

Tickle Monster gets Jansen in his big boy bed! We converted the crib a couple of weeks ago. So far he still falls out of it. I think that they should have done a 3/4 rail instead of two 1/4 rails on the ends, but since we already bought this one we'll have to make it work. For now, IF we can get him to sleep in it, I sleep on a pallet on the floor in case he falls out. That way he'll land on me and the pallet instead of the tile. We'll get there, it's just going to take some time for him to settle down while he sleeps and get used to the opening. If not, I'll just have a permanent floor mat until we convert to the double bed and we'll put those longer portable rails on that one. **Sigh**

Our big boys! For all of our concerns with Jonathan being an only child for so long and then having to adjust to a little brother we have been pleasantly surprised. He is such an amazing big brother and is always so patient & playful with Jansen. In return Jansen absolutely adores him. This has been an amazing year plus watching these two together!

Me

I hear the comment that I am never on the blog, so here is a shot of me. Granted I'm wearing a great big sweatshirt so you can't see the weightloss that I have accomplished. I'm not on here much because I still am not where I feel ready to be on camera much. I have plateaued and am really frustrated. I am working out more than my recommended 3X per week, even though I have had rehearsals 3 nights a week and 2 early, early mornings a week. I've also cut my calories down to less than 1200 and still this plateau won't budge. I even feel like I've gained since ramping everything up! UGH!!!

So, I guess this will have to do for now for those that wanted a glimpse of me unless there is a pic of one of the boys that I happen to be in that MUST be posted!! :oP

Lately...

I thought I'd just let you know what we are up to really quick! I had a free moment (hard to come by before midnight for me) so I wanted to pop on and give you the scoop!

I am back to work and in full swing on rehearsals for the High School One-Act Play that we will take to competition April 1st. I just came from a pretty great rehearsal tonight so I'm feeling pretty excited about this year's show and especially the cast! I'm working with some "new blood" this year and they are proving to be quite a joy to get the opportunity to work with!

While on Christmas break I was able to get quite a bit of work done including our annual drama club awards presentation template (about 700 slides on a power point) and I updated my webpage on the school website, something they have been hounding us to do for the past few years and I just truly hadn't had time to get done!

Richard only got a couple of days off during my break so while we played in the snow he had to bring the county's criminals to justice.

Jonathan is back to school and spent the New Year with his Mom since we got the entire day on Christmas this year. We didn't get to play with all the toys and put his OU stuff up in his room yet so we have plenty of Christmas left when he comes back!

Rhon is heading to Chicago this weekend by Rhet and Burnetta. We sure have enjoyed having him here and it has been really special to see Jansen have the opportunity to really bond with him during his stay!

Oh yeah... In other BIG news... Jansen will be moving up from the Infant II room to the Toddler I room on Monday. I met with his new teacher this afternoon and I really like her. He will have a bit of a time without his Ms. Denese for a little bit, but she'll be right across the hall so at least she'll be nearby to peek in on our munchkin! Ms. Lori has her work cut out for her since he's not big on change when it involves new people, but it will be good for him to start experiencing some of these things so that he works through some of his shyness with new people in steps. My baby continues to grow up right before our eyes. Parenthood is such a blessing, even when we get teething and snotty noses mixed in there!

Hey!

Speaking of growing up... anyone remember when our Big Guy was this little?!?! Just a bit of nostalgia that Richard found in our files! Love you Jonathan!!

Sunday Sweetie Pie

Sunday was cool, but not cold so I put Jansen in a sweater that had a matching hat for church. I thought it was way too cute not to share with you all!

I know this one is a little blurry because I knocked the setting on the camera to the wrong one, but it was just too sweet not to post!

Hug me Daddy!

VuBu

There is an Urban Dictionary, a Collegiate Dictionary, Foreign Language Dictionaries, and now Ladies and Gentlemen.... I present a couple of entries in Jansen's Dictionary. It is a picture dictionary because that is his favorite! This is strictly for educational purposes since I'm a teacher and all! I figured it was time to educate you all on such things so that you don't feel like an idiot as I did until I was properly schooled by my frustrated toddler.

This (in whatever form it is presented, mind you) is VuBu or VooBoo.

Not to be confused with these, which are VaBu or VahBoo!

This is such a fun stage!! I LOVE that he's labeling things now even if it is taking some work to figure out what he's talking about!

First Annual Cousin's Crazy Socks Christmas!

So I am very much an ametuer when it comes to PhotoShop, but I had some fun with our first round of Crazy Socks! For those that don't know what this is about... several of the Trowbridge Cousins were talking about the Christmases we enjoyed as kids and were wishing there was a way to bring us together for the holidays so we could recapture some of the spirit of togetherness that we had when we were younger. Mel remembered the character slippers that Grandma Aud used to get for us, but most of us no longer had any of ours so we came up with having a Crazy Socks Christmas where we all wore a pair of crazy socks on Christmas Day and posted our pics on FaceBook so that we could all see. I decided to combine them all into one pic that we could all see them together and then it was ALMOST like we were all together for Christmas! Now it has grown a bit... there are now rules, but fun and exciting ones!! Mel started it and I may have goofed up the "name" for our big event that she had so please correct me if there was a different title and I'll change it up, I just couldn't remember if we had a name for it yet or not!

Rule of Cousin's Crazy Socks Christmas:
1. You must wear your crazy socks on Christmas Day.
2. You must take a pic of your crazy socks on so that we can all see you!
3. We will exchange names for Crazy Socks each year.
4. Any "girl" children get to participate if they want to when they reach double digits (aka 10 years old)! **This is to make it something exciting for them to get to, yet something they can keep going when we 'originals' are too feeble minded to keep up any more!**

We aren't excluding the guys IF they want to participate, but it is kind of a girly thing so we understand that they may not want! We hope that JM's Kerry will participate too, but we haven't been able to get a hold of them! Bri decided she was 'IN' too, so we drew names for this year. If Kerry joins we already have a plan for including her right away so if anyone can get ahold of her... let her know! Since JM is slow to make it official we decided she's an honorary cousin until then! :oP

I know it's silly, but I'm so excited that Mel came up with this idea! She's a thinker, that one! I think she and I were the ones feeling the most nostalgic this holiday, but I'm so glad she's so motivating and creative so that we can share a little Trowbridge Family Christmas spirit across the miles on Christmas!

Love you guys!

Proving Mamma Wrong!

So just to prove me wrong after my posts last night...

Looks like he's "discovered" them now thanks to Daddy's help!

Rock on Little Man!

Balloon Suspension

As we saw from previous videos, Jansen loves big balloons! Jonathan had this one stashed away in his room and he brought it out to entertain his brother. It was the favorite until we turned the corner into the kitchen and a ghost was holding it! Jansen wasn't a fan after that for the rest of that day. Once it was away from the vent and back on the ground (in a different area of the house) for a bit he was right back at it. He figured out what made it "float" like that the next day and would take it over to the vent when it kicked on after that! He got so excited one time though that he tried to bite the balloon when it was done floating one time and popped it. It sure was fun while it lasted though!

Kid Kennel?

At 16 months, apparently one of the things that is the most fun to do at home is crawl in the kennel with the small dog. He squeezed himself in with Zoey in her kennel the other day and then tried to shut them in. Zoey must be something of a claustophobe because she was having none of it and pushed her way past him to get out before he could shut it all the way!

I'm out Little Man!

Fine... I'll just get comfy then!

Are you sure you don't want in here before I close up?

Closing.....

Uh Oh... the door swung open just as I was getting all the way snuggled in!

Better. I got it closed now!

You thought it was just the little kennel didn't you! Not so!!! Actually Zoey has to eat in Cody's big kennel because she tries to eat ALL the food and was getting too fat. Cody just lets her eat his because she snarls & snaps at him and he's too passive to make her go away so he can eat. Thank Goodness Cody is such a Moose and he doesn't need his kennel very much any more so we have it for Zoey's mealtimes! Jansen will call her in to it though when it isn't mealtime and then crawl in & shut them both in it! I don't know why he finds it so much fun to kennel himself in with her, but he absolutely LOVES it! Good thing she's so patient with him and plays along until he tried to squish into her little kennel WITH her. She still didn't get nasty with him, just squeezed past him to get out and let him play in her space! Now if we can just get her housebroken she'd be a great little dog!

Chuck and Laura - Santa

With the weather being what it was we didn't get to see Chuck and Laura until the 30th. They came out to the house and came bearing gifts! Jansen had a slow start with the unwrapping again and Chuck was so excited he had to help! Uncle Buddy got the honors of holding Little Man and Laura and I were on camera duty!

Chuck getting Jansen started.

Hey cool! A jack-in-the-box ...or should I say sock monkey-in-the-box! Super cute and of course plays music which is what all good toys must do for him right now!

A bit more curious this time as Chuck starts the unwrapping!

A super awesome shape sorter! Yeah! He's already figuring out which shapes go where and it's really fun to carry all around the house since it looks like a ball and makes noise when you shake it without dumping everything!

" 'Sup Dawg... I got dis now!"

Chuck wanted Jansen to jump at the Jack-In-The-Box sooooo bad and this is what we got!

MORE presents! So many great gifts this year!

Another spoiling for the Little Mister! Thanks Fairy Laura and Papa Chuck!

Sleepy?

By dinner on Christmas day Jansen was pooped!

So sleepy, I have to hold my head up at the dinner table!

Um... wait did I just hear a camera. I can't keep from smiling even in my sleep!

Ha-ha! Just kidding! I wasn't really asleep!! OK, I AM really tired and was drifting off, but that camera perked me right back up!

Funny thing is that the camera woke him at the table, but he was still really tired looking so Daddy just hopped in the shower with him right after dinner. A few short minutes later Daddy called me in to come get him to dry off and put jammies on. Usually Daddy does all of this after the bath or shower, but since he called me in I figured it was important so I hustled in to see what was up. Jansen had snuggled fetal-style into Daddy's chest and promptly fell asleep. Daddy did get to wash the important stuff, but Jansen was not going to make it to the end of Daddy's shower so Mommy had to take over. He never woke up through the drying off and jammies!

Christmas '09

These are in no particular order... That's what I get for waiting so darn long to update, I guess. But I'll describe the pics rather than give a big lead in. It's late and I'm pretty sure it's the pics you want anyway rather than my drivel!! Much Love this Merry Christmas to you all!

Two of Jansen's new riding toys! The rocking horse was from Santa and the dinosaur was from Big Brother Jonathan. He isn't very excited about the rocking horse yet and the dinosaur is still al little scary for him. It's a little too tall for ShortyPants, but he's getting used to that tooth-ed thing grinning at him so he does pet it or drag it around by it's eyeball every now and again! I'm sure once he gets taller and can sit on it with his feet touching he'll like it alot!

Though at first he appeared indifferent to the Laugh and Learn Pony, he has now decided it is great fun! We haven't hooked up the TV part yet since he's still just getting used to the whole bouncing without falling off thing, but he does love the bouncing part with the sounds it makes! Look at that grin!! Thanks Oscar and G-Pop!

Santa arrived and I think his sleigh threw up in our living room!

Rhon and his snow cake!

I think the tree lights messed with the camera a bit so these pics turned out looking a little artsy, but I thought they were kind of cool anyway. This one in particular was very telling of how the whole tree experience went this year!

Posing!

Christmas Cutie Pie!

Christmas Day the snow had all fallen, drifted and settled in for a few days. This is the view off the deck out front!

The view looking at the neighbors yard who doesn't have dogs to trample it down!

The big drift at the side of the house.

Yup! That's my car stuck in that big drift on the side of the house.

The car's packed in there pretty good! Even between the house and car had a drift!

I will take a second to say that the snow didn't really melt at all Christmas Day. Saturday it got warmer, but not warm enough to make a big difference until pretty late in the day. Sunday we were FINALLY able to get out of the driveway, but the highway we live on was still full of rutted out snow and slush. When we got to the interstate (which had just reopened that morning) we were at one lane all the way to church (about 15 miles) and traffic was crawling. That 15 miles took us 45 minutes. Texas is sooooo unequipped to handle a blizzard! We decided while out to go ahead and get our grocery shopping done since they were predicting another possible round of snow for us. We attend the noon church service so by the time we got out of church there was even more melt and so things were looking pretty decent, just really wet and slushy EVERYWHERE!! I had a cute little old man tell me at the store that we were surely in for more like predicted because his bones were aching and that was a definite sign that more was on the way. He was adorable, but kind of wrong. We only got a dusting the other night and it didn't stick.

We did get our white Christmas.... something I have craved every Christmas I've had to spend here in TX. Thank You Heavenly Father for such a gift! I was feeling particularly homesick this holiday since I had really hoped we'd be in WI for Christmas. I so enjoyed having my WI dropped on me since I couldn't be there!

We are now a week and one day past the blizzard and are just now nearly free of snow banks. It is now muddy and my floors are full of paw prints every time we let the dogs in, but it was worth it!

Here's some videos of Christmas Day and Christmas toys! They wouldn't load in order so they are just all at the end, but you get to see us either way right?!?!