An Update and Random Pictures

We haven't posted anything on the blog in a while, so I thought I'd put a few pictures up and let people know what we've been up to. I'm sorry that this is so long, but thanks for reading. The most exciting thing is that we will most likely get the keys to our new house on Thursday. We are going to take a week and get some painting done as well as finish packing before we actually move in. The plan is to move in on Friday the 16th, so we're pretty excited about that.

I can't wait to get out of this apartment. The most annoying thing lately is the lady who lives downstairs. I'm not sure how old she is, probably early 20s. She moved in a month ago or so to live with her dad. It was nice when it was just her dad because he never made any noise. This lady, Shyra, must be an insomniac. She is up all day and night. I often get woken up by either singing or her talking on the phone at all hours of the night. Last Thursday night she woke James up at about 5:30am because she was talking on the phone super loud in the room below him. It was so loud that I could hear every word she was saying clearly. I wonder who is willing to talk to her at 5:30 in the morning. Even if the person lives back east, that's still 8:30 in the morning. Anyway, that went on for about an hour and then we were able to go back to sleep. Gary didn't want to go say anything to her because we'll be moving out soon, but I often think it would probably have been worth it since we still have 10 days of possible early morning wake ups on our hands. Oh well.

We've been out of town a lot lately. A couple of weekends ago we went down to Provo for the BYU game. It was fun, although not as good as it could have been since BYU lost. James went to his first game and did pretty well. We were worried that the noise would bother him, but he actually enjoyed the cheering. He got very excited when people were clapping and making noise and he even joined in quite a bit. We were able to visit a few friends; not as many as we would have liked since there wasn't a lot of time. This weekend Gary has been off to a work conference in Vegas. He gets back tonight, so we're excited that he'll be home again. James was very upset when his dad left. He sure loves his dad and hates it when he leaves, especially on weekends when he's supposed to be home with us.

James is starting to talk more and more. He knows quite a few words. He can say "ba" for ball, "bye-bye"(while waving), "no" for nose while he points to his nose, "num-num" for food, "up up" although we usually have to convince him to say it, "moo" when he sees a cow, "pup-pup" for his stuffed dog, "ny-ny" for night night, "na na" for me to take a shower (that's kind of a long story for why he says na na, but there's a good reason), "map" when the map comes on Dora the Explorer, "no no" (he likes to say this with a little grin when he comes up to our computers or is about to do something else that is off limits, silly kid), "uh oh", and my favorite is when he says "backpack" as the song for the backpack comes on Dora the Explorer. There are probably a couple others I'm missing, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

James is also understanding a ton. I love it now that I can just say "let's change your diaper" and he'll walk into his room to get changed. Also if I say "it's shower time" he'll go into the bathroom. If I ask if he's hungry he'll go to his highchair. He'll even go into his room sometimes when I tell him it's night night time. I love this stage, it has been so much fun for both me and Gary.

Now here are some pictures that we've taken the past month (it occurred to me that we rarely take pictures of ourselves, but I'm sure you would rather see James anyway):

The start of football season. Gary of course was super excited and James was kind enough to sit with his dad and seem interested :) I love how excited Gary looks in these pictures.



This one was from a couple of days ago. I have no idea where he was trying to climb to, but it was funny to watch.

Eating a cupcake. I am very surprised at how young kids learn to eat the good stuff. James learned quite a while ago to eat the frosting first, pick the chocolate chips out of granola bars, and even how to seperate his crackers and lick out the cheese or peanut butter.



James loves to sit on Gary's lap and eat lunch with him. Unfortunatly it's usually a lot of trouble for Gary because James will make a mess. Here's a funny picture of him eating Gary's peas. I was surprised James ate them.

Stuffing his mouth full with the whole bag of fruit snacks

Looking cool wearing headphones.

This is the spider we had outside our door for a week or two. It was very annoying because halfway through his stay he decided to move to the corner of our door, so we had to watch out every time we came in and out. Gary was too worried that it might be poisonous, so we just left him till he chose to leave on his own. This picture doesn't show it too much, but he was a very bright yellow color.

Finally, a video of James watching Family Feud. James loves to watch Family Feud because of all the clapping and cheering that goes on. He'll sit with me on the couch for a long time and clap with the show. He even imitated the buzzer sound a few times before I got the camera out. He'll usually have to run up to the tv to get a closer look after a while. I tried to take a video of him enjoying the show, but of course once he saw I had the camera he had to come check it out instead.