James at 2.5 years old

Today James is exactly 2 and a half years old. And man, has time flown by! Last night I snuck (sneaked?) into James' room after I had put him in bed and I snapped this picture. I think it perfectly describes him at this age!

I love the juxtaposition of a bottle of milk and a sword (I'm afraid of what Freud would think of it...) He can be such a big boy in many ways, but still my little baby boy in others. 

Other things about James at 2.5 years old:

-He loves all things guns, swords, or otherwise weapon related

-He loves to be a helper--like when I'm cooking/cleaning or when Brian is doing any kind of project James wants to be right in the middle "helping"

-He loves riding his bike around the neighborhood

-Loves going on outings to Home Depot, Target, and Costco (and getting lunch or a snack when we go!)

-He hates going to the Post Office and in fact, he will tantrum when he recognizes the parking lot

-he loves going to other people's houses (he likes to explore and see people other than just me and Brian!)

-James loves In-N-Out Burger (Brian taught him well!)

-He can count to 3 and if you ask him how old he is he will say he's 3

-He can be very naughty in our church meetings and is usually bribed with food to behave and be quiet

-If you ask him what his name is he will say, "me" and point to himself (He will not say James, we've tried!)

-He can do simple chores and if you ask him to get something he probably will

-He likes to watch cartoons (With direction, we let him chose what to watch on Netflix and I always wonder how he decides because if you put the wrong thing on he will tell you. It is amazing how many preferences a little kid can already have!)

-He hits, tantrums and yells "NO" and this happens in public sometimes

-James loves to smell candles

-He likes to pretend eat play-dough, and only sometimes forgets to pretend

-When Brian gets home from work/school and the garage door open, James hears it and bolts out to the garage to greet Brian

-He loves gum, dried mangoes and the raw tortillas from Costco, banana peppers, and stealing sips of my Diet Coke!

-He loves daddy, but is definitely a mama's boy

My New Do

It took me forever to grow my hair out and I was planning on keeping it long, at least for awhile. But over the summer I became anemic and nearly half of my hair fell out over just a couple months. Yikes, I know! I was getting noticeable bald spots and it was looking really sparse. My hair reminded me of Michelle Pfeiffer - no, not gorgeous Michelle Pfeiffer, but the witch she played in Stardust when the witches were losing their hair and looking old and very wrinkly.

And here is the after. It is a fun change and it feels fuller and I can conceal where I lost my hair much better with this shorter cut. My husband is of the belief that longer is always better when it comes to women's hair, so sorry honey, but he's getting used to it!

'Tis the Season...

'Tis the season to be silly! James is always "creative" when it comes to getting into mischief. It must be "only child syndrome" because I think he gets pretty bored with me most of the day and he figures out ways to entertain himself. So I guess kudos to that!

I guess he doesn't know yet that Santa will be putting toys and goodies in those stockings, but for now they are pretty cute thigh-highs. Happy December everyone!

James looks like Ralphie

I was shopping at Costco and saw A Christmas Story for sale. As I picked up the DVD the first thing I thought was that if I threw those glasses on James, he would look just like Ralphie! Granted James is a few years younger but I still can see the comparison! 

And the more I thought about how similar James looks to Ralphie, I also decided that James also acts just like him too! Sassy, naughty, disobedient, funny, and loves guns! So I bought the movie because it is such a hilarious movie for Christmastime and I think James will love to watch it!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Over this week we have been decorating for Christmas and it has been such fun to do as a family. 

James was so helpful and excited about decorating the house with the tree, lights, nativities, advent calender and much more! Every morning when we wake up James runs downstairs and plugs in all the lights to the tree and garland on the stairs. 

And if you ask me, Brian looks pretty darn sexy in those reindeer ears! 

Lounging in my early Christmas present (my new robe) and enjoying the decorating and family-time. 

 Our advent calender is like a matching game and James is so good at it -- I didn't even know he knew how to match pictures yet!

A friend gave us treats and put it on this plate of melted peppermints and James has been hacking away at it for a few days (of course in his Santa hat or reindeer ears)!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful time with their families and enjoying the holiday season of year!

Our Favorite Store

 I actually have three favorite stores all tied for first - Desert Industries (don't judge!), Costco, and lastly (but not leastly), Target. I've even trained James to like all three by bribes at each of them! At DI he gets to play with toys and at Costco and Target we sometimes get lunch and get to look at things he likes. He is just like his mommy in that he loves an outing and loves even more an outing with food.

Diet Coke for me.

Lunch (bribe) for James.

James also loves the Christmas displays at Target (He also loves it at Home Depot and Costco. Costco has two huge nativities displayed and once we get through the doors he starts screaming, "Jesus! Jesus!" because he wants to go look at the baby Jesus and Christmas trees. He's so religious!)

I'm really excited for Christmas this year because James seems to love all the decorations and music. I'm especially glad that he understands that it's about baby Jesus (such that he even calls Santa, Jesus) and he doesn't even know about the toys and gifts part of it!

The Pig Farm

We live right next to the famous Las Vegas pig farm. So close you can see it from our house and sometimes smell it! It is surrounded by bamboo to keep the smell inside so you can't see the pigs from the street.The farm is featured on an episode of Dirty Jobs on Discovery and the pigs were so darn cute and dirty! Since we've lived here I've been dying to go and take James to see the animals. People right next to it hate it (I personally like it, but most don't), but for those not living next to it, it is a win-win in Vegas. The farm is big into recycling. They have signs around the property that say "waste not, want not". Many of the big casinos give their leftover food to the farm and it is turned into a "stew" for the piggies. So the farm gets recycled food at nearly no cost and the big casinos get tax write-offs and great publicity for going green.

In line with their recycling mentality, this past week they made the farm open to the public so people could dispose of their rotting pumpkins for the pigs to eat. So we took advantage of this since I'd always wanted to go see it. We went with a friend of mine and her little boy to let them feed the pigs. As we entered the property and started walking around I realized quickly that it was every two -year-old's and personal injury attorney's dream come true. Rusty, dangerous farm equipment, saws, machines with keys in them, just to name a few of things just lying around for kids to get into. It was not like an organized tour of the farm - more of a free-for-all and fend for yourself kind of experience. But the pigs were easy to spot and I just had to keep James away from everything else!

And not only did these little boys get to feed the pigs, but they also witnessed the slaughtering of one of these precious pigs! It was like right out of a horror movie, or maybe just Charlotte's Web. So while we were watching the pigs there was a Polynesian couple that were picking out a pig for a luau. I didn't realize that they were picking one to kill right then and there! One of the workers starting following the tagged pig and was slowly herding it over to a ditch. And right in front of our sweet 2-year-olds he took his gun and shot it! He didn't bother to throw out, "Oh by the way, you might want to look away while I slaughter this pig" or something like that. So after he shot this pig (only maiming it) he took out a huge butchers' knife and slit the pigs throat! There was blood everywhere! I could not believe my eyes, that this was actually happening and that my son was watching it without a blink! I was not prepared for this real farm life experience. I thought we were just feeding the pigs! (Granted so they could be fat for when they are killed, but for a time when I am not there!) Then he carted the dead pig away on a forklift with the dead, limp body just hanging there. At this point the shock of what I had witnessed had worn off enough for me to have sense to distract James from seeing the dead pig carted off. I am not a vegetarian or a major animal activist. I do enjoy eating meat, pigs included, but I prefer to see my pigs at Costco and already butchered and wrapped in plastic!

And in case you don't think that a two-year-old is easily impressionable, here is James with his version of a gun and pointing it at the pigs and saying "Go! Go! Go!" trying to shoot them too! Despite the execution part way through, we did have a really fun time at the pig farm. It is amazing/scary that all of this is just across the street from us! 

Finally Halloween

I feel like Halloween has been a long time coming because James has already gotten so much use out of this monkey costume. But I like that we are getting our money's worth ($5 from DI). I just hope I can get it put away without him noticing or missing it!

James figured out this holiday pretty fast (getting dressed in a cool outfit and getting candy!) and he realized he really liked this holiday.

I made this pretty creepy jack-o-lantern! How cool is that? It's only cool because I am like the most uncrafty and uncreative person there is so it's pretty amazing for me! I did it free-hand too! No cheats!

I hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween! 

The Fall

I love fall time because the weather is perfect now! I can break out my sweaters, scarves, jackets and boots.  In the fall I think of beautiful upstate New York - where I grew up. The colors in the east coast are amazing this time of year and I miss that living in the desert of Nevada. I also think of my grandparents' upstate farm and their fall pumpkin patch. 

Photo by Jeff Grandon

 I wish I could go visit and take James this season. I went home to New York in the fall when James was just three months old. Now that he is two he is at an age where he would love everything about it! The hayride, pumpkins, huge tree house, farm animals, corn maze, and apple cider doughnuts. Maybe next year we will have a trip back east!

And don't mind this old picture back when James and I were both a little chunkier! 

In the fall I also think of men (and boys) watching lots of football. Go Cougars! James actually sat and watched a big portion of the BYU v Notre Dame game last week - I got so bored and starting cleaning. Long hours of football watching must be a boy thing!

I hope everyone is enjoying the fall in their parts of the world. 

Dad in Training

 While we were organizing closets in the house James found the BabyBjörn. (Do you like my umlaut? I only know what it's called because of Dwight Shrute (and because Wikipedia confirmed it.)) He insisted on wearing it, so I added the moose so he would know what it was for because he thought it was just a backpack. 

He loved to wear it! So sweet that he's a daddy in the making! Ironically James hated being in the Björn when he was a baby. Hope we have better luck with our future babies because my arms were always tired from holding James!

Closet Tours

We've been in our house for over a year and I finally got around to organizing our closets. I finished mine and James' and Brian's is still in transition. Before, Brian and I were sharing the closet in our room and for part of my birthday present he volunteered to move his things to the smaller guest room closet and give me my own! I hadn't even thought of having my own, but I like the idea now! What a great hubby! 

Disclaimer: So if you don't like seeing home decor things you might hate this blog post, but I like seeing how other people organize their homes. So you can use this as a reference or just for fun (or close the window if you hate it).

I started in James' room. Before (sorry no ugly before picture - just imagine) James's clothes and things were just shoved in the closet and I would shut the doors and not worry about it. But it finally got to me! Here is the organized closet:

Pants and nicer shirts are hung with matching white hangers. Folded on the shelf are nice sweaters so they don't stretch. Lounge wear and tees are also folded on the shelf. I also store some shoes, books, diapers and wipes, decorations, and a few other things on the rest of the shelving. The shelving was already installed when moved in, but we have adjusted some and taken some out and moved some of the shelving around for our needs. 

My closet (Thanks for moving out Brian!):

We have the same white shelving system in here. I store most of my wardrobe in here - tops, bottoms, skirts, dresses, jackets, winter coats, shoes, scarves, and the gun. Yes, gun! Brian wants to put a wall safe in here. But that sounds like an Indian Giver to me... (Remember that Seinfeld episode when Jerry keeps making Native American references, just a funny, random thought! Funny episode though.) We also have the clothes hamper in here and out of the way. I'm not crazy about the shape of the closet - it's L shaped, but I tried to  make the most of the space. 

We also have these two dressers in our master bedroom. The one on the top stores delicates, socks, tanks, and sweaters that I don't want hung up so they keep their shape. And all my jewelry and perfumes are on top. The other dresser (which desperately needs some decorating on top) has my workout clothes, lounge wear, maternity clothes, and the clothes I sell. For those of you that don't know I sell clothes on eBay. Some of the things are clothes of mine that no longer fit (from weight gain and weight loss) and things I just don't wear anymore. I also sell things that I find at thrift stores. Here in Vegas I have had tons of success finding nice, high-end clothes at thrift stores that I have been able to flip and some I keep for myself! Don't be too embarrassed to try out thrift shopping! If my clothes weren't bought at Target or Wal-Mart, I probably got it secondhand! You'll be surprised what things people give away! Just last week I found this St. John leather jacket for $14. Hard to beat that price!

Happy organizing and thrift shopping!