Really??

Today I went to the grocery store with Jake. He was so good the whole time until we were walking out the door and he saw the cart that was shaped like a car. You know the carts I'm talking about? They have little seats in the front for your child to "drive" the cart, and it comes complete with a steering wheel and race car sticker on the side. Jake (surprise, surpise) loves this cart, so whenever we get the chance, we take that cart to do our shopping in. This time, the cart wasn't available until we were leaving. After we had gone through the check-out line, he saw the special cart sitting there and started yelling, "CAR!! CAR!!" as loud as he could. I cringed inside because I knew exactly where this was heading. I had a full cart of groceries that I was anxious to get home, and a very, very, very excited little boy who was going to have a meltdown if I tried to leave. So, in order to try to smooth over the situation, I let him take a quick look at the car. He wanted to get inside, but I told him we were going to go home. Jake started shaking his head and said, "No, no, no," and I said, "Yep, it's time to go bye-bye." That's when things started to get out of control.

Jake started crying and I took that as a cue to exit the store as quickly as possible. I put my head down, as to aviod the judgmental looks of the incoming shoppers, and raced out of there. This was easier said than done. By this time Jake was in full-blown fit mode, and I was trying to carry him out of the store while his legs were flailing and push my cart full of groceries at the same time, all the while trying desperately to avoid any eye-contact with those who were staring at us. Eventually Jake stopped flailing and straight up hit me in the face. I about lost it right there. I put him into the cart, strapped him in, told him we don't hit mommy, and listened to his cries of protest all the way to the car.

Once in the car, Jake's cries were not subsiding. Eventually I looked at him and said, in my most threatening voice, "Jake, do you need a time out?"

"Yeah," he quietly replied.

And then, he stopped crying. Just like that. Now, mind you, we haven't put the "time-out" rule in place yet. Some of his friends have been introduced to the time-out chair, but as of yet, we haven't had to deal with it. Therefore, he's seen his friends use it, but we don't have one at our house. But I figured, if that's what he wants, then so be it!

He was silent all the rest of the way home. We got home, and first thing I did was find a chair to use as a time-out chair. Jake was beyond excited about this. I introduced him to the time-out spot, and had him sit down, and he was beaming at me the whole time. We had a (albeit short) discussion about not hitting mommy and throwing fits, he sat there for about 10 seconds, then gave me a kiss and got up as happy as could be.

And so the "time-out" chair came to be. Or, as we say in Montessori, the "control your body" chair. Either way, he seems to be thrilled about it. We'll see how long this lasts!

P.S. I have Christmas pictures coming soon, I just wanted to share this little story with you. ;)

Some Christmas thoughts

You may be surprised to hear this, but I am a thinker. A HUGE thinker. As in, there is always, always, always something going through my mind. Sometimes I get a little frustrated with Joseph because I'll ask him something along the lines of "What's on your mind right now?" and he usually responds with "nothing." Nothing? Really?? Completely empty??? That's absolutely impossible for me. It's taken me a while to simply accept the fact that sometimes Joseph just truly isn't thinking about anything at all...incredibly enough. I, on the other hand, am a constant analyzer, planner, dreamer, thinker. At any given moment I have some story of thoughts swimming in my mind.

Anyway, on Friday evening I was feeling a little bit down with some of the thoughts that were going through my head. I shared some of my feelings with Joseph, and he decided that to cheer me up we would go as a family and drive around town looking at the Christmas lights. As we drove all over Coralville looking at people's beautiful lights while listening to Christmas music, my thoughts started to turn to what this season is all about. As I listened to Jake in the backseat getting so excited about the houses with lights and yelling "Doh! Doh!" (which somehow translights to "Lights! Lights!") and sat next to my eternal companion, I was just filled with gratitude for all of my blessings. I realized that so many of the things that I obssess about are so incredibly trivial. I thought about the birth of Christ and the love of our Savior that fills our hearts this time of year. I thought about how this is a wonderful season that I hope brings out a better side of me. But mostly, I thought about my wonderful little family that I love so much, and that I have a husband who will pick me up and help me see what the season is truly about, and my son who is happy and healthy and a joy to my heart.

And those are just a few of the thoughts that have been going through my head as of late. Just thought I'd share. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year. :)

A little Christmas cheer for ya

As you saw in our previous post, Jake loves Santa. We'll go ahead and thank his Nana and Papa for that. The toy that he is holding is a Santa Clause that they gave to him last year for Christmas, and it was never put away in the Christmas decorations box. It has been on his toy shelf all year long. It is often the object of fights between him and his friends because everyone wants to play with the singing Santa. It has also been the subject of more than a few headaches on my part, thanks to the never-ending "Jingle Bells" that seems to be heard around the clock. But really, look at that smile...I could never take it away!

We put up our little tree the other night, and Jake has been surprisingly good about not pulling all the ornaments off. There are a few that are his favorites, like the light-up Frosty and the Bell, that cause him to get a little too excited while trying to pull them off the tree, but other than that he's done pretty well. All of the candy canes that were up on the tree at the time that this picture was taken are all off now...we had one too many sticky fingerprints on the couch.

We are loving this Christmas season. Jake is really starting to understand that this time of year is a little different than other times. More lights, more music, more joy...although I think he just really notices more treats around the house! We can't wait for finals to be over and to enjoy spending more time together as a family. Two more days!! Yay!!

Let it snow

Some of you may have heard about this little itty-bitty snowstorm that covered the whole country! The first day of the snowstorm, Jake and I went outside to explore the white fluff. It was absolutely hysterical to watch him try to walk in it. As you can see from his footprints in the picture, he's pretty unstable in his snowboots. Despite his walking difficulties, he loved being outside! Since this picture was taken, we've had TONS more snow. Enough that they actually cancelled dental school - something that is pretty much unheard of around here. The snowstorm left some frigid temperatures in its wake. We've had highs around 5 and lows around -15 the past couple of days. Needless to say, we've tried to stay inside as much as possible. And the Iowa winters begin...*sigh*

Tanta!! Ho, Ho, Ho.

We had our Christmas party at church last night, and Santa came to visit the kids! Jake was almost beside himself with excitement when he saw him. He kept yelling and pointing, "Tanta!! Ho, ho, ho," over and over. He wasn't going to miss sitting on Santa's lap this time like he did in Texas. In fact, this is what happened:

Mind you, this is the second time that we stood in line to see Santa. We waited until there were no kids left to go up again because he was just beyond excited. The first time was the same, except we also got a family pic.

Jake had a wonderful time running around with his friends, dancing to music, and eating some croutons and craisins for dinner (don't worry, his plate was filled with yummy turkey, carrots, mashed potatos, rolls, etc... we don't have a picky eater around here or anything). Besides Jake's less than par eating habits, a fabulous time was had by all!

Baby Picasso - Take 2

We had a great playgroup yesterday. Jake and I went to a ceramic shop here in town to paint some Christmas surprises for Grandma and Grandpa and Nana and Papa. Jake did it all by himself! I'm sorry, grandparents, if your surprise turns out a little brown. Of course, it was meant to be multi-colored. But that's what happens when a 21-month-old baby paints! Concentrating hard...

When Jake finally put his paint brushes down, I got this little picture. I guess this was his idea of a smile. What the heck?

Jake loved working on his treasures, but we did have a little bit of meltdown when we had to give them back to the store to have them fired and glazed. And by little, I mean huge sobs and drainage coming from all open holes in his face. It was rather pathetic. It was a fun shop, though, and we'll definitely go back sometime!

Thanksgiving in the Lone Star State

I didn't mention it on the blog, but for Thanksgiving we drove 12 hours to be with family in Texas! As I've never been to Texas before, it was quite an adventure.

To be perfectly honest, I was a little bit worried about how the car ride was going to fare. Jake seems to have an aversion to sleep while traveling. People always tell me about how their children fall asleep the minute they stick them in the car. I'm pretty sure that those people are lying. They must be. Jake has never, ever, ever done that, even as an infant. Go figure. Needless to say, 12 hours in the car with a sleep-deprived toddler didn't really seem like a cake-walk to me, but I underestimated the sweetness of this little guy. He didn't sleep, not until about 9:30 pm anyway, but he was SO GOOD! Luckily, we were driving with Nana and Papa (Joseph's parents) and they have a DVD player in their car, so we had Thomas the Train and Elmo's World running to keep him happy. He loved it. He also had books and games to play, and treats to eat, and he didn't hardly fuss at all. Thank goodness!!

The reason that we went to Texas was because Christopher (Joseph's twin brother) and his wife Eliza live there and they just had their baby and we were going there for the baby blessing. A lot of Joseph's family was able to be there, and it was a great experience for us all to be together. It was filled with lots of football (it's a Dougherty tradition), great food (including TONS of leftovers!), shopping, and best of all, time spent with family. Jake was in seventh heaven with all his cousins.

WARNING: Tons of pictures coming up. Hey, I told you I would give you more pics, didn't I?

Jake just hangin' with his cousin Madalyn.

Jumping on the tramp with daddy.

Turkey Bowl. Jake loved seeing his dad out there playing, and it was just so fun to watch these two boys together.

Turkey dinner!!

Nana gave all the kids new pajamas. The girls got pretty ballarina pjs, while the boys got cool football ones. This was the closest we could get to a group shot. The girls all wanted to hide behind the pillows and the boys desperately wanted to get off the couch. Gives you a little idea of how crazy it was over there!


After pictures, we had a surprise visitor! Santa came to visit the house, and we all got to see him except Uncle Jason (wink, wink). Jake was thrilled. He didn't really want to go near him, but he was perfectly happy standing back and saying, "Ho, ho, ho, Tanta!!"Finally, here we all are at Reese's baby blessing. What a great trip! Thank you, Elizabeth, for letting us all come to your place for Thanksgiving! I'm sure you're relieved to have your house back to yourself now. ;)

Lazy days

We enjoyed a wonderful lazy Saturday yesterday. Usually our days are so packed full that we end up running from one activity to the next, but this Saturday was just a breather day. Even Jake got in on some of the lazy action (which is a very rare occurance over here). He woke up on Saturday morning at his usual 7:15 on the dot time slot, then proceeded to join daddy on the couch where they laid (lied? layed? lay? whatever.) down and watched Thomas the Train together. Obviously, Joseph got a little extra sleep while Jake just cuddled with him on the couch. I can't imagine how he could have fallen asleep, seeing as Thomas the Train is so thrilling! At least, it is when you're 20 months old.

P.S. Jake is in love with Thomas the Train. It's the only show that he will watch for longer than 5 minutes at a time. This was something that he discovered while at Grandma and Grandpa's house in Michigan, and he frequently asks for "Choo-choo." I'm pretty sure we spent at least 30 minutes on youtube this afternoon watching different videos of trains. When I finally told him it was time to stop he started sobbing. I can feel the terrible twos coming on fast...

It's here!

Well, we finally just broke down and bought another camera. It came in the mail yesterday, so you can expect more updates (with pictures) coming soon! I can't guarantee that the upcoming posts will have you sitting on the edge of your seat, but I'll do my best. :)

I can smell Jake from the other room, and it's not one of the pleasant odors either (are they ever?). I taught him how to say "I'm stinky," and he's pretty adorable. It sounds more like "I keenky." Unfortunately, he doesn't come up to me and tell me, he waits for me to smell him first. He's getting a potty seat for Christmas. No, we're not going to potty train him just yet, but I would like for him to get used to the idea, you know?

Anyway, that may not have been what you were expecting to read when you came to my blog, sorry about that. Of course, I'm not sorry enough to delete it. Just some thoughts.

Mostly I just am posting to say MORE PICS COMING SOON!

Say What? Part II

Speaking of Jake's speech (that's a little funny), Jake calls all of his friends - no matter who they are - Noah. You may remember that Noah is one of his friends that has the twin brother, Ethan. No matter who Jake's playmate is, he always call them "Woah." This video was taken the other night when we were trying to teach Jake how to say "Ethan."

Like I said previously, there are a few little hiccups in his speech. :)

Say what?

Jake is saying all kinds of words lately! It's rather adorable, if I do say so myself (which I obviously do) and he is learning new ones every day! He's pretty much stopped babbling for the most part and is pointing out objects and trying to say them. Thus far, he's done a pretty decent job with his sounds. For example, "apple" sounds like "bapple," grandma is "mama," grandpa is "bampa," truck is "wuck" and so on and so on. For the most part, you can tell that he is really trying to make the right sounds. However, there are a few little hiccups in his speech. For example, the word "pacifier" sounds more like "cah-cah," which, oddly enough, is also what he says for applesauce...weird, I know. He also pretty much refuses to say "please," opting for the ASL sign for please and saying "yeah" instead. This is a daily occurance in our household:



Jake: "Du, du, du" (pointing to the juice)



Me: "Jake, do you want some more juice?"



Jake: *big smiles*



Me: "What do you say?"



Jake: "Yeah" (while signing "please")



Me: "Can you say please?"



Jake: "Yeah"



And that's all I get. Joseph and I love all of the things that are coming out of his mouth lately. He's started to say bye-bye to everything: bye-bye mommy, bye-bye daddy, bye-bye pumpkin, bye-bye river, etc. It's so much fun for us to watch our baby grow!

On a sad note, we still have yet to find our camera, so I apologize for the lack of pics. A new camera may have to be an early Christmas present for us, so please be patient and use your imagination until we can get our act together over here!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween fellow bloggers! We pretty much had a blast over here on Halloween. For starters, this is what I made for dinner:

Get it? They're hot dog mummies! They're supposed to have little mustard eyes on them for the face, but Joseph pointed out that some people don't like mustard (and by "some people" he meant himself) so he suggested that we just imagine the mummies have eyes. We also had loaded nachos. A simple dinner, mostly just to tide us over for the big trick-or-treating event!

This was Jake's first time trick-or-treating, and surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) he loved it! He caught on to the concept pretty quickly, once he saw that people were handing out free candy. He went trick-or-treating with his best buds Spencer, Noah, and Ethan. It looked like these kids just stepped off Noah's Ark. We have (starting from left to right) Ethan dressed as a tiger, Jake as a lion, Noah as a giraffe, and Spencer as a frog. I painted a nose and whiskers on Jake's face, but as soon as he saw them he tried to wipe it off. So instead of a nose and whiskers, it just looked like he had a dirty face.

Of course, before we left the boys had to have their chance to make a mess together in Jake's bedroom.

Jake the Lion trick-or-treating for the first time!

What a face!! They don't make 'em much cuter.

Like I said, we had a blast over here. The kids were so hyper on their sugar high, and we parents may have had a bit too much sugar ourselves! All in the name of Halloween, though!

Home sweet Iowa

As great as vacation is, it's always wonderful to finally get back. I feel a little guilty for not updating my blog in so long, but I'm going to make up for it because I have tons to write about! All kinds of things are swimming around in this head of mine. Too bad these thoughts are rather disjointed (as usual) and I can tell that it's going to take a little time to put them together.

First things first, though. I got back in Iowa a few days ago and it is great to be back home with my hubby! I missed him so much. It reminded me of the time that I was out at BYU going to school while he was in Michigan and we were doing the whole long-distance thing. No fun, but it makes being together all the better.

Unfortunately, while I was in Michigan I seemed to misplace my camera. We're not quite sure what happened to it, and my parents are still keeping their eyes open. Obviously, this means that I don't have any more pictures to share of my Michigan trip. That also means that this blog may be a little bare as far as pictures go for a little while until we figure out whether we need to buy a new camera or if we can find the old one. Sorry...

Anyway, I mostly just wanted to let all of you in the blogosphere know that I have been thinking about you a great deal and am trying to get my thoughts together to sit down and get them on cyber-paper. Lots of good posts to come!

Utah! Can I get a what-what?!

Ok, you don't have to tell me, the title of this post is lame, I know. But, that's what happens when I find myself totally reverted back into the college life. I HAD SO MUCH FUN!

The great thing about this trip was that for the first time ever I was totally unencumbered by baby (don't worry, I love him dearly) and since Joseph was back at home, it was like I was a single lady all over again (don't worry, I love him dearly also).

The whole purpose of the trip was to see one of my best friends from college get married, and she was absolutely radiant.

Everything about the wedding was beautiful. Then of course, I was able to see some of my wonderful college friends. These ladies are DA BOMB! (again with the lingo, I know...)

We all had a get-together that first night I was in town. I love that 6 years after we met we're still tight.

Dancing the night away at Elena's reception!
So, it's funny that in Iowa a lot of my close friends are BLONDE, but in Utah, I'm known as the "blonde friend" because everyone else is brunette (except for Kyna who is a beautiful auburn red). And, let's be honest, I probably more than deserve the title of "blonde friend!"

Old roomies!! I love this girl!!!
Also, I may or may not have busted the zipper on this dress after Elena's reception (I definitely did). I was either getting my dance on like crazy or maybe I ate too much. Probably both.

After the wedding, my grandma put together a special cousins dinner where almost of my cousins that were out in the Provo area were able to get together. There were about 15 of us there. We forgot to get a picture until after a lot of them had left, but these are the ones that stayed for games. Sorry, it's kind of dark...

Finally, I was able to see some of my old friends from when I was a kid! We're all grown up now, but we still have a blast together!

I also got to see Mary and Heather, two more of my friends from high school (whom I also love dearly) but, unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures. Heather accompanied me on my first Ikea experience EVER. Amazing.

The trip to Utah seemed too short, but I was also glad to get back to Jake in Michigan. I'm pretty sure he didn't miss me, though. He was having way too much fun with Grandma. When I got back, I had totally lost my voice, which I'm pretty sure is due, in part, to my overactive vocal chords over the past week, as well as a cold. I came home to a very sick Jake, who is having terrible diapers and throwing up all over the place. We're trying to get on the mend over here, but it sure is nice to be back.

New friends and old friends

I made it up to Michigan! The train trip up north was rather uneventful, as far as these things go, which was a relief. However, the treck started at 11:00 am and didn't end until 12:00 pm, and Jake slept a total of 1 1/2 hours. Needless to say, I had a very tired boy on my hands by the time we made it to Ann Arbor!

Jake was absolutely enthralled with the train. Every time the train blew the whistle, Jake would freeze to listen and then yell, "Choo-choo!" He was frequently found in this position looking outside the window at the train tracks below:

Smile for the camera, Jake!

On the way to Ann Arbor from Chicago, we sat across the aisle from another little boy who it seemed was having an equally hard time falling asleep with all the excitement around him. Jake and Chase became fast friends. Jake wasn't the only one who made friends this weekend. I was able to get together with old friends and make new ones.

First, I met old friend Valerie for lunch, and it was absolutely wonderful to see her! I loved catching up and hearing all about how much she's loving married life - and hating her job. I told her to just have a baby. I don't think this piece of advice really sunk in.

After lunch, I made a mad dash to pick up old friend, Allison, to go to the wedding of old friend Sharidy! Sharidy was stunning and the wedding was absolutely beautiful. At the reception, I made all kinds of new friends. We were at a table with all the single ladies (put your hands up!), and had an absolute blast!

Me and old friend Allison

Me, new friend Lindsay, old friend Allison, and new friends Emily, Elizabeth, Biz, and Beth, Tossing the bouquet

Old friend Gibby caught the bouquet!Me and the bride, old friend Sharidy

Dancing the night away!

It was such a great weekend, and a special congratulations to Sharidy and Steve!!!

I love friends...old and new!!

Hello, goodbye!

By popular request (or mostly just that of my sister) I have brought you a video of Jake! Here it is:

Jake discovered a this game the other day. He likes to grab the keys, then close the door and pretend like he's leaving. He says, "Bye-bye!" then walks out the door, closing it by reaching as high as he can on his tiptoes. Then he waits for a second or two and bursts the door open while I give an enthusiastic, "Hello!" and he runs up to me for a giant hug. He's a little ham!

Also, if you'll recall my previous post about expecting to have his picture taken, the reason that he's just standing there at the very beginning is because he saw the camera come out and he's posing.

My son may be a little self-absorbed...

I found a flat-screen tv the other day at a garage sale for $25 (I love garage sales!) and I thought we could finally replace our old school tv that was handed down to us when we were married. Joseph and I thought that we would try to get at least a few bucks out of our old tv, so we decided to post it on craigslist. Joseph got out the camera and started taking pictures of it to post, and Jake saw the flash of the camera. Assuming that once the camera is taken out that we must want pictures of him, he graciously walked in front of the tv, and stood there smiling up at Joseph so he could have his picture taken. Wow, he knows that the world revolves around him, doesn't he?! I guess he just wanted to make sure that we have plenty of pictures of him to post on the blog!

This is my bike, yo

Ever since we got Jake the weeride, he has been obsessed with bikes. Joseph and I found a little tricycle for him the other day for $5 at a garage sale, and Jake was beyond thrilled!! It's pretty much all he talks about now. I have found that he's actually quite brilliant at picking out random bikes out of the middle of nowhere and exclaiming, "My bike! My bike!" We'll be driving in the car, or taking a walk, and all of the sudden we'll hear his excited voice yell, "This is a bike!" On one particular occassion, we were driving when he made this statement, and Joseph and I turned and looked all around to see if we could find the source of his excitement, but there was no bike to be found. Then we saw it: in the bed of a truck that we were passing on the freeway. All you could see was the handlebars. This one is definitely aware.

The newest lingo he's come up with is to add "yo" at the end of everything he says. In the morning, he runs to the back door where we keep his bike and says, "This is my bike, yo!" I'm not exactly sure where he came up with it, but we think it's hilarious.

Here are a few pictures of Jake on his tricyle. Sorry, they're a little fuzzy, but I didn't realize that until we were already inside. Come to find out, the source of this fuzziness was fingerprints on the camera lens...I wonder how that could have happened...

Just because

Isn't my husband so sweet?! He came home with these the other day just as a total surprise. Just because. My favorite, pink roses. *Sigh...*

Outing at the zoo

Today, my friend Jessica and I made a last-minute trip to the Niabi Zoo! I had heard that on Fridays during September they have free admission, so we loaded up the kids and headed off to the zoo!! It is a small zoo about an hour away that is just perfect for kids. It has all the big animals (lions, tigers, monkeys, giraffes, zebras, etc.) and it was all in close proximity so there's not tons of walking. I think that Jake had a love/hate relationship with the animals there. He loved them when they were fenced off and we couldn't get too close, but he didn't like the ones that you could go right up to, such as the goats in the petting zoo.

Here we are the with elephants:

Here is Jake with the goats. This is him before he started screaming when a goat got too close. You can already tell he's pretty worried...

Although he hated the goats, he LOVED the giraffes! He kept saying, "Whoa! Whoa!" with his mouth wide open like he was in disbelief. We tried to get a picture in front of the giraffes with all the boys, but he was so enthralled with the animals that he couldn't sit still in his stroller. He hopped right out and stared at the giraffes saying, "Whoa..."

Needless to say, he was very tired this afternoon and had a GREAT nap! Thank goodness!!