This and that

Jake is cracking me up lately. He's learning all sorts of new words, and trying to put phrases together, but not quite succeeding. Yesterday, we were coming home from church and he saw one of his books that I had in my hand. He pointed at it and said, "This?" I took it to mean that he wanted "this" book that I had in my hand, so I said to him, "Jake, do you want this?" pointing to the book. He told me that yes, he did, so I gave it to him, whereupon he exclaimed, "Hi, This!!"

Same thing happened later, except this time he was pointing at an orange that was in the fruit bowl. "This?" he asked, pointing to the orange. I answered saying, "Would you like that?" and pointed to the orange. He nodded yes, so I gave it to him, and then again he exclaimed, "Hi, That!!"

Haha, it makes me laugh, but at the same time I am astonished at how much kids pick up and learn. I love watching Jake learn new things and I just get so excited every time he says a new word or understands a new concept. One of the greatest things about being a mom is watching your child grow. I love it.

Stir-cRaZy!

We are going stir-crazy up in here! The weather has been craptacular here in Iowa for the past month, and Jake and I are desperately trying to think of ways to stay sane while staying inside. We've been playing with his new (to us) Thomas the Train set as of late, but even that is starting to lose its appeal after spending hours and hours (literally) every day playing with it. I might blow a fuse if I hear the Elmo theme song one more time. His books are getting a lot of use out of them, but we really just need some new ideas. Does anyone out there have any good suggestions for fun, creative, and cheap things to do with a toddler while stuck indoors?? Any ideas will help, I just haven't had these creative juices flowing as of late.

Just for your entertainment, here are a few pictures of Jake playing with his Thomas the Train set. You may not be able to tell from the pictures, but he's absolutely in love with it. I ordered a huge box of used trains and tracks from eBay and got a great deal on it. Hopefully it will be something he will enjoy for years to come!

Brrrrr....

I usually love Iowa. However, we have had unbelievably cold weather here lately and it's kicking my butt! Let me give you the rundown:

Jan 8: High 7, low -4

Jan 9: High 6, low -11

Jan 10: High 21, low -15

And this is BEFORE the windchill. Finally, yesterday on Jan 11, we stayed in the positive digits with a high of 22 and low of 14. Joseph and I both noted how nice it felt it past two days, and then I realized that something was seriously wrong if temperatures in the low 20's felt wonderful. And this is only the last four days. This frigid, negative degree weather has been going on since Christmas! On Jan 2 we had a high of 1! What the heck???

The snow has been beautiful, I will give that to Iowa. One of the things that I love about winter is playing in the snow. Before the temperatures got so frigid (before Christmas that is) we all went out and played in the snow together. I think I lasted two minutes, then I decided it was my motherly duty to go inside and make hot chocolate for the troops. Joseph and Jake lasted about 10 minutes out there, but it was so fun to watch these two play together.

This was taken while I was still outside with the boys:

And these are through the window:

Wish us luck in thawing out here in this crazy midwest weather!!

Over too soon

Christmas break has come to a close here in the Dougherty household. Joseph goes back to school tomorrow, which means Jake and I are going to brave this bitter cold (we're talking highs of -5) by keeping ourselves nice and warm inside and breaking in all the new Christmas toys!

We had a wonderful Christmas break, filled with everything that Christmas should be filled with: family, good friends, fun memories, and lots and lots of holiday treats!

This year we decided to stay in Iowa and spend Christmas with Joseph's parents, his sister Elizabeth and her girls, and sister Becca, all who came into town for the holidays. Joseph had to study for his boards that he took over the break, so we weren't able to spend as much time with them as we would have liked, but the time that we had together was perfect. Jake had so much fun with his cousins, especially Bridget (who is affectionately called Birdie). When we left he kept asking for "Rie-rie."

Christmas day was full of excitement. This year Jake started to get the idea of unwrapping gifts, and once he realized that we weren't going to scold him for ripping paper, he really went to town. At first I think he was a little confused at why we would wrap paper around pajamas. He really wasn't too thrilled about this one...The next gift he opened was a different story. Cars...now that's better. You can tell that he loves them because he won't even look up for a picture. His cousin Birdie is blocking most of the cars, but he got a whole case of them! He's been playing with cars nonstop all week.

Joseph spent most of his free time over break studying for his boards. He took some time off for Christmas festivities, but we were pretty anxious for him to be done. A few days after Christmas he took the boards, and Jake and I stayed home and made him a giant cookie to surprise him with when he got back. Well...mostly I made the cookie and Jake helped clean up the utensils.

Sorry, no pic of the cookie. Although, I must say, it was a masterpiece. Complete with frosting scrubs and teeth. Not bad for a novice, eh?

The day after Joseph's boards, we went to Moline, IL with some friends to the John Deere pavillion! Moline is the corporate headquaters for John Deere, and this place was tractor heaven for Jake. The pavillion was filled with all kinds of different tractors that the kids can play on and "drive" and see everything up close. It's a sort of interactive John Deere museum. The best part was that it's totally free!

Here are Joseph and Jake in a giant tractor. They had price tags on each of the tractors, so if any of you are in the market for a new John Deere, you can purchase this one for a mere 1/2 million!!

Jake was pretty much too enthralled to stop and look for any pictures. Driving the tractor.Checking out the monstrous wheels.We had a great time! A new era of tractor obsession has officially begun.We hope that you all had a wonderful holiday break. Or, for those of you who are lucky enough to still be off of school or work, live it up a little bit more for us who are back to the grindstone. :)

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!!