Happiness!

I have to say, that little face above, is heaven sent. He is the funniest kid I have ever met. We have all sorts of adventures every day doing regular stuff. Who would have thought that stirring mashed potatoes was such an intricate process? Jazz likes to help out with everything, which made our first Thanksgiving, where I was head chef an interesting experience!

So this last Thanksgiving, Ty's family came down to spend it with us. His mom was out in Utah helping Whitney with her new sweet little baby, so everyone else came here. Which was fun for me, but not so much for them. Tys put them to work outside raking the numberless quantities of leaves our trees provide for us each year. I got to hang out inside by the nice warm oven. Yippee for me. But I was such an awesome planner that I over planned and everything was done like an hour earlier than I thought so we ended up waiting for the turkey. I was so proud of myself for actually over planning for once! This never happens! So my Thanksgiving was extremely stress free! Go us!

Anyway, Jazz isn't quite big enough to help with the leaves yet, he can barely keep his shoes on actually, so he stayed with me. And he is at the stage where he wants to be doing everything I do. If I am mixing something in a bowl he wants his own bowl and spoon to mix too. And if he can, he wants me to hold him and let him mix the actual food. So I let him help me with the mashed potatoes which almost was a huge mess, but I have found that I have reflexes like a cheetah. I saved the mashed potatoes day... that is until we ate them. But, they probably enjoyed that anyway.

But anyway, here is an awesome picture where you can barely see the food, but all the food was made by yours truly!

Here is a pic of the not so many of us who made a small dent in the food pile. And that thing on the top of the picture... that is a chandelier, not antlers like it first might appear to be.

And look! I even made three pies! One is pumpkin, one is cheesecake and one is banana cream. Yum, yum!

Then after Thanksgiving we went to a winter festival one of the near by towns throws. Jazz kicks of his shoes, pulls off hats and cries the whole time we stick him in a coat so I bundled him up in blakets, I brought about 4 of them and I was constantly trying to tuck them up around him. Wiggly little guy!

Here is the whole group that we hung out with at the parade/festival.

Jazz was a little too short to see the parade while in his stroller so we took him out and held him for that part. He started in my arms...

And eventually moved up on Ty's shoulders.

Then on Sunday we took some pictures of him for a banner my mom made for my brother who is on his mission. He has never met Jazz so we wanted to make sure he saw Jazz at his Jazziest lol. (the letters help to spell out Merry Christmas. Jazz was the first and last letters.)

Jazz is so funny. We love him to pieces, and I love being able to spend my days with him. We went outside today, and we played out in the leaves for a long time till he tripped on the drive way and took a small chunk out of his cheek and nose. That was when the screaming started. He looks like a baby warrior right now. Poor little guy. It is probably my fault though, I bought him some shoes that have a little bit of growing room, which he is not used to... although, babies do case it a lot so maybe it was a mixture of baby wobbles and large shoes? Poor tyke. But I know he forgave me because I am the only one (between Tys and I) that he wanted to be held by. Is it terrible that I want to claim the favorite parent award? I love that award. I'd give it to myself if I was in charge of the ceremony. Oh wait! I am in charge! BAM! I win!

It all began with a little syrup..

Jazz and I had an awesome morning today. Very eventful, but funny at the same time. 

We did all the usual things, get up, drive Tys to school, snuggle in mom's bed and fall back asleep for 20 mins. Then we both decided we were hungry. I felt hungry, but apparently Jazz was even hungrier because he started trying to eat my face while we were snuggling, and that settled things for me. So our breakfast of choice was pancakes! We love pancakes over here. Jazz would like to show you how to properly eat a pancake.

Step 1: Smear syrup all over your pancakes, then smear pancakes all over your tray.

Step 2: Grab two fistfuls and stuff them simultaneously in your mouth. That means you gotta open really wide. Scrunching up your nose does help.

Step 3: Make a face at your mom when the camera flashes one too many times in your face.

Step 4: Clean your tray of all pancakes. And then look so proud of your accomplishment.

Step 5: Then start wiping your hands all over to cover the rest of your tray with syrup. When you suddenly realize, hey this syrup is good!

 Step 6: Ask mom for a drink because all this yummy syrup with a side of pancakes made you so thirsty.

Step 7: Rub your sticky hands in your hair, 'cuz you can!

Step 8: Smile big, because mom is making funny faces and sounds just so you will smile for the camera.

Then, hop in the bath. But the fun didn't end there for us. No siree. Jazz makes sure to make every part of life an adventure. We walk into the bathroom and I strip him down and set him in the tub. He splashes around for a bit, and then the worst thing he could have done in the tub started to happen. You know how you can tell when you are going to need to change you babies diaper before you actually smell anything? Well with Jazz he gets this face. He starts turning red, and makes these grunting noises. I bet you know what is going on. Well, I started freaking out. I pull him out of the tub, and sit him down on the toilet, 'cuz I freak out about these things apparently. But unfortunately I wasn't fast enough. There was something gross in the bottom of the tub, and on our bathroom rug and floor, and of course, nothing ended up in the toilet. Sigh.
Now normally I am not a terribly neat person. I can live with a little mess here and there (Though I am becoming so much better I promise!) but I draw the line at poo, even baby poo. So because it was in the bath while Jazz was there Jazz was deemed unclean and I knew he was going to need to bath again. But I couldn't put him back in that tub right? So I wrap him up in a towel and I am trying to hold him while draining the tub, pulling out the gross thing that was already disintegrating, and removing all toys that sat in the infected water. Yuck. Then I did my best to sterilize the tub one-handedly and ran a hot shower for a few minutes before filling it up again and sticking him in it. Then while he played I cleaned up the floor a little bit just so I wouldn't step in anything. yum. And wow, a lot of my sentences begin with the word then. Oh well. Then I cleaned him up and got a fresh towel for him. Once he went down for his nap that whole bathroom got a good cleaning. Even the shower curtains because anything that touched the infected water was not going to be left there! Anyway, yay for clean babies, tubs and bathrooms, and diapers/wipes, how did the world live without you? I don't even want to know.

Little boys!

Oh look! 

We are back! Took a longer break than I had first thought we were taking. But here we are, doing our thing, which is basically just hanging out, which I love! So first new news, somebody here got another hair cut! lol. I know I post way too much about hair cuts. He just looks so different each time he gets one (at least to me) so I always post pictures of it. He is the cutest little boy... to me... for now... someday I hope he has brothers you know, so he won't always get this title. Anyway, here he is with his new hair cut, and his little happy self. He is wearing some clothes he got at his first-first year birthday up at Fancy and Grampy Thomas' house. They spoil him rotten, which we love! 

I don't know why, but I love hoodies, especially baby hoodies, he only has about oh 4? Is that too many for a almost 1 year old to have? I know he is not going to fit into them for that much longer! But they are so cute! Anyway love him.

His new favorite thing to do is play the piano. We have this piano that is electric and goes on a stand, but Jazz will hang onto the keys and basically tip the thing over on him because he loves playing so much! So to better and safer-ly (uhh.. no idea how to rephrase that) let him continue his love for key pounding we moved the piano to the floor. He loves pressing down the keys and pushing the little buttons on top that change the sounds. He also really enjoys stepping and walking along the keys. And plus also he loves monkeys. He carries two monkeys around every where. Though not at the same time. One though is always at his side. 

Here we are a few Sundays ago after church. Jazz and I had been playing on the ground where I was on my stomach lying on the floor. Then using my shoulders he pulls himself up, walks around and gets on my back where he kinda starts bouncing. So I interpreted this as "horsey ride mommy please!" so off we went. He thought it was so funny and was laughing his head off. We had never done it before so it was a new and exciting experience for him.

And yes, he is pants-less, he crawls out of his pants too often to make pants a worth while commodity at home.  

Bush bangs? Yes, I have no idea what to do with the little whispy hairs that are still growing back from after having Jazz. My hair is constantly frizzing out, sigh. It is the bane of my life. I would shave it off if I didn't already know how bad I would look bald. I have a really bumpy head, and fortunately my hair hides it. Even if it is frizzy and refuses to cooperate. 

His laugh always make me laugh, I am not just a maniac in this picture.

Then we also had a play date with his best bud William. William (I keep wanting to spell it Whiliam but I have no idea why!) is just a day older than Jazz so they are practically twins! But very different coloring as you can see below. He is dark haired, eyed, and skinned where Jazz is the opposite. Anyway at this awesome playdate Jazz has this little air plane toy that you can sit on or push around. William found it and was pushing away when Jazz suddenly became interested. He stops William so we helped him sit on it and William then pushed him around on it! We tried having them take turns pushing and riding, but Jazz was a better rider and William was a better pusher. I hope that doesn't mean that Jazz is going to be lazy... yikes!

Here we are trying to have Jazz push....

nope. He wasn't having any of it.

But there goes little William!

These kids are so funny. We love having play dates! I baby sit a few times a week for a couple different families, so Jazz gets a lot of quality time sharing with others. Which I love, he is really good with other kids! He loves sharing everything! With smaller children he brings them toys, older kids he adores and follows and smiles and jabbers to. He just is a social kid! And we are going to throw him another little party on his birthday so it will be his second first birthday. And maybe when my mom comes out we might throw him another little party for his third first birthday! lol. We will have to see. Tys is doing his best to come up with the perfect cake. He had me go and get the ingrediants so I am excited to see what he comes up with. Fancy backed him the cutest cup-cake cake. I helped to decorate it and did a terrible job. Poor kid, when I get pictures from them I will post them on here. Till then image a little blonde baby with chocolate and blue frosting all over his face and hands and wham-o that was his first first birthday party. Can't wait to see what the next one brings!

Hey-yo!

So I gave Jazz another hair cut, and boy he is super-de-cutie-pants.

Jazz, I don't know what I would do without you little kiddo. What would I talk about? Who would I wait on hand and foot? How would I know when it is time to get up in the morning? See?!? I need you boy! Luckily I have you to tell me that 5:00 is the time to get up, and you fill all my conversations with everyone, (especially this blog) see, you are awesome. Here are some pictures of how cute you are!!

So cute boy, here you are at your favorite toy... dad's stereo system! yay! Spin those dials, push those buttons! It makes dad so happy to see you here! lol jk

Hey look at you little monkey boy! Climbing around and laughing at the camera. You make such funny faces when the camera flashes, like it is some kind of game, which is cuter than cute! So I will take it!

Ok, this kid has the cutest face. I can't get over it. I know that everyone has darlingly cute babies, and this just proves it. Babies are just the cutest things ever!

Floor shot! Thanks for smiling for the camera baby J. You, and your hair cut, and your little tiger pajamas just take the cake! Go baby!

Look, here is my tooth again! Watch out loner toothy, several teeth are breaking though, soon this mouth will be full of chompers!

Anyway, random post, but oh so worth it in the cute department.

Irene!

So, I love this cute little face. Luckily, I get to see it peering out from behind every nook and cranny in the house. During our awesome hurricane we played hide and seek. We are really good at that game. He does the hiding, and I do the seeking most of the time. And normally the hiding turns into peek-a-boo, which is really fun too. I love all our games.

This is the best picture of his little tooth. It is normally so hard to see, and since his tooth is still alone in his little head, I thought this was the perfect way to show it off.

Irene wanted to help us out during our landscaping. Here are some of the things she helped with. Took down a small tree in the back yard, and left a smattering of leaf like confetti.

Left us with some extra confetti on the deck. Doesn't that look like a party?

In preperation we moved everything down into the garage. So here is our bbq, deck chairs and table, and all other regular garage things as well as outside things that could blow around.

Our drive way turned into an obstacle course for ants and other little bugs.

But our yard looks pretty good. In all reality, the hurricane wasn't as bad as the news wanted us to think it would be.

The only thing inside that got a little damaged from the weather was this little soakage down in the basement. Luckily we had moved everything out of the basement anyway just in case there was a flood. We are good!

And here is me and Jazz putting on make up. We stayed at a friends house for a little while during the rougher part of the storm, so I got ready on the floor, and Jazz ate my compact cases. We are a good team.

Anyway, we had a really fun time, played games, and had some yard pick up and yup! It was a really fun weekend. The weirdest thing that happened was that church was cancelled so it doesn't really feel like that week is over, and that there is a new one happening now.

Anyway, we had a great time, yay for Irene!

Babies!

Children are so funny. I love being around them, and I love being a mom! Hooray! For the last week I have been babysitting this sweet little girl named Ella. She is 6 1/2 months old, and it has been so much fun to see how Jazz reacts with a younger child. Jazz loves babies, and he loves being the one who can do things the younger babies can't. All of his friends have been older than him just by a few months, but boy! Those few months sure make a difference! Whenever these two would see each other they would smile and try to hold each others hands, and scratch each others faces. Very sweet I can tell you. But they also did some funny things. Jazz felt like he needed to show her how to use the toys she was playing with, so he would try to help her out there. Or, he would see that she had a toy he needed so he would crawl over and try to take it away. This was a week learning about sharing. But it was great! I wanted to share some of my favorite pictures.

This first picture is of me feeding Ella, with Jazz tickling her toes. That boy loves Ella's feet, so every chance he gets he grabs at them.

Mister Funny Face. I don't know why my shadow kept getting in the way, I thought that wasn't possible so much with the flash, because nothing on me would make a random shadow bump in this picture. But, I love the face, so in goes the picture!

Here is the cutest of cute boys, he copies me when I say Ella's name and here he is saying Lela, that is how he says it, which is adorably cute! Love it!

Going for the feet again! That kid is so funny!

Jazz also likes to point at the sky, with both hands, while he is trying to walk around objects like the ottoman. He is hilarious! I am sure more than most babies do this, but I still find it funny.

And I just liked his face in this one too. I hope people don't get too sick of me and my weird pictures, but since I get to choose the pics on this blog, then hey, I choose this one!

Hello babies!

Oh look! Who is doing the dishes again?

I got the plates for you mom! And I put them away, right underneath the dishwasher.

And here we are g0ing out into the hurricane to take a walk. Hurricanes are surprisingly warm. At least this one was. I will post our hurricane pictures later, but isn't Jazz so cute with his little hood on!