Nursery

A few weeks ago, our new ward's Elder's Quorum president dropped by for a visit. During our conversation I remarked how excited I was for Jack to start nursery in a few weeks. The EQ prez responded a little smugly, "well, you know, if he stays in nursery. Some kids don't like it, and end up staying with the parents."

Fast forward to a few weeks later... I'm taking Jack to nursery for the first time, and so I ask the teacher if I could stay for awhile. I figured Jack might at least put on a show and cling to my leg for a COUPLE of minutes. Nope, the second I put Jack down he was off and running to the toys, playing with the duplos and car garage, talking to the other kids, and completely ignoring me! Honestly he couldn't have cared less where I was. I actually ended up with another kid in my lap while Jack played with a 3 year old. (At this, he did kind of give me a weird look, as if to say, "Hey kid, that's my spot!") After about 45 minutes of this, I told the nursery leader I might as well leave and enjoy the rest of church. Jack watched me leave the room, and I thought that this might make him cry because he DOES NOT like to see people leave. No, no, he doesn't care. Just goes on playing. After church, Daddy picks Jack up and tells me that he found him sitting on top of the table, taking the crayons out of the bucket and putting them back in the bucket. That sounds about right.

Well, I am thrilled that Jack is so social and happy. And I am especially happy to be able to sit through the last 2 hours of church without him, able to actually listen and participate! At least until the next kid comes around...as my mom happily pointed out to me.

Pictures, Galore!

Over a month ago we moved into our new home....and it has taken me way too long to post pictures! Sadly I didn't take any "before" pictures, so I'll just tell you what the walls looked like pre-painting. Enjoy.

Jack's room. I LOVE his stripes, and the photos really don't do them justice. Sigh. Anyways, every single wall in his room was a greenish brown color. ICK. So we did this feature wall with chocolate brown, royal blue, and this awesome green (which isn't translating in the picture).

The other walls were painted a white. Sorry I don't remember the cheesy paint name for the color, but they're white!

Jack's bathroom- I thought the monkey shower curtain was appropriate for a toddler! This room was a dark blue before, and it just made the room feel even smaller. So I chose an aqua, which brightened it up.

Second bedroom, currently used as an office. This was by far the most drastic improvement. The entire bedroom was covered in bubble-gum pink, Yuck. It is now silver-gray. This silver is used in the dining room and our bedroom because we loved it so much.

The two below pics are of the entry, but I couldn't get a good shot in just 1 picture. I love the alcove here. Oh yeah, this was a green entry before. It's now a pink-white, which was supposed to have darker stripes to contrast....but that didn't happen. Oh well, a future project, right?

One thing that sold me about this house was its beautiful entryway, and how it uses arches to lead to different parts of the house. We chose to paint them red- they were just white before.

The kitchen, duh. I fell in love with the layout. Because it's open, Jack loves to run a loop around the kitchen, living room, and hallway. What a cutie.

We only painted the arch. We were too tired and beat-down to paint the kitchen!

The dining room. We did a lot here. Before it was white, with the window seat painted an orange-red. We painted the bottom walls/window seat a deeper red, and the top walls silver. We also did the chair rail ourselves, amazingly. Actually, it was pretty easy.

Our living room, we just painted the wall behind the fireplace a chocolate brown. Before it was a purple color.

Master bedroom, featuring the silver again. This wall was previously the icky greenish-brown color.

Normally, I wouldn't have put a pic of our bath on here, but let the record show that it was a dark green before. Now it's a sky-blue and it feels much, much lighter now.

Lastly, my favorite 2 men enjoying the back yard. Love it.

That concludes our tour for today. Thanks for stopping by!

A Day in the Life...

While not each of these pics were taken on the same day, they show the latest adventures of our growing boy. In one week he'll turn 18 months old! He is continually learning new tricks, which never fail to entertain his captive audience.

Has anyone seen my shoes? Of course!- in the kitchen sink- where else would they be?

On our way to a party: (from left) angel, pirate, and Magnum P.I.

Captain Jack!

Swinging pirate

Here Jack's placing his little trucks on his big truck. He had such intense focus while doing this, I had to capture it on film!

Like father, like son. Jack helping Daddy play video games.

Ahhhhh, I LOVE this picture! My cuddly boy snuggling Mommy.

Mommy's Little- BIG helper

You see this little boy to the left? He is learning all sorts of new skills lately, (including brushing his teeth.)

In addition to this, Jack has become a great helper. He loves to help me clean- it's so cute! He LOVES the broom and dustpan and follows me around helping me sweep. He also picks up crumbs off the floor and throws them in the trash. Perhaps the cutest thing he does is when he takes a dish-rag, wipes the floor with it, and then shakes it over the trash can!! How adorable is that?! He's also learning laundry skills by handing me the laundry to throw in the washer (in addition to a few toys as well). He's great at throwing things in the dryer- mostly non-laundry items. And lastly, he loves closing doors. After seeing me and Jon constantly closing doors to keep Jack out of rooms, Jack thinks it's normal to close every single door. If he sees an open door he runs to slam it shut. I never realized how observant this little boy is. He studies you to learn how to do tasks, and then puts his new-found knowledge to work! I'm a little concerned that he's eagerly watching how I open the pull-out freezer drawer. I just know I'm going to find frozen peas scattered across the kitchen floor soon. In the meantime I'm enjoying my little-Big helper.

PAINT!

We are officially homeowners. Gulp. In an ambitious attempt to make our new house into our home, we have launched a full-scale painting project. We're able to do this because we're not moving for another week, so luckily we can make the house a mess and not worry about living in it. Anyways, Jon and I accomplished a lot over the weekend and the place is starting to look like ours! I'll post pictures when we're all done. But for a preview--we've changed one bedroom from a suffocating bubble-gum pink to a soothing silver, and we've mastered the art of the miter saw. We cut wood for a chair rail in the dining room, and I love saying that I used a compound miter saw! How cool is that? (Especially considering that when I rented it from Home Depot I asked the guy if it came with instructions.)

I just realized that sadly, I did not take "before" pictures of the rooms we've worked on. But I'll start doing that for the next rooms. One negative effect of painting? You are covered with paint, head-to-toe afterwards...even after showering, you find unexpected paint splotches on your skin. You can never get rid of it! I am just imagining the looks I'll get at church when people catch a glimpse of my brown and biege nails.

Did I forget to mention...?

In just a few days we will be closing on our first house! We are ecstatic and can't wait to get settled into our new home. There are so many little details involved in moving that it's starting to get stressful. I've spent the last few weeks calling to switch utilities, cable, water, insurance to the new house. Not to mention the organizing and packing. Oh, how I despise packing! And sadly I realized-- (much to Jon's pleasure) that I need to get rid of some of my books. *sigh* Since I majored in history in college/post-grad, I have TONS of history books. And I LOVE them! I don't even read them anymore, but they're mine and I'm freakishly possessive of them. Do ya'll have any psycho possessive tendencies like that?! So anyways, I just sorted through them and am going to try to get some cash from Half Price Books later. No doubt Jon will protest I kept too many books, but I've got to have my European history books, and those T-H-I-C-K Norton Anthologies of Shakespeare/English Literature (which weigh 5lbs each), and my WWII/Nazi Germany collection, and my Harry Potter collection, and all 4 Twilight books....those are deal-breakers.

Enough of that tirade. To sum-up, we're moving in 2 weeks and are thrilled. Anyone willing to join us in a paint/pizza party, give me a call!

Slurrrrrp, slurp!

The other night I made chicken stir-fry with noodles. It was Jack's first time to eat it, and honestly, I figured I'd be sweeping it off the floor and walls! Imagine my excitement (and relief) when he cheerfully slurped down the noodles. I guess noodle-slurping comes instinctually to kids, who knew? Check out his noodle slurp-fest below...(the last second of the video is the best slurp).