January 2008

Hello! This month has been pretty good for us. Everyone has been healthy!!! Jared's birthday was Thursday and mine is this coming Friday....so perhaps we're being blessed with health for our birthdays! Sounds like a good birthday present to me! I made the comment yesterday that we have all made it to church 4 Sundays in a row since none of us have been sick!! Amazing! Ammon is enjoying that since he loves going to nursery (the Sunday School class for children 18 months to 3 years). As soon as we say "Amen" after the closing prayer in Sacrament Meeting, Ammon excitedly says "Nursery!" Because he's been sick so often, his attendance in nursery has been sporadic during the past year, but he's always loved it and hasn't had any problems with going in on his own. In fact, the first few weeks I stayed in there to help him adjust....but honestly I don't think he needed me there AT ALL. I just needed to adjust to the separation myself!!!!!

We've been experiencing a common phenomenon among parents of toddlers. Our wonderful eater has been kidnapped and replaced with a very picky eater who favors carbs and sweets! Ammon used to eat broccoli, spinach and all kinds of great foods. Now he just wants carbs, cheese and CHOCOLATE!! Actually, I can't really complain too much. He's a good eater at breakfast (usually old fashioned oatmeal or cheerios with bananas) and lunch (usually PB&J), but dinner he often doesn't eat well at all! And all those vegetables that he used to eat so readily just aren't his favorites anymore. He's found chocolate! Need I say more??

My sister, Doreen, is doing really well now! Her foot is healing nicely and she's doing a great job of staying off it like the doctor ordered. She has a month left of the 3 months she has to stay off it. She's not quite up to babysitting our nephew Connor just yet, so I'm still watching him. But Doreen and Connor have been missing each other so much that last week we went to visit Grandma & Aunt Doreen 3 mornings in a row! That was fun!

Ammon is talking more and started speaking in full sentences. He's also using more pronouns (like "I want chocolate" instead of "Ammon want chocolate"). We don't always understand what he's saying, which leads to frustration on both our parts. He's very insistent that we understand him. He's not one to be content when you say, "Oh yeah....really? That's nice" and go on like you know what he's saying even though you don't. He wants to hear you repeat back what he says. And when you can't, he gets frustrated. So in walk the "terrible twos." I wish I had kept up with using sign language. It helped so much before, because he could communicate clearly to us whether he spoke clearly, or not at all. Unfortunately, I haven't been learning or teaching new sign language vocabulary as his vocabulary has developed. So now when he's telling us something we can't understand, he doesn't have any signs to help us understand him. Sometimes he makes up his own signs, which is very helpful.

Jared has been working A LOT of overtime lately since he's working on two separate projects. He's going in earlier and working later everyday. He just left work now and it's almost 11 pm. Yes, you read that right! That's almost a 16 hour day (not including travel)! Fortunately, he doesn't normally work THIS late. He's been working 10-12 hours a day. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. The money sure is helpful. It's just a bummer because we miss him and I worry about him working himself too much. He didn't get to see Ammon at all today.

Below is a video I made with photos and video clips I've taken this month. Here's what you'll see:
Jan 1st - Ammon finger painting with his new paints from Aunt Wendy. He didn't get quite as messy this time. He chose to paint more with q-tips than his fingers. He's so like his mommy and daddy....we don't like getting our fingers "icky" either!
Jan 3 - Ammon and Connor playing with blocks and other toys.

Jan 4 - Shaving Cream Fun - Ammon and his cousins (Joe & Connor) played with shaving cream for the first time ever. You'll see how timid they were at first. Ammon kept saying "icky hands." But then all three of them really got into it and had fun!!

Jan 10 - Connor & Ammon playing with the train set. One of their favorite things to do!

Jan 12 - Ammon & Jared playing Connect Four. Of course Ammon doesn't play the game as it is intended. He's too young to understand that. He just loves putting the checkers in the slots, making different patterns with the colors and then sliding the lever to make them all come crashing down. What fun! He also started playing with our chess set and enjoys that too! Most likely he will learn how to play chess before I do!!

Jan 24 - A couple pics and video clips of Ammon and Connor playing. They were hiding under a blanket and kept wanting me to find them. It turned into a game. They were having so much fun I had to get some video clips of it. When I sit Ammon on my lap to show him this slide show it is hillarious! His little legs wiggle and he giggles with as much excitement as he had when I was video taping them hiding from me. Another thing they like to do is play "Hide-and-Seek." Ammon's getting really good at hiding now. Before he would totally give himself away because he would giggle and squeal every time we came looking for him. Now he only does that about half the time.

Jan 26 - The last pictures are of Ammon playing outside in the snow Saturday. He really enjoys pushing his cars and trucks in the snow and burying them too. I love the very last picture!

Well, I hope you enjoy the show!