Napping

John's now 3 1/2 and we've been struggling the last couple of months to get him to nap. When he doesn't nap, he goes to bed easily, but he's often cranky in the evening. Then on the days when he does nap, he's still trying to take long naps which means it's hard getting him to go to bed at night. I was up for him just resting in his room (aka playing with books, cars, and stuffed animals), but then he kept Emma awake since they share a room. So a couple of weeks ago, Scott and I set the pack n play up in the living room for Emma and had John rest in his room. This seems to be working fairly well. Some days he'll fall asleep and other days we won't, but it gives both John and I a few much-needed quiet moments to ourselves. One of his latest things to do during rest time is throw all of his blankets, stuffed animals, etc. into Emma's crib and play in there. Today I went to check on him since it had been quiet for awhile and he was sound asleep in the crib.



Emma woke up shortly after that, so I put her in the crib too in order to wake up John. She thought that was fun!

Helping Daddy

We had a scare earlier this year with Scott's DJ equipment when a table tipped over, causing some of the most expensive equipment to drop to the floor...hard. Scott brought the equipment inside to test out, and John LOVED being Daddy's little helper. Fortunately, God continues to watch over us. The little bit of damage was just on the case Scott stores the equipment in, and Scott was able to work around that by switching some things around.

Emma's Boyfriend

I've been blessed to be "back-up" day care for a friend I taught with up in Ankeny. Krista was the teacher-librarian at NW last year, and we were both pregnant at the same time...along with a few other teachers. We got along really well even though we really only taught together until mid-January. That's when Krista had Tate, and then I had Emma before Krista came back from maternity leave.

It's been fun over the school year so far to watch Emma and Tate as they grow and reach new milestones, and they always do such funny things that I, of course, just HAVE to catch on camera. The last couple times, I've fed them lunch sitting side by side in the booster seats. However, I've had to move them apart in order to eat since they grab each other's food and hold hands. Ahh...

This one was taken back on December 31 before I had two booster seats.

John stories...

Saturday night I trimmed John's hair - just around the ears and back because it was driving me CRAZY. He still needs a haircut, but at least the hair isn't over his ears right now. Anyway, I left the scissors on the bathroom sink. At supper last night, John didn't want to eat, left the table and slammed our bedroom door. I figured he was in our room, so I left him there a couple minutes. When I went to tell him to come back to the table, I discovered that he was in the bathroom and had just slammed the bedroom door for special effect. Are you putting 2 and 2 together yet? You guessed it...he used the scissors to cut his hair. Fortunately, he only completed 2 snips - one on top and one on the side - and I can barely tell where they were! Unfortunately, no pictures were taken BECAUSE you can't tell he cut it.

Then last night before bed Scott went to the fridge for a glass of milk and was disappointed that it wasn't very cold. He took a look at the temperature settings and the fridge had been turned off and the freezer was turned way down. He's done this one other time to the freezer. This is better than a broken fridge, but still not good. I have to laugh though because the freezer dial is hard to turn. Scott asked me if I've been coaching him on how to turn them. Nope...I've talked to John already this morning about not doing this again.

Then about 2:30 this morning, I heard John crying and noticed a light on outside our room. This has become a habit the last few nights as he's been waking himself up to go to the bathroom (and thinking that he can then watch a "John show" on TV). I walk out of our room and see John standing at the toilet, crying, with his pants and pull-up around his ankles. Hilarious! This time he really did go potty. YEAH! He said he was tired, so I told him to go back to bed, but he wanted to come to our bed. I told him I'd come to his room for awhile. His response? "Mommy you lay on the right side...no the left side! I want to be on the right side and you lay on the left side." Funny thing is that when we went into his room, he crawled up and went on the right side and showed me where the left side was. =) Emma was crying, so I took her to our room to feed her. By the point I was done with her, he was asleep and I went to my own bed.

John just discovered a VHS tape of Veggie Tales: Dave and the Giant Pickle. He said, "Mommy, here is a DVD, but where is the movie?" We're now watching the video, but the picture definitely is not as nice as that on a DVD - and I'm not one to notice things like that most of the time...