All About John - Age 3

This post is dedicated to our wonderful three year old son, John. John has had a mind of his own since before he was born. He decided he was done baking when I was 34 weeks pregnant with him. To make matters even more difficult, he decided to turn breech the night before my induction. Even though he spent 15 days in the NICU, he’s definitely a normal, healthy three year old. His favorite things at this point in time are Disney Princesses, puzzles, his puppy, chocolate, and books. While he loves Star Wars, super heroes and other typical boy things, he definitely loves his princesses. He was in heaven when we had lunch with all of the princesses at Disney World last December. For Christmas, Santa brought him a set of seven Disney Princess dolls. They’ve been played with so much their dresses are falling apart or are lost, their hair is a mess and their faces are marked up. For the first month or so, all seven had to go everywhere with him. John’s affinity for puzzles just baffles me. While he’s been slower to do some things – walking, talking, potty training – John mastered puzzles about a year and a half before James did. At two and a half, he was easily putting together the three 24 piece puzzles that James got on his fourth birthday. He can even do most of a 48 piece puzzle on his own. Unlike James, John has what most parents call a “lovey”. John’s is a stuffed pug puppy. It goes almost everywhere with him and must be present anytime he goes to sleep or needs to be comforted. A couple of weeks ago, John spit medicine all over Puppy so he had to be washed. Lord that thing was dirty. It took him an extra hour to fall asleep because he didn’t have Puppy with him. We know John is definitely my child as he is a complete chocoholic. He loves chocolate in any form – candy, ice-cream, cake, cookies, etc. He gets small pieces of a Hershey bar for going potty which he immediately asks for the moment he’s finished going. John is also a big fan of books. He asks me to read the same stories over and over again. The current favorites are The Mommy Book, The Daddy Book, anything Curious George, and any stories about princesses.

John had a wonderful birthday. We braved the cold and took the boys to the zoo early Saturday morning. Of course they boys wanted to ride the carousel and go to the children's zoo first. After that we went and saw all the other animals. For lunch we went to The Spaghetti Warehouse since John's favorite meal is "noodles". He really enjoyed his bowl of spaghetti. After lunch, we headed up to my parents' house to open presents and have ice-cream cake. Of course John wanted a Princess cake and was very pleased to have chocolate cake with chocolate ice-cream. The figures from the top of the cake have not left John's possession since he blew out the candles. Mommy and Daddy had Supper Club that evening so James and John got to go to Chuck-E-Cheese with Gammie and Poppa to end the day's festivities.

Here are some photos from John's third birthday.

Waiting for the zoo to open. Note Puppy is always present.


John's Princess cake.



Opening a a new floor puzzle from Aunt Jocelyn.



Blowing out the candles.



Very happy with is birthday cake.

Rodeo Pictures

Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

This year has been a busy year for us at the rodeo. Brian and I went to two concerts together(Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley) and he went to an additional one with his clients (I can't remember who he saw). All the shows were really entertaining, especially Brad Paisley. We also really enjoyed all of the rodeo action before the concerts. Then we had two visits to the rodeo during the day. The first was just John and I tagging along with some friends and then yesterday we all went as a family with Kristin and her crew. We enjoyed seeing all the animals and yummy food both times and during our family outing we also enjoyed the carnival. Both boys had an absolute blast at the carnival. Thankfully there were lots of things John could ride with a parent and even some things he could do on his own. James hasn't been to the carnival since he was two so this time around he got to ride a lot of the bigger kid rides. Both boys were completely worn out and slept the entire way home. We took quite a lot of pictures so I'm going to attempt to do a photo slideshow.

Molly

I just wanted to post a picture of our furry family member, Molly. She doesn't get much mention here but she's a big part of our daily lives. We got her Easter weekend of 2007. She just turned 2 years old on Valentine's Day. Molly is a beautiful chocolate lab who loves to be loved on. She's finally grown out of those bad puppy behaviors like trying to eat everything in sight and chewing on things that don't belong to her. Just recently she graduated to sleeping outside of her crate at night. And even more recently, I've been leaving her out when the boys and I leave the house during the day. She always greets us at the door with her tail wagging.

Here's Molly taking a nap on our bed.

John's new watch

While in Paris, Brian saw a watch advertisement that really caught his eye. Once he got back he spent lots of time scouring the Internet and jewelry stores to find John the perfect watch. As it turns out, it's the same one he saw while in Paris. We picked it up a couple of weeks ago. Pardon the pajamas. We forgot to bring the camera to the Galleria with us.


Brian, James and John with their watches

Both watches

John looking at his watch.

Baby's First Year photo project

When James was a baby, we found this wonderful photo matte that highlighted his first year at The Picture People. Well when John came along, we found out they had stopped making the matte. Since then I've had the idea to make something myself using the same concept. While Brian was in Paris, I let my creative juices flow and below is what I came up with. James and John's are finished and I'll add Jude's photos as we go along. Right now all three are hanging up in the nursery. Oh, and I also FINALLY hung the crib quilt we bought back in 2004. I really love it but never had the wall space before now.

Crib quilt.

Jude's collage.

John's collage.

James' collage.

Paris trip

Just after we got back from our family camp out, Brian and his sister, Sally, took a trip to Paris. Sally had never been and Brian really wanted to take her to see all the sights and important artwork. While some of you may wonder why I didn't attend, it was hovering close to freezing and involved way too much walking for me. The boys and I relaxed at home while Brian and Sally braved the cold. They really had a wonderful time. Here are some photos from their trip.

On the plane ride over.



Sally in front of the gluten free restaurant they found.

I believe this is the old clock at the Musee d' Orsay.

This is actually one of my favorite views in the city. You can see all the way to the Arc de Triomphe.