A Terrific Two Year Old

Joseph had a Thanksgiving birthday this year. We spent the holiday at John's parent's house with lots of aunts and uncles and cousins there. Too bad all he would eat was a peanut butter and honey sandwich. He missed out on lots of yummy food!

He opened his gifts before everyone came over to eat. It was fun to watch him be more into opening gifts this year, compared to last.

I think all of his cousins that can handle a writing utensil wrote or drew him some sort of note. It was pretty cute to see how excited they were to give him their notes.

We gave him some clothes: jeans, winter hat, mittens, and a basketball hoodie. (I know, how exciting for a two year old!) I made him a memory game with pictures of all of his extended family members. We got him a basketball and to go with it, a basketball hoop. He loves basketball.

His Humphries grandparents got him a cute t-shirt and a darling Sunday outfit, a toy that uses a hammer to hit balls through some holes, and an Elmo book that makes sound, which he is crazy about.

John's sisters went in on a special gift for him: a Cozy Coup, which he was very excited about and absolutely loves!

Later when we got home he received another gift in the mail from his aunt Elaine and Kristen who gave him a warm little outfit and some cute doggie pajamas (more clothes!) along with a little wooden car and a fun little wooden puzzle that Joseph sat and played with for quite a while.

Another gift is on its way from his Ball grandparents that we haven't received in the mail yet. I am sure grateful that this little guy has so many loving family members who care about him!

After eating we all got bundled up and went out Christmas tree hunting. I would say Joseph had fun, but mostly I think he was just cold.

When we got back from getting Christmas trees, Joseph's grandma had made him a darling little birthday cake.

He sat on his grandma's lap while everyone sang Happy Birthday to him and it was adorable to watch his face as he realized that everyone was singing to him. A cute little smile crept across his face towards the end of the song.

He blew out both his candles and enjoyed eating the candy off his cake.

So glad to have this little guy in our lives!!

October

Tonight feels like a good time to give an update on what's going on around here.

First of all, if you haven't heard the news or figured it out by now, I am pregnant. We'll be having baby number 2 in April. My due date is April 14th, but somewhere around the 21st is what I'm anticipating. We've decided to find out if we're having a boy or a girl when the baby is born and are excited for that. If it's a boy, he'll be named Lyle Asher. If it's a girl, we'll name her Kaili Anne. I know Kaili is a SUPER popular name right now (and that bugs me) but I can't help it! I have been determined to use Kaili, with a Chinese spelling, ever since spending 5 months in China. I'm 17 weeks along today and have fared really well so far in this pregnancy, other than what seems to be more fatigue than usual and definitely more heartburn than usual.

I'm more than halfway through another semester of school and could use all the encouragement possible. The last few weeks have been a little rough on me having motivation to get going early enough in the morning to make the commute to class, so I've missed a few days here and there. I'm planning on taking two online classes for next semester because I know that I'll definitely be wanting to stick around close to home throughout the last half of my pregnancy.

I have some exciting news about my business... I've been promoted!!! I am thrilled and excited and absolutely am so grateful for all the people I have the opportunity to work with. It is fun, challenging and very rewarding.

And the rest of this post will be about Joseph! We are loving this age. He will be two this month! His birthday is on Thanksgiving and I must say I couldn't be more grateful for his little light in my life.

Here's some things that we hear from Joseph every single day without fail:

"yogurt?" - he would be perfectly happy if this was all that he had to eat every day
"cereal?" - his favorites are frosted mini wheats and rice chex
"juice?" - it's amazing how much apple juice we go through around here
"Elmos?" - this is referring to this video... he loves Elmo books and pictures, but is scared of moving Elmo dolls.

"ducks?" - this is referring to yet another Elmo song that he L.O.V.E.S.
"circle?" - this is another song and there's a story behind this one. Over a month ago we taught him this song, Family Prayer, during a family home evening and he absolutely loved it. We played it numerous times and would kneel down in a circle, folding our arms with him. About a week later, when we were kneeling down for family prayer, he looked up at us and pointedly asked, "circle?" and then started looking over towards the computer. I was really surprised when I realized he was remembering that song from fhe a week earlier. Ever since that time he asks for the song every day. Whenever we turned it on, he would say in a breathy voice, "okay." and run over to the middle of the room and fold his arms and kneel down. Then, the other night, he knelt down next to me, and I then laid down on the floor. He laid down and then turned to John, insisting that he lay down as well. He kept asking for the song to be played so I got up and played it, while he would lay down next to his daddy. When I was up, I asked him if he wanted a banana, which he did, so he lay there listening to the music, next to his dad, eating a banana, and it must have been a memorable moment for him because he tries to create that every time he asks for the song to be played now. It's pretty funny.
"mails?" - He knows where the key is and gets it and loves to walk with one of us down the street to the mailboxes to get the mail.
"ni hao?" - I have no idea why, but John taught Joseph randomly one day to say "ni hao" which means "hello" in Chinese. Joseph loved it and would say it a lot at random times. So I thought he would enjoy hearing the "ni hao" in the kids show Ni Hao Kai Lan and boy, was I right. I've had to record numerous episodes on our dvr because he could watch it all day long. We really love watching him through the theme song of the show. He always says, "raar raar raar! Super!" along with Rintoo the tiger and it is very cute.

"teeth?" - And this is a good thing. He loves to brush his teeth, so thanks to him reminding me, at least they're getting brushed every day!

Other things he enjoys:
- talking on the phone
- sitting on his potty
- singing songs - he'll always sing along with me when I sing Twinkle Twinkle and one day I was driving in the car singing Popcorn Popping and happened to look back at him in the mirror and he was doing the actions while I was singing
- reading scriptures - ever since General Conference, we've been reading scriptures as a family together. John reads one verse, I read one, and then it's Joseph's turn. He repeats a few words at a time after us and it is really adorable. He is quite the parrot, always repeating things we say, so when I heard this idea during conference, I knew we could do this with him.
- playing with his friend Addi
- playing basketball
- washing his hands
- coloring
- scaring us and being scared (we're in for a lot of fun with this one as he grows older, I'm sure)
- going for walks
- his Grandma Humphries. She is the only person we've ever seen him just willingly leave us and go to on his own. And once he's in her arms, he never wants to leave, even to come back to us.
- reading books - he used to not sit through books when I tried to read to him until one morning, after I changed his diaper, he walked over to his bookshelf and brought a book back to me to read to him and he sat through the entire thing. I was really surprised and thrilled when he got up and went to get another one. He repeated this TEN times, sitting all the way through TEN books!!! They were all different ones too. I was really starting to wonder how long he would keep going with it!
- blowing bubbles
- playing with our cell phones
- playing in the car
- ringing the doorbell

Things he does that we don't enjoy so much:
- whining
- he doesn't play with other kids on his own unless we are playing with him (except for Addi, but that's only when she's over at our house.)
- he basically refuses to try any new foods, so his diet is really limited and I feel bad and guilty that he's not getting enough calories and nutrients
- stuffs the toilet with the bathroom garbage
- throws some pretty awesome temper tantrums when things don't go his way

A few weeks ago we went to the local Staheli farm where they've got lots of fun stuff for kids to do. We all had a fun time together. It's really hard to get Joseph to smile for a camera unless I'm being super goofy (which I'm not prone to do in public), hard enough to get him looking at it... so there's a lot of "serious" pictures from this night.

Washing his hands was his favorite activity of the night until...

we found the basketball hoop. Then he was in seventh heaven. But we weren't because the ball kept rolling into nearby slimy mud/manure and we really didn't want him playing with it. But man it was hard to get him away (and keep him away) from there.

He was finally distracted by a little tractor ride with his dad pushing him all around.

And the pig races kept his attention too.

But it wasn't much longer before he completely broke down at the sight of those hoops. He was extremely tired, so there was no consoling him. We left and he quickly fell asleep. But it was an enjoyable time. We'll definitely go back again next year.

I am not a big fan of Halloween, but we actually participated in the holiday this year more than we ever have before. We went to a Halloween party with some friends on Friday night. I dressed up in a pair of pajamas with slippers, curlers in my hair and a facial mask. John's creative costume was a BYU football coach, wearing his coach shirt and BYU visor, sporting a full beard that is totally against BYU code. I had to laugh at that, but at least I got him to come. It was a fun night... sorry, no pictures.

We had a hand-me-down little doggie costume that I had put on Joseph a few weeks earlier, but he hated it and was crying. I brought it out a few more times before Halloween to see if he wanted to wear it, but his answer was always "no!" I really didn't think I'd get him into any costume and I was fine by that, because I don't really care much about trick or treating and all that. Although, I did think that Joseph would get a kick out of it if he did decide to participate. So on Saturday night we were over at John's sister's house and when the kids started dressing up in their costumes, one of his aunts wanted to dress up Joseph. She found a little frog costume and I was AMAZED that he let her and John dress him up, hat and all.

He really actually enjoyed it. We went with his cousins to a trunk or treat and then did a little trick or treating around another neighborhood. Joseph had a blast.

Most of all he just enjoyed being outside and walking around so much. We let him eat a little bit of the candy that night, but he hasn't had any since then and I am fine with that. Since he doesn't try new foods, I just know that if we DID give him more candy he would only want to eat candy and I just didn't want that temper tantrum going on all day. So we stowed it away in the cupboard, out of sight and he's totally unaware that it even exists. If he did eat better throughout the day, I would pull out a few treats for him each day, but since he doesn't I'd rather not be putting any of that yucky sugar in him. Anyway, it was a fun night and I was happy to see him enjoying himself.

Ohio Trip - Part 2

Has it really been two months since I last blogged? How come no one's been after me on this? All right... well, picking up where I last left off.

On Sunday, July 4th, we went to church and after coming home we ate and packed and some of us decided to get a head start on the next leg of our journey and we left for Nauvoo, Illinois, an 8 hour drive west. We drove through a big city just as they were setting off their fireworks and so got to enjoy a mini show from the car.

We all stayed in the Gallery House on Mullholland Street. It was a lot of fun to have a whole house for our family for the few days we were there. The kids all loved the upstairs attic complete with video games. On Monday morning we drove to visit the Carthage Jail where Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred.

The sister missionary was definitely inspired by choosing our noisiest and most rambunctious nephew to be her "reverence example." She asked him to stand by her side in each room as we went throughout the jail and his example made such an impact on all the kids, including Joseph.

They were all folding their arms and being quite reverent and I was tickled to look up at Joseph on John's shoulders and see him folding his arms too. The last part of the tour of the jail is the jailor's bedroom upstairs where the mob forced their way in and killed Hyrum and Joseph. Usually the missionary will play a recorded reenactment of the scene as everyone sits there, but our particular guide told us she felt moved to do something different. Instead, she handed out little copies of the hymn A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief, and we talked about the meaning of the hymn and then all sang the last verse together. It was a really neat experience and I felt the Spirit very strongly.

Outside the trees were wet from a rainstorm and John was walking with Joseph on his shoulders underneath the leaves. It was so cute because every time he walked under the tree, Joseph would curl up around his head and giggle as some of the leaves got water on him.

After getting some lunch we went to Historic Nauvoo and visited some of the sites there. This was my forth time visiting Nauvoo, the third since we've been married. It is one of our favorite places to visit.

Yes, this is Joseph chewing on a stick. A simple way to keep him entertained.

Later that night, the rest of the family arrived from Ohio. The next morning we were up early to visit the temple and do a session there. The interior of that temple is so beautiful. I especially loved all of the mural paintings on the wall. They were absolutely exquisite.

Later we went around visiting more sites, stopping for the longest while at the field where they have lots of pioneer games to play. It was soooo extremely hot and humid that we all felt like we were just standing in a warm shower. It was a rainy day too.

I must pause and take a moment to display how adorable my Joseph is. No one could disagree.

He's combing his hair with a stick. He really enjoys this activity. Too bad he doesn't have more hair!

We went back to the temple later with Joseph to take a family picture there. He was not in a good mood and this was the best picture we could get of him.

You've got to see it close up because he pulls this look occasionally and it is totally priceless in my book. It just makes me laugh out loud every time I see it.

This was John's photo... a developing photographer I must say!

In the evening we went to the Nauvoo pageant. Before the pageant there are lots of different games and activities going on in the adjacent field. My favorite was the dancing, although the only person I could get to dance with me was my nephew Noah. This was the second time we had seen the Nauvoo pageant and it really is the best one I've ever seen. Joseph did amazingly well throughout it, just sitting quietly on John's lap the entire time. He fell asleep towards the end.

The next morning we packed up and began a day full of just driving west. I was really surprised at how well Joseph did on such long road trips. He ended up sleeping a lot of the time, and when he was awake, he was cheerful and pleasant. After staying in a small motel that night, we began driving the next morning again and made our way to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

This was a really neat site to see, the first time that we've been there. Joseph was not too hot on the idea of being in his stroller (understandably so since he had been in the carseat for the past two days)

but once he was out, he was loving life!

We walked a little bit up the hill to get a closer view, but couldn't stay too long because we had to get on the road again to get to Denver.

John and I had a plane to catch in Denver to get us home that night since we had an early morning meeting the next day that we absolutely couldn't miss. We made it to the airport in good time and had time to eat dinner and then keep Joseph entertained until it was time to leave. That was accomplished by walking on the moving walkway, getting off, turning around and walking on the walkway going the other way and repeating it, oh about a hundred times. John walked with him for a while and when he was finally tired of it, we switched places and he watched our stuff. Joseph only walked on the walkway a few times with me before he was ready for a new adventure, so I followed him down the hall until we found a set of escalators that were in a rather deserted part of the airport. No one was using them but us as we went up the escalators, turned around and went down them and did that again and again. Joseph really had a blast. Once we finally got on the airplane he was not wanting to sit on our laps and it was really difficult to keep him quiet and entertained until the plane was ready to go. But once it was moving, he was just fine and quickly fell asleep.

And that wraps up our big summer adventure!