Mini Panic!

Sitting here just now I realized that I don't yet have an awesome idea for James' Halloween costume! AHH! It's his first Halloween ever! He needs a great costume!

Any ideas?? I'm up for almost anything, but it can't be too expensive to make/buy. I'd like it to be clever and cute. And it may be fun to involve the whole family. (Paul and I don't have costumes yet either!)

FREAKING OUT!

Fall Ball

Paul has been playing with two fall softball leagues in the past weeks. These leagues are different than regular softball leagues in that they crunch the games into one hour and play double headers each week. I suppose this is because fall weather in Oregon is unpredictable.

One of the league's he's been playing with had their playoffs last night. Paul's sad that even fall ball is now coming to an end, but I'm excited to have our Monday nights back. ;)

Before the games, James played around in the grass.




He really enjoys grass. :) It's hard for me to let him play in it, though, because he always finds clumps of dirt and tries to eat them. Last night he successfully took a rather large bite of one of these clods of dirt when I looked away for two seconds, and managed to swallow it before I could fish it out of his mouth. Gross, James!

Then, we settled in to watch the big games. Paul's team was the number one seed in the tournament, so they only had to win two games to be the champions. They won the first game (with the help of a lead-off inside the park home run from Paul!) and started in on the Championship game.

By this time, it was already 9:30pm, and James was trying very hard not to fall asleep.


The second game had a rocky start and finish, but they won 16 to 9! At just about 10:45pm, Paul's team was awarded the trophy. :)


And yes, James stayed awake the entire time.


Way to go, Paul!

A Fun Weekend, and a Baby who thinks he's a Toddler

Weekends are my favorite. Now more than ever. I love the time we get to spend together as a little family and the adventures we have around the apartment and out and about Beaverton. James loves the time when Daddy's home, too.


This weekend was pretty typical and yet very fun. Friday, we stayed out late watching Paul play softball. Saturday began with a late morning (James let us sleep in!), watching the first two episodes of this season of Heroes, and heading off to buy some food at our favorite Japanese grocery store, Uwajimaya.

When we drove up to the store, we found the parking lot taken over by a huge festival! There were booths and food, a giant Hello Kitty walking around, and, my personal favorite, Taiko drummers! I was so sad that I didn't have my camera on me. We had fun walking around, tasting things, and listening to the sound of the drums. For those of you that aren't familiar with Taiko drumming, it's traditional (though relatively recent in origin) Japanese ensemble drumming, and it's extremely athletic. The drums are huge and the drummers always put on a good show. If you ever have the chance to see a Taiko group perform, you should!

Anyway, it was a great afternoon! Then, that night, Paul spent some quality time with James while I went to the Relief Society General Meeting. The broadcast is one of my favorites every year. I wish it happened more than once a year! Elder Uchtdorf's talk was very inspiring. Well, ALL the talks were inspiring! I'm so grateful to Paul for letting me go to the broadcast and not have to worry about James. :)

Speaking of James, he has been constantly getting himself into trouble lately. I'm seriously considering getting rid of all of our stuff and living a minimalist existence. He pulls out books and movies from our shelves, rips pages if we don't get there fast enough, and dumps out any basket he can find. He's also constantly surprising me at the things he can reach now. I don't like picking up after him 24 hours a day, and so I end up living in even worse clutter than we normally have.

Here's a picture of James very proud of himself for pulling laundry out of the basking and books off our shelf. Apparently he wants to learn music theory already! ;)


I think he looks very grown up in this picture. I can't believe he's already 8 months old this week! Despite all the troublemaking, this is an incredibly fun age. He's more and more aware of things going on around him, and he is so happy you can't help but love him. Yes, even when he's tearing a corner off a page in your Bible.

Wordless Wednesday

I've come across several blogs that do this each week, and I think it's fun. You know what they say! A picture is worth a thousand words.

Standing Tall

I finally caught a video of James pulling himself up to stand. He can pull himself up next to almost anything, including things he has to reach over his head to grab onto and even just the flat wall. Crazy kid. He's even starting to try and walk along things.

Since I've had a hard time capturing it on video, we went with an easy one for this clip: our bed (which doesn't have a bed frame). Sorry for the bad filming!

That's one way to do it...

Wow, a week without a new post. You guys must think I've died or something! ;)

In actuality, I just haven't had anything to blog about. James has been very cute lately, but I didn't have any great stories or videos to share...until yesterday afternoon.

I was sitting on the couch brainstorming and sketching. I was very wrapped up in myself. I was confident that James was just fine because he was in front of me playing. I could hear him moving around his jumper, and I could see him in my peripheral vision. Lately he's enjoyed playing with his jumper from the outside more than from the inside. He'll pull himself up to stand next to it and push the buttons that play music. So, as I was sitting there off in my own little world, I wasn't surprised to hear the sound of him hitting the buttons and the music playing.

A few minutes later I happened to glance up, and I burst out laughing...and ran for the camera.


Apparently he wanted to get in. :) He found the holes and figured he could do it himself. Ha ha ha. Funny boy.

And to think I almost missed it because I was wrapped up in my thoughts!

A real crawl! Almost.

James is learning so quickly! It seems that I'll say one thing in the blog (in this case, last week's "no belly off the ground crawling yet") and he'll prove me wrong within days. In the past week or so James has been trying to crawl with his tummy off the ground. He starts out in good form, and everything goes well at first. Then, after a few paces, he realizes he can't go as fast as he wants to and flops back down on his belly to his trusty army crawl.

In this video he stayed up longer than usual. I also tried to show him pull himself up to stand once he reached me, but he sorta gave up on me. :) Another time!

Desert Island Five

Paul and I have been watching The Office lately (SO funny!). The other day we watched an episode towards the beginning of the second season where the temp starts a fire in the office, and they all get evacuated. When they're waiting to get the ok to go back in, Jim starts a game of Desert Island where they all have to name the five movies they would take with them to a Desert Island.

That night before falling asleep, Paul and I discussed our own Desert Island Five, and I was very pleased with mine. Here they are with explanations:

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - My very favorite. :) Swashbuckling, witty banter, and--of course--Captain Jack Sparrow. This one was a no-brainer.

2. Ocean's Eleven - Another no-brainer for me. This one covers the comedy and good looking actors category. Plus it has a great soundtrack.

3. The Emperor's New Groove - More funny. :) I needed an animated movie in my five, and really, I can't top David Spade as a llama.

4. Newsies - This one fulfills my need for a musical. Singing and dancing galore! I figure I'll need something to sing along to on a desert island. (Close second for this slot: That Thing You Do! In fact, now that I think about it, I'm unsure again.)

5. You've Got Mail - This was the toughest choice. I knew I needed a good love story to finish out my five, but it was hard to narrow it down. In the end, I love Tom Hanks too much, so this one won. (Others that were in the running: Runaway Bride and While You Were Sleeping)

There you have it. You may notice that there aren't any serious movies on my list. I decided that if I were stranded I would need movies that I can watch over and over again and still love. All five of my choices fit that requirement. I also figure I would want lighthearted movies to keep my spirits up.

So, what are your Desert Island Five? :)

Trouble with a Capital T

...and that rhymes with P and that stand for...uh, Problematic? Oh, I don't know.

As you all know (from previous blog posts), James is quite the adventurer. Well, he continues to become more and more adept at moving QUICKLY from place to place. I can't turn away for more than two seconds or he'll be into something new. Here are some of the latest predicaments that James has gotten himself into:

Point of Clarification: Some of the pictures I'm going to post are pretty incriminating. I hope you all don't decide I'm a bad mom because I let James crawl all over the apartment. I promise that whenever he finds something dangerous (wires, plastic bags, etc.) that I didn't think he could get to I move them to a better place. I also keep a close eye on him during his adventures. Right now as I'm blogging, James is safely bouncing away in his jumper. In other words...please don't freak out, mom! ;)

First off, we have the first time James decided he could crawl through one of our chairs (this first time he actually got stuck and I had to save him...now he just slides right through):


Unfortunately, these are the same chairs that I use to keep James out of the kitchen:


Yeah, now I have to cover the chairs with a blanket, and that only slows him down enough for me to get him before he crawls through. He can still make it past the blockade and into the kitchen. Next baby-proofing goal? The kitchen! Or maybe it's just about time we invest in a baby gate.

Next, we have fun with blankets (ok, so this one doesn't really fit the theme, but I thought it was cute!):


Yesterday he managed to climb on top of our shoe basket:


Don't worry, I picked him up seconds before he dove headfirst out of the basket onto the tile floor.

And today, he climbed into our computer desk:


That one happened when I was on the phone for all of two seconds.

Yep! Keeping this little guy out of danger is a full-time job! Here's a video that shows how fast he's gotten at the army crawl (still no tummy off the ground crawling):

Gotta love this crazy boy!

I love my family!

The following picture was emailed to me by my family in response to my "He's gonna eat me!" post last week:


My dad has the best ideas. :) I think they did a pretty good job, don't you? ;)

Our Little Inmate

Ever since James started pulling himself up next to things, this is what we're greeted with when we go get him after a nap or in the morning:



It just makes his little cries and yells for us to come get him even more heartbreaking! He'll sit there with his little fingers wrapped around the bars with this look on his face that says "How could you leave me here all alone! I thought you were never coming back!" So sad. Other times, he'll get this huge smile on his face when we walk into his room to get him. Those smiles say, "You came back!!" I like those times the best. :)

I'm constantly amazed with how happy James is for the most part. He really blesses our lives.


How can you not love this face?