Maybe he's closer than we thought...

Last night I was telling Paul about James' little friend, Becca (who is the same age as James) and how she's been taking 5-6 steps at a time lately. Her mom (my friend, Kristin--Hi, Kristin!) was telling me yesterday about how they were playing the "walk back and forth between Mommy and Daddy" Game the night before.

Paul and I happened to be sitting on the floor of our living room with James at the time, so I jokingly picked up James and said, "Hey, you want to play that game too, James?" I set him down next to me, and he--I'm not kidding--walked to Paul! We were so shocked! We burst out cheering and laughing so loud that it kinda scared James. Oops. ;) It was only three steps, but he has never even successfully taken one step, so we were rather surprised.

It really was a fluke. James doesn't have anywhere near the balance needed to walk. We kept trying to get him to do it again, with absolutely no luck. Oh, but it was funny. :)

A new discovery

James made a discovery yesterday. He realized that there is a whole world outside our apartment that is just out of his reach! He found the window.

Now, he's looked out the window before, but really only in passing. Yesterday, however, he pushed over his train, climbed on top, and just stared out the window.


He babbled away, slapped the window, and looked all around. It was very cute to watch. And--get this--he stood like that for literally an hour. An hour! I'm not even exaggerating! By the end he was starting to get frustrated because he wanted to go through the window instead of just looking through it. I eventually picked him up because it was time for his nap, but I wonder how long he would have stood there?


Later last night, after dark, he crawled over to the window again. This time we think he found his reflection because he just stood and stared. No babbling, no slapping the window, no waving around. He just stood there silently. It was bizarre.

I wish it wasn't so cold outside so I could actually take him out there more often!

WW - Fun with Shoes

No Place Like Home for the Holidays - Part Two

The second trip was to Anaheim for Thanksgiving with the Petersons. We had a wonderful time! For some reason, we didn't take very many pictures while we were there. I guess it's because we were too busy having fun! :)

James loved spending time with his grandparents:



He loved his Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Steven, too! He loved seeing Baba (his great grandma), and she REALLY loved him. Whenever he was in the same room as her, she only had eyes for him. Too bad she thought he was a girl most of the time. ;)

We got to go to the Los Angeles Temple for a session while we were there. Two friends of the family were receiving their endowment before going on missions. It was nice because it was the first time Paul and I had been back since we were sealed there. We were even asked to be the witness couple, which was very special. Thanks to Steven and Stephanie for being awesome babysitters so that we could go!


We ate lots of good food, played Guitar Hero, played Scene-It Disney-style, and spent time as a family. We went to Downtown Disney and showed James the lights. And OF COURSE we ate at In 'N Out. :) The highlight of the trip for James was having our own early Christmas (or, as Steven calls it, Turkey-mas). We exchanged Christmas gifts because we wouldn't be together for Christmas, and James was positively showered with gifts from his grandparents.


Remember this truck? That was from them, too. :)

Oh, and Paul and I definitely didn't go away empty handed. They gave Paul a new scouting uniform (since he's the assistant scout master in our ward), and they gave me GUITAR HERO! So fun.

Thank you for the wonderful gifts, John and Grace, and thank you for a wonderful Thanksgiving!

The rest of the pictures (the few that I have, anyway) are on our album, here: Thanksgiving 2008.

No Place Like Home for the Holidays - Part One

I bet you all thought you were done reading these types of posts, didn't you? Well, leave it to me to post about November and December at the end of January. (Am I the only one that feels like time has dramatically sped up all of the sudden?? It's already the end of January!)

We had a wonderful holiday season made up of THREE trips to visit with family. Three! I felt so lucky. This blog really wouldn't be an accurate record if I just let those three trips go unmentioned. You've seen a handful of pictures from these trips as Wordless Wednesdays and on the sidebar of the blog, but I just couldn't leave it at that.

The first of the three trips was to Colorado for Jamie's homecoming! What a great way it was to start the holiday season--being together as a family for the first time in a year and a half. :) I'm grateful that Paul supported me in going to Colorado just a week before Thanksgiving even though he couldn't take off work and go with me.

You've seen the pictures from the happy reunion at the airport. And boy was it a happy reunion!

The rest of the week was spent relaxing, playing games, and just spending glorious time together as a family. James loved meeting his Aunt Jamie for the first time.


And he loved showing off his new tricks: clapping and doing 'so big!' (shown below).


We visited Grandma at work.



And James loved playing with his cousin Becca. They got to be good friends. :)


There was fun to be had by everyone, not just the babies. :)


There was even a surprise visit by Grandma Larson and Sharon! They literally knocked on our door Sunday morning before church and came with us to see Jamie's homecoming talk. It was so exciting!


Overall, the time went by fast, but we knew we'd be seeing each other again soon, for Christmas. It was such a happy time!


We took tons of pictures, so I put some up on our picasa album: Jamie's Homecoming. Take a look!

Just out of Reach

So, certain people have requested more videos on our blog because they miss their nephew. Since they made that request, I've been trying to remember to take out the camera when James does something funny. Of course, as all you parents know, as soon as the camera comes out the baby tends to stop whatever it was they were doing and stare blankly at you. ;)

Despite this fact, I managed to capture something funny this morning.

James has recently discovered the buttons on the front of the TV. This makes it rather difficult for Paul and I when we want to watch a movie, but James finds it endlessly amusing. Today, James was making his morning rounds around the living room (look out the window, check and see if Mommy accidentally left something on the couch he can reach, say hi to the shoe basket, pull the VCR out onto the floor...you know, the basics ;) ). After pulling out the VCR, he decided to turn on the TV. One of his favorite buttons is the input button, so he pushed it until the DVD screen came up. At this point something else caught his eye, so he crawled away. Gotta love that short attention span.

Well, you know how DVD players have a screen saver mode? Ours kicked in, and when James saw the colored ball traveling across the screen he knew he had to catch it. It was hilarious!

I sure thought it was funny, anyway. We'll see if it's funny to anyone that wasn't here! Take a look...

Poor guy! It must have been frustrating that he couldn't pin the dang thing down! :)

The Roles are Reversed!

Tonight, James decided he had better show his gratitude for all these months that I have fed him every meal. He decided to feed me! Well, ok, I admit I did a bit of coaxing. He sure got a kick out of it, though! Way to share your Cheerios, James! :)

"Hi, James!"

James has a few new tricks, but it's been hard to catch them on camera. He has this "camera face" that he usually does the second he sees the camera and then won't do anything else.

Exhibit A:


Nice.

Well, he cracks me up, anyway!

So, we've been trying to teach James to wave since before Christmas, and something finally clicked a few days ago, and now he's been waving up a storm. He gets very excited about it and waves his whole arm around. :)

I managed to get one good wave in this video. I would have tried again to see if he'd wave more, but he started babbling away at the end of the video, and I thought it was cute. His babbling has gotten much more conversational lately. If only we could know what he was trying to say!

(By the way, the noise in the background of the video is the dryer going...sorry! Oh! And can you believe the sunshine coming in the window! It's the dead of winter in Oregon, and this is our third or fourth sunny day in a row!)

WW - Serious about Stretching

WW - I Love Food!

A High Chair and a Haircut

This was a big weekend for James. :) We FINALLY went out and purchased a high chair. You know, he's only been eating solids for 7 months now...we figured it was about time. Ha ha. I think the thing that really made us decide to buy one for ourselves was the convenience of having one to use when we were in Colorado. It was so nice to be able to put him in the chair with a cracker or cheerios and have him stay content for a while. Plus, feeding him in his Bumbo chair was starting to become downright dangerous! If we turned away for two seconds, James would try and climb right out!

Also, we decided to get rid of James' Old Man Hair this weekend. I've been hesitant to cut it because it didn't seem like his hair was thick enough. I thought if I cut it it would be sparse and patchy, and that would be even worse than Old Man Hair. Well, it's been getting thicker in the last couple months. I still didn't know if it would work, but I figured a bad haircut at this age wouldn't even phase James, and it would grow back soon enough.

It was my first time using the clippers, but I think it turned out pretty good! James was fascinated by them, and as a result he was much less squirmy than normal. Paul held him while I manned the clippers. Overall, I'm pleased with his first haircut. It's hard to see the difference in pictures, but here are a couple pictures we took when he first put him in his new high chair:

Now this he gets from his mom!

I've always suffered from compulsions to organize and sort things. Just ask anyone who has seen me eat Skittles, Smarties, M&Ms or any other candy that comes in assorted colors. It's just something I've done all my life. I sort conversation hearts. I sort my Halloween candy. I alphabetize my DVDs. I could go on and on, but this story is about James.

We noticed when we were in Colorado for Jamie's homecoming, that James really loved playing with the colored blocks my mom got out. The main thing that caught our attention was that he would be holding one block in each hand, and they were pretty much always the same color and shape.


I noticed that the two blocks he was holding were always the same color, but I assumed people were handing him blocks that matched. No one was. He was actually choosing blocks that matched!

So, over Christmas when we were once again in Colorado, my mom and I put it to the test. We would give him one block and then hold out two blocks for him to choose from. He would inevitably go for the one that matched the one he was already holding! Over and over again! We'd switch hands, switch blocks, even make him choose from the whole box of blocks, and sure enough he would pick matching blocks. Crazy kid! :)