The Tale of Paul's Facial Hair

So...

Many of you have noticed something a little peculiar about pictures of Paul lately. ;)

For the first time in his adult life, Paul made an attempt to grow some facial hair. I didn't think it was possible, but it turns out it is. Why did he decide to give it a try? Well, Paul's a good sport, right? He's pretty much always up for fun and/or silly endeavors. It's part of why I love him so much. (Aww!) So, of course, when Paul heard that his department at work likes to have a little facial hair growing party during the month of October every other year, he was totally game--a little unsure, but game.

It all started out a little dicey. Those of you that know Paul are aware that he is a little lacking in the facial hair department. It's the Asian in him. ;) It started to grow, but it was definitely sparse. A few weeks in, though, it started to fill in ever so slightly. Suddenly, Paul had an honest to goodness goatee! And yes, he was proud of his little goatee. :)

Here's the team on the last day of the challenge:

And here are some closeups:

Before the shaving begins, Paul is confident that he is hot stuff.

Shaving has commenced. No more 'stache!

Yes, you have a cute smile, Paul. But now it's time for the rest to go!

Paul mourns the loss of his beloved goatee.

All is well, though! He may have lost a goatee, but he has gained a happy wife! I'm so glad I have my husband's face back!

Halloween!

Check out our little baseball player!

Thanks for the wonderful costume, Grandma Hansen! :)

James loved Halloween. He loved showing off his costume at Paul's work and around the neighborhood. He loved knocking on doors and having people give him candy. And he loved being the center of attention. :)

He did not love the skeletons hanging on people's doors. ;) If a house had a skeleton on the door, James refused to knock on it. He'd turn to us and say, "Did it scare you?" with a worried expression on his face.

So, I got my H1N1 shot...

Normally, I'm not one to rush out and get flu shots. In fact, I've never gotten one before today. Why did I go for this one, you ask? Well, I happen to be in a "high risk" group these days. You know, the first category the CDC lists when they talk about who should get the vaccine.

Yep! I'm PREGNANT! :)

I'm almost 11 weeks along, and due on May 24, 2010. We're very excited to be adding to our family!

Pumpkin Patch!

Today a couple friends braved the cold with me and James and went to the pumpkin patch! I was kind of excited to see how James would like it, since he liked it so much when we went a year ago. Well, he LOVED it. He loved it so much that I couldn't get him to stop running around for more than a minute at a time. (Note to self: James is NOT ready for outings without strollers.)

Here's James with his friends Julia and Claire. We never did get a picture of all three kids together. I blame James for wandering off whenever we tried.

James was fascinated by the animals. They had some pigs, a bunny, and some goats, but his favorite was the pony. :) He kept pointing at it saying "horse! horse!"

He also loved the water. They had a little pond with a boat that took us from the main area of the farm out to the pumpkin patch. James had a very hard time waiting for the boat to come back and pick us up. A couple of times I'm pretty sure he would have just run right into the water if I hadn't stopped him! Once we got on the boat, though, he was so thrilled that he sat on my lap staring around us for the whole ride over to the pumpkins. :)

So, our next task was to pick out a pumpkin...

The task proved too hard for us as James was more interested in the train tracks, empty wheelbarrows, and mud to give the pumpkins a second look. As for me, I was too busy chasing after James!

Lucky for us, Abby was very kind and sought out the perfect pumpkin for us. We really wouldn't have been able to get one if she hadn't looked for us. Thanks, Abby!

Here's James, reluctantly posing with our pumpkin:

Somehow I had to get James and the pumpkin to the little train station for our ride back to the cars. Since trying to herd James is like trying to herd a group of scared ducks, this was no easy task. This was our solution:

Overall, it was a successful trip to the pumpkin patch! We only had one minor accident. James tripped while he was trying to step over the train tracks and got dirt all over his face and a couple of red welts that have all but faded now. You can see his battle wound in this last picture:

Fun times! Next time I won't forget to bring the stroller... ;)

Finally!

James has been singing this song for almost two months now, but I have not been able to get him to sing it for the camera. Finally, today, he kept singing it over and over, so I asked if he could sing it for the camera. And he did!

So, now that I've told many of you about this for weeks and weeks, here it is! James sings "Kami no ko desu" (or, "I am a Child of God" in Japanese):

Clothes are No Fun, Mom!

It all started yesterday morning when I went to get James from his crib. I opened the door, and he had completely taken off his shirt! I laughed and put it back on.

Then, later that afternoon, James was happily watching Aladdin in the living room. I turned to check on him, and he had stripped down to his diaper! No more shirt OR pants for him! Once again, I laughed and said, "James, where are your clothes?" He thought it was the funniest thing, but he brought me his clothes and let me put them back on. A few minutes later I glanced over at him, and once again, he was running around in just a diaper (thank goodness he left the diaper on!). I let him run around like that for a little while, but then got him dressed to run some errands. Luckily, that was the end of our clothing dramas for the day.

Then, last night we put James in a footed sleeper. Since there weren't two separate pieces, I hoped this would mean he would keep it on. Well...this is what greeted me when I went to get him this morning:

He managed to unzip his sleeper (but leave the snap at the top fastened) and get one leg out.

Yeah...who knows what's in store for us and our little nudist child. :)

Oh, and by the way, we've entered a new phase in picture taking with James. I say, "Smile!" and he says, "Cheeeeese!" with this fake smile plastered on his face. Yep. The Fake Smile phase. I was hoping he would be at least 3 years old before he started doing the Fake Smile. Oh well, maybe this way we'll be able to break the habit before he starts school and gets stuck with some embarrassing school portraits! ;)

Baseball Player in Training

Almost every day, when Paul gets home from work, James runs to the door and says, "Hi Daddy! Baseball game?" It's pretty cute, and Paul just loves it.

Paul enjoys training his little future baseball player every night in the basics.

First, we have hitting:

And of course you have to play catch:

He's got a short attention span (what 20 month old boy doesn't?), but he really does love to play baseball with his daddy. :)