Jack's 2 year pictures

So by now I'm sure most of you have seen these on my Facebook or elsewhere...(great pictures travel fast, huh?!) But in case you haven't had the opportunity to see our cutie yet, here they are again :) Many thanks to Amy Carroll for her awesome talent...she's been our family photographer since Jack was still in my belly!

On a sidenote, Jack LOVED Amy. He kept saying her name over and over and over during the session. In the car on the way home he asked for my phone. I handed it to him and asked him who he was going to call. He held the phone up to his ear and announced "Mommy, call Amy. Hi, Amy. Thank you. Love, Amy. Bye bye, Amy." So I decided to let him call Amy real quick and leave her a voicemail... (Amy, I'm not sure if you even understood it, but that jumbled message the other day was Jack expressing his thanks and love :)

Now onto the pictures...which can also be viewed here:

New floors!

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

Rob is not a "Hallmark holiday" kind of guy. Nonetheless, he really made a HUGE effort on Valentine's day! And I mean literally. He installed new floors in the house! (And of course, thanks to my father-in-law for helping too!)

Two of the floors are done and the third floor will be finished next weekend. Everything except bedrooms and bathrooms will be done. We're still waiting on the stair and trim pieces to arrive...so it will likely be a couple weeks before it is completely finished. But I love them already! I'm finding they are so much easier to keep clean :)

(Pardon the messy living room...and we still can't agree on new living room furniture...a quest that has been going on for almost a year now. *sigh*)


And I also did a little project in the playroom. I found some Martha Stewart letter cards at Michael's. They have the alphabet and corresponding animals in a vintage fashion on them. I hung some twine and used baby clothespins to hang the pictures. I'm happy with how it turned out! Altogether, it took me 15 min. and $18 :) (No his play room is NOT always this clean...most of his toys are just shoved in the closet right now!)

On vacation...details later, pictures now...

These are not in any particular order...

At the Lego Store in Downtown Disney...he really wanted to have the dogs.

I think this is Quincy (?) from The Little Einsteins...whoever he was, Jack loved him!

Having fun in the seashells at the Orlando Science Museum (a really cool place!)

Getting ready for the 3-D Toy Story Mania ride at Hollywood Studios (which was super fun!)

The Magic Kingdom in the rain is still fun.

The "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" giant playground at Hollywood Studios...very cool!

Admiring Kermit...a very giant Kermit.

Watching the Muppets 3-D show...

His first rollercoaster ride...which he loved :)

The Magic Kingdom...in sunshine.

Does this really need a caption? Jack with Mickey...On the safari at Animal Kingdom...it's rather up close with the animals...no fences

King Louie!
Obligatory mouse ears...
He just looks so cute (and big!) here...

We're still vacationing...more to come later!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2009!

We had a wonderful Christmas spent with both sides of our families. Jack was so much fun this year :) We are blessed.

For New Years Eve last night, we headed to the Grand Rapids Griffin's game (hockey, for those of you not from around here). It was Jack's first hockey game...and what a riot! He was SOOOOOOOO excited and kept running around and smacking the plexiglass, yelling "BOOM!" everytime the players would smash up against it (we had front row tickets). He was so hyped up on the sounds, the action, the "airplane" (the blimp that flies aroun and drops coupons/etc.), the people, etc. I have never seen him have more fun :) Sadly, I forgot my camera.

Well, I am officially done working my crazy holiday season with Chanel. Yahoo! Each year from the beginning of October through the end of the year I am insanely busy freelancing for them. This year was no exception, though it's still a lot of fun. I certainly welcome the break now and opportunity to breathe and get my home and schedule back in order. Mostly, I missed a lot of storytimes and bedtimes with Jack; so glad to have those back again.

Very much looking forward to our much needed vacation in just a couple weeks. All for now...I'm actually going to bed at 9:15!

Counting is fun!

My precious little boy is learning to count and I just had to share :)

Updates

Major apologies for the time lapse between blogs. I've been so busy and blogging hasn't been the first thing on my mind!

Jack is becoming such a little boy, running faster, talking more and such a little delight :) This morning he asked me for some "boobies" (hopefully you can all see the humor in this and not the offense!) I was taken aback at first...and then when he pulled my hand to the fridge I realized he wanted BLUEBERRIES! I had a good laugh :) We'll have to work on that one.

Another funny talking incident...We had a lot of puffy, white snow a week or so ago. Jack looked out the front door and yelled with a lot of excitement "Lellows!" He thought all the snow was marshmallows, which he loves :)

He spent his first night away from mommy and daddy last week too! Unfortunately it was because Rob and I were both completely out of it with the flu. But I'm happy to report all is better now and even happier to say Jack did wonderful and had so much fun at Grandma and Papa's he didn't want to come home.

I've been so busy working for Chanel again this season. I'm in the middle of working 9 days in a row right now. After Christmas, most of my work with Chanel slows down majorly and I get time to breathe again :) It's definitely fun and I'm thankful for the flexibility it offers.

I think most everyone reading this knows this by now, I also launched my own website last month: www.juliestrating.com I've received great feedback and also booked some really exciting events for early next year.

And in other news, the sock animal business My Amalies that I run with my friend Amanda could soon be coming to an end if there are no changes to a bill that was recently passed by Congress. In a nutshell, the new law (the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act [CPSIA]) will require all children's products (intended for those younger than 12) to be tested for lead and phthalates. It also requires each component to be labeled individually providing the manufacturing date and stating that it complys with the mandated testing. My initial reaction to this was "Excellent! We need more accountability with our children's items especially with all the toy scares in the last year." Except I realize now many, many small businesses that cannot afford this mandated testing will be affected negatively: be forced out of business. You can read more about this at: www.handmadetoyalliance.org

I think that's the bulk of updates I have for you now. (I'll put pictures in the next post!) I can't believe Christmas is one week from today! Jack and I are headed out to buy our last two gifts today and then we'll be all set.

Enjoy your day and Merry Christmas everyone (in case I don't update again before then :)

"I lub eww!"

Jack's latest...

• He loves to dust the house...with baby wipes???

• He much prefers showers over baths all of a sudden.

• He loves to "read" books to us (it's rather funny.)

• He's a little obsessed with Curious George and talks about "Dirge" (George) often.

• His newest word, as of this morning, is "raintint" (raisins). And he will gladly go help himself to a little box of raintint from the pantry cupboard.

• He tries to put diapers on his stuffed animals. And cleans them with baby wipes also.

• He can *almost* jump. He's been "jumping" for a couple months (squat down, and spring up quickly with his arms up), but his feet never actually leave the ground :)

• The truck/car/tractor/anything-on-wheels phase I don't think is just a phase anymore. It's just part of being a boy I'm convinced.

• He's learning his colors! He's pretty good at identifying blue, green and yellow now.

• His vocabulary is right around 70 words now...(I only know that number as I was making a list for his baby book the other day)

• He learned to say "I love you" and it melts my heart :) See the video below...

"Beet, peeze!" and costume party :)

Jack loves to play in the sand at the beach, a place he learned to love this past summer. As of late though, he will randomly start talking about the "beet!, beet!...peeze!" (translated: beach...please). The other day we were outside playing and Jack RUNS around the side of the house to the backyard as quick as he can! Then he goes straight for the neighbors yard. I'm just watching him, scratching my head wondering why??? They have a little swing set to play on but Jack hasn't shown much of an interest in that. Then it dawned on me. Just beyond the swing set is....the "BEET!" A sandbox. I couldn't help but start laughing when he started yelling "beet, mama! beet mama!" as he started digging in the cold sand. My sweet, sweet boy :)

Running as fast as he can...

The beet! The beet! (if you look close it's just past the little swing set.)
Later on, he found some "crunchy" leaves.

And he brought them to me so we could crunch them together. It was fun :)

Last night we had our annual GR Baby costume party at Chuck E Cheese's! Jack had a lot of fun :) And not surprisingly, we had a huge turn out once again (roughly 40-50 of us???) Here are a few photos (Amanda and Tricia, I'm borrowing some of yours!)

Jack and Addie, he kept giving her hugs...

...and kisses.

A group shot...the lighting is awful in there, so I don't think anyone really got a "good" shot. Anyway, here are most of the moms and kids. The dads are all taking the pictures :)

By the way, Jack was a dinosaur...a slightly unhappy one...



When he was staring into the case, mesmerized by all the goodies, he kept saying "Woooooow!" over and over in a really soft voice. It was really too cute :)