Our Man

We're making potty progress. Not perfect yet, and still need diapers through the night, but he's gone twice now. He's just getting too big.

Powered Donuts

We've made some huge strides with potty training over the past couple of days. After all of the toys, movies, and trips to the zoo we bought; who knew the magic treat would be miniature powered donuts. I never buy donuts, and don't really keep sweets in the house, but while JJ and I were at the store the other day he grabbed a box of miniature powered donuts and said "I need these mom." So I told him, "Oh, well, these are only for big boys who know how to sit on the potty". When we got home he decided that it was time to figure out how to sit on the potty and totally went, and then had a donut as his reward.

The kid ate an entire box himself over the weekend, but it works for now so we will go with the flow (haha - flow). JJ is now getting up and going to the potty all on his own...and then he immediately runs out into the kitchen and gets out a powered donut, proudly proclaiming "I'm a big boy, I go potty!" Our big problem has been getting him to go #2. We're making progress, slowly.

Other than that we are just enjoying our summer. Here's a pic of Jack at the Hartman pond, and a pic of his "Ninny Jo"

Summertime

Summer is slowly getting here up North. We haven't had many warm days, but last weekend it was finally hot enough for JJ to go swimming. I've been meaning to sign him up for swim lessons again this year, but haven't had a chance yet. He will be in the advanced class this year and able to jump off the diving board..... Oh, and I must tell everyone what a great job my nephews have been doing helping me out a bed time. They will sometimes stop over in the evening when JJ is getting ready for bed. Both Raymond and AJ will take turns reading to Jack - 4, 5, or even 6 books! Thanks boys.

JJ's Ride

Our little town recently had a one-day carnival/parade, complete with those scary, you might read about this-tomorrow type of rides. JJ loved the ponies, but then he insisted on riding on these tin can airplanes. We tried to talk him out of it, really, we did...


The Pony Ride

All is good

Then he wanted to ride these things. He was fine until he realized that the planes not only went round-and-round, they went up as well.

Here the plane is just starting to go up. He was looking around like, "What is happening??"

He stared at the ground until his plane "landed"

Another Bad Eye

This kid is just growing so fast. JJ is loving the nicer weather we've been having and has been spending much of his free time outdoors. He loves his new swing set and curly slide, playing at the "beach" (his sandbox), playing t-ball with dad, and playing basketball on a new hoop that my dad bought him for his birthday. His playing outside so much has resulted in another swollen eye (mosquito bite). We're up to #6 for eye injuries if you're counting. Here is a pic when it was starting to clear up.

We're still trying hard to potty train, but this kid has no desire whatsoever. He will sit in wet, poopy, stinky diapers all night if we'd let him. His teacher thought that we should really start pushing the issue now that he is three, so Jerret wanted to take her advice and force him to go on the potty. I, of course, insist that he will go when he is good and ready and until them we are all just wasting our time. The teacher asked us to send him to school in underpants, no diapers, along with a couple extra pairs of underwear and shorts. On day two of this trial I had a little boy who stood in the driveway crying after school one day because he had wet his pants. He was borderline hysterical and I had enough. I told Jerret I was done trying and not forcing the issue. Jerret still went along with the teacher's idea and at the end of the week, Guess What?! ..................................................................................................................................................Wrong! He is absolutely NOT potty trained and still doesn't care! The only thing we had to show for our (Jerret's) efforts was 5 bags of urine-soaked, death smelling, crunchy nasty clothes. Let's not forget the outfit he pooped in that sat in a grocery bag for 3 days before they reminded Jerret to bring it home. It was awful. So bad I had to throw one entire outfit out. The teacher must have felt bad because the next time I came in she was sure to let me know that she had personally washed Jack's wet clothing. She now realizes that JJ is still not ready.

We'll get there, we will. I just hope it's sooner rather than later!

He's Three!

We have been so busy lately, it seems like I can't even find a second to blog. By the time the kids have had their baths and are in bed each night, I have about 100 things to get done and blogging just gets pushed to the side. Sad for me....

Our little guy turned 3 last week. He is the size of a 5-year-old, but is still our baby boy. We took a cake over to Jerret's mom and dad's house and gave him his birthday present. Here he is waiting for the surprise...

He kept on telling us that he wanted a "Boom A-Chow" cake, which is his code word for anything related to the Cars movie. He had a store-bought cars cake last year, and I didn't want to get the same thing, so instead I went to Cold Stone and bought a yummy yellow cake with yellow cake batter ice cream inside. Then I ran into Wal-Mart and bought about 5 cars to put ontop. It was a chore trying to find cars that he doesn't already own, let me tell ya! He thought the cake was great and didn't even need a present after getting those cars off the cake.

So then we surprised him with his birthday present - a big boy bike!!! The excitement faded quickly after his first spill. Take a look at the video...

Our memorial day weekend was nice. We went out to dinner to celebrate Jerret's new job. I am sure he doesn't want me to mention this or make a big deal about it, but I don't care because we are proud of him. He is still doing glass engineering, which he loves, but is going from making drinking glasses to glass bottles (think beer). He is a technical leader for R&D and excited for the new challenge. So anyway - we went out to dinner at a local Mediterranean restaurant. JJ did very well, which I was a little nervous about because it is not really a kid-friendly atmosphere. This is Jack cutting his Shish Tawook, or chicken and rice...

After dinner we went over to Jerret's brother's new house to check it out. This is Jack playing in the back yard. Uncle Joe bought a 4-bedroom house and is a bachelor, so he said he would make a room for JJ to stay the night.

Lovin' Life

I think we have officially hit the terrible two's. Poor JJ has been pretty temperamental lately and fussy about different things - especially eating. The other day he smacked at Jerret and absolutely refused to apologize. We put him to bed early and I had a talk with him explaining that when you hurt someone or hurt their feelings, you need to say sorry and give hugs. He instantly gave me a hug and kiss, but when I told him that he needed to apologize to daddy, he cried and cried and said "no, no, no". He also squeezed Lynde a little hard (on purpose) the other day and again, would not apologize. It's crazy to think that his little mind understands that the words "I'm sorry" are indeed an apology and something that he didn't want to have any part of.

The Easter Bunny was pretty good to JJ this year except for one minor detail...Our Easter Bunny doesn't bring candy!! Can you believe it? Who is this rotten bunny anyway? I felt bad for the little guy so I gave him an extra pack of m&m's I had left over from helping my brother make baskets for his kids. We also had a good time coloring eggs, but we don't really like to eat the eggs so we just took a couple over to poppa.

Jack is loving his baby Lynde. He wants her to sleep in his bed so bad and every evening when we go to say goodnight, he will scoot over and say "Lynde lay here" so the other night I laid her down to make him happy. He was in 7th heaven getting to be with his sissy - that is until I had to take her back.

This is JJ's new toy at Poppa and Nana's house. He calls his horse swing "Black Beauty."

I'm Still Alive!

It's been a while...and I have the usual excuses.

I am happy to inform you all that it was exactly two years ago that we landed in Detroit with our baby boy - who is now getting so big :( Here is a pic taken inside the airplane. I'll never forget that I tried to calculate how many diapers we would need in our carry-on for the 20-hour trek...I guessed 9 would be enough. Wouldn't you know it, we needed 10. Those poor, poor people sitting around us.

JJ is doing great with his baby sister, Lynde. She is 3 months old now and he is constantly wanting to hold her, kiss her, and just help out with whatever she needs. He really wants her to be able to sleep in his bed with him. She was laying on the ground cooing, just making her baby noises, last week and JJ came running to me in the kitchen saying "Mom - Ninny talk, Ninny talk!" so I acted very excited and said "No Way! What did she say?" and JJ just looked and me and calmly replied "She say ham and cheese."

No clue where that came from.

Here are some recent pics of JJ at our local big blow-up jumpy place...

In Case You Were Wondering...

It's been a while, but if you were wondering what JJ has been up to, then check out this little video. Sorry about the quality, but the photographer was holding the baby in her other arm!

Here are some pics of Daddy and JJ partying in the basement after destroying the castle!

And Mr. Sockhand has returned...This is what I found twice last week when checking on JJ at naptime...

Long Time, No Blog!

We really need to get this kid a tool belt.

Well, as you can imagine, the craziness of a newborn (5 weeks already!) has had me quite busy at home leaving no time to blog. Any free moments have been spent napping, showering, playing with Jack and I can't forget to mention my 5 trips out of the house (4 to the grocery store and one dinner for Jerret's birthday).

JJ has been quite the little helper. He is standing at the ready with a pacifier anytime Lynde makes even a whimper. He wants to play with her so badly. The other day I busted him trying to feed her a goldfish cracker and had to explain that Lynde only drinks milk and doesn' t have any teeth.

JJ is going through a pretend stage and some days acts like a lion (from Lion King, of course), other days he is a puma (Go Diego Go!), and sometimes a mean tiger (Kung Fu Panda). He uses these opportunities to go around the house licking people and will act like he is going in for a kiss and out the tongue comes. Lynde gets licked the most (see below). He has so much energy that we are starting to discuss which activities we should enroll him in when he turns three. The kid is seriously crazy strong and has defined muscles in his arms. The other day he was actually doing push-ups (perfect ones at that) in the living room. I have no idea where he learned this move because I haven't seen Jerret do a push up in a few years and I probably haven't done one since I was 20!

More Pics...

JJ sure loves his sissy. He is constantly wanting to hold, hug, and kiss her. Most recently he has begun licking his hand and wiping it across her forehead saying "Simba!" (a move he learned from watching Lion King).

Our Newest Addition...

She's here! Lynde Josephine was born on Saturday, January 3, weighing in at 8lbs 3oz (exactly the weight I was at birth). She is so so awesome and a true miracle.

It only took JJ about an hour to warm up to her and he was in love too. He gets a huge smile on his face when he gets to help with her and wants to hold her all the time, but is a little rough so we usually do the holding. This morning JJ got put in time out and instead of crying for mommy or daddy he cried for his sister and kept saying "My Ninny, My Ninny." He is going to be a great big brother.

7 Random Things...

I have been tagged a few times now to post 7 Random Things About Me, but truthfully have been too lazy to get it done. (That happens when you're 9 months pregnant, right?) So anyway - here they are in no particular order...

1. I am halfway finished with my MBA; but ended up changing jobs, adopting JJ, getting pregnant, and I could think of at least a dozen more reasons why I haven't finished...
   
2. I get up and check on JJ at least once while he is sleeping every single night. And now that I am about to have a baby and getting up 4-5 times a night...I check on him that often. Yeah, I am full of paranoia.
   
3. I truly believe that I am going to win the lottery some day. But then again, I told this to a co-worker and she said that she always believed she would win too. So now I am wondering, does everyone think they will win someday?
   
4. I have thought about going to school to become a pastor. I highly doubt this will ever happen, but what a great job...
   
5. I really, really want to move someday...to another place - city, state, whatever. That being said, it is hard for me to accept change and learn to deal with unfamiliar things so I might just be stuck in NW Ohio for my entire life.
   
6. I like being pregnant. Maybe it's because I am nervous of the whole labor process, or the fact that I will be handling a newborn. Whatever it is, I just like being pregnant.
   
7. My latest TV obsession is Dog the Bounty Hunter. I've been watching the show off and on for about 2 years now (and was introduced by my mom), but for some reason am fascinated by this family as of late.

Ok, so that's it for my Meme. No tagging anyone else as I came into the picture way to late.

Random JJ Pics

JJ and Daddy outside during the first snowfall of the year...

We're trying to potty train the boy, but can't let him go to bed without a diaper. So - this is what happened when he insisted on wearing his new Elmo underpants...

I swear we didn't put him in there, he did it all on his own...

JJ was bit on the eyelid by a mosquito about a month ago... One of our 5 eye injuries within the last year...

We had an early Christmas with my family. The kids were all supposed to wait for everyone to open their gifts (kids go by age), but of course JJ couldn't wait and tore right in.

The First Snowfall of the Season

You would think that being in NW Ohio we would have had tons of snow by the middle of December. Last night was actually our first "real" snowfall of the season. This, of course, excited Jerret who was dying to try out his new tractor and snowblower and he ended up doing all of the sidewalks in the neighborhood and a least a dozen of the neighbor's driveways. JJ was just excited about the prospect of being able to build a snowman, which hasnt' happened yet. Oh well, a wagon ride's just as good...

JJ Pics

Seriously? Ringworm?

So JJ has ringworm…on his scalp. He and Jerret went for haircuts a couple of weeks ago and when they came home I noticed a small (very tiny) bald spot on his head. Naturally, I assumed the chick at First Choice nicked his poor little head and wondered which girl had done it since we are there every 3 weeks and seem to get a different person each time.

Over the course of a week, I noticed the spot get bigger and bigger and bigger, until it was the size of a nickel. Finally, I realized that it was more than a nick and thought I might want to call the doctor. I took him to school the next day and as soon as I removed his hat the teacher looked at me and gasped loudly, slapping her hand over her mouth and whispered “Ringworm!” I was very surprised and looked up at her and said “how do you know?” and she said “Oh, its been going around the school.” This, of course, upset me as this is now the second time a communicable disease has gone around that school and I heard NOTHING.

Anyway – I made an appointment that day with Dr. John who told us that ringworm of the scalp is VERY different than getting it on your skin. He said that it is very hard to get rid of and that JJ would need to be on meds for 2 months! And it could take a year for the hair to grow back in that spot (which is now that size of a quarter!)

I sent Jerret to the pharmacy that night to pick up the script and received a call from him to ask how much these meds should cost. I had no idea, but he told me that the pharm tech was telling him that a month’s worth of the antibiotics cost $200! Again, I assumed she must be incorrect and surely they had not run our insurance card so I told Jerret to double check and give them our insurance information. We discovered that yes, they had run our insurance and that this WAS the generic form of the meds. They just really, actually cost $200 for a month’s worth! I have never heard of such a thing, but we needed to fix the poor little guys head so we surrendered our cash and paid up.

We're Getting Close & The Nemo Ban

I've been busy trying to get Christmas shopping done and out of the way early this year. I even started wrapping last night so that Jerret wouldn't be stuck not knowing who gets what or where things are at just in case we have this baby early. I am thinking that she is going to come early, but still feel like she is way high and I have a constant foot under the ribs to prove it. In fact, I am nervous she is going to be born with a broken foot because I have felt this pain every day, in the exact same spot, for about the past 3 weeks. She is tossing and turning all around, but I am convinced that her foot is stuck.

JJ is finally getting used to the idea of having a baby and actually acknowledges her by name now. He still goes into her room and tries to climb in the crib saying "JJ bed" until we explain that JJ has a big boy bed now and this bed is only for babies.

JJ has really started getting into movies lately and we ended up buying him the Monsters, Inc. DVD in hope that he would realize how nice Sully actually is, and it is working so far. Then we borrowed Finding Nemo from Aunt Jill and once again traumatized the poor kid. He was so distraught when 1) Nemo's mom dies 2) The fish eggs disappeared and 3) When Nemo was taken by the scuba diver. Poor JJ stood in front of the TV with tears in his eyes shouting "Nemo, Nemo!" for a good 2-3 minutes. (Who ever said these movies are for kids?). And at the end of the movie, when Nemo and his father were reunited we had full on crying as though something awful just happened. So again, Jerret and I had to sit there and explain that everything was Ok, that Nemo found his daddy, but JJ still cried and cried. So we had to put a ban on watching Nemo in the Hartman house.

We Are Really Dumb!

A few weeks ago Jerret went to the "Special Persons Breakfast" at my nephew's school. After breakfast there was a book fair (how smart are they? Have a book fair when the people with the real money are around!) and Jerret bought JJ a Disney book that had stories from 5 different Disney movies in it. Out of the 5 movies, the only one JJ has actually seen is the Cars movie, but he quickly fell in love with the other stories after reading them. His two favorites are the story about Buzz Lightyear and one from Monsters Inc., and it has become routine for either Jerret or I to lay in bed with JJ and read one of these stories.

The other night Jerret was reading to JJ and I wanted part of the action so I barged in and plopped myself down next to them. While reading the Monsters Inc. story - you know the one where Sully scares all the little kids behind the doors - Jerret said "Hey Mom, you need to check the closet and make sure Sully isn't in there!" (dumb)

So I, being the great mother that I am, decided to jump up and slowly open the closet door to take a peek inside. (This is where we get really dumb) Rather than open the door all the way and let JJ know the coast was clear, no monsters in his closet, I said "Aaaahhhh! There's a monster in there!" and quickly slammed the door closed.

JJ's eyes were as big as saucers. He stared at me and then looked at Jerret, and then fixed his gaze on the closet door. He wouldn't speak...just stared.

I realized the trauma that we had just forced on our child and looked at Jerret and asked "Why did we just do that?" and we both just laughed at our stupidity. I tried opening the closet door all the way and turning on the light to show JJ that there wasn't really a monster in his closet, but he wasn't hearing of it. JJ quickly said "Shut the door!" and continued to stare at the closet door out of the corner of his eye. We tried reading another story to take his mind off of the monster, but JJ wouldn't even look at the book. We asked him questions to change the subject, but JJ wouldn't answer us. When we finally did get an answer out of him he would only whisper, as so not to wake the monster.

We are trying to forget the whole incident, but every time we enter his bedroom JJ has to run and close the closet door. And he will absolutely, positively not go to sleep with that door open.