James

James decided to try and walk this weekend. It has been about a month since James took his first step but didn't slow down long enough to keep going. He has been working on climbing instead. He took 2 steps yesterday and 3 today. I got out the camera and he stopped. We gave him his tools instead. Cari got him a tool box for his birthday since he wouldn't leave the real tools alone. He loves it!

House Remodeling

I never remember to take pictures until after. We have spent 3 of the last 4 weeks working on the house in KC for half the week. My friend Tammy has come to help and watched my kids every time I have been there. What a great friend! My family has been helping too. Cari has been there watching little kids or helping and this week Anthony's Dad came too. Emma and Marianne went up with him before me to get started. Tammy talked to people in the ward and on Friday we had a dozen helpers there cleaning the paint off the hard wood (Emma's old room), loading up the shed debris to take to the dump and cleaning. We are truly blessed to have such great friends and family to help us get through this. Dad and Emma stayed to finish up all the last odds and ends and wait for the carpet. The list was still over a page long but most of them were short jobs. I tried to take some pics before leaving but they were fuzzy. If I get some later I'll add them.

James is 1

Here are some of James favorite things. WatermelonAny kind of music (and the toys that make it). He also got an electric keyboard:). And he loves to sing la, la, la.

James cooking banana muffins. He loves to bang, hence all the batter splattered around the bowl while James manned the fork.

Yeah, the birthday cake.

And of course he loves chocolate.

Wow how time flies. As we were watching fireworks at a ward members house (full scale fireworks on their front lawn) I was reminissing about last 4th of July when we watched fireworks with Garners and then the kids did their own with Amanda. I said they must have made James anxious to get here because he came the next day. We did not take pictures at the party but we did on his birthday.

Happy Birthday Marianne!!

We had Marianne's party with her friends on July 1rst. They had a great time at the Princess Pajama party (since Mom said no sleepover). The girls wore their pj's all day and said it was great!

James First Haircut

The girls had been bugging me for a while to cut James hair. He had these really cute curls behind his ears. I finally gave in and did it. Then everyone said put his curls back, they were cute! Lea cried the rest of the evening. She wanted James curls back and (she missed her friend Ben).

The hairdo when Mom gave into the girls pleas to cut his hair.
The hair cut.

The new do.

Well Wire

Grandpa helped us get the wire buried while he was here. Clara was his helper.

Back Again

And now 2 months later, I have 4 months to catch up on. I am going to work at going forward and catch up on the last few months a little at a time. The first order of business (since this is James record of babyhood) is to update on what he's been doing.

James is all boy. We jokingly say he is like the dog, give him a ball, a stick, and something to chew on and he's happy. He throws or bangs everything. He just cut his two top teeth so he may not need something to chew on as much.

He LOVES outside but doesn't like crawling in the grass. He has decided he'd like to walk. He can stand up himself but hasn't tried to take any steps on his own yet. I don't think it will take him too long before he takes off.

He has 4 words: Mom, Dad, dog and no, no. He claps when he wants someone to come and nods his head yes. Everything else he communicates by yelling. We are working on "more" so we will have a quieter dinner table.

Emma was helping me get a video of him playing but I don't know where it went when I uploaded pictures. This is what I've got for now.