Growing so fast

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We went to Indiana and Ohio last weekend for a funeral (Jim's grandmother passed away) and it was definately an interesting trip. I think JJ grows in spurts during these kinds of trips and long weekends. During the trip he started talking more and using more words. He even strung together two word sentences. I hadn't really heard him do that before. I asked him if he wanted his paci and he refused. That was short-lived, but a step in the right direction. We won't push getting rid of that quite yet. He went potty on the toilet and has stopped fighting us about sitting on it. JJ's turned into quite the fan of horses and now also likes motorcycles in addition to cars and semis. He loved the I-80 truck stop in Iowa where they have a few semis indoors and on display (as well as a couple of old trucks- including a 1938 Model A). He now wants to drive everywhere and it's a fun bout of wrestling to get him into his carseat!

In addition to this fun, it appears our son's sense of humor is blossoming. He is quite delighted his boyhood! Tonight, he came out of the bathtub and walked to the living room with a towel wrapped around him. He looked kinda like Yoda so Jim grabbed the camera. JJ started saying, "cheese!" and talking to the camera. He was talking about the baby (himself) and accidentally started to drop his towel. (Of course this is all still in front of the camera...) He realizes that his towel is dropping and stops mid- "baby" and looks down at himself while clutching the towel up around himself. Then he looks up at the camera and gives a little flash. He closed the towel really quick with a surprised little "o" shaped mouth. Then he flashed open the towel again a little longer and quickly wrapped up again. Then he just dropped the towel and moved into a "superstar!" pose (think Saturday Night Live). Jim got almost all of this on a video, but stopped taping just before he got into his little pose. It was definately on purpose and it was hilarious! I was watching the video on the computer trying to determine if I could email it to grandparents, etc when JJ crawled into my lap to watch. He started laughing hysterically at himself flashing! Then he wanted to watch it over and over again! He was mad when I turned it off!! Apparently, he also thinks he is quite funny. We also took video of that since it was so funny. I would post the videos, but neither one are really appropriate to put on the web. We'll have to share them some other time, but I wanted to at least share the story. Jim says he's not sure where JJ gets his sense of humor... uh-huh.

Fun at the park

We were able to get out to he park recently to kick around a soccer ball, fly a kite and Jim played a long-awaited basketball game with his dad. It was a very nice weekend. I'd complain about how windy it was, but we wouldn't have been able to fly the kites without it. It was a lot of fun. Dad's been getting some really cute pics of JJ lately, so I'll post them. He's got a good eye and he's quick with the camera!

Papa Henry is here!

Henry came in to town on Saturday morning. It was supposed to be a surprise for Ally, but she figured it out after she overheard me on the phone with him discussing our plans to pick him up from the airport. I had fun driving around at the pick-up area a couple of times, then we were on our way to Elk River where Ally was performing with her traveling choir. Since her group is so young, she doesn't really travel yet, but the older group is going a couple of different places. It gets pretty involved as the girls get older, so we'll see how this plays out if she stays involved over the next couple of years. Anyway, she was pretty nervous about singing in front of people, but she did really well. She still won't give a "private performance" for the family-she's pretty shy about it!

(The girl singing about Disney is Ally's friend Jazzy)

So the kids have really enjoyed having Papa visiting so far. They crawled into bed with him yesterday morning and JJ slept with him an extra hour this morning. I took a couple of pictures yesterday and apparently woke up Papa because he is smiling in this one. This morning, JJ was trying to steal Papa's pillow. He has a tendency to be a bed hog. Not sure where he got that...