Happy Easter from the Ward Family, or, Easter Sunday 2013

Easter was pretty quiet around the Ward household this year.  We got up and went to church, which is always nice.  Here are some pics of us in our Easter finery:

These are all right after church, and Jones was hungry and sleepy, so they are not the greatest; I cannot think of a worse subject for photography than a tired and hungry toddler.  Also, your eyes do not deceive you - Jones' Easter outfit is also his Christmas outfit.  I loved it so much, I figured I'd get one more wear out of it ...

 

This is after he ate lunch; you can see his disposition is much improved:

 

Jumping with joy!

 

We took a little afternoon nap, and during that nap, the Easter Bunny came to visit!

 

 

Jones loved it!  He was pretty possessive of the eggs; at one point, we transferred some from his basket to another sack because the basket was too full, and he got kind of upset.  We had to assure him that they were still his eggs and they weren't going anywhere!

 

Enjoying the spoils of Easter egg hunting!  He has figured out that there is good stuff in the eggs - he'll hand it to you and say, "open!" ... that is, if he can't just get it open himself.

 

Happy Easter!

 

Jones is 23 Months Old, or, What's Going on With Jones in March!

Can you believe it?  It's the next-to-last monthly update for the J-Man?!  Next month it'll be his 2 year report card?!  It's so cliche, and everyone says it (that's why it's a cliche, I guess), but time really flies when it comes to your child growing up.  The other day, BA asked us when Jones first slept through the night, and even though that was not that long ago, I can't remember!  I simultaneously cannot believe that he's 2 and also that I cannot remember everything about the last two years, even stuff that, at the time, I thought I would always remember.  Thank goodness for this blog :o).

Anyway:

Jones is 23 months old!

It's my toddler in a box!

 

At 23 months, Jones:

• Weighs just under 30 pounds; still no idea how tall he is.  He wears size 24 months and 2-T clothes (kind of baggy on him, but good for length).  He wears a size 5 diaper and a size 6 or 6 1/2 shoe.
• Still has no real interest in food.  We do have periodic growth spurts where he mows down all of his food and then needs more, but those are sporadic.  For example, last night after we got home from school he ate two cereal bars and a yogurt.  An hour and a half later, he ate four (large) chicken nuggets, a healthy serving of french fries, a full glass of milk, and most of a small cup of ice cream (we had dinner at Chick-Fil-A).  And he still drank a cup of milk before bed.  He is still a good breakfast eater, and his favorite foods include yogurt, cereal bars, pancakes, oatmeal, marshmallows, French fries, carrots, spinach, broccoli, chicken, salmon, and spaghetti.  He pretty much will not eat fruit except for bananas and blueberries, and he likes those mixed fruit pouches, so that's where he gets most of his fruit.

Birthday party preview - we're having a cardboard box party!

• Talks all of the time!  Quite the chatterbox!  I can't understand all of it, but I can get the gist of it pretty easily.  He talks to me all the way to school and seems to have memorized our route, because he always says, "Train!  Choo-choo!" when we get close to the train tracks, and he says "cow" when we pass by a field (it doesn't have any cows in it, since it's the middle of town, but it does look like a place where you could find some cows, I guess).  He's putting sentences together, but the only ones I can really understand are the ones that begin, "I want ..."  He says, "Sorry" without prompting when he does something that requires an apology ... usually he does, anyway.  He accidentally headbutted me the other day and he immediately said, "Sorry!"  He also says "sorry" if you stop short in the car.  He says "vroom" if you accelerate in the car pretty quickly and, in true Ricky Bobby style, appears to enjoy going fast (he always says, "vroom" with a lot of excitement and a grin).  In other car-related pronouncements, he will say, "uh-oh" if you hurry up through a yellow light (well, sometimes it's "uh-oh" and sometimes it's "vroom") and also if you stop short (again, sometimes it's "uh-oh" and sometimes it's "sorry").  He loves to tell Augie and Layla to eat - we put their food down and he walks over to the bowls and says, "Eat, Augie!" and points to the food (he really only does this with Aug because Layla scarfs down her food so fast, she doesn't need any prompting).  He has little conversations with himself that usually involve animals and animal noises - he cracks himself up :o).

• Still likin' Mickey the Mouse as his favorite cartoon, and also the Dinosaur Train and the Little Einsteins.  This month we've been all about Mickey Mouse and the clubhouse pals, and dinosaurs.  Jones says, "saurus" and "dinosaurus" and I just about die because it's so cute.  He gets that from watching the Dinosaur Train.  He loves for me to get one of the dog's stuffed dragon toys (they do resemble dinosaurs, I guess) and chase him with it, saying, "Roar!"  Then he gets it and runs after me or the dogs and he says, "Roar!".  He loves to identify animals and the noises they make, and he loves to identify shapes - the shape sorter has become a favorite toy this month.  He's really pretty good at it, in my opinion:  he knows circle, square, triangle, heart, diamond, oval, and he knows what a hexagon is, although it comes out pretty garbled when he says it.  He loves to draw with crayons, although he would really love to draw with an ink pen.

• Loves for you to blow bubbles, and loves to attempt to blow bubbles on his own.
• Loves for you to read to him.  We usually go through all of his favorite books over the course of the evening, with him bringing them to you to read to him, one by one.  He still loves Moo, Baa, La La La and two new favorites this month are Goodnight Moon (this replaced Good Night, Baby for the simple, expedient reason that we cannot currently locate Good Night, Baby) and Little Blue Truck Goes to the City.  Again, Alan and I have all of these pretty well memorized.  I can even recite them in the car, if the situation calls for it.  Alan is always reading the Colors book to him, because he's concerned that Jones can't see colors.  He can identify all of the color examples ("What's that?"  "A pumpkin"; "What're those?"  "Crayons!") in the book, but if you ask him what color those examples are, he rarely answers you.  He usually just gets this look on his face and says, "colors" instead of telling you the color of whatever it is you're pointing at in the book.

• Can count to five like a champ, and does pretty well with counting to 10, but he's not as consistent.
• Has gotten so much better at brushing his teeth.  I still do most of it, but he cooperates with me now so that makes it much easier, and less of a chore.  I don't know how many teeth he has - I don't think they're all in yet, to be honest, but I couldn't tell you that for sure.
• Is busy - the child is in constant motion.  The other day I was signing him in at school and he was sitting on the ledge of the sign-in place, swinging his feet and kicking the wall.  I grabbed his legs and gave him a look and he grinned at me and stopped.  One of the teachers said, "Is he always busy?"  Ha!  He runs through the house, often for no reason at all other than he loves to run.  I guess that's why his sneakers are his favorite shoes :o).  He climbs out of chairs only to turn around and climb back onto them (this wears me out, because he oftentimes needs help, and I'll just get him back on the chair when he crawls down again and then immediately starts trying to climb back up on it, so it's a constant battle).

An example of busy-ness!  He knows how to slide the cover back to get to the keys,
and he loves to sit there and bang on the piano.

• Is excited that the weather is warming up because he looooooves being outside!
• Sleeps through the night from nine 'til seven, regularly, for which we are very thankful.
• Is our big boy, and our baby, and our joy!