Easter 2012

Our Easter weekend began with a Pancake Breakfast at my childhood church with Mimi and Papa Steve.  So we began by eating pancakes.  Last year, Jack would eat some of the sausage; this year he wouldn't eat any of it.  No pancakes.  No sausage.  Anyway... afterwards we headed to Trinity Hall to wait for the Easter Egg Hunt to begin.

The Easter Bunny came into the room so kids could go up and give him a hug.  Jack was very unsure of this.  This is as close to the bunny as he would get.

This is Jack taking it all in.  There were lots of kids in the room and I think he gets a little overwhelmed with all of the noise and movement.

We had to get his Easter Basket in the picture

The egg hunt began and Jack was off...to a slow start.  It took him a little bit to get the idea that you wanted to put as many eggs in the basket as you could fit.

Jack picking up a basketball egg.  

Here is Jack eyeing his competition.  Not sure what to think about others picking up eggs that I'm sure Jack thought were "his".

Mimi and Jack are on a roll.  His basket is already full.

I'm watching and at some point I remember saying "mom, he has plenty of eggs" and she replied "so, that's not the point"  She was very competitive that day.  :)

Everything was going fine until this boy came into the picture.  Up until now, Jack had been in an area where no one else was.  Let me also preface this story to say that there were what seemed like thousands of eggs, plenty for each child to have more than enough.

Jack, after picking up the pink egg, has now noticed the boy.

I guess this boy got too close to Jack's territory. This is a "Mimi, that's my egg!" look on Jack's face. Also known as, Jack hasn't gotten the concept of sharing down.

We both try to tell him it's ok, he already has a lot of eggs and we are sharing.  Then this boy's grandma came over and gave Jack the egg the little boy had in his hand.  I'm sure she thought the little boy took it from Jack, but I tried to tell her it was ok.  Jack won't learn to share if he gets his way every time.

Easter Morning

I liked my table decorations so I thought I'd take a picture of it.  I didn't have any other Easter decorations out this year since our attic is stuffed and will be until I get out the old baby clothes/toys/gear for Kyle.

The Easter bunny came and brought Jack 12 mini Mickey Mouse books which he now loves.  This box has a handle and he loves to carry it around.  He also got a bubble blowing gun that lights up, two cute eggs with fruit snacks inside and a Big Bird and Abby to go with his Sesame Street house.  Funny story about Big Bird and Abby...Jack has had his Sesame Street house for so long now he does not feel like BB and Abby are allowed to play in the house.  Every time we try to put them in the house he takes them and throws them out.  Literally.  

Jack getting into his chair at the table and eyeing all of his goodies.

Jack loved the bubble machine.  We didn't realize how much soap would get on the floor once they popped.

Family Easter photo

We had lunch at KK and Papa's.  There they had a small egg hunt for the kiddos.  Jack got his own little area to hunt, otherwise the big kids would have gotten all of his eggs.

Jack showing KK all of his eggs that he found.

No More Thumb Sucking, Yay!

As we were eating lunch after church, I noticed Jack had what looked like a blister on his thumb.  I also noticed that it was red on either side of the blister and there was puss inside.  The other weird thing as you can kind of see on the picture below was the green dot in the middle.  We hadn't seen this earlier in the morning and no one had said anything about it when we picked him up from Sunday School, so I didn't think it had been there that long.  We decided since it was close to nap time we'd let him nap and see how he was doing afterwards.

Jack's nap was unsuccessful. I think it was because he couldn't put his thumb in his mouth (we had put a band-aid on his thumb) and he wasn't able to find anything to soothe himself to sleep.  I'm guessing it also hurt and he wasn't feeling well.  While he was laying in his crib, I decided to post the picture I took of his thumb on our Sunday School women's Facebook page.  I knew there were many nurses who could offer advice.  My main question was "should I take him today to a Care Now or wait to take him to the doctor tomorrow?"  One of our friends texted me and said it looked like it could be Staph and we should probably take him today just to be safe.

So we did.  They poked his blister and drained it which I think helped relieve some of the pressure.  The only time Jack cried was after they had poked it, when they squeezed alcohol on it.  They took a sample and about 4 days later confirmed it was RSVA, which is a form of Staph.  Before we left Care Now, they gave us an oral antibiotic and a cream to help clear up the infection.  For the next week or so we fully covered his thumb with a band-aid.  He moved from sucking his thumb to sucking his fingers for a few weeks but eventually that stopped and now is finger free!

You can see a big transition from his 17 months bear pictures to 22 months.  I would try so hard to get a picture without his thumb or fingers in his mouth and at 22 months his hands are no where near his face.

Spring has Sprung

Jack has had a busy spring.  Here are some of the things he has done.

Loves playing with his cousins- Jack is at an age now where he can play with his cousins.  This is awesome for me and Ben!  It means when we go over to KK and Papa's for lunch, we can let him down when he is done eating and he can go in the other room with the cousins and play with them.  We don't have to watch him like a hawk anymore.

Mommy and Cousin Ben's birthday celebration

Reading with Tessa

She counts the ladybugs, then Jack counts the lady bugs

Playing with Claire and Tessa, putting a large puzzle together

Wearing Papa's hat

All of the kids wearing Papa's hats

Playing Upstairs in his Playroom- 

I just wanted a picture of his cute outfit

Wrestling or riding horsey on daddy

Finger painting... He had fun but was literally "all done" in what had to have been less than a minute

I love how serious he looks when he is drawing

An Artist at work

Very focused

Loves his hats

A new thing- he loves to throw out all of the blocks which then gets scattered all over the room.  Then he likes to sing his clean up song and pick them up.  He started out singing "Kah-Kah, Kah-Kah"  but now he sings "Keen up Keen up, everybody Keen up!"

All cleaned up and back in the green bin.  Yay, we'll see how long this lasts

One of the things I think I've posted about in the past is that Jack loves to "do hands".  This would be standing on his stool and washing his hands.  Here Jack is imitating Swiper the Fox.

Out Door Fun - 

This is MY new favorite toy.  It is a car connected to a shopping cart at Tom Thumb.  This is the nicer Tom Thumb, farther away than ours but it is worth the drive.  This has made going shopping with Jack so much more bearable.  

Jack and Papa playing on Papa's tractor...little did we know that Papa would get Jack his own tractor for his birthday.

Swinging on Papa's swing.

Jack's preschool had a playground play date one afternoon.  Jack enjoyed showing me all of the things he plays with/on during "recess" time.  Don't let his expression fool you. There isn't anyone inside. Maybe playing make believe?

He walked right up to this and knew what to do

This is the slowest slide I've ever seen...no wonder he didn't ask to hold my hand

Although his face makes it look like this is the scariest slide

I couldn't believe he climbed up this  on his own.

Walking over the bridge by himself.  He was hesitant at first but when he did it once with my help then he was off.

This is Josh, Jack's very first friend.  Josh is in the younger class that Jack was in back in the fall.  Josh is the first name Jack would say when we asked him "who is your friend?"

Jack and Grandpa at the bottom of the hill.  First looking and pointing to the bunny, then heading up the hill to see something else.

Jack helping Mommy water the plants.  He loves to water the plants.  This just means he gets to go outside.

Getting ready to slide

Getting the mail from the mailbox

Walking in the park with Daddy.  Ben doesn't do this often so they were both a little hesitant and took a minute to get comfortable.

Relaxing Indoors-

I can always tell when Jack is worn out...when he pulls out his "bed" and lays on it.  He rarely does this so that's usually my signal.

Holding puppy while relaxing

This was another time he pulled out the bed.  I'm pretty sure he just wasn't feeling good on this day.  He's not even looking at the TV!

Here is Jack with a look of worry.  He is watching an episode of Dora where Dora's pet gerbil Memo is missing.  This upset Jack very much. 

Finishing the show on Mommy and Daddy's bed

This spring Jack has learned to enjoy getting his picture taken.  There were about 3 days in a row when he'd ask to get a picture with bear.  

Another day of picture taking with Bear

Here Jack is showing how carefully he studies his toys to figure out how they all work.  It's not the most interesting video but it was one of the times that Jack reminded me of my brother Danny.  Trying to see how it works.

Random picture but I thought it was cute that he got himself up on the ledge and was holding/balancing himself there...notice bear next to him...his favorite!

A new obsession- Mickey Mouse, actually it has now grown to Donald and Daisy Duck but here is Jack and one of the first times I started to realize he liked Mickey Mouse.  I have no idea where this started because we didn't have any MM books or watched the shows.