Please and Thank you

I finally took a video of James signing please and thank you, so I thought I'd share!


Here is also a few new pics taken with my new camera. I'm still getting used to all the settings, so bear with me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More 19 month b-day pics

For some reason it didn't post these in the last post, so I thought I'd add them. Oh, and that grey phone you see him carrying around all the time? Yeah, he "stole" that from his cousins and LOVES that thing. He often even sleeps with it, it's a comfort object for him. The best part is the sound is broken so it still does stuff on the screen when you push the buttons but has no annoying sounds for mommy to have to listen to! Yay!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(That last one is him asking me to read him a book. Which I did.)

James is 19 months old!!

James is 19 months old today! We are celebrating by staying in and hunkering down since it's stormy and windy outside. James loves climbing onto the couch and watching the leaves blow down the street. :-)

James is getting more communicative, but not by traditional talking. Instead, he's picking up sign language left and right. Last night he learned how to use "please" and "thank you" after us only showing him once. AND, he used them in context without prompting (he said "please" for a cookie, then "thank you" after I gave it to him! Such a sweet boy.

We've been hanging out at home a lot because of the weather, which has given me some opportunities to practice using my new camera (a Canon Rebel T3, thanks to my family who gave it to me!). I am in NO way a great photographer, but it is nice to have a camera that shoots in low light and actually captures all of James's expressions. Before with my old camera, it took too long to autofocus and I'd miss a lot of great shots. So here are some of James's expressions and adventures. enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Method to his madness...

James has become very methodical recently. He likes to sit on the floor and put all his blocks in their storage box, then take them out and repeat. In the bath, we got him some foam letters that stick on the side of the tub (he played with them at his uncle and aunt's house and loved them). He loves to stick those ALL up on the wall, then pull them all down and start over. It's the first time I've seen him really concentrate on a task for a long period of time, he's usually on to the next thing in less than 60 seconds.

We're also working on getting James to drink from a regular cup (not a sippy cup). Today didn't go so well... we ended up with water all over the floor!

There is a childhood development specialist coming to evaluate James later this month just to see if he needs early intervention for his speech. If he does, they will work with him (and me) with specific play methods that help speech develop.

In the meantime, I've been enjoying James becoming more independent, knowing where to go when I tell him it's time to change his diaper, take a bath, etc so I don't have to carry him all the time. My little boy is growing up, it's hard to believe he's not a little baby anymore... but it's so fun to watch him learn new things and witness that "light bulb" moment when he figures new stuff out!

Here are a few pics from our recent activities:
Playing outside


James's new "chair" for watching Mickey when he's not feeling well

Trying on Daddy's slippers

Helping Daddy leave me a special birthday message

New potty chair (not training yet, just preparing)

Playing with lego duplos

Laptop sleeve I made this week

James NOT eating his food!


A video of James playing with his blocks:


And pulling his new truck from Grandma around the house!

Storytime

James's picture was in the paper (the Registar Guard) on December 30th, 2011. They published an article about the Eugene Library story time, and we happened to be there the day they were taking pics. James liked trying to touch the photographer's camera's buttons and running around the room. Here is the pic that is in the article (he is the one running away from the story lady, wearing a brown and orange striped shirt...sorry about the size of the photo not fitting in my frame on the blog here):


(Photography credits go to Kevin Clark at the Register Guard)


Here is a link to the article!

We enjoy going to story time every week and learning new rhymes, songs, and books.

Playtime!

Since Christmas, we've been enjoying playing with James around the house. We've also been taking him to the park since it's been warm (in the 60s some days!). Here are a few pics of playtime!