The Sandcastle: Jefferson's 2nd Birthday!

Jefferson is 2. TWO!!! Can it really be real? I mean, I've had a few weeks to let it sink in, but it still is amazing to me that it was over two years ago that I was so ready to have my baby. The time has just been a blink, but it's been a blink with so many wonderful memories of our baby Jefferson.

Now he's such a big boy, SO independent and talkative. He entertains us every day with things he says and does. A few things I wanted to share:

"Com-bi-com-bi-kine" This is a phrase he decided to start using when he couldn't come up with a good comeback. For example, I would say something like, "Jeff that's your sandwich." And he would say, "No....uh....com-bi-com-bi-kine." It's probably funnier when you hear it yourself, and now he actually uses other made up phrases too, but this was the one he used consistently for a while
"Good boy, Mommy" Jeff hears me give him praise pretty often when he does a good job, and I say, "Good boy, Jeff," so one day when I did something he liked with his Play Dough, he said with perfect upbeat positive inflection, "Good boy, Mommy!!"
"My-ranus" Jeff has several different placemats that we use on the table. One of them has the solar system on it. We were naming off the planets and he was repeating the names and pointing to them. When we got to Uranus, he repeated it: "MYranus." Kirb and I about fell off our chairs laughing.
"Be a good boy and have M&Ms and watch Wiggle Party" Jeff was having a little bit of a hard time for a couple weeks being a good boy. He wasn't terrible, but just acting out and time outs just weren't doing the trick. I decided to have a reward if he could get through the day without getting a time out. So if he started to get to the point that I could tell he was about to go over the edge, I would say, "Remember Jeff, you have to be a good boy so you can have M&Ms and watch Wiggle Party." And he would repeat that and usually just about instantly decide to do the right thing. The funny thing was, he didn't actually care about getting the reward at the end of the day, but it was something that motivated him to be a good boy. :) And it was cute because he would catch himself sometimes. All I would have to say is his name and then he'd repeat the phrase and do the right thing. (well, most the time) :)
Mommy's "morning" sickness: I wasn't sick AT ALL when I was pregnant with Jeff, but this pregnancy I have been pretty sick. I mean, it's not terrible, but right now, I usually get sick several times a day. Each episode doesn't last very long, and mostly Jeff hasn't been there to see it. But the other day, he followed me into my bathroom and there wasn't much I could do. I thought he might be a little scared, it's not the nicest sound in the world. Thankfully, he kind of just got this little smile on his face, and then said, "You sick?Do it again, Mommy!" and then imitated me leaning over the toilet. Kind of hilarious. :)

Anyway, there are so many more stories, but there's a taste for you.

We got to travel to SD for my brother Brent's wedding. We got there in time for Jeff's birthday, and his Gramma and Grampa Sand hosted a huge birthday party for him. There were about 50 people there, and we had lots of food and fun. Jeff was SO cute opening his presents, just getting so excited about each one, and playing with everything. He was just full of joy and it was a lot of fun! Here are a few photos, I didn't take enough that day, but oh well.

Driving Grampa's mower