Have you seen my keys?

James has a new key fettish. Each morning, he looks for my purse and steals my keys so that he can go around the apartment and unlock all the cupboards and doors. Anything that looks like a keyhole, he is sure to put the key into. Luckily he's only tried to put the key into a socket once and we caught him before he could actually succeed. I think we scared him so much that he doesn't even want to try it again. I think the funniest place he's tried to "unlock" is his bellybutton.

Our California Adventures: Days 5 and 6

Our Saturday was spent lounging around for most of the day and recovering from all the excitement and fun from the last four days. James went over and hung out with Aunt Jill and her kids while Mavis and I went to the Saturday Night session of Stake Conference. I was a little worried because he's never done very well with a baby sitter, but he loved being with his cousins so much that he didn't cry at all while I was gone. Sunday was a disaster at Stake Conference because James kept walking away or screaming at the top of his lungs or both. But we made it through and maybe he tired himself out screaming so much in Church that it enabled him to be good on both legs of our trip home on the plane. He was thrilled to see Paul again and he didn't want me to hold him for the rest of the night after we got home. Hurray for being home again! But thank you, Mavis, for giving us such a great trip out to California. It was so good to see you and hang out!

Our California Adventures: Day 4

Another amazing day was planned for us in California. This time, we drove about 45 minutes north of Monterey to the city of Gilroy where we enjoyed an amusement park called Gilroy Gardens. It's set agains some beautiful hills and is full of all sorts of trees and flowers (hence the garden part of the name). Most of the rides are geared toward younger children and I wasn't sure how James was going to react to them because it was his first time on a ride by himself. This picture opitomizes how he felt about the first ride. I'll admit, it was a little fast and up-and-down to be his first ride. I guess I'll live and learn. Everyone who was waiting for their children had to laugh every time James came around because he was the only one not thoroughly enjoying himself/herself.


I decided to try one more ride and thank goodness our next attempt at an amusement park ride went much better. He has really fallen in love with fire trucks, so he enjoyed just going around and around in his own little fire truck. And I was grateful that the whole day wasn't filled with me trying to entertain James while my nieces and nephews went on the rides.


This was James' favorite ride by himself. It was pretty much the same as the fire truck ride except that you could turn the steering wheel and you would move closer to the middle and then further away.



James and I enjoyed riding the ferris wheel 3 times with my niece, Lily. She had fun going up and down and seeing the world from the top. It really was a beautiful view.




They had the biggest set of jungle gym equipment I've seen in a long time and James loved going up and down the stairs and across the bridge that moves and turning the x's and o's. Oh and did I mention that he loves to go down the slide and then climb back up it and then slide down. I tried my darndest to get him to go up the stairs and not the slide, but eventually I got tired of having to take him off of it. Lucky for me he really enjoyed a twin slide so if a child wanted to go down, there was always the one next to James that they could use. :)

I don't have a picture of it, but my sister in-law, Jill, and I went on the roller coaster 3 times. (We probably would have gone more, but they closed all the rides down for the day after our third time). It wasn't the most thrilling one I've ever been on (because it was geared for younger kids like 10-12 year olds) but it served its purpose of giving Jill and me a break from watching our kids for a few minutes. My mother in-law and Kaia were sweet enough to watch them while we let the kids in us out and whooped and hollered with our hands up in the air. :)

Our California Adventures: Day 3

Grandma was pretty tired after two full days of fun and adventure, so we went to My Museum (a children's museum in Monterey) to give Grandma a bit of a break. James had oodles of fun running around the whole museum checking out all there was to see. He and his cousin Henry (as seen in the picture below) had fun doing this slide in the baby area.


There was an entire area devoted to produce where there was a "garden" with wood vegetables stuck in Styrofoam so that they could "pick" fruit and vegetables. James loved pulling up the carrots. :)

James and Henry loved playing in the grapes casket together where you can "stomp" grapes to make wine. They loved seeing how many pounds of grapes they had stomped.


During this trip, James has had the opportunity to learn how to go down slides better. I laughed so hard while I was taking this video of him.



Since he began to walk, James has loved going up and down stairs. I'm not sure what it is that he loves about it, but he could do it for hours. This was a great staircase for him to learn on because the banisters were perfectly spaced and just short enough for him to use.

Our California Adventures: Day 2

Grandma had another awesome day planned for us at the Monterey County Fair. I was really excited that James was old enough to do the Pony Ride this year. Because we go and visit the horses here in Tucson, he was really excited when he saw them and he loved the whole ride. (Although he was distracted for a few moments by some balloons that were by the ride).


There was a kiddie spot where they had some fun things to build with and James loved to carry them around. (For those of you who remember Tinker Toys, they were exactly like that except bigger.)


The fair itself was pretty big and they had lots of big kid rides and little kids rides. The train ride was James' favorite!


My niece, Kaia, was there as well and she wanted to go on some of the big kid rides, but was a little afraid to go herself, so I rode some of those rides with her. It's been a long time since I have been on any carnival rides, so it was lots of fun for me too.

Our California Adventures: Day 1

Last Sunday, my mother in-law called me and said, "I found a ticket for a great price from Tucson to San Jose tomorrow. How would you like to come and visit?" I said yes (of course) and James and I flew out Monday to California. We didn't get to Grandma's house until late in the evening, so we pretty much just rested an hour and then went to bed. Grandma had a wonderful day at the aquarium planned for Tuesday. I was a little worried about how James would like the aquarium, but he loved all the little kids areas they have there.

The otter exhibit was fun, but there were too many people there for James to see the actual otters, but he loved this kids' exhibit where you push the button and the otter goes around and around. He pushed it for seriously five minutes.


James was enthralled by the the little shrimp. I think his favorite exhibit was the sardines. The exhibit is up above your head in a dome and they just swim around and around. He LOVED them!
My personal favorite exhibit were these little...umm...actually I'm not sure what they are, but aren't they neat? They're like a mix between worms and eels.


We spent about 2-2 1/2 hours at the aquarium and as evidenced by the following picture, James was ready to go by the end. It was past his nap time and it was lunch time, so the fit was pretty understandable.

First Haircut

James has always been a little challenged when it came to growing hair. He was born with a pretty good amount, but it soon fell out and it's taken until now for it to be long enough to cut. I didn't do an extensive haircut, but it was starting to look like a mullet in back, so I just trimmed it a little to help it have a more boy look.

Animal Sounds

While waiting for Paul to come out of work one day, I was trying to get James to do all the animal sounds he knows. I didn't quite get them all because he was distracted by the people who were getting into their car in front of us, but here are a few of them. My personal favorite is the cat.