A Taste of Summer

Today was gorgeous! Jasper and I stayed home all day, and had such a nice day - I can't wait for summer! This morning I told Jasper that he was officially in charge of potty. I told him I wasn't going to make him go, that he was in charge of telling me when he had to go. About 5 minutes later, he told me and got there with not even a dribble. A few minutes after that he had to go again (this time, he told me he needed to sit down.) Again, no accident, and after we read Green Eggs and Ham TWICE, he was all done. He only had one actual accident and that was shortly after he got up from his nap. He seemed upset about it saying, "I got pee on my stool." (The stool he stands on to be tall enough for the big potty) The only other one was my fault (Note to self - when Jasper's in charge of the potty, don't dress him in shorts with a belt!)

That small potty success really set us up for a good day. We had a fun morning of chores and painting some pasta for a necklace. Then we packed a picnic lunch together and headed to the park, played on the playground and then ate. He wanted me to go down the slide after him and he stood at the bottom with his arms out to "catch" me. Jasper took a nice long afternoon nap (giving me time to get some things done) and then we had a snack, completed our pasta necklace and went back to the park. Daddy met us there and then we all went to McDonald's for supper. Then it was back home for movie night. We all watched Monsters, Inc. Jasper loved it. He got a little scared a couple of times, but overall he did great - he was even growling like a monster throughout! Bedtime was smooth - Josh read him the "Busy Body Book" which talks about all the body systems, etc. Jasper now flexes his muscles and says in a growling voice, "My muscles!" He also said excitedly, "Daddy, Daddy, my brain is in my head!" It was a good day.

Earth Day

To celebrate Earth Day, Jasper made a couple of tree crafts. He painted a small paper plate green (as well as his hands and the table) and painted a piece of cardboard that I cut for a trunk brown. We glued them together and now we have two trees hanging on his art hooks.

We also went outside and buried some old onions and potatoes to see if they'll sprout. ???? And we threw our fruit/vegetable scraps in the garden. Then we went on a nature treasure hunt. I made a list of things we could find in nature: an acorn, a stick, a leaf, a pine cone, a rock and a flower. I did my best to draw a picture of each. He only recognized the pine cone (which I thought was the hardest - go figure!) He found a few acorns, a couple pine cones, tons of leaves and then he got tired. All of the things he found are in his little wheelbarrow. When he wakes up from his nap, we'll probably go finish.

Tomorrow we plan to go to the library where they are giving away free trees.

Letter Sounds

Jasper knows the sounds to several of the letters! I had no idea he knew this, but yesterday on the way home from daycare (he was very upset because he wanted to stay at school and play)I got him to talk about his day and he kept bringing up a girl named Gabby. She's probably 4 or 5, and Jasper apparently likes her because he said he wanted to make her an orange heart with glitter when he got home. He said, "I want to write Gabby's name on it, Mommy." So as I was getting ready to tell him how to spell it, I decided to see if he knew the sounds. I said, "What letter makes the "guh" (not sure how you write out letter sounds) sound?" He said "G" I went on will A, B and Y and he knew them all! Later I did some others, he knew D, T, S, M, O and some others. He knew them both ways, by me saying the sound and he'd say the letter or by me saying the letter and he'd say the sound! I was AMAZED. I know that he learned it from a Leap Frog DVD "The Letter Factory" that we borrowed from the Hershbergers (so many weeks ago, I'm embarrassed to say!) I think we'll have to buy that one.

Jasper Makes Up a Song

Jasper is always singing. He knows several songs like "This Old Man," "Ring Around the Rosie," "Three Blind Mice," "I Love You, You Love Me," "Jesus Loves Me," "Skip to My Lou," "The Wheels on the Bus," the theme song to Wonder Pets and a few others. But he is also always making up words to his own songs. On the way back from the zoo he starting singing a VERY long song, so I tried to capture it on video. It's a little wobbly and long, but it's so cute. At the end he starts whispering, like he knows someone is watching...

Jasper and the Lawn Mower

Jasper has taken a couple of rides on our new lawnmower. He's a bit concerned of the loud noise it makes, but is thoroughly excited when Daddy goes fast! Josh had to put some gas in the mower, and was kind of checking it out, and Jasper starting looking underneath and under the hood like he know what he was doing. He said, "Daddy, my tractor is broken!" Then he said, "I fix it!"

Jasper's First Trip to the Zoo

We went to the Potowatomi Zoo on Saturday. We bought a membership for the summer, so we went to check it out for the first time. Jasper had a great time. He really liked the lions after he got over the initial scare of their loud roar. He also enjoyed feeding the carp. He thought the monkeys were funny, too. It was such a beautiful day. We only stayed for about an hour and a half. It's nice since we can go back as many times as we want, we don't have to do everything in one day!

Googly Eyes

On Friday morning, Jasper and I made a sock puppet. Jasper was more interested in playing with the "googly" eyes than anything else! He glued (all by himself) to eyes and a "nose" on the lid of the container I keep some craft supplies in. He also glued a pipe cleaner smile that we made for the puppet. It was the first time he'd made an actual face out of anything. I thought it was pretty cute!

Broken Brakes

On Saturday we went to an auction and then to lunch. After lunch, the brakes in the truck were basically shot. Josh drove us home very slowly on the back roads with what was left of the brakes. Sunday evening, Josh was able to find the leak in the brake line. We took the truck to the shop yesterday morning and dealt with only having one vehicle for the past two days. Luckily the brake line is now repaired (as well as the exhaust pipe that had been nearly dragging the ground) and all for $169. I was pretty happy with that. Now we're back to two vehicles, well three for tonight as I still have my rental car that I drove to Ft. Wayne for work today. Jasper and I are meeting Grandma Cathy in Plymouth tomorrow to return it and she's going to bring us back home.

Oops! Mommy Said a Bad Word

Tonight, Jasper asked for a bite of my red Jell-O. I started to give him a bite and at the last second he tried to grab the spoon. The red Jell-O fell on the carpet (yes, I know, I shouldn't have been eating in the living room!) Without thinking I muttered the "potty mouth" version of 'Darn it!' Jasper immediately repeated in an exuberant voice "darn" it, "darn" it, "darn" it. Josh and I knew we shouldn't laugh, but it was so hard not to, so we were both doing the silent laugh where we were shaking and not making any noise. Jasper just kept on. The worst part of it, is that I'm always telling Josh to watch his mouth because Jasper's going to start repeating him. It's not happened until now - until it was me! Eventually, his "darn" it's sounded a lot more like "Jammer" so that's what I'll say from now on!

A Wonderful Easter

We had a wonderful Easter this year. It started out with Jasper getting his Easter wheelbarrow. (I opted for this instead of a basket) It was filled with some small toys and several candy-filled easter eggs. He overlooked the toys and went straight for the eggs. We headed to church for the Easter egg hunt before the service. We were a couple minutes late so the stampede of kids had pretty much found all of the eggs. Some nice parents hid a few of their kids eggs and Jasper had a blast finding them. Then there was a cute craft for all of the kids. It was a cross and you could decorate the base with flowers, but Jasper decided his cross needed eyes and hands instead.

We had a beautiful Easter worship service with some incredible piano/organ and choir music. We sang a lot more hymns than usual, and I loved it!


After church we headed to Peru. We stopped at Grandma Lena's for Josh to change his chocolate stained shirt (just a little of Jasper's Easter candy...) and got to spend some time with her and my parents and brother who stopped by to pick her up.

Then we headed to the Siding for a FANTASTIC Easter buffet with Josh's family. It was fun to see everyone, and Jasper loved seeing Grandma Doody (his new name for Judy), Papa Jack, Great-Grandma Marilyn, Great Aunt and Uncle Fretz and all of his cousins. After lunch, Josh's Aunt Kelly, Uncle Kevin and their kids, Skylar and Carter went back to Grandma Marilyn's with us. Jasper and Carter had a great time playing. Carter told me he was, "teaching Jasper some bad habits." It was soo cute. We got home around 7 p.m. and were pretty worn out, but in a good way.

A Much Needed Nap!

Jasper is fast asleep - thank goodness! He's had some rough patches these past 24 hours! I didn't get to pick him up from daycare until 6 last night because of a very busy day at work. When I got there he acted strange, and at home he threw a huge tantrum and was crying uncontrollably. I finally got him to calm down by holding him really tightly. I asked what was wrong and if something had happened at school. He told me that another boy had pushed him. When I asked him where it happened (meaning during class, gymtime or naptime) he said, "in my head." He then said it was at naptime and that his teacher was there. After he told me about it, he was ok the rest of the night. I'll be talking to daycare about this Monday morning (unfortunately they're closed today so I couldn't bring it their attention today.)

He was up once in the middle of the night for about half and hour and up for good at 6 this morning. I could tell he was tired all morning because he was very whiny and would have occasional fits of crying. I asked him if he wanted to take an adventure with me to the basement (I needed to find a dress shirt in the next size up for Sunday.) and he got excited! He wanted to wear his snow boots and his paint shirt for the adventure. Then he said, "I take an adventure then I take a nap."

He looked for animals in our basement adventure and said he found one (though I hope there aren't any down there!) He was in a much better mood after that and fell asleep in the car on the way back from Dollar General.

Jasper Reads a Bedtime Story

A couple nights ago, Jasper read US a bedtime story. He climbed up into his rocking chair and picked out an ABC book. He started "reading" to us by explaining what was in the pictures. He turned pages and had the cutest inflections as he was "reading." When he was done he said, "The End!" He "read" three books. He finally let us read him one before bed.

Our Garden

While watching Jasper's cartoons, we learned about composting. We decided to give it a try, so Josh researched some compost bins and planned to build one. Last weekend, we found out that my grandparents have one they are going to give us. So, we've moved on to the next project - the raised-bed garden. Josh built it last weekend and we put down cardboard first (as a weed barrier that will decompose) then a layer of leaves and grass clippings. We are going to throw our vegetable peelings in there until we pick up the compost bin. Jasper's pet snake is now at home in the garden!

Last night we went and got a load of topsoil. Josh shoveled it in and Jasper played in it! We plan to mix in some manure (the kind you get in bags at the store) and then some more yard waste and then top it with more topsoil. Hope we get some good veggies this year!

Jasper's Pet Snake

Jasper got a game in his kid's meal at Arby's last week. One of the cards had the question, "Would you rather have a pet snake or a pet pig." Without hesitation, Jasper said, "Pet nake!" Since then he's been talking about his pet 'nake' and how it lives in his garden (pronounced ga'den.) We asked him what color his pet snake was, and he said it was green with blue stripes. When we went to Wal-mart last, we found him a "pet" snake that happened to be green with blue stripes. He runs around with it pretending it's eating things, and he likes to have us pull on it's tail while he walks in the other direction and then laughs when we let go and it springs back to him.

The Easter Story

I've been telling Jasper the Easter story as we've been working on some Easter crafts this week. (He made an easter egg and a cross suncatcher and we tried a bunny today, but he basically painted the entire face white.)

It's so cute when I tell the story now, because he will fill in the blanks. He know that Jesus rode on a donkey and that the people said Hosanna as they waved 'big leaves'. He can identify a cross (though I didn't go into a lot of detail about this part.) He knows that after they put Jesus in a 'cave' they put a big rock in front of the door. He knows that when Jesus' friends came, that Jesus was gone because he was alive. At this point, Jasper says, "He is 'wisen'!" Then he knows that Jesus went into heaven. This morning when we got to this part, he said, "I want go to heaven now. I want go to heaven with Mommy and Daddy." It was so sweet, and I tried to explain that we will all go to heaven someday, but not today.

Chuck E Cheese's

On Saturday, we all went to Peru to visit with some of Jasper's Great-Grandparents. At the first stop, Great Grandma June and Pa pa Pete we also got to see cousin, Ada. Jasper enjoyed playing with his little cousin who turns one TODAY!

While Mommy and Grandma June went to a play, Daddy and Jasper met Jeremy and Kiley Binkerd at Chuck E Cheese's in Kokomo. Jasper had fun, but Daddy was unsure! He had to carry drinks and the potty bag and try to keep track of Jasper all at once. Jasper's been talking about the trip ever since. On Sunday he was chattering in the car, and I was having a hard time understanding him. I said, "Jasper, did you say you want to talk to Jesus?" He said (louder this time,) "NO, I want go to Chuck E Cheese's!" A couple days later, Jasper said, "I want go to Chuck E Cheese's later, Mommy." I said, "Maybe we can go sometime later." Then he said, "It be later in the mornin'." Just yesterday he was telling me how Daddy helped him put the coins in at Chuck E Cheese's so they could play games. Chuck E Cheese made quite an impression!

After the big outing, Daddy and Jasper met Mommy back at Great-Grandma Lena's house for dinner and some quality play time. It was a fun day! We will see Jasper's other Great-Grandma on Easter Sunday!