Long Time No Write

So...I'm a little behind.  Okay, a lot behind with this blog!  I have no excuse except that I'm a busy woman with these two kids!  Plus, when I get behind in blog world, I easily get overwhelmed and then don't want to work on the blog at all.  It's a vicious cycle, I know.  I'll try to get better, I promise.  ;)  

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, let's get to it!  Instead of trying to write an individual post about everything that has happened since March, I'm going to do a quick synopsis.  If I leave anything or anyone out, I'm sorry.  Like I said, "quick" synopsis.  

Over the past four months, we were busy....

 ...playing with Daddy!  Playing video games is one of Michael's pastimes, so we had to come up with a way for Joey to "play" too.  We just gave the kid an unattached controller while Michael had a connected controller.  Worked perfectly!  Michael got to play his game and Joey thought he was playing too!  Thank you Pinterest! 

...celebrating St. Patrick's day by wearing green.  That's it.  No big hoop-la.  No drinking festivities.  *sigh*  I miss the good 'ol days sometimes. 

...celebrating Easter with lots of egg hunts, visit with the giant bunny, Easter dinner with some good friends, Michael left for dog school, and a house fumigation!!  Fun times!  

...getting B off of the boob and onto the bottle.  She gave it up with no problems at all!  I was a little sad when Joey weaned, but I had no hang-ups at all this time.  All I had to say during this, was "FREEDOM!!!"

...trying new foods and places in Southern California.  We went strawberry and blueberry picking which the kids both loved.  

...catching up with lots of friends and family!  We went to North Carolina for six weeks to spend more time with Michael while he was in school, go to some weddings, and just visit with our loved ones.  Joey and Bristol loved getting to see their first cousins, Emma and Evan.  

 ...getting to see one of my longtime college friends tie the knot!  

...celebrating Daddy's birthday!  

...sightseeing in NC!  Who knew that dinosaurs currently live in North Carolina AND let you ride them?!?!  

...celebrating Joey's 3rd Birthday with a big party, a trip to the zoo, and then a family party!  He is not spoiled one bit. 

...sleeping and swimming with girls!  Yikes!  No worries, though...this little lady is his sister from a different mister (and mother!).  :)

...spending lots of quality time with some very important mothers in my life on Mother's Day!  (Aunt Dolly is with us, she's just taking the pic).  We had a nice breakfast with everyone and then a movie out for my Mom and me!  So nice!

...enjoying the amazing comfort food of the South!  Mmm, NC BBQ and sweet tea!  

...catching up with a lot of great friends and welcoming in a pretty awesome lady to the family!

...going to the kid's first baseball game!  They both loved it!  I think they liked all of the junk food we let them eat versus the San Diego Padres get whooped up on! 

...camping in the San Bernardino National Forest.  Beautiful spot that was only a couple of hours from our house.  We had a lot of fun, until B woke up at midnight and cried until 4 in the morning.  Yes, you read that right.  4 straight hours of crying.  It was awesome.  We even put her in the car seat and drove around for a little while hoping that she would pass out.  Yeah, that didn't work, so we threw everything in the van and left the campsite at 4 AM!  We got home around 6 AM and we all crashed!  We haven't tried camping again, but are thinking about trying it next month.  

...graduating Mommy and Me!  This has been such a great program that we are so glad we have been able to be involved in!  

...celebrating Father's Day!  The kids made Michael homemade cards, which he received early because Joey couldn't keep a secret, and a lunch of crabs! This lunch was also where Joey had one of his worst public tantrums to date.  It really was a doozey and we ended fleeing the restaurant before we were asked to leave.  Ugh.  I love three year olds.  

...climbing and doing tricks.  B has become super mobile and acrobatic.  She really does get herself into some interesting positions.  

...graduating swim level 1!!  Woohoo!!  Last year, we tried swim lessons for Joey and we had to quit on day 2.  This year, he flipped out on day 2, but then was fine for the next 6 classes.  Three year old=Bipolar.  

  

...getting into lots and lots of trouble!  Did I mention Bristol is a climber?!!?  I foresee lots of trips to the E.R. with this one.  

...celebrating Bristol's first birthday!  Since most of her friends are 3 year olds, we rented a bounce house and got pizza.  It was a great party with great friends.  (I will post more about this later).

...just spending as much time as possible with each other.  Michael is getting ready to deploy again.  He's been gone for the past month, which has been a hard reality about how much this family is going to miss him during the actual deployment.  *sigh*  

Boo!

Happy belated Halloween! 

We were able to score a few pumpkins for this season.  Instead of carving them and dealing with a fight/tantrum for the knife with Joey, we decided to paint and glue our pumpkins!  This worked out great!  Gotta love Pinterest!

 We both liked the hand painting the best!

 I made Joey's costume this year.  I mean, spent days and days on this damn tiger costume.  

Just for Joey NOT to wear it to his class Halloween party!  He didn't want to wear any costume!  So frustrating!   Luckily, I was smart enough to throw this giraffe costume in the car so if he changed his mind.  As soon as he saw his classmates, he wanted that costume!  The above photo is Joey with his Mommy and Me teacher!  

Joey actually wasn't feeling too hot this day.  He started to run a fever later in the day, but I was determined to make him go trick or treating.  He, thankfully, wore his tiger costume and pushed through his crappy feelings to appease his momma!  :)   

 I thought for months about what B and I could be.  I knew I was going to wear her in the carrier, so I wanted to incorporate the carrier into my costume.  I came up with B being a monkey and me as a tree!  Freaking brilliant, if I do say so myself!  

Our entire family was actually a "date mate".  Michael was the zookeeper, Joey was the tiger, B was the the monkey, and I was her tree!  

We didn't trick or treat too long since Joey wasn't feeling up to speed, so when we got home, he helped hand out candy to "friends".  This was probably his favorite part of the entire evening!  Go figure!  

Theme Park Testers

Since Michael has been home, he's had a lot of much deserved time off of work.  With all of this time off, we've taken advantage of all the theme/family park/farms in our area!  We should start mystery shopping these places and get paid!  Ha! 

We checked out Pumpkin City...a pumpkin picking/festival in the mall parking lot.  This is where Joey's fascination with feeding pigs began! 

 Next stop, San Diego Zoo.  Joey made sure to tell me when we needed to take pictures!

Then, it was the Aquarium of the Pacific.  Joey thought this penguin over his head was pretty cool! 

The cool thing about this visit was that we visited it on Michael's pre-deployment leave.  We've come full circle, haven't we?  :) 

Luckily, B has been a real trooper during all of this gallivanting!  She probably loves it because she gets 100% cuddle time with mommy!   

We checked out a real pumpkin farm too!  Joey got to feed lots of farm animals, as well as... 

 ride on a hayride!

 Of course, we had to hit up Sea World.  Joey was a great park navigator!

I have personal moral issues with Sea World (watch "The Cove", you'll get it), but the two boys in my family don't care about that and want to see their dolphins and sharks.  At least we get in free, so I know that I'm not giving Sea World any of my money.  I know that doesn't help the matter that much, but it's what I tell myself.  *sigh*

Since we've been checking out all of these super crowded places, we bought another Ergo baby carrier.  This has been awesome!  No stroller to worry about.  Easy to get through crowds.  Score all of the way around!   

We then checked out the San Diego Wild Animal Safari Park.   

Then, we headed up north to the San Francisco area to visit some of my family.  While we were up there we checked out Six Flags.  This was a lot of fun and we definitely want to go back!  Joey rode his first ride there and he LOVED it!  I did a bungee cord ride with my cousin and Joey was so excited to see me flying through the air!  I may have a fellow roller coaster rider/thrill seeker in my future!  Woo hoo!  

 We also checked out the California Academy of Sciences.  This place was great!  It's a museum/aquarium/mini zoo/planetarium all rolled into one!  

To wrap up our parks tour, we went to the San Diego Zoo one more time.  This time we went with some friends/neighbors of ours.  This little lady and Joey are pretty good friends and it was so cute to see them together!  

Even though all of these park tours were loads of fun, I think we have spoiled Joey.  Now, when he wakes up in the morning, he requests to "feed pigs" or "see dolphins" or "see Orca whales"!  There's no living with this kid now!  

Joe-Mama

Man, I haven't solely blogged about Joey in awhile!  Since I'm not doing the monthly updates on him, I haven't really updated all of you on his development.  Well, let's make up for some lost time, shall we? 

Joey's vocabulary is amazing!  He is saying new words and longer sentences every day.  I read somewhere that toddlers can learn 6-8 new words a day.  6-8?!?!  Time to pull out the dictionary and increase this boy's vocab!

With that being said, Michael and I seriously need to watch what we say.  Joey says the word "shit".  When he stubs his toe.  When he drops something.  When he makes a mistake.  Oh well.  At least he uses it in context!

Joey is really using his brain to put things together now.  When you ask him questions, you can see him actually think about your question and his response.  It is so cool to see him actually thinking during our conversations.

He remembers so much more now.   Every night before bed, we go over what he did that day.  Now, he's telling me stuff he did that day, or days, before!  It's so crazy to see how quickly his memory is kicking into gear.  However, I need to remind myself of this when I make empty bribes/promises to get him to do something!  

Joey is still obsessed with animals, especially feeding pigs.  Since we have attended a few fall farm events, J has been able to feed a lot of pigs.  He now thinks he is a pig farmer.  As long as he's not a pig truck driver, we're doing good!  ;)  (that is an inside joke...no offense to pig truck drivers!)

Joey got an upgrade with his ride.  Thanks to all our of friends and family, we were able to score a used double BOB stroller.  If you don't use strollers, then you probably have no clue who BOB is and what's so special about him.  Well, my friends, BOBs are some of the best strollers you can buy.  They maneuver so easily.  I was pretty pumped when I found this one on Craigslist and it was the same amount of money as we were given as gifts!  Thanks friends and family!  You guys are AWESOME!

Joey is so friendly and outgoing!  He requests, I mean, demands to see his "friends" as soon as he wakes up from naps.  When he sees kids, he will run up to them, while yelling "Hi kids!".  I really hope he keeps that outgoing personality.  It will make life as a relocating military brat a little easier.  

However, he does have his shy moments.  He's actually been in a mommy phase the past few days.  I have no clue what has caused this, but as sweet as it was that first day, it's getting kind of old now.  He even tells Michael that he needs to go take care of Bristol so I can go read to him (before bed).  Michael's been following Joey's requests, but we decided no more of that.  I have to deal with Joey when he wants Daddy in the mornings and Michael has left for work, so Michael can deal with Joey when I am busy with Bristol.  

We upgraded Joey to a double bed, along with a whole new room decor.  His room is covered in dinosaurs, per his request.  Dino bedding set and wall decals!  He loves it!  So much that he won't nap in the car anymore.  He wants to go home to his bed.  It's kind of cool that he's like that, but it sucks when we're going to be in the car for a little and hoping for that car nap.  Those days are long gone.  

Joey is seriously trying to show off his growing independence with the word "No" and yelling.  When we ask Joey to do something that he doesn't want to do, he will yell "No" at us.  Or he'll tell us what to do in a yelling voice.  This is very frustrating as a parent, but I know it's part of the growing process.  However, we're not playing that game in this household.  I calmly, yet firmly, tell him that he does not yell at people and when he can talk to me in a normal voice, we will have a conversation.  

He's so smart.  He knows where things belong and how to do a lot of things.  We will find various toy tools in our decorative scarecrow's pockets, Bumble Bee transformer in time out, and coins in his pockets.  Makes me smile every time when I come across one of these things.  

Even though he is Mr. Independent, he still wants to be carried.  We actually purchased another Ergo baby carrier, so we could wear both kids.  This has actually helped out tremendously!  Joey gets to be carried and we don't have to worry about him darting away from us in super crowded Southern California!  

Joey is so inquisitive!  "What's that?" may be his favorite question.  Everything is so new and exciting to him.  It's really cool to be part of it all.  When we do anything with him, we try to explain it as we go.  No time like the present to get him trained!  

I must say that 2.5 years old is a very trying age, but it's fun at the same time.  Joey is still a toddler, but becoming such a little man at the same time.