Goin' Green

It's official. We are now a one-car family.

Never mind that we've basically been one since we moved to Provo... Jay rides his bike to work when the weather's nice and likes to walk when it's not. We went in to get the oil changed in our "spare car" at the 3 month mark and realized that we had only driven the car 30 miles since the last one.

hahaha

So, even though it makes me slightly nervous, we decided it was time to save money and stop paying insurance on a car we don't use. I think we really started considering this when Jay got hit on the way home from work one day and since our car is old enough to drive itself, the damage was enough for the insurance company to consider it totaled. We still wanted to keep the car, until we realized we haven't driven it since the accident.

So today, we sold it. I have many great memories in this car. All the great looks you get for driving a pink automobile... especially when it was crammed full of guys from my department in grad school (for some reason, the few girls seemed to be the ones with the cars). I will never forget our spontaneous vacation to Reno, when the clutch gave out in the Sierra Nevadas on the way back to Salt Lake for my brother's wedding. (we had to stay over night in Reno so they could do a replacement.)

I'll never forget you Pinkerton.

Tight Spaces

It's funny. I remember always reading about how newborns love to be in tight spaces because it reminds them of the womb. Well, when they grow out of that?

The other day I just emptied The Frog's cloth-diaper bucket into the washing machine, and then when I returned through the kitchen this is what I found.


yeah, yuck.

He has also found a new favorite place to hide-out.


How funny would that be to go looking for a can of coconut milk and find this instead.


The funny thing is, when he decides he's had enough, he doesn't know how to get down.

He Speaks!

The Frog is finally big enough to climb up on chairs and sofas by himself! He often likes to sit in his rocking chair and "read". (Here he's reading Jack and the Beanstalk.)
The Frog has acquired quite the vocabulary this past month! One of his favorite words is probably "ogre" which he learned from a big book of fairy tales he loves to look at. I guess this picture made a big impression on him because every time he sees this book, he is not satisfied until he finds this picture:

The best part is, though, that he can't actually say "ogre". It sounds more like "lgolga" with some tongue clicking in there. Honestly, I can't even mimic it in person. I have no idea how he says it. Some other common words we hear are:

baby, mama, dada, cow, poo, go, boo, shoe, eye, no, nanie (Jay's mom), gi-gi (great grandma), ow, hello, bye-bye,

and some almost words are

(sorry, this is more for me to remember than to be interesting)

"chee" (cheese), "lie" (light), "lie" with a growl (lion), "dah" (dog), "tah" (cat), "she" (fish), "po" (hippo), "cha" (chair), "tah" (table), "babah" (apple), "na" (banana), "see" (cereal), "ee" (ear), "bow" (elbow), "no" (nose), "naw" (knot, like a knot in wood), "wah" (wall), "la" (water, who knows?), "la" (lid), "bow" (bowl), "soo" (spoon), "dow" (down), "pee" (plane), "cah" (car), "bah" (ball), "rah" (rabbit), "how" (horse), "go" (goat), "guh" (girl), "fah" (frog), "ow" (owl), "sah" (sock), "boo" (boot),

and probably others I'm not recalling. He recognizes almost all of his main body parts and soo many other common objects. He can even follow directions, like pick something up and bring it to me! (when he wants to) I just can't believe how suddenly this seemed to have come on! He also really loves to make animal noises, his favorites probably being monkey noises and "moo". His chicken is really funny: "ba ba ba ba".

Today he started saying "dadoo", for anything he doesn't know what to call. I'm trying to get him to change it to "doodad", because I think it would be funny and more accurate.

And finally, has also recently graduated from the high chair. Not because we feel he's big enough, but rather because he is too restless. He broke the buckle that holds him long ago (trying to get out before he should) and now as soon as we put him in, he tries to careen himself, head-first, to the tile floor. We decided it was more dangerous than helpful, and now he happily stands on a chair. (We can't get him to sit on a booster.)

In The Dark

The Frog really loves playing with a flashlight and I had a "brilliant" idea to try to get some "awesome" pictures of it. Turns out they were all pretty undistinguishable, but these two are my favorites. Can you tell what they are?

Happy Birthday Gi-Gi!

All the locals got together to celebrate my grandma's (and therefore The Frog's great grandma: Gi-gi) 87th birthday! Wow, what a feat! It was a little crazy having so many little ones at the restaurant, but it was really fun and I hope to make it a the tradition!

Happy Birthday Gi-gi!

Signing Success!

When I was pregnant with The Frog, I knew for sure I was going to jump on the baby sign-language band-wagon and started out very enthusiastically when he was still just 4 months old. After being fairly diligent with "more" and "milk" and "food" and "toilet" for probably a month, I realized that he wasn't even ever looking at my hands and it didn't seem to be getting in. Dejected, I gave up and luckily, he learned to point at what he wanted fairly quickly. I feel like that bridged the gap. However, though I nearly completely abandoned the food related signs, I still tried to always mention the toilet and make the sign when it seemed relevant... after all, MY son was going to be potty-trained by a year. ;) Though the potty-training didn't work out (he quickly grew to hate the toilet) I abandoned the training, but kept up the signing, and it has finally paid off.
As you can see (he can't quite make the T, so he just twists his fist) he has finally caught on and is telling me about the toilet on the cover of this book! Success!

Now if I could just get him to tell me when he needs to use it...

mini-post

I haven't been feeling very well the past few days- in fact, this is the first time I've even opened my computer in 3 days!! (wow! when is the last time THAT ever happened when not on vacation?)

I'm still not feeling great but I just wanted to quickly note a few things I want to remember:

1. yesterday was an eight-digit palindromic date!!

01 02 2010

thanks to my buddy C for pointing this out! :) I always love some good number-appreciation/recognition.

2. today, The Frog said his first double syllabic word!

"bubble"

way to go little man! I've been taking him to nursery at church, even though he's not quite old enough, (these are the benefits of living in an "old" ward) and at the end, while waiting for parents to come pick them up, they blow bubbles.

I can't believe how his vocabulary has expanded this past month! He mostly only says one syllable of the words he knows (besides bubble), but he also recognizes a lot of things he can't say. It's so fun to watch him catch on so quickly!

3. Happy New Year!

So whaddya think... will you say

two-thousand ten

or

twenty-ten

or

something else?

and how do we now refer to the decade we just finished? The 00s? We may have to just stick to, "that's soooo last decade".

Some camera experimentation and new years resolutions to come.