My Baby TJ

Except he's not a baby anymore. He will be 2 in about 5 months and I can't believe it. Time really does just keep getting faster and faster. In the moment it seems long, but then you look back at the years and realize how quickly they go by. There are so many things I can say about this little boy. He is such a smiley, happy boy. It definitely didn't start out that way. We dealt with a lot of colic from him as a baby. He still loves his blanket and thumb. He is starting to transition to 1 nap a day instead of the 2. He shares a room with Camo and they both sleep great through the night. TJ loves to talk. We started noticing him jabber a lot over Christmas in Texas. Now we are starting to understand a lot of words he is saying. Some of his favorites are cool cars, ready set go, one two three, eggs, water, cereal(with all 3 syllables), Camo, daddy, mommy, bebe(blanket), penguin, doggie, kitty kat, go, bite, and train. I could probably go on and on. This kids vocabulary is unbelievable. He absolutely loves his daddy. Whenever J gets home from work he runs to the door yelling daddy and lifts his arms up. TJ does have a cranky side to him. He likes to throw tantrums which we didn't deal with as much with Camo. I guess it just means he will be determined. He can be a picky eater at times. One day he will eat something and the next day he won't even take a bite of it. Some of his favorite foods are french fries, applesauce, yogurt, noodles, cheese, and believe it or not I fed him mushrooms the other day and he was gobbling them down. He doesn't like driving in the car for very long. He loves being outside. He is always saying outside, outside. He loves to dance and our family has dance parties quite frequently. TJ also likes to read. He will grab a book and sit right down on my lap and yell read.  TJ also adores Camo. If Camo is reading books Turner will sit down right next to him and read books. If Camo is playing cars TJ is right next to him doing the same. We love you TJ!!!

Merry Christmas

I love Christmas! J doesn't feel the same. I told him now that we have our new house we are going to start some really fun traditions. Christmas will soon be his favorite holiday. This year we had the opportunity to go to Texas to visit my parents and two brother's and their families. I was there for about 2 1/2 weeks and J came for a week in the middle. There wasn't a day that I or the boys were ready to come back home. We had a blast. We had a few warm days while we were there which was a nice change from the cold Oregon weather.

One of the days we went to Sea World with my parents, brother and his little girl. It was so much fun. I think our favorite was the walrus show. It was so funny and those animals are fat!!! According to Camo we can only say fat if we are talking about an animal.  The shows were all really fun, but I think Camo's favorite part was all the kiddie rides. He loves any kind of amusement park. There was also a baby Shamu that was only about 15 days old. That was really fun to see.

We also went to a place called Morgan's Wonderland. It was a park that was specifically built for children with disabilities. Though it was built for disabled children, anybody was welcome to spend the day there. There were swings that you could attach wheelchairs too as well as all the playground structures having ramps for wheelchairs. It was really fun for the boys. I think Camo's favorite part was being able to drive the cars. There were a lot of other activities like fishing, a petting zoo(TJ is obsessed with any kind of animal), carousel, and a train to name a few.

I also had the chance to visit one of my best friends from high school. We were able to go to lunch with her. It was so fun catching up. Every time I see her it feels like we just pick right up where we left off. We had an awesome visit. My boys were a little wild at times, but I was still able to visit.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is looking at Christmas lights. Something about them is so magical and I look forward to them every year. My parents neighborhood did not disappoint. I couldn't believe how many lights were on some of these houses. We also went to a neighborhood that is specifically well known for awesome Christmas lights. We originally went on Christmas eve, then realized that was a bad choice and then went back a few days later. There were a lot less cars. Christmas eve and day were also really fun. We went to my brother's house for Christmas eve soup and then had Christmas at my parents house the next morning. Camo's favorite present was Pop the Pig. He loves that game and we have played it many times since Christmas.

In J's opinion, going to  The Incredible Pizza Company was probably the highlight of the whole trip. It really was a fun day spending it in an all you can eat buffet plus an awesome arcade room with go carts as well. Camo and J went on the go carts together and they were loving it. I liked the games of course. I think deep down I have a gambling personality. It's probably a good thing the church teaches us to stay away from gambling. Ha. I would probably have no money. It's okay to gamble with a few arcade games right!?

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation and Camo is still begging to go back to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Maybe I can convince J to go there during the summer one of these years. He thinks it is way to hot in the summer which is why we always plan Christmas vacations.

Pumpkin Patch

We heard a lot of great things about Bauman Farms so we decided to go there to pick out our pumpkins. It was a great pumpkin patch, but extremely busy. We did go on a Saturday which might explain why it was so crowded.  The only thing we had time to do was ride the tractor after we picked out our pumpkins.  TJ was especially excited when we got on the tractor.We also decided to try some of their donuts which we found to be a little disappointing. We really miss living so close to Lee's Farm. They have the best pumpkin donuts.

 After we got home, we decided to carve our pumpkins for Halloween. Camo has really enjoyed carving pumpkins every year. Of course we had to do a pirate pumpkin.

Halloween

I am super behind on my blog posts. We had an awesome Halloween this year.  It was really exciting to actually be in a house on Halloween. We had a lot of trick or treaters in our neighborhood. Apparently we live in a neighborhood that everyone likes to trick or treat in. I took the boys out while J stayed home to pass out the candy. When I got back with the boys, Camo had a blast handing out the candy to the trick or treater's. I think he enjoyed that more than actually trick or treating. We also enjoyed our ward's trunk or treat festival they do every year. Camo was a pirate this year while TJ was his parrot. Camo wore his  costume everyday until Halloween. He loved showing it off to the neighbors.

Home Sweet Home

Well a lot has happened in the last couple months which is why I havn't been great at this blogging thing. We bought a house!!! We were originally searching in Wilsonville, OR for a house. We were currently living in an apartment and we really liked the area. J's commute was only 30 minutes to Keizer and he never had any traffic going to work or coming home. We thought it would be a great area to raise our family. As we continued our search we realized how expensive houses were in the area. We had been looking for about 5 months and we were beginning to realize that a house wasn't going to happen. We decided to sign another year lease for our apartment. Then one day, I randomly decided to look on Zillow at houses in Keizer which is just north of Salem. Salem is the capital of Oregon. I thought it would be kind of nice to live close to J's work. I could have him home for lunch and it would take an hour off of his drive time. The thought of living in Keizer didn't really appeal to us because it wasn't as nice as Wilsonville. Then I pulled up Zillow and the first house I saw was beautiful, and we could afford it. I quickly sent the link to J and said check out this house. His response was, "that is a beautiful home, contact our realtor." This came as a shock to me because J wouldn't even have considered living in Keizer a month prior. The house was that nice. We met with the realtor and looked at the home a few days after it was posted. The home was just as nice as what the pictures showed. It had the backyard we wanted for our boys, the nice neighborhood, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and more than we could have asked for in our first home. We didn't put in an offer right away because we wanted to fast and pray about it first. We still were not sure we wanted to live in Keizer. We decided it was the right choice for our family and decided to put in an offer two weeks later. Looking back I wondered why there weren't any other offers put in on this beautiful home in those two weeks. Turns out the realtor on the seller's end had been out of town for two weeks so she wasn't showing the house.  I feel like this was a blessing for us because it allowed us to really ponder this big decision we were making. Our offer was accepted, and we purchased our first home!!  I'm not a photographer so don't criticize my picture taking skills. Haha.