"Gotchu"

James crying in his bed. Mama enters the room, picks him up and proceeds to the rocking chair.
James: "Mama?"
Mama: "Yes?"
James: "Gotchu?"
Mama: "Yes baby, Mama's got you"
James: contented sigh.

16 months

Mr. James Edward Kerbs is 16 months old today. Since I'm about 15 months behind in my scrapbooking, I like to keep track of his milestones here so I can go back and look at my notes when I finally catch up in his memory book. LOL!

Here are my notes on James' past month:

* His biggest advances continue to be in his vocabulary. Just this past week he learned the words: "pizza, poop and airplane".

*For his entire 15th month, James spent the weekdays with his daddy. Every day when I get home, I am greeted by a very happy little boy and a proud daddy. It's so much fun watching them together!

* Last week James took his first visit to the ocean. He was a little overwhelmed by the sand, sounds, wind, water, etc. but he did well and had fun when he was distracted. His favorite things were to wave at airplanes, people, birds and dogs he saw along the shore.

* Prior to last week, James has only been on one roadtrip in his life. It was when he was only 4 months old and he was in the car for about 8 hours in one day. This past week he took two 11-hour car rides and he did wonderfully. Rod was so proud of him that he promised to buy James a custom Powerwheels with leather interior. Ha!

* Some of James' favorite books are: The Big Hungry Bear (can't remember the exact title), Pout Pout Fish and anything with pictures of animals. His favorite toys are: tractors and trains as well as things that he can make noise with. His favorite things to watch on TV are: Sid the Science Kid on PBS and Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs.

* James is really interested in music. He likes to listen to daddy play the guitar. Some songs he knows a few lines from include: Wheels on the Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Happy Happy Home, The Trees are Gently Swaying and Pattycake.

Commence heart-melting

My sweet little boy said, "I love you" for the first time today without being prompted. He was saying goodnight to Daddy and out of nowhere blew him a kiss and said "laa luu" (his version of "I love you"). How precious!!!

James at 15 months...

Every day brings at least one new word or skill for James. It is amazing to see how quickly he is grasping the English language.

He says a LOT of words now. Some that I think are unusual for a 15 month-old: gentle, glasses, bear, starfish and Elmo. My favorite words he says are: shoe (Mom says he sounds like a French baby), thank you (he does the "dee dou" thing a lot of babies do), I love you (what Mommy's heart doesn't melt when she hears those words?) and Jeremy (he says "meremy"). It's also pretty neat that he says "diaper" when he wants to be changed. This could make potty training a little easier!

Physically, he is much more stable on his feet and starting to climb things (yikes!). He also finally learned how to stand up without pulling up on something this month. He used to fall down in the back yard and stay in one place grunting and whining until someone would help him up.

James loves music and he knows one phrase from 5 different songs. I ask him to sing at least 10 times a day because it is so cute!

He also knows quite a few animal sounds. The unusual ones are: lizard, donkey and owl.

This summer he is staying home with daddy. Some of his favorite activities include throwing things down the basement stairs, going on bike rides, reading books, watching "baby" videos, going to the park, watching Sid the Science Kid, torturing the cats, playing in the backyard (pool or sprinkler) and stealing Daddy's glasses off his face!

I will leave you with a cellphone picture since Rod is rebuilding our other computer that has the real camera pics on it. Rod always sits on this step to put his shoes on. Whenever James wants to go outside he grabs his shoes and sits on this step.

James at 14 months

This adorable little face is starting to develop quite a personality! He is so much fun and has such a great sense of humor.

Some things I want to remember about him at this age:

* Just moved into size 4 diapers. I'm hopeful that he will potty train before he reaches size 5. :)

* His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. Some new words are: "maamaw" (grandma), "soosh" (shoes), "asai" (outside).

* He still loves to be outside any chance he gets. His favorite things to do are talk to the neighbor kids, talk to the neighbor dogs, swing and go for walks in his stroller.

* While inside he enjoys watching videos on my iPhone. He tells us this is what he wants by yelling "baby" at the top of his lungs. He has also discovered how much fun it is to run on the couch. Yesterday he fell off and landed on his head pretty hard, but the minute he was done crying he got right back up there.

* James has started dancing at just about anything that resembles a song! His jerky dance makes me laugh every time.

* He notices noises that I don't even hear and he often tries to mimic them. Motorcycles, airplanes and school buses are some of his favorites.

* In the past few weeks, James has discovered temper tantrums. He turns bright red, clenches his fists, throws himself backwards and screams. It's pretty funny and so hard not to laugh at him. The good thing is that he is still really distractable so he can be in the middle of a tantrum and suddenly stop and smile if you know the right thing to say.

* James is just starting to sing a little bit. Sometimes he makes up his own songs. At his cousin Traiden's birthday last week, he started singing Happy Birthday To You. It's more like, "haaa you".

* He is so affectionate. He always greets me with a hug and "awww...mama". In fact, even when I'm home with him he will often stop and give me random hugs during the day. He started blowing kisses to people when they leave which is super cute, too.

Blogging from my phone!

This is a test. A goofy little boy with an orange piece of plastic over his face should be appearing on your screen. :)

Update: the blogwriter app says I need to login to picasa in order to upload photos but it doesn't give me the option to do that. Do you know if I need to pay for a picasa app? If anyone has a good blogging app, please let me know!

random updates

It's been a while since I blogged so I drew up this new post for all my faithful fans!

James' vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. The average person off the street could not decipher most of his words, but those of us who see him daily can recognize that he is trying to say lots of new things. As soon as we approach the driveway he starts saying, "Buuuuck" (the neighbor's dog or "swing swing" indicating that he wants to go adventuring in the back yard. He is in the "no" phase. When asked a question he always responds with "no" but you can tell how he really feels by whether he waves his hands or flails his arms. It's pretty comical to watch how passionate he gets about certain things. Other things he started saying recently are: "fish, shoes, glasses, bath". He calls the cats "dog" except Beasley whom he calls "Beebee".

He is all about independence when it comes to eating. We discovered that he really enjoys some fruits when he can take bites himself versus us giving him little pieces.

James' daddy turned the big 3-0 last week. James enjoyed all the celebrations!

I finally lost my "baby house"! That's the term my little cousin uses for the weight a person gains when carrying a baby. :) I gained a total of 50 lbs with James. The first 20 lbs came off in about 6 weeks. After that I tried to exercise and eat right, but the weight just stuck around. I started a new diet on March 22 and as of today I have lost 32 pounds! (This picture doesn't show off the weight loss as well as it could because of the way my shirt was hanging).