yikes!

Well, believe it or not, I have been blogging...just unfortunately not on any blogs that anyone reads. I created a blog (but it doesn't really look like a blog - just an advertising website) for our apartments, and then my boss has been paying me to make more for other apartments - which is sweet! So I keep working on those when I should be blogging on here or the Palmer family blog. So I apologize. And now that the Joshua's First Year calendar is finished, you must all be wishing and hoping for more pictures of Joshua! I need to do updates on what he's doing and what I'm doing, but for now, I'll just post some pictures!

Look at how incredibly curly his hair is getting!!

This is a shirt he got for his birthday from Grandma and Grandpa - it says, "I still live with my parents." Ha!
Showin off some of his cute dino pjs!
If you read Nathan's blog, then you've already seen this picture, but this is a snowman that Nathan built - it is a snow daddy holding a snow baby sitting on a bench. Very adorable if you ask me.
I love my cuddly baby!

That's all for now - I'll write more someday - hopefully soon, but I don't want to make promises!

And for Ashley again...

Ash, I hope this gives you good luck for your test tomorrow!

For Ashley

A little bit of Joshua walking with his new car and showin off a little of that tummy...though at his latest doctor appointment we found that he is actually now closer to the 70th percentile for weight, rather than at the 99th...so maybe this explains why he's able to lift himself off the ground now!

Some recent photos!

Here is Joshy modeling the adorable caterpillar outfit his great Aunt and great Uncle got for him - and with his fun car/walker that his friend Rowan got for him. He LOVES walking with it, and was a big fan of pulling at the little cateripillar feet. Thank you Aunt Lynn and Uncle Mark and Rowan for such nice birthday gifts!




Dada took Joshy to Minto Brown Island Park - it's not exactly a playground made for a 1 year old, but Joshua liked the slide and all the birds. Probably his dad was more interested in the birds than he was, though.

We're working on teaching Joshua how to be an expert back scratcher...we'll see how that goes. At least he didn't try to eat it!

My baby is a year old...

It truly is amazing that Joshua is a year old. He is becoming such a fun and hilarious little person. He is starting to get the biggest kick out of trying to repeat stuff. He is good at saying mama, dada, baby, maybe, and nonononononono. I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting. Lately he's been starting to say things consistently, though we can't quite figure out what he's saying. He says bird, ball, blankie (I think), and book making a very similar "bye" sound. He's great at making a noise like an elephant, a lion, a snake (he's a REALLY scary snake), and lately he's been doing well and saying quack...though he will only say it very quietly. I think that is because when I give him his ducky in his crib at night, ducky tickles his nose and whispers quack quack quack, so I think Joshua thinks duckies make quiet noises.

Joshua also LOVES watching movies of himself. When he's eating in his high chair, he'll point to the computer and clap (meaning more) and shake his left hand in the air (meaning yes) as he points at the computer screen, to tell us that he wants to watch his movies. He especially loves the music his dada wrote. He likes the ones without music, too, but he waves his arm to lead the music in the ones that have his signature song.

I think Joshua will be very musical. I'm fairly sure he's left handed, and he just adores music. Whenever he hears it, whether it is on the cd player, the radio, the tv, one of his musical toys, a movie on the computer, or occasionally a cell phone, he starts moving his hand leading the music. And when the tempo is faster, he moves his hand faster...it's pretty impressive, I think! Not that I'm biased.

He does well with his signs - he's good at yes (waving his hand up and down), more (clapping), milk (making a grasping motion with his hand like he's milking a cow...he actually does that one correctly!), and sometimes he'll try to sign berries, banana, finished, and other signs I'm probably forgetting. He understands so much - it amazes me.

His dada started a new tradition of Joshua crawling from his room to the bath tub (quite naked, I might add) after he gets changed, and though he often gets sidetracked on the way there (the floor is an exciting place, after all), he is very good at eventually getting his cute little bottom parked right next to the bathtub for dada or mama to put him in!

He is so close to walking! When we hold his arms and have him walk, he doesn't need us to carry any of his weight, just for a bit of balance, and even then, I think he could take a few steps on his own and do just fine...but I know there is going to be a lot of falling flat on his face in the next few weeks! I think he'll walk soon, though. Now that we've gotten sort of adjusted to him pulling up on everything everywhere, I feel much more ready for him to be walking. We still haven't baby-proofed all the cabinets, though. We're still following him around most of the time that he is wandering, so if we want to do that forever, there's no need to baby-proof the cabinet doors, but I'm thinking maybe I don't want to do that forever.

For Joshua's perspective on his birthday, make sure to check out his blog. He's quite the technological baby - it amazes me sometimes. His dada helps him write emails, post pictures and videos, and even post on his blog. He has his own email address, blog site, youtube channel, and who knows what else he hasn't told me!! I find it very impressive. Sometimes he writes me emails. I don't think he writes his dada emails, but maybe he does.

Anyway, he's a wonderful one-year-old. He was disappointed to not go up to Washington for his birthday, but is rather happy that he gets THREE birthday parties now (two down, one to go!). We're going up the third week of April and he'll be splitting the birthday glory and festivities with his mama. I'm turning 25! But that's another post...

This has been quite a year - I'm so glad we have so many pictures and videos to remember it, as well as all the memories that are quite unforgettable! I love my baby boy Joshua.

A first birthday party...

...comes only twice a year (for Joshua that is). Joshy got to have his Palmer family birthday celebration this past Saturday. We also were celebrating Easter, so I made a bunny cake. This was inspired by at least one (there were probably more) bunny cake my mom made years ago. Here is the wonderful process I went through. At the end you will see my fat baby thoroughly enjoying his cake!

He enjoyed blowing out the candle, and then we gave him one of the ears! At first he was hesistant and just played with the frosting, but as you can see, he REALLY liked it once he tried it! He probably would have eaten the whole ear, so we had to take it away. Then he REALLY needed a bath. What a cute baby!

Rats!

So the other day I was at Home Depot, picking up some bug killer, in the same aisle as a lot of other pest control items, and then about 6 feet from me, this HUGE RAT goes skittering across the aisle.  It was dark gray and the body was probably about 8-10 inches long – a BIG rat, I’d say.  I don’t know how long the tail was.  It was the middle of the day, and in general it just really creeped me out.  I told a guy working there and he was like, “oh that’s nothing…we have some rats that are about the size of a cat.”  Riiight.  Gotta love that response.  I suppose it is pretty normal for there to be rodents getting into a building supply store like that, and he told me that it was probably out during the day because it had eaten some of the rat poison that they’ve set out and it was dehydrated.  So I guess I feel mildly bad for the rat, but I’d prefer that it didn’t surprise me ever again.  Probably it won’t surprise anyone ever again, huh?  I don’t want to buy bug killer anymore.

A couple of minutes...

My good friend Brittany’s adorable son Parker is in a contest on a local radio station in Utah.  He is singing karaoke, and she would really appreciate it if you would go on there and vote for him! All you need to do is click on this link and vote for #45 in the 2-4 age category.  Then you will get an email sent to you and you’ll need to click on the link in the email to validate your vote.  You can watch Parker’s video (and the other kids, though they’re not as good!) online.  They’d really appreciate your vote – thanks!

 

Here is the link: http://www.971zht.com/pages/kiddieokee/

This baby can EAT!

Seriously, I can’t believe how much Joshua eats.  So far for lunch he has had green beans, carrots, diced apples, peas, two turkey sticks (baby food turkey), and an apple wheel.  Oh and some of my pink lemonade (he is a BIG fan…I haven’t given it to him before, though).  He’s a good little eater – his favorite food these days is frozen blueberries, which I think he would like right now.  I get a big kick out of his purple face and hands after he’s done with his blueberries.  He does always tell us when he’s finished (that is one of the signs he is learning), but lately, I’ve been deciding for him, when he’s eaten just about as big a meal as I could eat!  No wonder he poops like 4 times a day!

 

Now that I figured out what the email address is to post on my blog, I think I’ll do it more often!  I have two drafts from awhile ago that I never finished, so I should work on those also.   I’ll have to actually get on there to post pictures, though.

 

Joshua has a blog now, too, if you didn’t know that yet.  You can click on the “boypalmer” link on my page.

I heard...

...that you haven't lived unless you have heard Joshua's laugh. Really...I heard this at cooking class on Tuesday :c)

I want you all to live life to its fullest, so do enjoy. And Ash - I hope you feel better! This is Joshua laughing at his dada back in mid-December.

More pulling up

Now Nathan will be putting together much better movies, but here are a few more clips of Joshy's new talents of pulling up. These are still a bit outdated, though - he's really close to moving around without having to hold on to furniture. Listen close - it sounds like he says, "k dada" in one of the clips. And you also get to see him fall down, which he does A LOT...

Long-awaited videos

Thanks Ash, for encouraging me to post new videos! This was from February 18th - Joshua's first standing in his crib experience!

Stake temple night

I don't often post about church stuff on here, but I just had a really good feeling being at stake temple night Thursday night. Nathan went to the temple on Tuesday night because he was up in Lake Oswego for a financial thing, so he stayed home with Joshy while I went. And it wasn't JUST the Burgerville burgers and shakes that our stake president treated our van-load to afterward...I just really enjoyed being there and seeing so many other people gathered together in a very sacred place. I always enjoy going to the temple - it is such a break from the busy-ness and noise of the world - but usually we'll only see one or two people we know, rather than a whole room full of people we have at least seen before. The temple president and his wife spoke at the chapel session while we were there and they are really cool people. I ended up talking with the temple president afterwards also (which was really nice of him because it was already after 9!) because I had a bunch of random temple-related questions, and he was so helpful and kind and funny. Anyway, I guess it's hard to describe how I felt...but I just really enjoyed it and hope we'll make sure to go more often. So tonight there is an adult session of stake conference at the church at 7pm that I'm going to go to and then the general meeting of stake conference is tomorrow morning from 10-12. What a nice break from 12:30 church...it is just a really hard time to have church when you've got a baby. I have heard a lot of general agreement about that from all our friends who have babies.

Well I had planned to write more, but speaking of babies...mine just woke up from his nap and I'm quite certain he is now standing up in his crib pulling on the bars expressing his irritation that I have not yet come and gotten him (I mean it's been like TEN seconds - what a bad mom). So I'll write more later - sorry no pictures this time.

Another good thing

Another accomplishment for our home - last night I went to Target to spend some gift cards that we got for Christmas (thank you!!!), and one of the things that I got was some wonderful wall decor for Joshua's room. Seriously, every time I've gone in his room, I've been all sad about how bare his walls are...we had a couple of nice things on his wall, and then for Christmas he got three really cool animals that I put up right above his crib and he has been talking to them all the time ever since, BUT the rest of his walls were still pretty colorless. SO I got these cool adhesive jungle animals and put them up all over. They're incredibly easy to put up and to move around. I don't know how long they'll last, but they look wonderful right now. Joshy is hanging onto his gate thing right now, rather unhappy, so I'll post these pictures and then write more later.

Pretty cool looking, huh?Just thought a couple of Joshua might make a few of you happy. The calendar is updated, too!!

And Tracy, I know I need to post these things (and I got curtains for two rooms also!) on the Reclaiming Home blog...I'm just a terrible person. Thanks for reading!

Manda's thoughts

Uh oh...see this is what happened with me and my diaries when I was younger. Unless I was in the midst of a seemingly neverending drama about some boy (which apparently was fairly often), I had a hard time writing in my diary because I always felt like there was too much to catch up on. But I don't have to catch up on everything...this is just my thoughts, not necessarily my life story.

Anyway - things are going well! This weekend my parents came down and got to spend some time with us. It was a lot of fun - I'm so glad they were able to come, even though it was for a very short time. I'm so glad that Joshua so far hasn't shown any signs of the "stranger anxiety" that i've heard is inevitable. So we'll see. He's a good baby. We think he's getting some more teeth. He's SO proud of himself for the new skills he's learning with pulling himself up on his knees really easily, and sometimes pulling up to standing. And when we put him up standing next to the couch or one of the dining room chairs, he can sidestep or hold on with just one hand...it's so adorable to see him standing on his pudgy legs. It'll be so crazy when he's walking! He's crawling a lot more on his hands and knees now, rather than his tummy, though he can go FAST on his tummy. We have a long hallway and he loves to race down it shrieking and laughing that he is escaping so sneakily. He loves crawling into the bathroom also - the cold linoleum is fascinating to him. He pulled himself up on the bathtub and then had one of his few tantrums when he knocked the baby shampoo bottle into the tub and couldn't reach it. He was furious that mama wouldn't get it for him, so that was the end of climbing on the bathtub for awhile. His only major tantrums have occured related to his nail clippers. He never used to be particularly interested in them. He wanted to grab them, sure, but never with the incredible desperation that he does now. The hard part with that is that they're sharp, so I won't let him hold them for long now, but I can't just put them away and distract him with something else because I have to clip his nails, ya know? So I'm clipping the nails of a nearly hysterical squirming swatting little guy. It has become a double-teaming event, so that when both mama and dada are there, he's able to be much calmer about the whole experience. i'm grateful that at this point, his tantrums are pretty limited. His personality is really emerging, which is so wonderful, and I'm getting to know a very stubborn little Joshua! My pediatrician warned us that with his red hair, we were in for an adventure. Maybe there is truth in that after all.

So one of the most adorable things to report on this little guy is that other than mama and dada, the only really recognizable word he is consistently saying is "amen." It's mostly the "men" part, but we noticed it 5 days ago or so, and we were like...did he really just say amen? Nooo...well maybe. So now whenever we say prayers, we pay attention, and he nearly always says it! It's so cute. Often he says it a bit early, just to make sure he gets it in there, and then when we say it and look up at him, he has this huge grin on his face, so proud of himself and the praise we give him for this darling new accomplishment. We'll see if he does it at church today - we have only noticed him do it at home.

Things are going ok with the apartments - it's pretty slow right now, which is fine. We were worried that we were going to be evicting someone (this was the reference to cat poop in an earlier post), but the person is actually moving out anyway, so it's much less complicated.

Well my dear baby is waking up, so we'll get him some lunch and then get him ready for church!

I'll try to post more often, and I'll get some pictures up soon.

P.S. Read my husband's newest post - it cracks me up!

Love that baby!!

Many exciting new adventures the last few days. We are very proud of Joshua!

Dressers, groundhogs, and more

It's amazing what things can make you incredibly happy...like the computer monitor that finally ended up at the dump...like the dresser that finally got put together - and now the bedroom that has changed from a disaster zone of clothes and crap EVERYWHERE to a dresser crammed full of clothes, and two neat tidy boxes of things that need to be put somewhere other than those boxes. There is like a 6x8 foot square of EMPTY carpet right there in the bedroom. Trust me, that's amazing. So again we still need to get pictures put up (and RE-put up since we did put some up and then moved all the furniture). I wonder what it is about the two of us that has made us nearly completely inept at decorating our home. Hmmm... I'm tired and posting because I haven't posted in a long time and because my husband said I should.

Oh wait - I just re-read my subject line! February 2nd was a wonderful day - Groundhog's Day. My dear husband always remembers how special this day is to me...he got me chocolates, a cute card, a pot of very difficult to kill flowers (he knows me well), and some of my other favorite candies. Yum yum. I love Groundhog's Day - I have ever since I was little.

I think I'm distracted by stressful stuff related to cat poop, so I will post later when I'm not so stressed. Joshua's calendar is updated http://www.insanityinc.net/nathan/joshua/joshuacal.html and there is a new Joshua video up on youtube! http://www.youtube.com/user/skipdipdawg

I will post again soon - have a wonderful week.

Food

It is amazing how much of your life revolves around your baby's sleeping schedule for so many months, and then once they get that down (hopefully), the adventure of solid foods begins. Joshua did great at baby foods - rarely did he dislike one so much that he'd never eat it (probably peaches were his biggest dislike, but he'd eat the "peach cobbler dessert" one), and he was happily eating pretty much ONLY baby foods until a couple weeks ago. He had banana sometimes, and yogurt, but was not interested in any other solids really besides all the high priced commercial baby food crackers and puffed snacks and stuff - and Cheerios. So then he decided that he's WAY too mature to let us feed him. That's all fine and good if he'll EAT regular food, but he was rejecting pretty much everything I gave him.

Today was a glorious day! After about the 6th meal where I offered him green beans (his absolute favorite of the baby foods), he FINALLY ate them and really liked them. And THEN he ate peas and pasta also. We got him some freeze dried corn and bananas and strawberries (also commercial baby food stuff that is probably unnecessary...but what is a first time parent to do?), and he likes those, as well as fresh bananas. I haven't tried again with the white beans today - we'll keep up with that one. I think i'm done with offering peaches for awhile because he wouldn't put them in his mouth for the last few days, but today he did and he made this horrible face and threw it on the floor. So we'll wait awhile.

Oh and this is a story I must share. He still has some baby food left, and I haven't been making him fresh meat as of yet (i'm kind of worried I won't cook it enough or he'll choke or something), so i've still been giving him baby food meat. Side note: when he's super hungry or I'm suuuuper patient, he'll open up those stubbornly pursed lips and let me feed him a few bites before asserting his independence again. End side note. Ok, so yesterday I thought I'd try something...he LOVES straws, for who knows what reason. Not just using them, but looking at them, too. Crazy baby. Anyway, I mixed apple prune with turkey baby food and it was really thin (as baby food is), so I cut a straw pretty short and put it in the bowl and he enjoyed his very own turkey apple prune smoothie. Let me tell you - he loved it! Look for this option next time you're at Jamba Juice. yummm.

A little mischief

Another movie for all you devoted Joshua fans...this one's less educational and a lot more fun!

I especially love his reaction after he dumps that tray on the ground - it's so adorable. Today he dumped it when it was covered in green beans and white beans (none of which, by the way, he is interested in). Our floor sure takes a beating. Ah well. I'll write more about his new adventures with food. He also loves strawberry milkshakes, but don't tell Ashley.

my baby is learning

I know that Nathan has plans for posting more feature film type movies of our dear little star on Youtube soon, but I had to get at least one or two up here tonight. This movie Joshua is quite serious, showing mama everything he has learned.


He also knows ball and tiger, but his littler tiger wasn't attached to the high chair tray like it usually is.

I'm hoping to get another one on here while Nathan's at basketball. I hope that grandma Rozen will appreciate this while she's taking it easy after knee surgery, and hopefully grandma Palmer will get to see it soon, too, after she gets home from the hospital. Joshua is very sad that both grandmas are having health issues, and he hopes they'll both be feeling better soon so they can play with him!