It's a Boy!

We are so excited to introduce to you the newest member of our family, John Tyler Rosser, due in early May, 2016!

Ultrasound at 20 weeks

We are thrilled to be having another boy and are excited for James to have a little brother! He's excited too...even if he doesn't know it yet! At least he has a fun balloon to play with!

New Adventures

This week we have had two fun new adventures with toys in our house. My parents gave James an early Christmas present of a toy kitchen from IKEA. We love it! It's so fun to watch James pretend to cook. We might have a future chef on our hands!

James can't quite reach the utensils by himself yet and he can't open the microwave up top. But it won't be long until he can!

The next adventure was playdough. I have wanted to try this for awhile but finally got around to making some easy dough. Sure enough, James tried to taste it, but thanks to the half cup salt it didn't stay in his mouth!

He wasn't too interested in playing with it so we'll try it again sometime soon and see how it goes!

Thanksgiving Pictures

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend at the Rosser's. Tyler's Aunt Debbie and four cousins came from Texas and we were reunited with our dear Chris who has come back to the states after being home in Korea for the last several years.

James was right at home and enjoyed having everyone around

I made a gluten-free Boston Cream Pie thanks to Tyler's request 

James and Uncle Chris definitely bonded

James warmed up quickly to Aunt Debbie

And of course we can't forget about the food

We had delicious food all weekend long

And lots of fun play time

Demanding

I am so thankful to be a mother. To be able to be at home with James and share our days together. He still goes to bed at 6pm so Tyler and I have a nice break in the evening. Thankfully he usually sleeps til around 5:30am so after a good night sleep I am ready to see him again! But James is definitely a 16 month old and sometimes it's exhausting. Very demanding. He wants me. All the time. No matter what. And sometimes I just need a break.

Tyler and I had a funny moment the other night. I was telling him about my day, the ups and downs, and he looked at me and said, "Thank you for being with James. I don't know what it feels like to be followed around and yelled at all day." I laughed, but he got it exactly right! That is exactly what I feel like! All day I have this little person, hanging on my every move, clinging to my legs, wanting to be with me and to do what I am doing, and on top of all that, he is very vocal and I feel like I'm being yelled at!

I know it'll get better as he gets older and learns how to express himself in different ways. But in the every day-all day present, it's tiring.

God knows what we can handle though because in the middle of the yelling and being followed around all day, James is a sweet little guy who gives so many smiles, hugs, and kisses. We love you James!

Living in the Moment

Our 15 month old sweetheart!

I realize I haven't been blogging as much as I would like. Since James turned one I stopped the daily snapshots and had in my mind that I would keep blogging often. Well, not having a computer to download my pictures on (I can't seem to get them on my work computer and our family laptop died a few months ago) has slowed me down. But our little guy is growing up and is so cute...I need to get better at sharing these moments with our family! So here is my resolve to blog more often!

I am trying to live in the moment. We love our lives but I love to plan and think about the next big thing. Currently, one of the next big things (there are several) is our new baby. I am 15 weeks and I am so excited for James to be a big brother. I loved growing up with a sister 17 months older than me. We have always been best friends and shared life moments. It's always been a dream of mine to have children close together and I never expected that to happen because of our struggle with infertility. But God knows the desires of our hearts and James will be 21 months when his little brother/sister (we find out next month!) is born!

So back to living in the moment. I don't want to miss the little things of our life right now because I'm wondering, "Who is this new baby that is a part of our family? What will it be like to be a mother of two? Etc." So here are some little moments of our past few weeks that I will always treasure.

We have started "potty awareness." It is NOT potty training, because we don't have an expectation of James going to the bathroom by himself anytime soon. What we are doing is introducing the concept now when he is interested and open to learning. He enjoys sitting on the potty (except when he is too excited to go outside) and we never force him. We try to make it a fun time by singing songs or playing little games. He has underpants and is learning how to put them on. Long story short....it's a lot of work and energy but we feel strongly that it will pay off in the end. We are still in Phase 1: Introducing sitting on the potty chair at various times of the day (while I'm trying to observe his schedule and anticipate when he needs to go) and making it fun; and Phase 2: Wearing underpants during the day so he can learn when he is wet. We'll be in these first two phases for awhile but that is ok because we're not on a time frame and we are all learning as we go!

James found a new favorite play area: the kitchen. He loves to watch us as we cook and one day took out a pot and started to play. It's fun to observe the beginnings of imaginary play!

We are using James' table more and more everyday. Every day we eat lunch at his table together. James will go to the pantry or fridge when he is hungry and after I give him something I say, "take it to your table" and he walks over, puts it on his table, and then sits down and eats it. Of course after one bite he gets up and goes to play, then comes back, etc. He is a grazer. He also likes to sit on top of the table...not sure how to stop that one. He even fell off the other day and got a sizable cut on his forehead but that didn't stop him.

Our little guy is growing up! Tyler installed the bigger car seat and we joke that James looks like a king in it. It looks very comfortable!

 

James is very much into doing what we do and he loves to help me clean. Sometimes he'll go into the closet and point to the vacuum so I'll get it out and he'll help me pull the cord out and plug it in. He recently found the duster and that has been a lot of fun.

And finally, if we had to pick James' favorite thing, it would definitely be outside. He LOVES to get his shoes on and go in the backyard and play. Thankfully the Alabama fall has been quite warm so we've enjoyed a lot of time outside.

Tyler is coaching the varsity girls soccer team at Montgomery Catholic and today was the first day of tryouts. James and I joined them at the end and to James' excitement, there were tons of soccer balls just waiting for him! He was cheering the girls on as well. I think we'll have a lot of fun in the spring!

Trip to Lincoln

A few weekends ago James and I traveled back home to Lincoln. I had the gift of being in Makayla and Tom's wedding, they are friends from college, and I jokingly told people that I was leaving James with Tyler for the weekend. I think I joked about it mostly with Tyler, because he was looking forward to a football weekend! But I knew I would be in big trouble if I didn't bring James to see his Grandparents! And I'm not ready to leave him yet, haha.

James is a fun buddy to hang out with. He did great on the plane trips, except for the last 20 minutes of our return flight because we got in at 10pm and it was way past his bedtime. We'll try not to do that again if we can help it!

We had a great trip. It was a quick weekend and was exhausting but definitely worth it to be there to celebrate with Makayla and Tom and to have time with my parents. The wedding was beautiful! It was at the Newman center, where Tyler and I got married, but they recently built a new church and it is amazing and so beautiful! Other than freezing most of the day it was fun to be back in Lincoln! I guess I'm not used to the cold anymore!

James spent Saturday with mom and dad. I don't know who had a better day, James or mom and dad!

Thankfully James did great, as I knew he would, but I had never left him for a full day before. Mom and dad are pros and successfully got him down for naps and bedtime and he ate like a champ for them too! God knew what he was doing when he created grandparents!

On the way back in the airport we found the kids play area and James had fun exploring.

Maybe a future pilot? We are already looking forward to our next trip to Lincoln. We love you grandma and grandpa!

Pumpkin Patch

Today we went to Dream Field Farms and had a beautiful afternoon enjoying the Alabama fall day! James got to explore his first pumpkin patch and he had a lot of fun walking around and watching everyone. He also liked to push his own stroller.

James was fascinated by everyone around us 

Family selfie after lunch

We finished our visit with a tasty treat-a funnel cake! We had a really fun time at the pumpkin patch and look forward to making it a yearly tradition!