Cool shades, dude!

Jasper was rockin' the sunglasses this afternoon while playing in the yard and eating dirt.

love. love. love.

Did someone say, "whisk"??

Today, Jasper and I have had the wonderful joy of staying home the whole day, and boy, was it a blessing!! The last few weeks have been pretty busy for us, so today gave us some time to catch up on a few things around the house and also to just play together.

Well, we were making homemade applesauce together earlier this morning, and I gave Jasper a whisk so he could  help me stir the apples (he LOVES helping me do anything and he really enjoys learning how to do new things and new processes). Being the "gadgets" guy that he is, he immediately fell in love with his whisk and carried it with him the rest of the day.

The part that just melted my heart, though, was that whenever I said anything about his whisk...

such as:
- here, babes! You dropped your whisk!
- Jasper!! You're doing a great job using the whisk!
- That's a good idea to put the whisk in your firetruck trunk!
- Oh no! Where did your whisk go??

he would immediately stop everything he was doing and instantly show me one or both of his wrists.

It was adorable and the eagerness with which Jasper showed me his wrist EACH TIME just filled me with laughter. You haven't seen "cute" until you've seen a toddler confusing the words "wrist" and "whisk". :o) Love it!! :o)

Hi Grams!!

I'm currently suffering from parental exhaustion, so my brain is refusing to come up with any new material, but I wanted to take a moment to say "hi" to Grandma Tractor, my blog's biggest fan!!

In case you didn't know, my Grandma Tractor is one of the strongest, caring, most beautiful woman you will ever meet (and she'll kick your butt in Euchre). She never ceases to amaze me.

Love you, Grams!!!

Saturday mornings..

Saturday mornings are meant for pj's; we stay in our pj's and rock our bed head as long as humanly possible.

Andrew decided to go shopping late Saturday morning, and since Jas and I were still rockin' our pj's, we decided to stay home. Here are a few pics of Jasper waving goodbye to Andrew as he left (notice I did NOT include any pics of me in my pj's and bedhead... not nearly as cute as a 1 year old).

Later on Saturday, our dear, dear friends, the Clausons aka Uncle Drew and Aunt Melissa, volunteered to come over and watch Jasper so Andrew and I could go on a date!! So precious of them and we readily accepted!

We went putt-putting...

(andrew smoked me but I did get a hole-in-one) and then went and cheered on the undefeated Bucks at Rings and Wings.

Thanks Clausons!!!

The most precious sound...

I always thought the most precious sound I would ever hear would be the crying of my newborn baby. I was mistaken.

Don't get me wrong... hearing Jasper's first cry was absolutely precious. It simultaneously gave me tears and took my breath away. Absolutely precious.

But last night, I heard something even more precious.

Andrew's had a very, very busy couple of weeks at work; he's been run ragged and is working hard, through his exhaustion, and doing a marvelous job for his company. I had a Moms2Moms get-together last night, so dear Andrew came home early so I could rush off to my get-together.

Jasper was just waking up from his nap as I was preparing to leave for Moms2Moms, and he unusually started crying as he was wakening. I was just about to rush out the door when I heard the creaking of the rocker going back and forth, back and forth. Pretty soon, Jasper's cries turned into whimpers and then into silence as he was being held and comforted in his daddy's strong arms.

Feeling rather touched, I instantly thought how sweet it was that instead of taking a moment to rest on the couch, exhausted Andrew went to his crying son and was rocking him. However, the next sounds stopped me in my tracks.

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see..."

My strong, handsome, manly-man husband, who was drained and exhausted and still had several hours of work to do from home, was rocking our son and tenderly singing Amazing Grace to him.

It stopped me in my tracks. The whole world suddenly faded away as I stood there, with tears in my eyes, listening to my precious husband (who thought I'd already left for Moms2Moms) tenderly sing of the redemptive love of our Savior to our whimpering son.

My whole heart overflowed with this over-powering love for my God and my family. It's one of those moments where nothing else mattered; one of those moments that, for me, is frozen in time.

Hearing Andrew gently sing of God's love to Jasper is by far the most precious sound I've ever heard.

Be still, my heart.

I haven't forgotten!

I haven't forgotten about my poor, neglected blog.

I really haven't.

I hope to upload my pics soon and have a "recap" of the last few weeks. Last week was super busy and this week has been a nice balance of busy and relaxing. During my discretionary time this week, however, I find myself much more inclined to relax (amazing how much of my energy my precious little guy uses up!) or get caught up on housework (amazing how unintentionally destructive my precious little guy can be!) rather than make my way to our poor, dusty computer, upload pics, sort through said pics, and find witty things to write to go along with the pics.

Jasper has been obsessed to saying "goodbye" to everything and everyone these days. I'm not just talking about simple things like when Daddy goes to work or nana leaves to go home. Jasper says goodbye to the hummus, plates, used napkins, utensils, carrots, and bread that I clean up from lunch.

He says "buh bye" to the tiny little gnat that flew briefly into his line of vision for a millisecond.

He says "buh bye" to each and every car, bus, plane, helicopter, van, and truck that makes an appearance on Southampton Ave.

He says "buh bye" to his dirty diaper when I throw it away.

He says "buh bye" to the sun when it disappears behind a cloud.

This boy needs serious closure.

And he doesn't just say "buh bye". He stops everything he's doing, gets very concerned, loudly proclaims "buh bye", waves his hand, and looks at me as he continues saying "buh bye" at full volume. It's not enough for me to agree that the grapes have gone "buh bye" when I put them in the fridge. Nope, merely agreeing isn't good enough for little Jasper. I, too, must stop everything I'm doing, get down on his level, look him in the eye, and say something like, "Jasper!! You're right!!! I put the grapes in the fridge and now they've gone 'buy bye'! Let's say 'buh bye' to the grapes!"

I've said "buh bye" to more things in the past 3 days than I have in my entire life. I've never noticed before how often things (like dirty napkins that get thrown in the trash) disappear. It's fun (mostly) to see the world from the perspective of a toddler.

Alright, that's about it.

Buh bye.

hyperventilating

Jasper thinks it's absolutely hilarious when I pretend to hyperventilate. Since Andrew had been gone for 4 days and I had completely run out of things to talk to Jasper about or to teach him, I spent all of lunch yesterday pretending to hyperventilate.

Jasper was in heaven.

He would laugh and laugh so hard, he couldn't breath.

As soon as I stopped hyperventilating, he would get the look on his face (seen immediately below) that conveyed, "Mom! I know you can do it! I'm ready to laugh! So bring it on!!"

And seriously, how am I supposed to refuse such a sweet "bring it on" face??

So I would hyperventilate, he would laugh hysterically and rock back and forth (seen below)..

and then he would randomly get entertained by his tomatoes.

It was a pretty great lunch. :o)