Catching up with Santa

Hi everyone! I am trying to catch up on the family blog. Here is a photo of Jens with Santa and as you can see he has really grown in the last six months since I posted pictures of his birthday. Jens is walking, talking, and telling everyone what to do. He did really well visiting Santa with his cousin Kaleigh.

In addition to time with Santa, we headed off to Arkansas for Christmas with Robyn's family. The 27th of December was Sigrid Hinchliffe's (Robyn's grandmother) 90th birthday! All the aunts and uncles were present for the holiday and everyone had a great time. Jens helped open everyone's gifts and even a month later when some new toy shows up in the house, Jens says: "Oh Santa brought me another present!"

I learned to laugh and crawl, then sit and stand. Now I can walk if you hold my hand. But the fun has just begun. Look out, I’m turning two.

Hard to believe that our little Jens has turned two! We had a fun party at the local park & it was a beautiful day for a party.

Jens enjoyed himself and has started to catch on to the fact that it was his birthday.

Via La Mexico!

For those who haven't heard Robyn and Jason got away on a little romantic vacation to Mexico for Valentine's day. We went to Cabo San Lucas for 5 days and left Jens at home. Memphis, the dog was a really great babysitter too. Just kidding, Robyn's mother Sue (aka Nini) came and spent 5 days with Jens and the two of them had a fabulous time (much to our surprise), but we knew Nini could handle that high maintenance little boy.

So, we ran away to Cabo and had a great time sunning (and burning) ourselves on the beach. We had a decent view of the ocean from our room and enjoyed the all inclusive resort where we stayed. It was really nice to get out and spend some time in the sun, since we see so little of it here in Portland in winter.

Moments of Childhood

Ok, I got some cute photos the other day of Jens. In Jason's childhood, red hat with a little bunny on it and Jens was really freaking cute. Nana Betty saved all these things from Jason's childhood and now Jens gets to run around looking cute in them.

Jens is still busy trying to terrorize the world, wait I mean to say he is very curious and experiments with everything. No, I change my mind, he's a terror! But appears to be an intelligent little terror.

The Toilet Crusades

Yes people, that's right my boy is a toddler. A monster that can run, run away and say no! arghh. So here is today's question, what can a toddler use a toilet for? Potty training? No that would be way too obvious.

In case you haven't seen our house we have 5 toilets, yes people 5! Four and half baths in the house, they are tiny but we have five a dream come true. But 5 toilets means 5 different opportunities for Jens to cause trouble. Since 3 of the toilets are in "music studio space" that is 3 opportunities for students to leave doors open and for Jens to conduct science experiments.

This morning, my bathroom door did not shut all the way and I found that Jens had unraveled a roll of toilet paper into the toilet, pulled it back out and swirled it all around the toilet and bathroom floor and all of this in less than 10 minutes of being "unattended." He had also managed to reach 3 containers on the bathroom counter full of my jewelry and make-up that he could not reach last week, of course that was dumped on top of the wet toilet paper.

Then I tried to squeeze in that morning shower that I didn't get before daddy left for work. Well Jens likes to play peek-a-boo while I shower. Because I was in the walk in shower, Jens could easily walk in and out while I showered. Now once again in less than five minutes the shower curtain begins to ripple. Low and behold he has pushed the entire bathroom trash can into the shower while I am showering!

So at this point in my story it is only 8:15am, the day hasn't even started. So I must ask my audience is anyone else out there even remotely exhausted by the mere concept of this "busy boy." If you have any energy left....read on the day only gets better!!!

Thank God there was music class, lunch, and a 3 hour nap today. Then when mommy has to teach piano and the babysitter doesn't show up - Jens figured out he can use the toilet for entertainment! Today he proceeded to take his veggie snack chips and dump the entire zip lock bag of chips in the toilet and swish them around and then just for giggles eat a few before mommy figured out their was an odd silence in the room. And you know if the room is quiet the kid is up to no good!

So if that wasn't enough Jens proceeded to get a case of toilet paper from Costco open and start dropping entire rolls of toilet paper into the toilet. In case you have not tried it they float really well, but can no longer be used for the original purpose that toilet paper was intended.

So that was pretty much our toilet day and no I didn't take pictures, I didn't want to encourage Jens to continue any of this! But the good news is Robyn's mother comes for a week starting tomorrow and she can save me from my own child! That and Jason and I will be on vacation for a few days (God Bless my mother for flying in to give me a break!)

Last month, Jens decided that the sea shells on display on the back of the toilet go into the toilet bowl really well. They make this great gurgling sound as they drop down.

Jens is a Busy, Busy Boy

Jens is now 18 months old! A year and a half! It's hard to believe my difficult little colic, clingy boy has grown up into a smiling, talking, opinionate little twit (hee hee hee I'm not kidding people). Jens now likes to have "tea" with mommy, notice in the picture with the blueberry covered fact that he has a ceramic espresso mug, being used as his tea cup, with a home brew of chamomile tea, because this baby does not need any help in the wired department.

We made it for a good thirty minutes one afternoon pouring tea back and forth between the espresso mugs and the tea pot before Jens threw the mug and broke it into a million pieces. Of course that was followed by Jens saying "uh oh" ass soon as the mug hit the tile.

Jens has a favorite new toy is a firehouse from his grandmother Betty. He has discovered he can almost stick his head through the firehouse doors as he pushes the door open and ells "Peek a boo". He still enjoys being taken for a ride around the house in one of his many push toys.

Christmas in MinneSNOW-ta

Well this year we headed off to Minnesota and they too had snow on the ground, but it was much colder than Portland. The highs were a balmy 15 degrees. So enjoy some pictures of Jens at Christmas. We took a little trip to the children's museum (Jens loved that!) and we had a great time with Jason's family. If you look at one of the pictures, Jens was pushing a pink stroller - it belonged to his cousin Lily. Jens would not give that stroller up, he thought it was great.