Things I never want to forget

Preston is at one of the funnest, yet most challenging phases right now. Don't I say that every month though? He is full of so much spunk and energy, with equal parts tantrum and whining. I think they call this the terrible twos, although, we still have a few more months until he's actually in that category for real.

My favorite Preston moments lately:

Just today, as we were reading stories together, he was being all too cute, so I asked him for a kiss, which he gladly gives out whenever they're asked for. As soon as he pulled away from kissing me he wiped my chin and said, "Eww, slobbery." Something I frequently do after kisses, since the poor thing hasn't figured out how to stop drooling since the day he was born.

Last night while reading stories before bed, I couldn't help but think how cute this little boy is, who's not even 21 months yet, and was reading along with me on each of the pages. He's seriously so smart...or just really good at memorizing! After finishing one of the stories, I said to him, "You're so cute, do you know that?" to which he responded, "I know that!"

He loves prayer time. In the middle of each of our prayers he used to cover his mouth, fake cough, and then say, "excuse me" just to make us laugh. Now, prayer time means he folds his arms, bows his head, and starts saying the prayers himself. They usually go something like this, "Heavenly Father, bless kitty cat (our neighbors cat), bless lawnmower..." repeated about five times. It's a good start, right?

We had our first haircut incident. I caught him in his room, after he had told me to go into my room, and then quickly shut the door behind me, with scissors in his hand, and a nice chunk of hair lying in his lap. I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that he managed to cut a nice little patch of hair off, front and center and all.

He loves giving my belly kisses and saying "Hi baby!" Let's hope he loves her as much when she's out of me as he does in. Did I mention I'm pregnant? Yep, here we go again. I'm 24 weeks and I look like I'm ready to pop any day now. The joy's of having a short torso. Long legs don't really come in handy for this.

He loves to pretend he's a monster. He'll usually tell me to "go to sleep" and then wait for just the right moment to roar at me to scare me. Thank's Monsters Inc. for that one.

He loves to learn, and even though we've read most of his stories 1000 times, he still likes to point at everything over and over again and say "what's that?" I usually respond the first few times, and then I make him tell me what everything is. He always knows.

I love this little boy more than words could ever express. It's so fun watching him learn and grow in new ways everyday. I'm pretty sure John and I say on a daily basis how lucky we are to have him. While I feel like I'm chasing after him saying "no!" most of the time lately, and am beyond exhausted by the end of the day, he really is the best little guy, and makes me smile like no other! 

Christmas Vacation

With my lack of blogging, you'd think my life was just too boring to have anything worthy of documenting. That's only partly true. Sometimes we are boring over here. Never leave the house, like not even a foot outside for fresh air. Stay in our pajamas until noon. Cuddle in blankets and, probably watch one too many shows. But you know what? That's just the way life goes around here sometimes. And I'm ok with that.

But, sometimes we do exciting things. Like go on a family "stay-cation" in our own city, just so we can go swimming in the middle of a freezing winter. Or, visit the zoo, because it's free, and things like that need to be taken advantage of. And one time, we even hopped on a plane for seven hours and went to England for Christmas. So, I'd like to think we're not totally boring people. Just on occasion(s).

Sometime back in the summer when we learned that my in-laws would be going on a mission to England, we decided right then and there that's where Christmas would be spent. Then came time to actually buy the tickets and we almost bagged the whole thing. But, that would put us in the "boring people" category. And just because we have a crazy-active toddler on our hands, doesn't mean we can't subject an entire plane to a seven hour tantrum. So, we bit the bullet and bought our tickets, and away we flew. Tantrum the entire flight and all. It was a lovely mess.

I love visiting other countries. I love seeing how other people in the world live. And I love getting to be part of their culture, for days or weeks at a time. It was such a wonderful trip, aside from the plane flight. But you know what? We all survived, and so did everyone on that plane who, along with us, got no sleep that night. You win some, you lose some.

I'm sure there are things we missed doing in London, but, with a little one in tow, I feel like we crammed in as much as we could in the short week we were there. We left feeling pretty satisfied with what we were able to see.

Cousins! Buckingham Palace. House of Parliament. Hyde Park. Tower Bridge. Westminster Abbey. Science Museum. Leicester Square. Saw Les Mis. Wandered through Harrods. White cliffs of Dover. Canterbury. We even got to spend an entire day by ourselves in London, thanks to my in-laws! And of course, we toured the darling town of Gravesend where my in-laws are currently living. It was such a lovely trip. And a nice break from reality. That is, until we had to take an eight hour flight back home. We're pretty certain we can do anything now after surviving such flights!