A New Best Friend....

Joshua has a new best friend....a red heart balloon. We went to my office today to check my mail and one of the admin's had the balloon and let him play with it. He walked all over the office with the balloon as happy as could be so she let us take it home. That was at 10:30am this morning....he has pretty much held on to that balloon the rest of the day. He even holds it when playing with other toys. It seems there is just nothing better than a red heart balloon!!!

Our trip to the boat show..

And other cute photos....

A day at the park!

Yesterday it was 70 degrees and beautiful so we went to the park with our friend Holden.

Saving for college...

I was recently a part of a discussion with other moms about whether or not they had savings accounts for their kids, etc. I felt like such a slacker after this conversation. I was proud to just be putting loose change in Joshua's piggy bank. One mom said they were putting $1,000 a MONTH in their kids savings. I don't know how anyone could do that. So tomorrow I'm going to go to the bank and at least get Joshua a savings account to put his $10 or so from his piggy bank and see if they can't do an automatic withdrawal or something just to keep it going. I figure I'll talk to them about the 529 college savings accounts while I'm at it. Although, I've done some reading online and those 529 accounts look so confusing...because you can get one in any state and from what I read our state has one of the worst accounts available. So then how do you pick a state and is that the best way to save for Joshua. I did a little calculator that they have online to figure how much to contribute and it said that for Joshua to go to a Public State College that we would need to contribute $300 a month until he was 18 to pay for it due to rising costs and inflation. That seems like a LOT of money to me but maybe I'm naive. I certainly don't expect to have every penny for his college saved up but would love to be able to help him out by him not having outrageous college costs. Oh well, we can only do our best.

I have a new love...our DVR. DVR is quite amazing. I never even thought I wanted it...but figured with our new satellite that I would give it a try. I am SOOOO glad I did. It's wonderful to be able to pause live TV when you have to do something and then you can simply catch up on the commercials. Also, since becoming parents it's hard to find time to watch our favorite T.V. shows and a pain to always record them. But now, we can easily record them and go to bed early and watch them the next day. We are also saving tons of time not watching commercials. Can you tell I like my DVR?

Joshua was kind enough to give his virus to John over the weekend. So I had to nurse two sick boys all weekend while doing my best to not catch it myself. So far so good...let's hope it stays that way. Joshua still has no appetite. Every time I start to get him on a good eating schedule - he seems to get sick and we have to start all over. No wonder I have such a hard time getting him to gain weight. I need to measure him though, cause he definitely is looking taller lately.

Joshua has also started to show a bit of interest in climbing. He has figured out how to climb up on his Elmo chair to try to reach things otherwise out of reach on our table. He will even stand on the arms of the chair. I think this might be foreshadowing future trouble for me. I would say he has also tilted the scales in favor of walking over crawling. He now tries to walk first and then if he falls he will crawl - but he is getting better every day with his walking. He might be running by his birthday - YIKES! I might need to get myself some running shoes.

A New Video - The Walker

My Little Boy is Growing up...

On Saturday, we decided it was time for Joshua to take a bath without his tub ring. So we got him a little bath mat that keeps him from sliding around the tub. I don't know why him taking a bath without anything holding him became so significant for me...but it did..I couldn't help but get a few tears in my eyes when I realized our little boy didn't need anything to hold him up in the bath any more. He looked like such a big boy in there as he wiggled all over the tub and tried to stand up a gazillion times.

I also don't know how to really tell if it's appropriate to say that Joshua is walking or not. He is getting braver by the day and can take 5-6 steps alone but he is still crawling and cruising as his main traveling methods. Last night he let go of the couch and walked up to the T.V. and stood in front of it. So cute to see his little body standing all alone. So I guess everyone wins!

Joshua also has figured out how to carry things in his mouth when he is crawling so that he can use his hands to crawl. I have a picture of that for your viewing pleasure. He is usually all over the living room with something stuck in his mouth as he crawls around.

He also LOVES to be pushed around on his little bus. Although it's VERY tiring for mommy & daddy! He will literally throw his body on the floor and scream when you stop. He is also very serious about his bus riding. He is having a great time...but he concentrates on his riding very much. Notice in the picture John's puckered mouth to make the "brrrrr..." noise that a bus would make. hee hee

Autism

I've always been absolutely amazed at the Autism statistics and the fact that there isn't more awareness. Less than a year ago the rate was 1 in 166 kids have autism. Now, it's 1 in 150. 10 years ago it was like 1 in 1,000. The rates are just amazing and scary. Anyways, I just thought this might be a bit educational so I thought I'd share.

In New Jersey, the stats are like 1 in 94...geez, what are you guys doing up there?

You can see the latest story at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-02-08-autism_x.htm

My funny Valentine!

Satellite T.V

We are SOOO hip...we got Satellite T.V. yesterday...wahoo!! Our cable prices kept going up, up, up with no benefits...and we only had basic cable. So now we get all the fancy stuff like program guides, music channels, and DVR...and it's cheaper then our cable. So after Joshua went to bed last night I played w/ our t.v. all night...driving John nuts. Which was pay back for all his crazy channel flipping ways.

The picture is of Holden & Joshua...his friend that came over for a play date last week. They actually had a blast together even if I couldn't get them to smile for the camera.

Then the other picture of Joshua & Riley playing. Riley drops his toy over the gate and Joshua very politely gives it back. Which is a product of all those great manners I'm teaching him.