So July did prove to be less busy, but we still found plenty to do.  I think we just pushed everything it all into a week and a half.

The first of the month was spent at parks and enjoying some rather cool weather.  We have really had only 3 days in the 90s this summer, so it hasn’t felt like summer.  Great for our electrical bill though. The weather has been more like May or June, pretty weird.  We did however find a few days that got warm enough to swim (as long as the pool was heated).  Jeremiah loves the water.  After Jamaica he has had no problem putting his head under.  I talked with a lady from church who used to teach swim classes and got some pointer.  We went to our pool and within a half hour he was swimming between Andy and I about 6 feet – under water!  He even had Andy take him to the 4 foot section and push him underwater so he could push off of the bottom and come up.  So we went to a friends pool a couple Fridays ago and I decided to see how far he could go.  He pushed off of the steps and swam underwater a good 12 feet before he brought himself up.  He had 2 more strokes to the other side of the pool and wasn’t flailing at all, so I had him go the rest of the way (I was within a foot of him from about 6 feet on).  He came up and had held his breath the whole time, but immediately started crying because it scared him.  I felt horrible, but at the same time was very proud and a little glad he has some fear of water now.  He was much more hesitant to do it this Thursday, but he did and got almost as far.  He had an audience this time so the crying continued after each swim, but I think that was more for show and sympathy.  So we have a swimmer.  We often have warm weather into October, so maybe it will be warm enough to use our pool then.

Our friend Joshua turned 1 this month.  Jeremiah was so excited to go to his birthday party.  Other than the bubbles in the eyes he had a great time.  Auntie Katie and Carlo came down for the day so he didn’t have to take a nap.  Which he loved!  However, it proves the child does still need a nap, because he was grumpy the next day!  So no more “Baby Joshua”, good thing we have a lot more babies at our church and several more on the way!  (No not us!)  Jeremiah wants a baby and we keep telling him he has to get married first. So he has settled with taking care of his baby monkey, Natalie.  By the way since Uncle Nich and Aunt Mel are married now, I am pretty sure he thinks they have a baby on the way.

We went to the Zoo twice this month and the Wild Animal Park once.  I so LOVE those memberships – best deal I have found.  One time we went to the Zoo at “night”.  They have different shows set up in the evening during the summer.  We watched the bird show, where the bird took the money donations and stuffed them in a box – the acrobats, with the lady who did the rings – and the Splash animals painting.  Jeremiah loved all of them but I realized this week when he wanted to paint which one he liked best.  The lady who we saw paints to music and it is choreographed.  She uses her hands and when she uses a brush flings the extra paint off of it behind her.  That is what Jeremiah wanted to do.  Luckily she painted outside and I could convince him the kitchen was not the place to splash paint around.  I do think he used his hands a little, but I will take that over splattered paint all over my kitchen

We went to our church’s beach baptism a couple of weeks ago.  Jeremiah had a blast playing in the sand with the kids.  I still do not understand how sand get everywhere and we didn’t even get in the water!  It was our first time at the beach for quite a while.  With water temperature at 63-65 degrees, it doesn’t rank up there as one of the things I want to do.  I am very proud of those that got baptized in the cold water.

Jeremiah completed his summer reading program from the library this month.  We are waiting to see if he wins the drawing.  He has the last 2 years, what are the odds!  He did get to go to the mall this week and get his free pretzel.  He went to get clothes upstairs so we could go and came down with long sleeves and long pants (it has been cool, but not THAT cool).  He told me his pants needed to have pockets and these were the only ones he could find.  We went back up and found shorts with pockets and he stuffed his coupon in his pocket.  He was so proud as he walked up to the counter.  He put the coupon on it and said “I want a pretzel with salt and cheese”.  I think maybe we have gotten a few too many pretzels.  He did actually share with me and Joshua, so that was really nice.

He often sounds just like me – not sure how I feel about hearing myself talk.  Let me preface this by saying we went to the dentist yesterday, so I could get my teeth cleaned…Ok.  So last night he is in bed and we hear through the monitor  “DADDAY!”  What?  “Will you remind me in the morning to brush my teeth, cause sometimes I forget?  So will you remind me?” Ok, go to sleep.  A few minutes later “DADDAY” What “I have a new song I am going to sing to you in the morning.  I just remembered it”  Ok, go to sleep.  So about 11:00 this morning I am telling mom this story.  Jeremiah looks at me with wide eyes and says “Mommy, is it still morning?”  Yes.  “Ok I going to go brush my teeth”.  He is a funny boy!

In other news, he grew 1/4 of an inch this month – 41 1/4 inches now.  Not sure about the weight, he hasn’t wanted to do Wii lately.  Too busy riding his new tricycle daddy got him (and didn’t tell mommy he was going to – surprise) and trying to jump his scooter.  Probably not the best thing to do to let him watch some skateboarding during the X Games last weekend.  Maybe he will only think it is on TV like a video game – yeah right.  We live in Southern California.  He will figure it out.

We are about to embark on underwear 24 hours a day.  He has done great wearing his underwear to nap and not having any accidents.  It helps that he likes the fact he can get out of bed to go.  So if he can’t fall asleep fast he goes to the bathroom 2 or 3 times.  He has had more problems being a little wet when he is awake.  So we will see how full time underwear goes.  I think that will officially make him a big boy.  At least I can still convince him he is my baby boy and get a few cuddles.  I will milk that as long as I can!

One last note, I gave in and got facebook this month.  So if you are on and I haven’t found you please find me.  I am not sure what I think about it.  Some people share a WHOLE lot and others I think use it like I am – just to be nosy and see what and where people are.  I have reconnected with my old college roommate and tons of camp friends, so that has been super fun!  Now not to get too addicted.

So here we are in August.  What all will it entail?  Who knows.

Nichole

P.S. Thanks to those who voted for Jeremiah for Chick-fil-a.  He got 60 votes, but the top 10 have between 275 and 1150 votes.  I don’t think I know that many people.  We had fun though.

Riding, originally uploaded by Jigsaw HC.

He decided he needed his helmet to ride his scooter today and left it on for his 4 wheeler

Should I be worried that even before he has fully figured out how to ride his scooter he is trying to jump with it?

We made it to July!  We can breathe again.  I am very much looking forward to a more relaxed and less hectic month.  June was the last of the busyness for a while.

So my Grandma Caughell came while Andy went up to E3 in LA.  It was not the trip we had planned, but we had a good time together.  She got here just a little late on Saturday evening.  We went to Kallin’s birthday party on Sunday and had a lot of fun.  Jeremiah, as always, really understands how a pinata works.  He almost got hit in the head because a few pieces of candy flew out.  He was able to get 3/4 of a lunch bag full of candy.  He also has a great ability to share.  Not always when he is supposed to, but he shared the hard gobstoppers with Reece who had already been made to spit 8 out of her mouth.  He also shared some candy with Great-Grandma. That evening however he got a fever.  It stuck around the next day so our day at the beach was postponed.  By Monday evening he said his mouth hurt.  By the next morning he had white spots in the back of his throat.  There went our trip to the Zoo and in came a trip to the doctor.  The doctor called in sick, so our appointment was made even later.  Off for a yummy peach shake from Chick-fil-a and back to the doctor.  Luckily I had already packed a lunch in hope of a picnic.  Well, it ended up being a picnic at the doctors waiting for his prescription – it was hand, foot & mouth (not anything like mad cow).  So Great-Grandma read A LOT of books and played a lot at home.  We did go to the beach one evening.  So we had a good time, just not what was expected. Another unexpected thing was an earthquake – an aftershock from the Easter earthquake.  Grandma thought I was joking when I told her to get on the floor we were having an earthquake. But Jeremiah who had just gone to bed knew what it was. Quite the excitement. By Friday of that week all was well in our house, but it seemed like everyone else was sick with either a cold or what Jeremiah gave them.  What a week!

Andy and I went to a wedding that evening and Jeremiah had a new babysitter.  One of my former students (YIKES!) drove over (YIKES!) to watch him.  Brittney, my friend Connie’s daughter, came to watch him.  Jeremiah had a great time and I am pretty sure Brittney was ready for peace and quiet.  He has an alarm that changes to green when he can get up from naps or in the morning.  Best thing we have bought it works so well – almost too well.  We couldn’t re-set because he was napping when we left, so when we got home at 10 at night he was still awake.  “But my light was green”.  Brittney said he talked the whole time.  Not a surprise.  She actually let him borrow one of the toys they played with that night.  I am waiting for the “when is Brittney coming back” line.

Father’s Day was fun and relaxing.  We needed it.  Jeremiah loves to keep secrets – at least ones about presents for either mom or dad.  He spent the two days before whispering to me about the card or the gift.  He came up with the idea to hide the present in Daddy’s tool box and have him go look in it (it was wrenches so it was appropriate).  He was so excited.  I don’t think Andy was out of bed before he told him to go look in the toolbox.  We went to Grubby’s Diner for lunch.  That was quite interesting convincing Jeremiah that Andy wanted it and not Chinese Buffet.  He finally was content when we told him he could pick where he wanted to go for his birthday.

The next week we went to the Zoo, since we didn’t get to go with Grandma Caughell.  Several friends went with us.  Jeremiah got to ride the sky ride with Greta, so he was all excited.  We had a great day. Later that week we got to go to the beach with Becca.  It was another fun, relaxing day.  It was over cast so it made it nice to play in the sand, which was what Jeremiah wanted to do.  It was too cold to go in the water.  Jeremiah found a HUGE hole to walk around in.  Then he wanted us to make one close to our stuff.  We made a hole but it was not quite as big.

The next week was a busy week.  We went to the park with Shannon and the Cross boys.  They are all older so it was funny to watch Jeremiah keep up with them.  He did a pretty good job and had a GREAT nap that afternoon.  Too bad Shannon is done watching them.

The next day we had Kort’s first birthday party.  It was postponed when all of the kids were sick.  Jeremiah had so much fun and had so much sugar.  He loved playing with their kid’s laptop and in the playhouse outside.  It was so cute all the kids blew out the candle for Kort.  Jeremiah loved trying out all of Kort’s new toys.  Good thing Kort is pretty laid back. We had a great party

In the process of all the craziness we ran out of diaper.  Jeremiah only uses them at night and a Pull-up at naps.  So we decided to try Pull-ups at night.  Well, we discovered that Jeremiah can make it most nights without going to the bathroom (too much watermelon does not make it through the night).  He thought when he woke up he could just go because he had a Pull-up on.  Now that he understands he can get up and go to the bathroom, he has only had maybe 3-4 naps and nights that he has been wet.  He actually got up at 2:30 the other night, went into the bathroom, went, washed his hands and put himself back to bed without saying anything.  What a great discovery!  So he finally got his potty training toy – UNO Moo.  So guess what we have been playing over and over and over.  I will take it over wet diapers any day!

Thursday of the same week we went to the fair.  We got there early and got to ride on a School Bus from the parking lot.  Jeremiah was so excited.  We walked around and looked at different things and animals until the rides opened at noon.  Jeremiah loved them!  He rode quite a bit.  He says his favorite was the roller coaster, but he liked the bumper cars and boats a lot too.  He just needs to learn to turn the wheel more than an inch back and forth.  We shared tater twisters, funnel cakes and a HUGE 18 inch corn dog.  Thanks to Grandpa we had to get cotton candy on the way out.  A lot of pictures are on the blog.  We got to ride a double decker bus back to the parking lot.  We sat on top and it didn’t have a roof, so Jeremiah loved it.  He loved going under the free way.  Best FREE ride of the day.

Then we got into 4th of July weekend.  We went swimming with friends Friday morning.  Jeremiah can now touch in the shallow end with no problem and as long as he doesn’t have his swim vest on he can get out by himself.  He loved that.  Saturday we had a picnic with friends from church.  Jeremiah took his stomp rocket and t-ball set.  They all loved playing with that we also went to the playground.  Garland and Jeremiah were two peas in a pod.  Sunday we had double parties.  We went to a “Baby Callee’s house” for a lunch BBQ.  They played in the water all afternoon- slip-n-sliding and in the mini pools.  We were going to go home and take a quick nap before Iwasaki’s, but that didn’t happen.  Jeremiah almost fell asleep in the car, but was too excited with all he had done that afternoon.  After a quick stop home to get more food and warm clothes, we were off to our second party. It was much closer to the ocean and down right cold.  Good thing the water was in Escondido.  Jeremiah had a blast as always there.  He perked back up as soon as he was out of the car and playing.  Luckily Kim had earplugs for Jeremiah, so we could watch the fireworks.

We drove home real quick to watch the fireworks from one of our common areas.  They shoot them off from the park a block or so from our house.  Last year Jeremiah hated them and went in early because it was too loud.  The earplugs really helped this year.  By the end he actually liked them and picked out his favorite.  We did not have finale though.  We thought it was kind of odd but with finances like they are you get what you get.  Well we found out later, fireworks went side ways and hit the care takers house and 4 people were treated for burns.  Kind of scary, but makes sense why we didn’t have a finale.

After a day of relaxing at home on the 5th, we headed to the Wild Animal Park with Eddie on Tuesday.  It was kind of misty/rainy here when we left, but ended up just being overcast when we got there.  It ended up being great since that made the animals pretty active.  We saw the male lion up close to the glass.  He actually got off the box and turned and looked at us and then laid down like a house cat all spread out.  It is pretty intimidating having a lion 2 feet from you with a 2 inch pane of glass between you.  Of course Jeremiah was not phased by it at all.  I have decided Jeremiah should not go to Africa anytime soon, he doesn’t have a proper fear of lion and tigers!

Wednesday evening we had another earthquake.  This one was short but we really shook.  By the time Andy got Jeremiah down on the floor by the couch it was done.  It was closer to us but still 40 so miles away.  This time Jeremiah did not know what it was.  It did feel different than the rolling ones we have felt lately.  But all is well and nothing has fallen off anything here, so that is good.

Yesterday was a big day for us too!  Jeremiah HAD to dress like a cow so he could get a free kids meal from Chick-fil-A. When I asked him a while ago if he wanted to dress up, he told me he wanted to be a firefighter cow.  They have a new Spicee Chicken sandwich and the ad for it is a huge cow in a firefighter outfit.  So that is what we did.  He was pretty excited about it and looked pretty cute.  If you didn’t see the e-mail, you can vote for him to win free chicken for a year.  I was wrong though.  There are 2 contests going on, so he has to be in the top 10 to qualify for them to consider his picture.  So looks like we need closer to 150 votes.  We are at 48 now!  Thanks to those who voted.  He had a lot of fun yesterday, but was a little intimidated by the person in the cow outfit walking around.  It was a pretty tall cow though.  By the end he was excited to wave to it though.

So that is what we have been up to.  He grew a half inch this month.  He is now 3 foot 5 inches and still weighs around 42 lbs.  The good thing is he is still wearing the same shirts as last year.  They were tight in the tummy but long last year.  Now he has room in the tummy but they are getting shorter.  So at least he is thinning out.  He is almost as tall as his friend Isaac who is a year older.  I am pretty sure he weighs more though.

Hope you are having a great summer and are not too hot where you are.  The heat has not set in here yet, so I am wondering if we are going to have a hot fall.  Who knows!  Until next month!

Nichole