The Johnston Family: Case Update

Case.

Oh Case how you make me laugh. Your sense of humor and your imagination provide such entertainment to Daddy and me!

Love that you are so goofy!!!

You will frequently come into the room and say "what's going on in here?" or "where did you come from?" I love that you refer to your fingernails as "fingernagels". That is probably one of my favorite things that you say, oh and you've also started calling me Mominy, which just cracks you (and me) up. Tonight you got in trouble for hitting your brother and after sitting in time out I told you to go and tell him your were sorry. You did but Ty didn't pay any attention to you because he most likely didn't even know why you were apologizing however you didn't interpret it that way. Instead you said, "Tybee is REALLY mad mommy" thinking that was why he didn't respond. I don't know why but I couldn't stop laughing at this whole scenario. You've just grown up SO fast and you're talking SO much it just catches up with me sometimes because I feel like you were a tiny baby asleep on my chest just yesterday.

This cracked me up! The mall we were at was under
construction. This was on one of the temporary walls. You
literally stood there just like that for several minutes. Oh boy!

You are a very physical little boy. You love to run and jump, especially on the furniture and therefore you spend quite a bit of time in timeout as well. We've been to a few new play places and one of them has trampolines, which you LOVE and you've gotten so good at. You love to swim in Grandma and Grandpa's pool and you're totally independent as long as you have your "Puddle Jumper" swimmy on. You also love the sandbox and can spend so much time out there dumping sand on your head and making sure that their are grains of sand in every nook and cranny of your body so that when you come inside you can be sure that there's a fine layer of sand on my floors at all times.

You are fearless and that is your little brother
going up right behind you. You are his hero
for sure!!!

You have started to give Daddy and me a glimpse of what trouble we're going to be in with our grocery bill in a few years. All of a sudden you eat... a lot. One of your favorite foods is chicken nuggets. No I don't make a daily stop at McDonald's for you... although that would help me seal the "Mom of the Year" crown. You love these fresh chicken nuggets that they sell at the grocery store. You also like hot dogs most of the time and yogurt but I'm pretty sure you could actually live on popsicles (Flavor Ice) and fruit snacks. Your drink water but you prefer milk and if we're out you ALWAYS think you should get a lemonade (pronounced lemone-aid).

your daily popsicle, before I got smart and started buying the
cheap Flavor Ice ones.

Because I'm mom of the year, you get to take my phone to bed with you at nap time and bed time. You rarely fall asleep playing with it. I usually have to come in and take it away. Sometimes you watch shows on it but more often than not you like to do puzzles on it. You still sleep in your crib... go ahead and judge me on this if you want to but I'm telling you that I will NEVER push to put you in a toddler bed, of course I might not have to because you may actually need a queen size bed by the time I let you out of your crib. You LOVE your crib and I LOVE your crib so I just don't see the problem. Grandma has tried to get you to nap at her house in a "big boy" bed and you've wanted nothing to do with it. Right now you go to bed around 9 (after stories and prayers with Daddy) and you usually don't fall asleep until 10 or 10:30ish... crazy right??? You love to be in your crib awake or not. But wait for it... here's the best part... you've been sleeping until around 8:30 and sometimes later. It is AMAZING!!!! Now you aren't loving your crib quite as much when you wake up in the morning as I will hear you yelling "Mommy, where are you? and if I don't come right in you start yelling it louder. You go down for a nap around 2 but probably don't fall asleep until 2:30 or 3 and you're up at about 4:00 or 4:30. Thank you for being such a great sleeper!!!!

Another thing that has surprised me is your imagination. There are already times where you make me check your closet for "tigers". Tigers seem to be the scary thing for you right now. If there's a dark room in our house there are probably tigers in it. You've even woken up in the middle of the night having nightmares. I guess I assumed that these things would come later but I was wrong.

You know all of your letters and you used to know most of the sounds however we haven't worked on anything more than surviving the last several months so as I started going over them again today I learned that you no longer know the sounds or perhaps you just don't know what I'm asking. You know colors and shapes, counting at least to 10 and your vocabulary grows daily.

Here's some of your favorite things:
TV: Doc McStuffins, Bubble Guppies, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Curious George (but only on the computer).
Toys: Your train table, anything outside, racing (if only you could get your brother to get the hang of this), sidewalk chalk and cars.
Iphone: Tozzles, Disney Jr, Chuck the Truck story, PBS kids and Miss Spider story
Music: Sweet Caroline, which you call the Bop Bop song and you ask for it over and over again, The Wheels on the Bus, John Jacob Jingle Hiemer Schmitt (love when you ask for that one) and Hickory Dickory Dock
Books: Edward the Emu, the story of Daniel and the Lions from the Bible
Friends: We still have our Baby Jam friends and you love them all and talk about them all at different times and I don't know what I'd do without their mommies!

Baby Jam... Love these kiddos!!!

Andrew and Oaks have probably been the two kids that you've been closest to this past year. Andrew moved to England for a few months for his Daddy's work and you could not have been sadder. Then Oaks moved back to California with his family. You have missed your two buddies SO much and I have missed their Mommies like crazy too! We are finally going to see Andrew and Tracey again THIS week! We are SO excited! You think Andrew is on every plane that flies over.

The day Andrew left :-(

You and Oaks... Miss him!!!

You and Oaks and your annoying little brother :-)

And after 6 months I need to do a picture dump...

You have two VERY special grandparents and this was your
favorite thing to do when you got up in the morning while we
lived at their house.

Getting ready for your first (organized) Easter Egg Hunt

You thought the bunny handing out candy
was pretty cool... your brother? Not so much!

You and a member of the Graveyard Stompers band, who also happens to be the painter we got a quote from but didn't hire. When I called to tell him we were picking someone else he invited us to listen to his band practice and we went... TOTALLY random but he's such a nice guy and you and Ty had a ball!

Your first grocery trip with your very own cart... the only thing
you would put it in was your free cookie though... I wouldn't
call that super helpful :-)