A Night Night Prayer

Before we tell Jesse good night, we always say a short prayer with him.  Recently he started asking us to "pray again" (maybe in an attempt to prolong the bedtime routine??), so we sometimes oblige and instead of us saying another prayer, we let him repeat a short one after us.  Last night we were praying for Jesse's newest cousin Will who was born just yesterday and we managed to get a bit on video.  He was really sweet the first time, but once we tried to get a reenactment he got kind of sassy with it.  Anyway, we look forward to meeting our newest nephew next weekend!

Holiday Fun

We have been having a lot of fun celebrating the Christmas season this year.  Today when Jesse woke up from his nap, we enjoyed making some sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies.  Jesse really seemed to enjoy every second of it.  He was a great helper, too.  He loved pressing the cookie cutters into the dough and making sure we kept (lots) of flour on our board and rolling pin (and on us as well, as you can probably tell!).  Afterwards, we delivered the cookies to friends in our building.  Jesse absolutely loved riding the elevator all over the building, and I think it helped him work off his sugar high.  He did melt down a little, though, once he realized he couldn't stay and play with any of his friends.

Eating it is, of course, the best part!  He got a few bites before dinner, but we made him wait until after dinner to eat a whole cookie.  Once he realized that he wasn't going to get a cookie without eating dinner, he started quickly stuffing his baked potato, carrots and green beans in his mouth.

Just some proof that these cookies made him hyper!

We've also been working on a big paper chain for our Christmas tree.  We add to it every day.  Jesse likes to color, paint and put stickers on the pieces of paper.

Buddies

I just couldn't resist posting these sweet pictures of Jesse and one of his best buddies Alyse.  For the past year, my friend Maggie and I have swapped babysitting each week.  She takes Jesse for a couple hours once a week, and I take Alyse for a couple hours on another day.  It's so great to have a chunk of alone time on a regular basis, and it has been so fun to watch Jesse and Alyse's friendship develop.  A year ago, they barely noticed each other (except for the occasional kisses they would swap, as you can see here), but now Jesse talks about Alyse all the time and looks forward to their play dates.  His newest thing is trying to hold her hand in an attempt to drag her wherever he wants her to go.  The other day I was taking them down to the Tot Lot and Jesse had run ahead of us on our way to the elevators.  All of a sudden he turned around, ran back to Alyse and said "Jesse hold yeeses hand" as he reached for her hand.  Anyway, they are a sweet pair and these are some cute pictures of them eating cookies together last week.

I left the room for just a few seconds to grab something, and when I came back Jesse had left his chair and climbed up in Alyse's chair.

Our Jesse Tree

My Mom gave us this Jesse Tree Devotional book the Christmas right before Jesse was born, and this year we are finally getting to do this as a family as we celebrate Advent.  I've been so excited, and have been working to get all the ornaments ready.  Jesse might not "get" all the meaning behind this for quite some time, but my hope and prayer is that he will understand more and more each year, and that it will be something our family will look forward to doing together each Christmas season.

If you aren't familiar with the Jesse Tree, it's based on the following scripture found in Isaiah 11:1-2, which refers to Christ (a shoot) coming from the line of Jesse in the Old Testament:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him--the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord.

The devotional book features different people and events leading up to Christ's coming.  So far we have hung the stump of Jesse, a moon and sun symbolizing creation, an apple and serpent for Adam and Eve, a rainbow for Noah, and a tent for Abraham and Sarah.  I love how this Advent activity really ties together the Old and New Testaments and shows how all of the Old Testament events and people point to the coming of Jesus.

Zoo Lights

This past Saturday we visited the Lincoln Park Zoo for their annual Zoo Lights.  The lights reminded me a lot of the Fayetteville Square at Christmas, but on a much larger scale.  It was definitely worth the crowds, and it was the perfect time to go, because we had an unseasonably warm day and didn't even need our heavy coats.  The best part by far was the awesome light show.  You can take a peek on the video.


Right before Zoo Lights, we visited the Nature Museum.  Since I had picked up a free pass to the museum from the library earlier in the week, and since the Nature Museum is just a block from the zoo, we figured we might as well kill two birds with one stone.  Jesse especially had fun playing with the water and boats at the museum, in a hands-on exhibit called RiverWorks that explores things like dams and levees and floodplains.  He also loved exploring an area with caves and boats and a tree-house slide, all made especially for kids his age.  I didn't get any pictures of that, because we were busy making sure Jesse didn't get run over by some of the bigger kids.

Jesse's Big Boy Bed

The Friday after Thanksgiving proved to be a very eventful day in our household. The biggest event was Jesse's switch to a big boy bed, but I should say that this was preceeded by Jesse destroying our Christmas tree, which indirectly led to the switch to the big boy bed. The two events may seem totally unrelated to you, but let me explain.

We spent Friday morning getting out our Christmas tree, stringing the lights on it and decorating it. Just when we got it situated in the corner of our living room, nicely out of Jesse's reach behind the couches and end table, Jesse pushed the lamp off of the end table and into the Christmas tree, which caused the already-wobbly-$18-Wal-Mart-tree that we got the first year we were married to go tumbling to the ground.

Not knowing whether or not we had broken glass all over the floor, I decided to put Jesse in his crib so that we could deal with the mess without him getting hurt. This was a bad idea. Jesse knew we were really upset about what had happened and that he was in trouble, which is what I believe caused him to try to scale the walls of his crib. It wasn't but a few minutes later that we heard a loud thud and crying coming from his room. I can't even describe how horrible we felt. Thankfully he was just fine and didn't even cry that long, even though it appeared that he landed right on his forehead. We had no idea he could or would try to escape (well, we knew he was definitely tall enough, but he has never seemed interested in trying).

Anyway, we didn't want to experience this again (even though we're pretty sure he only did it because of the circumstances), knowing it could have turned out much worse, so we just decided to go ahead and try converting his crib to a toddler bed. So far he seems to have no concept of the fact that he can get out of the bed. He climbs in and out of it all day long, but as soon as it's naptime or bedtime, he won't get out.  Case in point: Shortly after we put him down for a nap the other day, we heard him screaming for George, his monkey; he had thrown him out of bed and wouldn't go get him, even though he really wanted him.

I know that soon enough he will likely learn about his new-found freedom and will test his limits, but for now we are grateful for an initially-smooth transition and glad we don't have to worry about another fall.

Oh, and here are some pictures of him in his "new" bed. We just got the railing today, which will allow all of us to sleep better, since Jesse had been falling out, sometimes several times a night.

 

 

A Ram Sam Sam

Jesse's favorite song in our music class is called "A Ram Sam Sam".  Tonight at dinner he started singing it, so I grabbed the video camera (I've been trying to catch him singing this for a while, but he usually stops singing when I get the camera out).  You would never be able to guess that this guy has had a high fever all day today.  (In case you are wondering what he is saying, the words to the song are A ram sam sam, a ram sam sam, guli guli guli guli guli ram sam sam! A rafi, a rafi, guli guli guli guli guli ram sam sam!).

This and That

Here's a little update in pictures from the past week.

This is one of Jesse's favorite things to do as of this week.  He loves playing with this big tub of dry beans, using various spoons and scoops to transfer them between different cups and buckets.  It occupies him for a really good length of time, which most toys will not do.

He was really mad about me taking his picture.  As soon as I got the camera out, he started saying "No, Mommy, No".  This is what he was yelling in the picture below.

Another favorite game is "hide and seek", but we really only play it when James is home, because it requires three of us.  One person has to hide, and one person has to go with Jesse to seek.  He loves looking all over for James.  This was James' trickiest hiding spot (between the bed and the wall), and Jesse had to try it out, too.  Sometimes Jesse wants to hide, but of course his version of the game is more like "come into the room where I'm hiding and I will let you know where I am by screaming hello".  

And last, but not least, we celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday with some of our friends.  It was a Canadian-American Thanksgiving, and we certainly had a feast!  Turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, rolls, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, roasted carrots and parsnips, pumpkin pie and pecan pie.  Everything was so delicious, and Andrea did a great job of making the table festive.

Jesse and Lilah had their own table, but I'm afraid Jesse did not appreciate all the good food (with the exception of the pumpkin pie).  We couldn't get them to both look at the same time for this picture.  Jesse was having more fun stabbing his roll with his fork than eating his food.

The Potty

When Jesse was going to the bathroom the other day, I found him like this.  If only he would learn that the other end goes on the potty...

Trick or Treat!

As soon as we walked in the door from seeing Harper Street all decked out for Halloween, Jesse started crying and saying "Halloween...that way" (as he pointed to the door).  He really wanted to go back where all the pumpkins were. 

Thankfully, the fun was not over.  After greeting a number of his friends at our door and handing out some candy, we set out to do some trick-or-treating ourselves.  Our building did trick-or-treat from 4:30-6:30 this evening. Everyone who had candy to give out was supposed to place a ghost on their door so that kids would know to knock.  Jesse had a blast looking for more ghosts and riding the elevator up through all 10 floors.  He kept saying "more doors" and "more ghosts" and "more candy".  I didn't even know he knew what candy was, but he sure was excited about it. 

Here he is getting dressed up in his robot costume.  He really seemed to like walking around the building in it, and only asked to take it off a few times.  He was easily persuaded to keep it on when we told him he had to wear it to keep trick-or-treating.  We taught him to say "trick or treat", but he refused to say it for most people, and when he did say it, it was in a barely audible whisper.  I think he was totally weirded out by the whole thing (in a good way, though, because he seemed very intrigued by it), and had no idea why we were going to strangers' doors and getting things from them.  When it was time to move on to the next door, he would just stand and stare at the previous door, as if he was really thinking and trying to figure out what in the world we were doing.  I don't think he smiled the whole time, but he was not upset at all, just very pensive.

Here he is getting dressed before heading out.  This was the hardest part, and we unfortunately lost both arms in the process.  It would have been asking for too much patience to heat up the glue gun again.

 

As soon as we left our door, Jesse noticed the candy we had left outside, and he went for it, only to land in it.  He was a bit upset, and I thought we had lost any hope of getting him to walk around the building in the big, bulky box, but he recovered very quickly.

 



 First stop: his friend Alyse's house.  They were out trick-or-treating, too, so they left the candy outside.

Here he is at his friend Lilah's apartment.

And here's a video of Jesse talking about Halloween and candy.  His moodiness was not because he wanted out of the stroller, but because he wanted to stay in it, so he could leave and go see more Halloween things.  Funny boy.



Harper Street Halloween

Every year on Halloween, three blocks in Hyde Park are blocked off and the residents go all-out decorating their Victorian-style homes for Halloween.  Jesse was too little to care last year, but this year I knew he would enjoy getting to see all the decorations (especially the pumpkins).  Plus, this event is on my list of things I want to do in Chicago, and since it's possible we won't be here this time next year, I had to make it priority this year.  It's a South Side tradition, and it draws people from all over Chicago and even people as far away as Indiana (or so I've heard).

We showed up a little early, and some homes were still being decorated, but I feel like we got to see plenty.  I could tell by the time we left that things were gearing up.  It's apparently pretty crazy later on, when thousands of kids are trick-or-treating these three narrow blocks.

Since Jesse's robot costume was not conducive to sitting in a stroller, I dug out his monkey costume from last year, and it surprisingly fit pretty well (albeit a tad snug).

James met us there on his way home from school.

 

Pure happiness.  Jesse got to touch a fire hydrant.  He loves these things and never fails to find them.