Moving on Up

This past week, my little boy started a new phase in a big boy bed.

Some dear friends had a twin they were not using, and gave it to us. Aaron has loved it and it honestly has been a fairly uneventful change, in a good way. The only thing that seems to cause him stress is when his covers are messed up in the night, as he is quite anal. I hear a call "Mama! Can't fix it! Help you!" Most people probably think he is quite old at over two and a half to be just now getting out of his crib, but most of the advice that I got was to not move him out until necessary.....

Which brings me to my to next point - For all you non-facebookers, come November 8th, we are due for another Stephenson in the family! So in a few months, the crib will be back in use. I am feeling pretty poorly these past few weeks - but since it is always difficult for us to not only get pregnant, but also to keep a pregnancy, we are grateful for the growing and so far, thriving little miracle that God has blessed us with. At least, STAY THANKFUL is what I tell myself as I hang over the toilet. =)

Easter 2010

This was his reaction everytime he opened an egg:

So exciting!!!

And of course, the real reason for Easter:

Some things about our week.....

Brynn and Owen came and played all day last Saturday so we had a lot of activity and fun together....

I just thought that picture was so sweet of them leaning on each other.

Impossible to get the 3 of them to actually look at the camera at the same time....

Aaron has suddenly found it very exciting to comb my hair in the evenings. Lee doesn't appreciate my jokes about him being a possible future hair stylist....

He also finds it interesting to read to us lately. It's hilarious - if he knows the book, he will sort of remember certain things about different pages to say, but if he doesn't, he just makes things up or just does gibberish. Here's one where he doesn't know what it says.... (Plus it's not very exciting as he's looking at the table of contents.)

Jesus Loves Me

Nothing super exciting to blog or talk about - But for the sake of posting something, we have yet another video of Aaron performing on the guitar. This one is his best-selling single "Jesus Loves Me" with a little variance from the classic version.

And in his underwear nontheless.

San Diego

We spent the past week in the San Diego area - Lee needed to get some major quality writing done for church and some friends of ours generously offered for us to stay at the camp they run in Pine Valley. So while Lee wrote and studied during the day, Aaron and I went on some adventures of our own. Mostly he was perfectly content to throw rocks in the creek and walk down the road to see the horses and play at the park.

One afternoon after Lee finished, we ventured off to Coronado beach. Aaron cried on the way to the "woah bo" because we didn't bring his swimsuit. I kept telling him it was too cold to swim in the ocean anyway....

He didn't care that it was cold and ended up being wet head to toe anyway, and LOVED it.

I was glad that I anticipated that and had brought extra clothes.

I also got to meet up with one of my old roommates from Biola, Katie, who lives in the area. It was so nice to meet her husband and daughter Sophia for the first time. We also stayed with them one night and it was so good to catch up!

Our last day in San Diego we decided to splurge and go to Sea World. Aaron had been looking forward to going to the "big zoo with fishies" all week.

In the shark aquarium....

And we unexpectedly got to meet Elmo and Zoey, which was a HUGE highlight to say the least. =) Aaron is generally scared of dressed up things, but surprised us this time and was ecstatic to meet them and give them hugs and knuckles.

Everyone nearby was laughing when I took the following picture:

Aaron walked right under the ropes to look at the dolphins more closely and wanted me to take his picture with them. It was hilarious because this dolphin just sort of stopped and floated for several minutes as if he was posing with him.

We had a great time and are so glad we took the time and money to do this part of the trip. Aaron was such a trooper considering that he was a bit sick and didn't sleep well most of the week. It was a blast and we had a great time together as a family.

A few more additional pictures in case you are interested....

Went on this ride over and over and over and over.... =)

A great week for sure!!!

Tractor Boy

Aaron, as most little boys, has developed a deep and steadfast love for tractors. They have become pretty much the center of his universe, and it's hilarious to hear him say words like "bulldozer, backhoe, excavator" and to know the difference between them all!

It makes this former farm girl quite proud to watch her boy in this mode.

And just for fun - Aaron and Brynn being completely silly and crazy. They are always cracking us up..... "Set.....Go!"

update and other stuff

Haven't taken the time to post lately, but wanted to let you all know that the microphone stand came quickly from Papa Bob's garage of creations and it is a big hit.

Of course, it is adjustable and very realistic. Here is some action on video - Aaron is still mastering singing and playing at the same time... =)

Aaron is also loving a new big boy bike with training wheels that a friend handed down to us. He's been going fast enough to even fall once or twice, so we decided it was time for a helmet....

More action:

By the way, we had to break the habit early of wanting to wear the helmet ALL the time....

An Aqua Tots here in Mesa offered free swimming lessons last week, and we jumped all over the chance to be in the pool each day. Aaron had a good time and learned a few news thing in a short time, one being how to climb out of the pool on his own. And it was esp. fun when Cousin Brynn joined us!

Also, we have been tackling potty-training hard core for the past 3-4 weeks. This has certainly not been my favorite stage to parent in. BUT, I must say that Aaron is doing superb with the pee pee part (my mom says I need to be very grateful for that!) Accidents are scarce and he even wakes up dry sometimes after naps. The poo poo, however, not so much...... GRRRRR..... Hopefully we'll get there sooner than later - at least he asks for a diaper when he has to go so there's no mess. Except when I tried the tactic of telling him there were no diapers left - he proceeded to poop in the backyard. It was like owning a dog for a short moment.... Baby steps right? At least he didn't poop in a diaper! So..... to be continued..... =)