Random Asides

Jake got a Tony Stewart Power Wheel from Santa for Christmas. He LOVED sitting in it and occasionally would take it for a spin around the driveway or up the sidewalk but I don't think he quite got how to turn it and in the end he much prefers his bike. Recently however, he has discovered that his "number race car" as he calls it can go on the dirt and with a wooden ramp to get back up onto the concrete, he can now do laps around the house. He discovered this last Saturday and went around so many times he actually ran the battery out for the first time since he got it. Utah and Jadyn are never far behind him.

Jadyn had gotten a play kitchen from Santa for Christmas and has always played with it frequently. Recently however, she has been "preparing" meals for us, putting pretend food on plates, serving it to us with silverware and even sprinkling imaginary salt and pepper on top. She then will ask if we are thirsty and come back with a cup and refill it for us when we are done. She finishes off our meals with ice cream cones and then takes the dishes to the sink and pretends to wash them. It is all very cute. The other day the kids were eating goldfish crackers for their afternoon snack and I caught Jadyn with them on her play plate using her plastic fork and knife to try and cut them in half. LOL!

In conjunction with this, she has also been playing Mommy to her baby dolls and stuffed animals. For example, she will strap her cabage patch doll into her doll stroller and take her with us when we walk across the street to check the mail. When we were at the toy store last week shopping for a gift for one of the many celebrations coming up, Jadyn took all of the cooing babies off the shelf one by one and was rocking them in their cradles. I could not resist. I often buy Jake an inexpensive hot wheel or Nascar diecast when we are out but there is nothing comparibly cheap that Jadyn likes as well so I got her a talking baby doll. A word of warning: Next time I will be more cautious about what features these talking, crying, cooing baby dolls have. Thankfully this one does have an off switch but when it is on, it senses as soon as you walk near and starts crying until you feed her the bottle or give her the pacifier. It has scared me on more than one occasion. Here is Jadyn being attentive to her lil one:

Yesterday she took her baby with us in the car and I heard her give the baby a hug in the back seat and say "I wuv you". It just melts your heart. She will look at her baby and say things like, "Ah, That's so cute!" It cracks me up. I love that she is doing the whole imitating mommy thing. As long as she does not start copying my fits of rage when I am driving or something else that is less desirable, I think we will be fine.

Last weekend when Joe was out of town, he called to talk to us and we happened to be sitting down to dinner. Here is a picture of Jake talking to Joe on the phone, cracking up as they hiccuped back and forth to each other. Of all the silly things:

Finally, I just have to throw this picture of Jadyn into the mix as she sat in the swing of our backyard the other day. I was playing with the manual settings on the camera so am quite pleased that the picture came out at all but I figure with Jake's birthday this week, we might be seeing a lot more pictures of him then her and I just happen to thing she looks so cute and grown up here: