What does the horse say?

We had a good week in the Neighborhood.  I feel like James gets sick so often and then, of course, takes forever to get right back to himself.  He was definitely back to his goofy, but inquisitive self.  He is sleeping close to normal again (did I just jinx it?) and trying his hardest to feed himself with utensils.  He's not that messy...guess he takes after his mom!  I taught him the sign for 'water' today and he picked it up without help by this afternoon.  He also will sign for 'milk' and 'music', since he pronounces them so much alike ('muh').  He's starting to add family member's names to his repertoire, like Maxie ('mae'), Molly ('momah'), Pops ('ba'), and Grandpa ('kah-kah').  Grandpa isn't too keen on his name yet, but is hoping that his name will morph into something else than 'poop'.  James enjoys the "What does the ___ say?" game and will tell us the sounds for cow, horse (with a real whinny!!), train, bird, and sheep (that I remember).  

Little Memories:

• James is loving daycare!  The past few weeks when I have dropped James off at school, he will linger around me for a minute and then run off to show me a toy that is in the classroom.  He points and 'tells' me about the things in the room and all the people in the room too!
• During prayers several nights this week, after naming all those that we ask to bless, James will start naming off what sounds like the other kids in his classroom (we tell him alot about his friends).  Too sweet!
• Saying 'night-night' and laying on the floor to copy the puggies lounging in the sun.
• Whenever we praise James for a good job and give him a Hi 5, he wants the doggies to give him a Hi 5 too.  Maxie and Molly have no clue why we keep picking up their paws.  This also carried over to giving each of the dogs a turn talking on the pretend phone.
• James pointed to a man in a magazine today and said "ba"!  After I looked at the picture of the man that looked similar to Dad, I realized that he thought the man was Pops!
• My son can yodel.  Seriously.  I was singing a song about Woody from Toy Story to James that has a small yodeling part.  He loved the song and finally after the yodeling part, he copied it!  Now almost every time I sing it, he tries to yodel too!  I need to get a video of it this week to post.

What I learned this week:

• Make sure that if you are melting butter in the microwave, that you wipe out the dish prior to adding the butter to ensure that all water is wiped away.  I heated up a half stick of butter that literally exploded EVERYWHERE in the microwave.  There was barely any butter left in the dish.  Must be Paula Dean's dream to see butter raining from the sky like it was in my microwave.
• When playing chase with James (which he loves), make sure to not randomly pop out from behind somewhere when it is semi-dark.  We have been playing 'boo' and chase all week.  Apparently, James wasn't ready to play the other night, as after Chris jumped out with "BOO", James came running to me, terrified of the 'boo'!

On a different note, please pray for some friends of ours who have twins that were born over a week ago at 24 weeks.

I challenge all of you to share your appreciation for those you love this week.  May it be a blessed one!