Thank you Nanny

     Yesterday JT received an unexpected treat! A gift in the mail from Nanny!!! He patiently waited for me to prepare dinner and get it in the oven so he could open his gift.

Super cheesy smile with his gift.

Opening his gift. I love how after John tells JT to pull after JT struggled at one point, JT then kept saying pull, pull...

Cars!!!

The line up of his new cars...JT was in car heaven!

JT looking at his new cars and saying the colors of the cars.

More color naming...

A little bit of counting of the cars and lining them up.

JT loves his new cars book, play mat and 12 cars! Thank you Nanny for sending this, it was the perfect choice for JT!

Cars and Trucks

     Just a few videos for your enjoyment of JT.

This first video is from when we were running some errands around town and JT got quite chatty. He was saying a lot, waving, and saying "Hi". To us, it sounded like JT kept talking about Sarah (rare-ra).

This video is from when JT was playing outside in our backyard baby pool. JT took a short break to play with his big dump truck. He found some big rocks out in the yard and then proceeded to put the truck to work. He had never played with the truck like this or made the correct beeping noise for the dumping- so I was quite impressed :)

Little Buddies

     I have mentioned Finn in previous blog entries- he is one of JT's best buds. They have been hanging around each other since they were born. Their Mom's are good friends and teach Sunday school together. I also have the privilege of babysitting Finn several days a week so these 2 boys have spent a lot of time together!

     This week, I took the boys in the backyard for some more pool fun. Then I decided I wanted to do a mini photo shoot that you will see below...

 Both JT and Finn hard at work...

 JT waved at all the passing airplanes.

 Finn showing off his catch of the day.

 Two cuties wrapped up in towels after the pool.

 Here was my "photo shoot". Finn came that day in jean shortalls and I remembered JT had some as well. Thought it would be precious to take their pictures together. The boys gave me this look as if to ask, "You want us to do what? Smile at the same time?"

 They looked at Sarah...

 and made funny faces and looked anywhere but at me...

Finally I got 1 adorable photo of these little buddies- totally worth it!

Sunset and Fireflies

     Summer is a wonderful time for 2 things here- beautiful sunsets and fireflies! This week we were blessed to have some gorgeous sunsets. Beautiful evening skies has been something I was taught to appreciate from a young age and this still continues today with our family. If there is a beautiful sky outside, we all will usually end up outside to admire the unexpected gift. 

 As the sun continued to set, the fireflies started blinking their little "lights" and JT noticed the dancing flashes across the yard. He exclaimed "fighterfly" and attempted to chase the lights as they appeared.

 Sarah was able to capture a firefly for JT to look at closely. 

JT looking at the little bug as it was getting ready to take flight and light up the evening sky.

Camp

     The Apedaile house has been a little less lively since Friday. Courtney and Lindsay left for middle school camp Friday morning with our church. They will return tomorrow afternoon after nearly 6 days at Horn's Creek- about 3.5 hours southeast of here. John joined the camp for the weekend to help but had to return home for work this week.

 Here are the girls getting ready to head out- JT woke up early to say goodbye to his sisters.

 Sarah took the girls and did a great job of taking some "Mom photos" for me.  Lindsay and Courtney unloading their bags.

 Lindsay in front of her assigned bus #10

Courtney was right behind on bus #11

 In case you were wondering if we really had 11 buses, no we didn't- there were 12 charter buses to bring about 650 campers! Keep in mind this is just middle school students! This is easily the largest event for the student ministry every summer.

 While we haven't had any contact with the girls since they left, the church does a great job of uploading photos every day of the events. Here is Courtney at a large group gathering cheering.

Here is Lindsay, along with her friend Sydney, at the wave pool. I'm sure Lindsay will be thrilled I'm publishing this photo, but it's the only one I have at this point :)

     We are looking forward to hearing about how God worked at camp and the incredible way He blessed the students, leaders, and volunteers.

Toddler bed progress?

     As you know, it has been a week since we converted JT's crib to a toddler bed. All in all it hasn't been bad, but there have been some challenges we have had to deal with. I have taken some pictures to show what we have been working on.

     One of the largest changes that I have had to adapt to is nap time. When he was in the crib, we kept the door shut, mainly to help with noise control with 3 sisters in the house. Apparently this needed to change for John Thomas now that he is in his toddler bed. Here is how I found him during one nap time-

 I felt so bad for him sleeping in his doorway on the floor.

 Upon close inspection you can see his big board book on the bottom, pillow pet, and a yellow car in hand.

 Look at how close to comfort he is.. the bed was just waiting to be used.

 Did I move him? Nope! I was too frightened that I would rouse him and then he wouldn't sleep at all.

 This is the result of a little 2 year old who doesn't get enough sleep. JT hasn't been getting as many total hours for about a week, maybe 2-4 hours short each day. He has been not napping as long and in the morning he has been waking about 1-1.5 hours earlier than normal. This can make for a tired, cranky toddler in the morning.

 Yesterday I finally clued in and started out nap with the door open. I went downstairs to make my lunch and could hear pitter patter footsteps above. I went back up to make sure he wasn't up to trouble. Thankfully he had just grabbed one of his board books (I only have about 5 books in there now) and sat back on his bed to read. Also thankful that JT didn't see me because that usually upsets him.

About 10 minutes later... out like a light!!!

Faces

     JT has many different facial expressions depending on his mood, what he's doing, and who he's playing with. Yesterday JT had a few different looks that I wanted to blog about.

 The famous Fish Lips JT does every day. He usually starts with these lips for kisses, they can also appear  when he's concentrating on something, and sometimes just for fun.

 His modeling face. JT put the sunglasses on top of his head during our evening walk and put his hand up for extra emphasis on how adorable he is.

 This face is becoming more common as JT wants to see himself in the pictures and videos stored on my phone. He will say "JT?" in a pleading way and will contently sit for long periods of time looking at the pictures of himself.

Ending the day with a scrub in the shower. Sarah captured JT's bubble mohawk as we washed the days activities away.

Vertical Skills

     As JT is getting older, his motor skills continue to improve. Yesterday, JT wanted to show off his mad vertical skills since the NBA season is over. He actually isn't too bad considering he just really got some air under his feet. I love how something simple like jumping can bring such joy to a little child- something to learn from their enjoyment.

As a side note yesterday was day 3 of the Toddler Bed and I am happy to report that JT successfully took a nap in his bed!!!

This was how I found him during one check on JT. I didn't dare move his arm out of fear of waking the sleeping bear cub :) JT ended up sleeping about 2-2.5 hours. I hope today is as successful!

Bye Bye Crib

The day finally arrived that we had to say goodbye to JT's crib. Late last week I noticed JT trying to lift himself up on the edge of the crib. Since he is pretty tall, we were worried that he would flip out and get hurt. It was time to convert the crib into a toddler bed.

 Here is JT's "new" bed. We talked it up, got excited with him, and let JT play around in his new room before nap time. All of his favorite things were waiting for JT- Dog pillow pet, Taggies, Cailliou doll, and a blanket.

 Here is our big boy ready for nap! Earlier in the morning we had gone to the pool for a few hours, played hard, ate a filling lunch, and Mommy read books and sang songs before bed. JT would be SO ready for a great nap..... I decided to sit upstairs near his room in case he tried to escape his room with his available freedom. He only tried to open the door once, however it wasn't too long before I heard some noise.

JT wasn't sure what to do during nap with being able to get down from his bed. So he decided to pull out his storage drawer and get some more blankets out...

Then a while later I discovered JT brought several books back to bed. He was doing a good job at returning back to his bed, but still no sleep...

I went to peek on him after being in his room for an hour. My view as I opened the door to his room. The way JT looked at me while holding his book made me chuckle. I was thinking JT would read a bit more and surely fall asleep anytime... This is a regular 2-3 hour nap kid- he loves his sleep!

During another check I heard it was pretty quiet before opening the door.

 "Success!", I thought. Upon opening the door this is what I saw.. Messy bed area but no JT...

I step into the room and here I find him. He had made quite the mess in selecting the perfect book to read in the glider. Note that the room isn't dark. That wasn't from using a flash on the camera- JT also happened to learn that he is just tall enough to reach the light switches. So he had the lights on for easier "reading". JT ended up not napping  that day. Thankfully going to bed that evening was a lot smoother than nap time. I'm sure being exhausted helped more than anything.

Night night JT....

We found him in some unusual positions during the night...

In the morning he was curled up in a little ball with his feet on his pillow pet. He slept very well that night. The next day we didn't have a successful nap again for day 2. Here's to hoping Day 3 will bring nap time success...