Smart boys, Frogs, and Occupations

I'm so bad at keeping this thing updated. It's so easy to just quickly upload pictures to Facebook and forget about this blog. But I do plan on having this printed in book form eventually, so I am going to try to do better about posting with more than just pictures.

The boys are, as usual, growing like weeds. Josiah amazes us everyday with how smart he is. His current obsession is Lego Ninjago toys, that they have their own spinning battles and weapons and playing cards. He gets on their website and learns all the names of all the characters, picks favorites, makes me and Earl pick which one we want to be. He makes us "character cards" just like the Ninjago characters have, complete with our estimated "speed," "defense" and "attack-tion" (yes, he calls it attack-tion, instead of whatever it is supposed to be...offense, maybe?) ratings.

He learned to tie his shoes back in January. He loves learning sign language in school, and memorizing Bible verses for Sunday School.

We went to hiking this past weekend. That's one of Joey's favorite past times.

Joey told Tanner we were going "that way." And the rest of the hike, Tanner repeated, "dat way, dat way" and tried to show us where to go.

I can't believe they held hands! Tanner never lets Joey hold his hand. So sweet.

Di Di, remember that Diego backpack you got Joey when he was, like, 2? He used it for years, and it got packed away, and now it's found new life with Tanner.

Tanner loves frogs. He searches every book for a glimse of a frog. He loves them! I think we'll do a frog cake for his birthday next month, if he still loves them this much then. I thought it would end up being an Elmo or Curious George cake, but I think frogs have won out. He still loves watching Elmo and "ah-ah" but frogs seem to impress him the most. He loves babies, "bay-bay." I love how he calls his belly "bebby" instead of "beddy" like you would expect. He tells me "rocky bay-bay" to get me to rock him like a baby, but where he has his head dangling backwards looking upside down at everything. The way he learns words so fast is very impressive. He says bye to everything! I mean, everything! If he's getting out of the bath, he says bye to all this toys, individually, and to the bath, and to the water. If he's leaving the house, he says bye to whatever he was playing with or the dogs or whatever gets his attention as he's leaving. This morning, as he was chewing up the chocolate pieces from my Special K Chocolately Delight cereal, he even said bye to the chocolate as he ate it.

Joey likes to show us how fast he can run by doing circles around the main rooms of the house. So Tanner follows him, shouting "Fast, fast!" Both boys love playing outside, so we're excited about it getting spring weather now.

Another funny thing Tanner does is count: "doo, tee, doo, tee" (two, three, two, three) and holds up all five fingers and says "doo. doo frogs," or "doo. doo ah-ah's," no matter how many there actually are. The answer is always two to him.

Joey builds obstacles for the backyard.

Tanner plays in whatever wet or messy he can find.

Joey wanted me to take his picture as he posed like the Statue of Liberty.

Joey has still got his future planned out. He has a current list of occupations he wants to have (all at the same time).

When he and his daddy build a plane, (the plane is needed to hold all the stuff that they will use in these jobs), his jobs will be:

a ninja (then he had me mark this off because of the last item on the list)

archaeologist (he's changed it from paleontologist because he wants to discover all kinds of old things, not just dinosaurs)

garbage man

astronaut

work at a harbor

hiker

firefighter

world motorcycle racer

Medic in an ambulance

motorcycle tire fixer

dump truck driver

pilot of a plane that lands in the water

train engineer

forest fire fighter

ninja trainer

He wants his daddy to help him when he first starts these jobs, after college, since he probably won't know how to do them very good yet. He has also started thinking of jobs that I can do with them. I think I've been assigned 2 "stations" that I will be working at for them: the space station and the harbor station. And he's just told me now I'm going to work at the archaeologist station too, when he or his daddy is there to ride the "speedy jet boat" to the things I see for them. (?)

He also has big plans to build a jungle buggy with his daddy. They want it about the size of PawPaw's 4-wheeler, but he wants to customize it with parts he's going to find at junk yards and in the ground using his metal detector (Christmas present from Aunt Angie).

Both boys love the vacuum cleaner. This day it was used as a vehicle.

They love using glow sticks in the bath water for a glow in the dark bath.

Joey recycled his valentine's box to hold part of his rock collection.

Overdue Update on the Family

I keep starting posts but never finishing them. And when I start again, I forgot all the new things I was going to type. The boys keep us busy, in a great way. We just found out we'll be leaving VA this summer to go back to Camp Lejeune. We're glad it's NC and not CA.

Tanner's current loves are Elmo, Curious George, frogs and dogs. He usually loves music and dancing, but has lately stopped doing that as much. He will sometimes sing. He just recently went from saying Da-Da to Daddy (which sounds exactly like "paci" so that makes for an interesting day). He's so social. He waves and wants to talk to everybody in the store. He introduces his Daddy and Mommy and JoJo.

He's so good at copying and repeating things. He sometimes mimics every movement Joey makes while they're playing. And Joey loves it. He loves being able to make Tanner do what he wants. They still play together very well. At lot of bickering about who gets to play with the toys because they both don't want anything until the see the other having fun with it.

Joey is slowly coming out of his dinosaur obession. He doesn't play with the Zhu Zhu pets like he used to, either. His new thing is Legos. He loves that they come with kits and instructions. He puts them together with his daddy. It's their thing to do together. His favorite are the Ninjago Legos. He's still into Backyard Safari missions and patches, but his current ones are outdoor stuff and it's been too cold for that, so that's on hold for now.

Joey just earned his Cubs blue belt in TaeKwonDo. There is another Tiger Rock TaeKwonDo facility in Jacksonville where we're moving this summer, so if he wants to keep it up, it's available. He's currently 43 3/4 inches tall, and 37 1/2 lbs. He still isn't a good eater, at all. He's so picky. He goes through phases. For a while, all he would eat were Chicken Nuggests. Then it was cereal. Then sandwiches, and now it's hot dogs. And lately he likes to be called Josiah by new people. If they ask his name at a doctor's office or store, or at church, he says Josiah instead of Joey. He goes back and forth using Josiah or Joey at school on his work, too.

In the picture above, Joey had scratched his leg on the stairs and was upset that I didn't have a band-aid. Tanner was kissing him to make him feel better. So sweet.

Tanner's been sick recently, so he hasn't had much of an appetite either, but his favorite go-to food in the pantry is pop tarts. He'll snack on them all day. I really need to find a recipe to make homemade ones because they're so expensive.

Christmas card

Snowflakes Ribbon Christmas Card

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Indoors and Outdoors

The first half of October:

Joey loves when he and Tanner have matching clothes on. They both love their dinosaur PJs.

I can't believe what a handsome young boy my little Joey is turning out to be.

Tanner's hair looks extra red in these photos, but most of the time, it's just a very light brown.

A week after he tested for his green belt, Joey had his award ceremony where it was rpsented to him by Mr. Baker, his instructor.



Thought this was so cute, how Aiden and Joey were in the same position at the same moment.

We went out to dinner to celebrate their achievements. Elayne decided Joey was her boyfriend. He seemed okay with that. :)
I got a new motorcycle (new to me). It's a Kymco Venox. This is the day we got it ^. Earl and Joey are in the process of fixing it up for me, below, and repainting it.

Tanner loves getting to sit at the table like a big boy soemtimes.

More fun doing Joey's Backyard Safari missions. This time it was Rock Excavator.

Earl helping Joey identify his collection of rocks.

Tanner chasing squirrels.

Joey tried to climb a tree.

The Rest of September

Joey tested for his green belt in TaeKwonDo.

One day Joey got his kitty pet (this is actually my Pound Purry from when I was a kid, but he's adopted it, and renamed it) and Ramadi (the name of the orange monkey Angie sent him from Iraq) for Tanner to hold while they watched some cartoons.