When Life Gives you Lemons...

 make lemonade!

 Jack has learned to stand himself up with no support and has taken only a few steps so far.  He's got great balance though and can stand on command.  It may be a confidence issue.  Or a stance issue.  He often stands with his legs wide apart which seems to be a tough position to begin a stride.  He loves manipulating objects with his hands.

 Here he is putting a straw through the lid of a kid's cup.  He says a few words too.  Momma, Dad, and Ian.  The first time he said "Ian," it took me by surprise.  I was buckling Jack into his carseat while the car was parked in the garage and also yelling for Ian to make his way out of the house and into the car.  I would yell, "Ian!"  Then pause for a moment, then yell it again.  One of the times while I was waiting for his response, I heard Jack mimmick me, "Neean."  SO CUTE!  I've been trying to use signs with him and sometimes he catches on or repeats them, other times he makes up his own signs.  When I ask him if he's all done at meal time, instead of doing the sign to confirm that he is in fact finished eating, he starts pulling up the outer rim of his food tray of the booster seat.
Then tonight at dinner, it sounded like he was saying "amen" throughout the prayer.  He likes to chatter too.  It's so cute to hear him chat away while in his crib before and after naps.

 Here's the full idea of him getting into the standing position.  He does it quite quickly and effortlessly, now if we could only persuade him to put one foot in front of the other!

 Here's a happy smile at mealtime.  I had an epiphany when I read how to make bean and cheese burritos last week.  I am a dork, indeed because I like browsing through cookbooks on my free time to get new ideas.  Somehow I came across a burrito for bean and cheese burritos, who uses a recipe for those?  Not me!  But, I found that if you saute some onions first, then add the can of refried beans to the onions, it makes a huge bonus in flavor.  I happened to have a red onion that needed to be used, and it was amazing in those bean and cheese burritos!  Also, I warmed the tortillas in foil in the oven before assembling them so that they'd be nice and supple to fold.  Then, after the burrito was assembled and folded, it went back into the oven for extra warming.  Topped with some salsa and sour cream it was a real treat!

 I thought we were playing this cute game of mirroring each other, but I later learned that he was probably positioning himself to get out some bodily waste...too funny.

 Here I had to get some photos of Ian being Ian.  For some reason, my kids love making collars and leashes for each other and their stuffed animals.  This time, Ian was using one of my exercise bands as a convenient all in one leash.  Usually the kids use elastic headbands and ribbons when it's Ian pretending to be a puppy. 

 Ian was totally happy to drag his dragon around the house.

 I have no idea.

Another funny Ian story: he recently entertained himself on a non-preschool weekday by participating in his own imaginary dragon and bear-fighting school.  When asked to clear his place at the table, he replied, "Sorry mom, I'm too busy fighting dragons and big huge bears today."  The morning was also punctured with his sincere gratitude to me for signing him up for this dragon-fighting and bear-fighting class. 
The picture below shows that sometimes great minds really do think alike.  Stephen was working a long while beyond his normal time and when he came home, I had invited the neighbors over to enjoy with us our movie and homemade pizza night.  After he greeted us all, Stephen changed into some comfortable clothes.  Not until Stephen made some quiet comment to Johnny a little while later did any of us notice that these two were unintentionally perfectly matched.  How hillarious is that??  We were cracking up because sometimes me and Kristen joke that we're sister wives, helping eachother out while one or the other's husband is at work.  Now we thought it was only appropriate that these two would dress like brother husbands???? I don't know about that one... A little too creepy.