Counting Sheep

Jack has gotten quite good at bedtime...in that he goes down without protest after his bath and bottle.  Sometimes he falls right asleep and sometimes he just hangs out until he gets tired.  Last night he decided to count sheep I guess.  First he counted to 50 and then he decided to start over....in Spanish.  Pretty awesome.  We've been practicing but I didn't know he could count all the way to 23 or so.  Good job Jack!

Week in Review 1/27/13

 

 Guess who's healthy?! That guy. That smiley guy. And thank goodness. Not a moment too soon. (of course, as I type this, he has a runny nose again...but I'm going to ignore that.) I got sick as Jack got better unfortunately so we didn't have the most exciting, event-filled, week. None the less, there were pictures taken and I am sharing them. :)

 

bath time fun, as usual

making daddy proud...Detroit Basketball!

sick, sick, and more sick

making the most out of the cold weather...sweater time!

hanging with his friend Genevieve

babysitting Genevieve and trying to feed two kids at once...Genevieve isn't impressed

peekaboo at the park

climbing with his friend Owen

"baby tomatoes!"

his new favorite place in the house...the kitchen counter

he spends hours here every day

no, seriously, he really does

grandma and jack

stacking cups

happy to be healthy!  now time for a haircut.

23 Months Old!

Well, here's the big old 23 month old.  This is literally the only picture where he's sitting and looking at the camera so enjoy it.  :)

On the eve of his 2 year birthday he is exhibiting a few of the terrible two symptoms.  Nothing too drastic...but a few hitting episodes and lots of throwing things.  Sigh.  I know he just gets frustrated and doesn't know how to deal with his feelings but it's not that adorable.

On the flip side, and I hate to jinx it, but he is sleeping like a real person.  Goes to bed without fuss at almost the exact same time every night (8pm) and is finally sleeping past 5am.  In fact, he's got himself to 6am most mornings.  It is truly a dream to have our nights back to ourselves.  His one nap a day is long (like 2-3 hours) except that he still makes me hold him while he naps.  Oops.  I need to work on that. 

Anyways, back to the photoshoot.  He had zero interest in posing for photos.  He was incredibly interested in reading the number "23".  

And in laughing at his mommy trying to get his attention.

And once he realized that the clipboard had a ruler on it with numbers, he was engrossed.

Silly silly mommy.

"Okay, enough of this.  I'm outta here."

Letters and Reading

It's no secret that Jack is obsessed with letters.  In his bath every night he lines up all his letters in order and spells words and sings the alphabet song.  Not sure if, based on the photo above, he's a genius Type A nerd or a serial killer.  :)

What's really great though is that he's sort of starting to "read".  I mean, I put it in quotes because it's really just memorizing sight words at this point.  But he certainly seems to be able to read a lot of words.  I write them on his magna-doodle and he reads them to me.  

Or when we are reading a book, he will point out the words he knows.  For posterity's sake, I figured I'd list all the ones he can read right now so that when he's 10, I can look back and see how he was doing at 22 months.  :)  So far he can read:

Jack

hello

hi

bye

go

stop

up

no

on

in

zoo

fox

dog

cat

frog

sun

fun

book

hat

you

Pepe

pasta

And I think he's pretty much got:

owl

cow

bus

pig

tree

duck

It's all pretty exciting.  So proud of my little guy!

What Jack's been up to...

The kiddo is sick (again) so I am going to take this opportunity to post some more pictures.  The sickness has definitely slowed us down some and caused us to miss classes and play dates, but that's okay.  There are still some cute pics...

happy to be on the top of the step stool

mommy and son time

taking a break on the playground

oranges, oranges, and more oranges

getting dark and it's freezing but he doesn't care

he thinks it's hysterical that he's messing with the outlet that he's not supposed to

proud of his numbers

laughing with daddy

Golden Globes 2013

Like I said, my girl friends and I hunkered down last night on the hotel couch to watch the Golden Globes.  And, by some miracle, it was the most entertaining, funny, awards show in a decade.  Tina Fey and Amy Poehler just knocked it out of the park (I thought).  Add to that the fact that the some of the winners were actually a surprise and it was just super fun to watch.  I was so happy that Ben Affleck won for directing "Argo" after being snubbed by the Oscar nominations.

Anyways, on to some dresses.  I would say the general consensus among the gals was that almost all the dresses were disappointing.  There really weren't that many fantastic ones.  Lots of sheer and lots of lace.  And, surprisingly, lots of sleeves.

Let's start with our hosts.  Tiny Fey has never looked better (like, seriously, NEVER) and Amy Poehler was adorable.  I really like her tuxedo on the red carpet too.

I was perhaps most excited to see what Jennifer Lawrence would wear and she was sort of disappointing.  When she first appeared on screen I was fairly horrified by the bust cups but I have to say that, from afar, it photographs much better.  I just thought her hair and makeup and the whole style was not quite awesome.

On the other hand, I like this younger, a little bit more hip look from the AFI Awards two days before.

The sheer factor was out of control.  It ruined many a good dress.  When Rachel Weisz arrived and we saw a head and shoulders shot, she looked gorgeous.  Then they panned down to her feet and OH MY GOODNESS....

Then Nicole Kidman had the same problem.  I really like her hair and the top of her dress.  Then I saw the rest.  Unnecessary.

Kerry Washington has been killing it on her "Django Unchained" press tour but I really disliked this sheer pale pink number.  Her hair and the dress just dragged her down.

Nicole Richie also wore some sheer lace thing and it just looked old and heavy.  And I didn't like her makeup.

Of course, the biggest sheer offender was Jennifer Lopez.  I just don't understand why this super attractive women feels the need to dress ridiculously at every awards show.  She must need the attention so bad.

There was lots of lace including crazy (and ugly) Eva Longoria.  Her high hair looked silly and the slit was kind of pathetic.  

Kristen Wiig looked comfortable and like herself, but I kept thinking the top looked like a bikini top.

Some of the older ladies looked the best.  I hope I'm as classy and awesome as Helen Mirren and Sally Field when I'm older.

There were some dresses with serious structure and necklines.  On the whole, I think Michelle Dockery looked pretty cool, I just wish the dress didn't have such crazy shoulder pads.  And Kate Hudson looked like a million bucks...I think?

There were some people that liked Lucy Liu but I just couldn't get over the floral pattern.  And I like prints.

Lena Dunham is the girl of the moment and yes, she's obviously not a size 0 like everyone else.  But I really think that there has to be a more flattering dress than this.  It makes her hips look about 10 feet wider than they are and I just don't like the top.  Oh well.  She was excited to win.

There was lots of poor color choices.  I am so over nude colors and mermaid dresses and Amy Adams' skin just totally blended in with her dress.  

It was kind of a bummer because earlier in the week I thought she looked awesome at the Critics Choice awards.  I like her hair more flowy and natural.

Julianne Moore looked pretty good which was refreshing.

Everyone hated Halle Berry's dress and I agree that it wasn't great, the slit was lame, and it made her bust look crazy, but I have to say that I like the print.  Just wish they had done something else with it

There was lots of red to varying degrees of success.  Claire Danes looked awesome only weeks after giving birth.  Damn her.

I disliked Zooey Deschanel's red poofy dress though.  And the pearls with the ponytail.  Yuck.

Marion Cotillard's dress was modern and funky but I think she pulled it off.  And she's so pretty even with that minimal hair and makeup.

I can't forget Anne Hathaway.  This is someone who could have worn anything from anyone and she chose this simple white dress.  I love her hair and makeup and she looks nice...it's just kind of boring.

I love Emily Blunt but this gold tone set against her overly tan skin just didn't work for me.  Something is off.

I just generally don't like wispy, neutral colored dresses but, am I crazy, or is this Catherine Zeta-Jones dress kind of interesting in a vintage way?  (Ignore the plastic surgery face).

While I don't like Sienna Miller's dress per se, I applaud her for wearing something different.  And what's remarkable is that she is barely wearing any makeup and she still looks flawless.  Sigh.

This is kind of crazy, but I think I like Julianne Hough's dress.  Or dresses.  I liked her hair in this faux-mohawk thing and I think she's kind of pulling off this punk meets princess dress.  Or maybe I'm just bored and crazy.

Just a quick note about Jodie Foster.  I have loved her since I was a little girl because I thought she was really pretty and just a smart, intelligent, well-spoken actress (which seemed rare...and know I know it is.)  Anyways, she has aged so well.  Look at that face.

I loved LOVED her speech even though it was crazy and she had clearly had a few drinks or something to brace herself for that moment.  The part about her mother was just really beautiful I thought.

Okay, just a few more.  I LEAST two favorites of the night were... 1) Giuliana Rancic from E!  She often (usually) looks bad but this is the worst I think she's ever looked in the over 10 years I've been watching her.  Just horrifying.

And then there was Jessica Chastain.  This is the saddest because she should be the showstopper.  She's beautiful, has beautiful hair, and I'm sure every designer wants to dress her.  Instead she does some awful hairdo (I mean, who does that to their hair on purpose?) and choose the most unflattering dress of all time.  Just terrible, terrible, terrible.

My two favorites on the other hand were ladies that seem pretty awesome in real like so I'm happy they looked so beautiful.  Jennifer Garner looked as good as I've ever seen her and I'm happy Ben remembered to thank her in his speech.

And Naomi Watts.  I liked that it was different, it had sleeves, but then it was backless.  And I'm a sucker for that color.  So beautiful.

And what did YOU think?