James ~ 27 months old~

I know, I know.... I should stop counting months at some point. Don't worry, though, I only do it in my titles here each month. Whenever anyone asks how old he is, I tell them he's 2 or that he turned 2 in July. (They can do the math if they want to.) I'm not that crazy! =o)

This past month we've been getting settled into our house. The boxes are now pretty much contained to one room... the conversion room (former garage). We're getting ready to have some repairs done on the house and then maybe we'll be ready to post some pictures.

James seems totally comfortable in his "big boy" bed and hasn't fallen out anymore since I started tucking in the body pillow when we tuck James in each afternoon before naps and each night before bed. Speaking of tucking James into bed... He is SO cute at bedtime! We have a bedtime routine I've been meaning to blog about for a while now. It's really a very special "family time" for us and we love it! Here's basically how it goes:

First, we pick out 3-4 books to read. Lately, the favorites have been stories out of The New Adventures of Curious George, a collection of 8 stories that we now feel we've read a million times! We also usually throw in at least one book from another set that's awesome for kids: The Beginner's Bible Collection, which you can get all 6 books for $9.99 from Christianbook.com. There are a couple new books for the set that we also bought separately for $2.99 each. Christmas gift idea?!? **FYI: if you decide to get these awesome books, would you go to the link on Matt's blog (top right) to do it since he gets a very slight cut from any sales made through that link?? Thanks! =o)

Next, we all sit on James' bed and read the books together while James drinks his milk. (Yes, it's getting more crowded as my belly expands!) After we are done reading, I take James to the bathroom and brush his teeth.

Then, we all come back to James' bed and sing songs together. Now, James has finally started singing his ABC song, so that's usually the one we start with. Of course, he has to perch himself on the end of his bed so he can be close to the poster of the Alphabet that we got at ACE Educational (a teacher store I used to frequent quite a bit). He loves the poster and he loves to proudly identify letters when we point to them! After singing the Alphabet song a few times we move up to the top of the bed and ask him what other songs he wants to sing. Some nights, he just names the ones he wants right after another without much prompting, but other nights we'll make suggestions to keep the routine moving. Some favorites (with what he calls them in parentheses) are The B-I-B-L-E (still "Be-yah"), The Wiseman Built His House Upon a Rock (The Rock House), Onward Christian Soldiers (Christian Soldiers), Herman the Worm, a very silly song we used to sing on Mission Trip with the VBS groups we'd have (The Worm), This Little Light of Mine (Light of Mine), The Doxology (actually, he used to call it the Holy Ghost Song, but now sometimes calls it The Doxology), I've Got the Joy Joy Joy Joy (Joy, Joy Song), and Awesome God (we usually sing this one when we have no clue what he's saying he wants to sing).

On a side note: The other day, I heard him singing something in his room so I walked over and peeked in his room, and he was flipping through a book with the song lyrics for Jesus Loves Me (which he calls the "LaLa Book") while singing the song to himself. It was SO cute! Occasionally, now, we also will hear him singing his ABC's by himself while playing in his room. He actually does pretty well until he gets to L and skips to O without mentioning poor M and N. Oh well... I'm sure he'll get it soon.

Finally, after singing, we go over his Catechism questions (he calls the Catechism "Copiers"), found in a book First Catechism: Teaching Children Bible Truths before saying prayers and tucking him into bed. It's really amazing how quickly he's picking them up now! We started when he was just about 18 months old and pretty much Matt and I would ask each other the questions and then ask James, and we spent a long time on the first couple questions. Lately, we've been able to add about one to two new questions a week, and he already knows the first 12 questions. After he learned the first 10 questions, we had a little "mini-celebration" on October 7th with all the grandparents over at our house, which included pizza for dinner and ice cream with M&M's on top for dessert! Check out James' blue fingers in the picture, as he picked the M&M's out of his ice cream... =o)

Here are some other pictures from this past month:

9/19/08 - Most nights I check on James before going to sleep myself, and I just had to risk waking him to snap a few pictures when I found him like this! (By the way, he didn't even flinch.) Notice Bear and Dawwgie in the bed with him. =o)

9/27/08 - James had his first ride on a "big boy swing" at a picnic at church.

9/28/08 - We went to dinner at Friday's with Great Grandad, Lillian, Grandmommy, Pops, Aunt Dee, and Joan (Lillian's daughter). We had a great time, and as usual James was very well behaved. We finally got him to sing his ABC's for them, and he was the center of attention! I think Matt and James look like twins in the picture of the three of us (and I don't know why they both look so serious). So funny!

James and I are enjoying a brownie sundae for dessert, and hoping Daddy comes back in time to get some, too. It was yummy!

Daddy, James and Great Grandad posed for a quick picture before we left the restaurant.

10/11/08 - We enjoyed a very brief visit from Aunt Melanie and Uncle Miguel who came down from NC for a friend's wedding. We definitely enjoyed seeing them no matter how brief it was!

10/19/08 - James saw Matt was watching football last Sunday and he ran over and said he wanted to watch football with Daddy. Here they are cuddling on the couch watching football on Sunday afternoon right before they both take their naps. Was James stalling? Perhaps. But it was still really cute.

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James just one year ago...15 months old

9/22/07- We celebrated Daddy's BIG 3-0 with family and friends at a SURPRISE party! Look at the cool cake we got for the occasion!

9/22/07- James loved to do "Ride a Little Horsie" with Grandma.

10/4/07- He finally started signing some to communicate with us! Here he's signing "more" with his mouth full of crackers!

10/6/07 - James had really started enjoying throwing the ball and playing in Pops and Grandmommy's beautiful backyard.

10/6/07- James loved playing in the "Olympic-sized pool" that Pops had in the backyard. The matching expressions on their faces in this picture cracks me up! Be careful, Pops, he mastered this skill with Froggie a year ago! (see picture below)

10/6/07- One of my favorite pictures of James... look at those eyes!

10/14/07- James and Daddy hanging out and cuddling on the couch. These times became much fewer after he started walking and exploring on his own so this is one of those cherished moments and Daddy is loving every second of it.

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James just two years ago... 3 months old

9/21/06 - James always slept like this... like it was a "stick up!"

Just wanted to show the "many faces" of James P. Cochrane at 3 months old. It really was hilarious to see all the faces he would make in just a matter of minutes!

James always made this really funny face when Matt had a shirt with some sort of screenprint on it. He seriously looked like he was studying it! It always made us laugh. I just loved the lips!

10/15/06- He still hated tummy time but here he looks like he's at least tolerating it while having a staring contest with Froggie.

10/16/06 - James had really started babbling and making cute little noises to "talk" to us. Here he is having a one-on-one chat with Daddy, perhaps about his fantasy football league lineup?

10/18/06 - James at 3 months old.