HAPPY Thanksgiving!!!

We are very lucky this Thanksgiving to be healthy and happy. It is a stunningly beautiful day here in Bozeman and it is supposed to reach 47 degrees today. Hopefully we can enjoy a walk in the woods this afternoon before we head over to our friend's Jen and Kelsey house for a wonderful meal. I spent the morning in the kitchen preparing side dishes for the meal and just popped a beautiful pumpkin pie in the oven. The house smells awesome if I do say so myself. Sean stayed home this morning, and we enjoyed a morning of Alice's restaurant and the Grateful dead (our family traditions. A great day for the O'Callaghan family of Bozeman. Love it!

James has been talking up a storm lately! He is more and more using complete sentences, and sure knows what he wants. He loves to practice opposites and is pretty good! He knows most of the basics like up and down, and clean and dirty, and happy and sad, among others. Pretty neat. Two nights ago, I was getting him ready for bed, and he insisted on putting his socks on himself. We practiced this for about five minutes. He really came close too! He also likes to try to put his pants on himself. He has gotten really good at brushing his teeth, and always asks for his toothbrush at night after his bath. I think it may just be that he likes to suck off the toothpaste, but he actually brushes back and forth too, so that is super cool.

He has finally gotten all of his top teeth! The little points of his eye teeth have popped through but are not all the way in yet, but well on their way. He now has the four middle bottom teeth. So, in short...only two more teeth!!! Thank god.

He is really into his two little stick horses, and Jan taught him how to put the stick in between his legs and trot around the house. It is a total riot. He also loves to read, and regularly backs in to sit on your lap so you can read to him. Cute.

He is also very interested in the potty. He likes to sit on his mini potty when we go to the bathroom. We may undertake potty training shortly here. Especially since he always tells us when he goes, and demands to be changed after he poops.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Howdy all. This has been a week of sickness. James came down with the swine flu on Friday. He was so quiet and cute. Maggie and I took him down to Dillon, MT on Friday afternoon for an afternoon of shopping, and he was awfully quiet the whole way there (almost two hours) and actually fell asleep in the stroller while we were shopping. Which, as you know, is totally unlike him. On he way home he slept and was very quiet. Then we met up with the boys and another couple for Fiesta Mexicana (our Mexican joint) and he was lively, but a little warm. When we got home, he was still a little warm, and seemed really tired, so we took his temp and found that it was 101. On Saturday, he was pretty tired, and in the afternoon he literally sat on the couch and stared off into space. Sean went to Costco in the afternoon and got him the new Curious George movie, and he actually watched his first movie. He just sat there and every few seconds would say "monkey". Pathetic. So cute though. He was super snugly. It was a nice change of pace!

But then Sean and I were mildly afflicted on Tuesday, so that kind of stinks. Sean was barely hit, and I have a very mild case. I even worked this morning until 1. I'm just tired and have a bad headache. We are fine though.

James has been talking up a storm lately and very often says four and five word sentences. He loves to ask questions. Sometimes he calls daddy "Sean". It cracks Sean up. He loves gummy vitamins (be proud auntie Jen!) and calls them "some". He says "I want some", and points to the counter where they live. Then he tries to say vitamin. Funny.

Lately he has been very busy climbing on things and playing with his books. He is completely obsessed with pictures of horses. He loves to back in with his little butt and sit down on your lap and be read too. That's my boy!

He loves to eat too. Man, sometimes he can really put it away. We feed him obsessively healthy food, so his tastes really crack us up sometimes. He loves broccoli and yams. He also screams for tomatoes and whole wheat pasta. His current favorite though is sprouted whole grain pitas with almond and apple butter. Yum!

We are pretty good these days!

Halloween, part 2!

Yeah! We had our second Halloween as a threesome! What a great time we had. We met up with Greg, Lindsay, and Sawyer on Friday night for trick or treating at the Emerson Cultural Center and down Main Street. We had a great time. Then we went out for a pizza dinner together. It was great to spend the holiday time with the Schack family. We dressed James up as a pumpkin, which he totally loved. He has been really, really into pumpkins lately. During October, they "studied" the harvest and fall at school. Which I am sure means that they talked about pumpkins a whole lot. On Halloween evening, we dressed him up again and headed over to the Mall (this is where everyone goes here, which seems very strange to Sean and I) and did a bit more trick or treating. This time, James knew the drill. He was soooo cute. He would walk up to the people handing out candy in front of the stores and say "treat". Adorable! One lady thought he was so cute (because he walked right up to her and kept on going into the store as if he were on a mission to shop) that she said "he is so cute, I just have to give him two pieces". We were dying. He also kept stopping and bending down into his pumpkin pail and rummaging through his goods (which of course, we didn't let him eat).

After the mall, we headed over to Bill and Maggie's for a quick visit. James walked up to the door at their house, knocked (while stating "knock, knock"- his new favorite thing to do) and when Maggie answered, he said "treat!" and started laughing hysterically. Needless to say, Halloween is such a blast with him. I can only imagine how good it is going to be next year, when he can participate even more. For now though, this was one of the best couple of days ever. Amazing, given the fact that his two top eye teeth are both coming in and are just cutting the skin now. What a champ.

Speaking of champ, today, James got his second haircut. Wow, what a contrast to his last one! He just sat up in the chair, Ellie gave him a spin around in the chair, then she whipped out a kids cape, which featured fish and other aquatic creatures on it, which James absolutely loves, and I gave him a sugary granola bar, and he just sat there smiling at Ellie in the mirror enjoying the whole cut. A totally painless and entirely enjoyable experience. How lucky are we?