January Beach Trips

We took two beach trips this past month. The first trip was on December 31st. Tracy was picking up one of his professors from LAX, so we made it a day. We went to the beach, called Dockweiler State Beach, which is right by LAX. James went right up to the water and got his feet wet. He had only done that a few times before. Most of the time he's been too afraid of getting wet. 

Here are the pictures from that day:

Running from the waves!

I think he was pointing to a bird or maybe to a truck on the road.

He loves to follow Daddy.

Following Daddy.

Asking why there was a puddle here.

Tracy's turn with the camera.

Telling me to take my shoes off and get my feet wet.

Running away from another wave.

Our second trip this month was this past weekend, January 25. We took the Metrolink to Oceanside. Played on the beach, had shrimp tacos from the Tin Fish and malts from Ruby's. There was a storm off shore somewhere causing large waves, so lots of surfers were out. James actually ran right up to the water on his own, first time he didn't wait for one of us to come with him. It was a fun beach day.

Waiting for the train.

He kept filling his bucket up with water.

Daddy helping him fill his bucket.

Beautiful day.

We found a total of 3 Sand Dollars and
 some other shells we haven't seen on the beach before.

Sometimes the waves were strong enough to knock James down.

A nice big wave!

Such a cute picture of James holding onto his daddy
because a big wave is coming.

One of the times he ran back to fill up his bucket, he had to stop to do something else.

A video of Daddy and James playing together.

Who's this cutie at the beach?

One can not have enough ocean pictures. ;)

My turn to play with James.

Surfer!

Videos of Surfers.

There was this guy on the pier blowing giant bubbles. 

If you paid him a certain amount (we didn't find out how much), then you could have a turn.

Big Bubble.

A picture of the sunset from the train as we left the coast.

We sure do love the beach and feel lucky to live so close to the ocean!

My Little Helper

James has taken to helping me with just about everything I do. It is so nice to have him so willing to help and always asking to help. At times, though, I get frustrated because it is nice to not have a 4 year old helping you do somethings. Then I have to remind myself, I should feed into his willingness or he may stop wanting to help and then I will have to fight him to do things. 

He helped me more furniture last week. It was cute to see his little body trying to help me move bookcases. After we got on area of the living room how I wanted it, he sat down and started looking through photo albums. So I took a minute and told him what each album had pictures of.

He really loves to help me clean. He comes running over, "I want to wash." He has one of those corn popper push toys and pretends it is a vacuum. He'll follow me around while I'm vacuuming with his "vacuum". 

Last of all, his absolute favorite thing to do is help me cook.

Here he's rolling out dough for cinnamon rolls:

Here he's stirring the Alfredo Sauce we had for dinner one night:

I just love my little helper.

Wait For Me Jesus!

Today, I realized how much fun it is to be in Jr. Primary with James. He's in the Sunbeams and I teach the CTR 6 Class, so I'm only with him during Jr. Primary, then we go to our individual classes. The past weeks he has been having troubles with the transition of now going to Primary instead of Nursery. He has been sitting with me and not his class during the combined hour. However, today was different. Since it was the fourth Sunday, our ward does a combined Jr. and Sr. Primary during the 3rd hour so all the kids go to their class during the 2nd hour. It helped having the separation first for James because during Primary he actually sat with his class and not once tried to come sit with me.

Any way,  the point of this post is this fun thing he said during Sharing Time. The Primary President started off by showing this picture and hadvone of the kids tell the story.

Then she started asking the kids if they were watching a movie or playing a video game and Jesus asked you to follow him, what would you do? One of the kids say to pause the game and follow him. Then she said that it doesn't matter whatever we are doing we should stop what we are doing and follow Jesus. Do you think that the apostles just paused the fish or say hang on Jesus let me finish fishing? No, they just dropped the fish and followed him. At this point James then started saying, " You got to just drop the fish and follow Jesus. If Jesus starts walking away, just say "Wait for me Jesus."  and you got to drop the fish and follow Jesus." I admit I started paying more attention to what he was saying instead of what the Primary President was teaching. It is just do neat to see him making connection with the pictures and the stories and paying attention to what is being taught. I can't wait to see what else he says in the future.

And to top it all, he looked just adorable and
handsome in his new church clothes.

New resolutions

I've been thinking about what goals I wanted to make this year. I didn't really do any last year and wish I had. It is always good to work on improving ourselves. This time I didn't want a ton of goals because I know the more pressure I feel the less I want to do it. So here's to pressure free, self improving goals.

• Make breakfast more often at least 2-3 days a week. I'm not all that great at making breakfast in the mornings. It is just easier to pull out the cereal. It will be nice to have some wholesome family breakfasts together.
• Be outside for at least 30 min and 2 days a week we'll go on a walk. We've gotten lazy about being out doors. How can we just sit inside when it is so nice outside just about everyday?
• Read this years Teachings of the Presidents of the Church manual. Since I'm in primary, I don't get the chance to hear the lessons from the manual. Definitely beneficial to read the lessons on my own.
• Plan weekly date nights, at least once a month away from home. I haven't done well with doing date nights with Tracy, since becoming parents. I've just used the excuse that there isn't anyone to watch James. But date nights can be at home too. So, here's to doing more together as a couple.
• I haven't quite decided on this one. It will either be to do more crafts or some other personal development goal.

So there are my resolutions. Hoping for a great year!

James-isms

A couple of funny things James has said this week.

This morning James was watching Curious George, the episode where George goes to school. I asked James if he wanted to go to school. He replied saying, "No, I want to say home with mommy." Moments like that make me feel grateful to be a mom.

Yesterday, I was babysitting a 2 year old boy who James loves to play with. We had him over for a little over 3 hours (probably the longest we've babysat him for). After he left James exclaimed, " I can play with all my toys now." Guess he was glad to have them to himself again.

Saturday night, Tracy was tucking James into bed while telling him that tomorrow will be Sunday, and he will be going to church and will get to play with other kids in nursery. James then replies, "Tomorrow, I'll go play with kids, go to the beach and play in ocean, see temple and open present."

Since we have been back from Utah, James has been talking about snow and making snow balls. He seriously loved the snow. Guess his love for it hasn't left him, since we moved. He just absolutely hated being bundled up. Pretty sure in his mind the perfect scenario would be to play in the snow barefoot and in shorts and a t-shirt.