"Help Me!"

Now that Jasper is talking more, he loves to say, "Help me".  Most of the time he asks for help putting his shoes on, opening or a door, or reaching for a toy.

Yesterday he tried to retrieve a small ball that rolled across the floor.  He chased it under the mini trampoline and managed to get completely stuck.  I soon heard a desperate "Help me!".

Most days the caboose comes off his favorite train and "Help me" is a plea to get the train cars hooked back together.

Sometimes Jasper is climbing the shelves of the pantry in hopes of reaching the M&M's and "Help me" really means --- I want some chocolate.

Last week he walked up to me wearing a yellow construction hat and had a large candy bar in each hand. (Our friends recently went to Canada and Mike asked then to bring him back some good Cadbury chocolate). 

Jasper looked up at me, waving the chocolate bars and pleaded, "Help me."  I could have finished the sentence by adding (Help me) open these nice big bars of chocolate!  I told him that they are daddy's and he'd have to discuss the matter with him.

Last night I left the pita chips out and when Jasper spotted them this morning there was nothing that could persuade him away from a breakfast of hummus and pita chips.  Things were going well until Sully mysteriously took a swim in the Avacado Cilantro Hummus.  I soon heard "Help me", even though Sully was the one who needed rescuing.

Sewing Classes

I am taking some free classes at Quiltique (on Stephanie and American Pacficic) over the next few months.

I am posting the classes I am taking in case you want to join me.  Reina Gammet is signed up for a few classes too -- come sew with both of us!  I put the link for Peicemaking Basics class and you can see all of the information in the Quiltique newsletter.

This photo is of the Vintage Baby Quilt.  They said we complete the entire quilt in 4 hours -- including the machine quilting.  Sounds good to me, and it looks really cute.

As an FYI, you have to have a Bernina machine, but they let you use one of theirs for free -- just ask when you sign up.


Piecemaking Basics
Thursday's from 6 - 9 PM
Jan. 28, Feb. 4, 11 and 18
 
Garment Sewing 101
Monday, Feb. 15 and 22nd, 10AM - 1 PM 

Machine Quilting
Friday, February 26, 5 - 9 PM


Color with Kara 
Monday, March 1,  5 -9 PM

Vintage Baby Quilt 
Sat., March 13, 10AM - 1PM

Just the Basics Pillowcase Class
Tuesday, March 2, 6-9 PM

Bindings
Tuesday, March 16th,  6 - 9 PM

Bounce With Us!

Today Jasper and I joined our friend Trisha and her kids for a bounce house festival at the Black Mountain Recreation Center (BMRC). 

Of course the kids had a blast.  To our surprise, hardly anyone else was there.  We brought our friend Savanah and she helped Jasper up and over what I call the "American Gladiator" wall.  What a great friend for Jasper.


They set the things up in the rec. center gym so there's tons of room for the kids to run around too.  They had five huge bounce houses -- the jumbo slide, two of the ones where you just jump and two other obstacle course ones with medium slides.

We stayed until 12:20 and no one kicked us out; the kids were just wiped out and ready to go.  It's for ages 2-5 and is only $3 per kid.  All of the bounce houses were cleaner and newer than any I've ever seen.

If you want to come with us next time, below are the upcoming dates for the BMRC.  They are all on a Friday from 11-12 PM.  You can just show up and register that day. Hope to see you there!
-- Feb.  19th
-- Mar. 12th
-- Apr. 9th
--May 14th

Silver Bullet Hunt

Last month we went to dinner at Chili's to celebrate Mike's new job.  Jasper was a bit grumpy until his chocolate shake came out. 

We hopped over to the outlet mall next door after dinner.  We drove Mike's car and soon realized that there was no emergency umbrella stroller in the trunk for impromptu shopping trips.

We coughed up $5 for one of those car / stroller things and we are off.  Jasper loved saying "beep beep" to everyone as we cruised around the mall.

We popped into the Nike store to survey the clearance section to see if they might have some more silver bullet shoes, since I am worried about what will happen when they are too tiny for Jasper.


I asked the sales person if she had seen any shoes like the silver bullets.  Jasper quickly pulled his foot out of the car / stroller to showcase the type of shoe we were looking for.

Before long we had a handful of sales associates circle around because Jasper was cracking everybody up asking for some silver bullets and pointing to his shoes.

Please note that Jasper has his Snoopy Christmas ornament in his hand, which he took everywhere with him for the entire month of December.

Ethel M Christmas Lights

Four days before Christmas my friend Kelly joined Jasper and I for a walk through the lights at the Ethel M Cactus Garden.


The Christmas lights there were my favorite I've seen in Vegas,  and we sure had a lot of fun.

"Aunt" Kelly helped Jasper visit Santa and then nearly had a heart attack because Jasper was running at top speeds right through the cactus garden.  She just knew we were going to end up at the ER for some cactus spine removal. 

Luckily J is tiny enough that he just zipped in and out of the plants.  I am the only one that ended up with a couple of spines in my hand from trying to grab him.

If you're in the market for this kind of thing...

I've been pretty laissez-faire about my potty training approach this far.  Every once in a while Jasper's excited about it, and then the excitement wears off.  We've got little IKEA potty's in each bathroom and Jasper thinks it is fun to flush the toilet.  That's about the extent of our "training course."

I bought "The BIG Potty Book" at a library surplus sale a few weeks ago and Jasper absolutely loves it.  We have to read it at least four times in a row.

Tonight after family scripture study we were hanging out on the couch reading stories, including "The BIG Potty Book" and Jasper got a look on his face and I said, "Jasper, do you need to go to the bathroom?"  He said yes and ran down the hall.

Mike was the "potty handler" and even though I was a little panicky that Jasper was going to completely fall in, Mike managed to keep him from going under AND he went on the toilet.  The funniest part is that after he went pee, he had to grab a few squares of toilet paper and wiped his clean little bum.


If you are looking for other potty books, Jasper really likes the pictures in the book "A Potty For Me" by Karen Katz.

Help for a Friend

Our friends, Jonathan and Rachelle Abbott, are launching a fundraiser for Jon's dad.  He's a great guy who needs chemotherapy and is uninsured.

You can bid on items on their blog, and read about Garth's cancer here. 

So far I've made two hooded bath towels for the auction. 

I've already been out bid by a mile for the item I really want -- Rachelle's pizza.  Apparently everyone knows how great it is!

There are a lot of great items up for bid.  The online auction ends on January 13th at 10PM.

Sleigh Ride Through the Gift of Lights

When we went on our carriage ride at The District we found out that they also offered sleigh rides through The Gift of Lights.  I thought this sounded like a much more festive idea that trying to look out of car window driving through.


We picked the warmest night of the season, but it was still pretty chilly. Luckily we brought a thermos with hot cocoa to keep us warm. We had Betty again for our horse.


I was trying to entertain Jasper while we waited to take off by singing him a song. We were sitting right behind the horse, and when I sang, "Giddy Up, Giddy Up, Giddy Up Let's Go" the horse took off! Whoops!

Our ride was just a little bit more than paying to drive though in a car and it was A LOT more fun!  I would highly recommend this option if you go to The Gift of Lights next December.