Video Party

Jasper loves to watch videos of himself.

In case you are missing your daily dose of Jasper, here's our latest video uploads.
Jasper 1

My videos are listed under "AcademyGirl99" -- no spaces in between.

2 Year Dental Check-up for Jasper (and Mickey)

Last Thursday we went in for Jasper's 2 year dental check-up.

Mickey came along so he could be the good example and go first.

Everything went much better than last year.

One thing was the same -- Jasper is in love with the stairs at the dental office.

Dr. Campbell said that Jasper has some build-up on his lower teeth and that we need to floss his teeth as they are really close together.

My response to the flossing: Don't all of these teeth fall out anyway?

I know, bad attitude for a mom. I picked up some kiddo flossers for $1 (per Rachelle's recommendation) and we'll see how that goes.

Lucky for me, Mike is 100% in charge of the bedtime routine -- which includes brushing and flossing. Thank you Mike!

After the dentist we met Mike for a quick lunch at In-N-Out and Jasper was in heaven with his chocolate shake.

I'd like to just put a plug in for Dr Campbell and Tuscano Dental if you are looking for a dentist. Did I mention they are open on Saturday's? And they have a high end massage chair to sit in while you wait. We love them!

Brusha, Brusha, Brusha

In preparation for Jasper's 2 year dental check-up we had a little chat about going to the dentist and toothbrushes.

Jasper brushed his teeth, then had fun seeing what kind of noise the toothbrush made when he ran it across objects other than his teeth.

Here's the link for a little video of his excitement with the toothbrush.

Sous Chef

Jasper is my trusted assistant in the kitchen.

He gets up on his stool and he is ready to work.

Tonight we whipped up some smashed potatoes.

Watch out Gordon Ramsey -- you've got some competition.

The Difference Between a Tortoise, a Turtle and a Terrapin

One of Jasper's favorite Birthday gifts from my parents is the Encyclopedia of Animals. (You can pick one up at Costco if you want one too).

It is an even a bigger hit than I imagined.

Jasper and I love to learn about all the animals and look at all the great pictures. And of course we make as many of the animal noise that we know.

I got stumped on "Anteater" today. I improvised by doing crazy, noisy kisses up and down Jasper's arm until we were rolling on the rug laughing.

Mike and I are now quizzing each other on animal trivia that we learn when we read the book with Jasper.

Do you know the Difference Between a Tortoise, a Turtle and a Terrapin?

Ever since we caught a glimpse of Sheldon we are really into turtles...uh, I mean tortoises.

Does anyone want to make these with me?

My friend Steph in Alaska made these magnetic alphabet tiles for a Relief Society Super Saturday project and I think they are super cute!

The photos below are from my friend Heather' blog -- but it's private -- so I copied her photos so you could see how cute they are.

Heather said that her kids love them. They are practicing their spelling and having fun with them. Heather says that her front door has metal in it, and that her kids use the magnets on there too.

I'm not sure how much it would cost to make them, but I can't imagine it would be too pricey. They are made on 1 x 1 inch tiles with a magnetic backing. Steph emailed my the template to print the letters out. I am happy to buy the supplies in bulk if anybody else wants to make them.

If you want to come craft later this month, let me know by Sept. 12th.

As always, everyone's invited.

2nd Birthday Celebration at the Firm

Since last year's birthday celebration at Mike's firm was so much fun, we decided to do it again.

We had a delicious Dairy Queen ice cream cake and a fun time singing, visiting and laughing.

All of the ladies just love Jasper to pieces and had fun as he entertained them.

People would ask Jasper a question and he would say, "No". It became a little comedy hour to see what questions people could come up with for Jasper to answer.

One partner said, "Jasper, should we give your dad a raise next year?" Jasper gave his standard answer for the hour "No." (I quickly chimed in YES!)























Grandma Sharon brought in a broken telephone and he had a lot of fun doing some pretend phone calls with Mike's secretary.

She also gave him a CD player that he loves to carry around the house and jam out to. I call it his boom box.

And then there was the immense fun found in taking the lid on and off of the orange juice. It's the little things.

Of course his favorite things was seeing his daddy. He claps every time that we drive by the firm.

Happy Birthday Jasper --again!

1st Birthday Celebration at the Firm

Well I am only 1 year behind on this post. :>

Last year we had a little party for Jasper at Mike's office.


















































Sometimes I feel like he is the firm mascot. All of the ladies love to know how he is doing and see how big he is getting.

Of course Mike is a proud pappa and loves to show off "Mini Mike", as they call Jasper at the firm.

Grandma Sharon gave him a fun basketball set for bath time, and Rosey gave him a phone that lights up and talks back -- he loves both of them.

Applique Obsession

In case you haven't notice, I've gone a little overboard on applique lately. :>

Since Jasper had a water party, I sewed a "2" on one of his swim shirts.

I figure if nothing else when we look back on photos of his party we'll always know it was his 2nd.

It was so easy, that I got carried away and whipped one up for celebration at Mike's firm.

Someone stop me before I get a hold of his PJ's!

Out My Kitchen Window

We were lucky enough to have Madeline and Kaitlyn came over to play with us this morning.

In the middle of tackling a mound of dishes I looked out my kitchen window to see these happy faces.

Jasper was thrilled to have some friends over AND play with some water.

First we hit a Zumba class that the Laurel Hills ward sponsored.

There was a great turn out and the kids loved running around the gym and dancing to the music.

The instructor provided small water bottles and apples, grapes, bananas and cheese sticks. They kids loved it all.

We enjoyed the opportunity to see some of our old friends that were in our ward before it split.

When we came back to our home and the kids played outside in the water.

Of course they had to take a small break for a frozen Go-Gurt and Strawberry fruit bars.

Jasper was really diggin' the fruit bars.

Party Like It's 2009

Yes, Jasper really is two years old. Those were the quickest two years of my life! Since a lot of people will be gone for Labor Day, we decided to celebrate a few days early.

I know there's a lot of scuttlebutt among mom's about how people go overboard with birthday parties, and how little one's don't need a "friend party". We decided to keep things low-key, but to have a fun party for everyone -- because you're only 2 once!

Mike was leery about the fact that I invited so many mom's and their kids. The party was at 8:45 AM, so we had all kids 4 and under. We has 35 kids and 20 plus mom's come - and everything worked out just fine.

I set up a Little Tikes water wonderland out back, complete with pools to slide into, water stations, etc. The kids all ran around doing their own thing and had a great time.

Mike made many batches of his famous waffles and mixed in mini chocolate chips. I've learned that kids will eat anything that contains chocolate chips. I thought that we had way too many waffles, but it turns out that every last square was eaten.

Jasper was fixated on the buffet table and wanted to play with the waffle toppings and make cup after cup of chocolate milk with the Nestle Quick powder. I guess he is used to cooking and baking with me, because he truly did not understand why he was not supposed to be coming up with a concoction of some sort.

After everyone left we let him got for it, and he produced a wonderfully sticky sweet syrup/berry mess! (video at the very end)

Mike took photos of most of the mom's there, and nobody wanted their picture taken because they all felt like they didn't look good.

To which I countered -- To be honest, as a mom, I rarely feel like I look like I want to. But this is our life, and we have to take photos at sometime, or we'll have nothing to look back an remember those fun (but frazzled) days.

We had 3 little picnic tables set up for the kids. I borrowed two from a friend, and we have one of our own that we bought at, where else, Costco. I love these tables because they fold flat, and the kids seem to love having their own special place to sit.

For party favors we had 24 packs of crayons by the door with a little photo of Jasper going down the slide that said "Thanks for coming to my party".

I thought about buying one of those little $20 disposable helium tanks so the kids could all take a balloon home. Plus nothing says P-A-R-T-Y like a million helium balloons. But I passed on the mini helium tank because I knew getting one would cause Mike to revoke my "low-key party" certification...and I promised low-key.

Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate Jasper's 2nd Birthday with us!

If you missed this year, we hope to see you for #3 next year.