Putting up the Christmas Tree!

We headed off to Menards on a cold Tuesday night to pick out our Christmas Tree! Hopefully one day, we'll make the trek out to an actual Christmas Tree Farm like Adam and I have done once or twice when we were first married, but for now, Menards gave us just as fun of an experience! Jasper was very involved in picking out the tree telling us 'whoa that's a big one' or pushing the cart near us so we could load up the tree.

After we got home, Daddy cut off a portion of the stump and got it all ready for the decorating to begin. We put on the lights, decorations, and completed it with a star on top.

Another special decoration to us this year is a ceramic Santa, painted by Great Grandma Bev. It plays "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and Jasper likes to twist it up so the music plays.

The bottom picture is the "pre-decorated tree" where Jasper was holding up his star decoration that he made at the Festival of Trees.

2010 Festival of Trees

Jman, Grandma Vicki, and I headed to the 2010 Festival of Trees. It is put on every year at the Polk County Convention Complex in Des Moines and proceeds benefit Blank Children's Hospital. Unfortunately, my camera batteries were low, so I only got one photo. But this is a photo of Jman and Grandma Vicki in front of the M&M Tree. We enjoyed looking at the beautiful trees and had a nice visit with Santa where Jasper asked for a vacuum and tractor (both in green if possible). We got stuff to make a marshmallow snowman (the booth was out of frosting) and were planning on riding the train, until the train broke down as soon as we were headed in it's direction. Despite these bumps in the road, we still had a great time!

Bittersweet Thanksgiving

This year's Thanksgiving was a little bittersweet. It was the first Thanksgiving without Jasper's Great Grandpa Bob and his Great Grandma Bev. We missed them both, but were thankful for the time we were able to spend with both the Wilsons and Trissel side. Here are a couple photos of Jman, Dom, and Perri reading with Uncle Tim on the Trissel side and Syd and Grandma Debbie and Jman and his cousin, Joey, playing, at Phyllis' house on the Wilson side.

Potty chart

Potty training is going very well with Jasper. He goes a couple of times every day at day care and a couple of times at night when we're home.

Here he holds up his potty chart after going for the first time at Alissa's. He gets a sticker each time he goes when he's there, but we've upped the ante and he gets M&Ms at home.

Sleepy boy

Natalie checked on Jasper tonight around 10:15 pm and found him like this. He was wreaked, though, so he didn't even flinch when I dug his arm out from under him.

Happy haircut

Jasper's taken a liking lately with pretending to cut hair. Last night he and I did it for close to an hour so he had to show off his skills for his mommy tonight.

He takes it pretty seriously, tossing his Bubba over our shoulders like a cape and telling me to sit still when I was squirming around. He uses one of Nat's combs to brush our hair and his plastic needle nose pliers as scissors.

"Lookin' good," he said once he was done with me.

"You look beautiful," he told Nat.

What a sweet boy.

It's Potty-Training Time

Our potty-training has officially begun! Jasper has been going on the potty off and on for about 2-3 months. We never really pushed it, but about a week ago we decided we were really going to make an effort to put him on the potty alot more often. We started it last Wednesday (Nov. 18, 2010) and by Friday, he was wearing his pull-up at daycare. Friday was also the day they went and bought a new potty for Jman to have at daycare. He's been doing really good! Of course, he's had a couple accidents and will continue to have those, but the only time he wears a diaper is at night and during nap time, so I think we're on the right path - yay!

And he's also re-newed his love of our M&M potty jar, that he was kind of interested in a couple months back. He gets 2 M&Ms after each trip to the potty and he never misses that step in the process!

Here is a picture with him and his potty-chart from daycare. He gets to fill it up with stickers during the week and then brings it home at the end of each week to proudly display what he's done. This is from Week 1!

Yay - diapers will soon be a distant memory for Jasper P!