A good day...

Its been a great day today. Jonas has been such a sweet blessing to me. He has laughed more than I have ever heard him laugh. He is a serious child and it can take an act of congress to get him to cackle. He has cackled and cackled today. I have loved every minute of it. I love the kisses that he now offers daily and I love how he walks around the house like he owns the place. He is growing so fast it is scary.

Also on a side note...I decided a while back we are going to attempt potty training earlier than the national average. I have a theory that the diaper industry encourages later potty training these days, to make money off the already sacrificial parents of today. So, at 17 months we got the potty. I am a stay at home mom and feel I don't have much of an excuse to not take breaks throughout the day to help train my child. Also, with the encouragement of my grandmother, we hope to accomplish this task at least by age two. (maybe earlier) My grandmother raised 5 children, 3 boys, 2 girls. She had every one of them potty trained at 18 months. That was probably the average back then. Who wanted to deal with wet and soiled cloth diapers every day? I would have rushed to have them trained as well! I am happy to say in the couple weeks we have been training, he has gone # 1 and #2 in the potty on more than one occasion. Today we reached a milestone of going #1 two times in one day! I'm not wore out yet, but this definitely takes discipline and cutting the diaper budget out a year earlier than most people will be SO REWARDING!

We love you little man!

A couple Saturdays ago the weather was so warm. It almost hit 80 degrees! It was also Joe's day off and time to tackle our leaves. We have many large trees that rain down a ton of leaves. He has a bagger system on the John Deere. It mulches up the leaves in two large bags, they get full, he empties them etc...It took over 4 hours of this routine. I can't imagine how long it would take if he raked them. Jonas and I took advantage of the nice weather and played outside for a while. He loved watching daddy drive all over with the John Deere.
Jonas is almost 18 months now. Whew, he is busy. He doesn't sit still. He sure keeps us on our toes. He is still very "mechanical". He loves to figure out how things work. This surely comes from his daddy. He will prefer a remote control, a cell phone, ipod, and anything else electronic over his own toys. He knows how to turn the t.v. on and change channels!
His vocabulary isn't very big. In fact he used to say more words but lately resorts to uh uh or ah ah ah to get my attention. :-) And he has learned to say "Ho ho ho" :-)
I finally have my Christmas shopping done. I am going to start wrapping tonight. Hopefully I won't find that I have forgotten a gift! The budget is pretty well spent!
We are eagerly anticipating Andrea and her family's arrival on Christmas day! First, I am hosting Christmas Eve at my house for any and all family members, on both sides, who can come. Jonas and I look forward to having our house filled with loved ones while daddy has to work. :-( Unfortunately, crime never takes a holiday.

Merry Christmas!

Since its been over a month since my last post, I figured I better say Merry Christmas now. Just in case I don't poast again until January!
We had a nice Thanksgiving, small but nice. Joe worked all day. Jonas and I went to my parents house. Mom made a full size traditional feast and it was some of the best Thanksgiving food I can remember. She tried some new receipes this year that were fantastic! Around 5 that day Jonas and I went to Aunt Jessica's where the Barker feast was prepared. Jonas ate his Thanksgiving dinner there and loved it!
Andrea and her family will be arriving here Christmas Day. We can't wait! We will be doing the Barker Christmas on Christmas morning as soon as Joe gets done working the Christmas Eve shift. Thankfully he has Christmas day off, but will need to catch up on sleep some part of that day. We will have Christmas dinner at my mom's house later in the day.
Here are some recent pictures of Jonas in his new Winter outfit. We hope you have a Merry Merry Christmas!