Jack loves his helmet. Not so much his clothes, at least on this day...

He's also working on his "big smile". I'm not sure how he learned to smile on command--I certainly didn't teach him. But somehow he learned how to be a ham all on his own... imagine that!
We're also still glad to have Lulu back. It's hard to get a good picture of a cat, but I did that day:

I don't really like this picture, but I thought I ought to post a pic of the prego pair, where Pam looks all cute and I should have worn something different on Easter Sunday! Pamela (my sister-in-law) is due in the end of June, and I'm due early to mid-September.
We find out the gender of the baby on Wednesday (4/22), and we're so excited! Last time, with Jack, we already had a boy name all picked out and happily got to use it. This time, we've kicked around a lot of names for both genders, but we haven't landed on any we both like yet. We'll see... At least our options will be narrowed by half this Wednesday!

Finally, A Few Photos

Here's Jack at Jeremy and Julie's wedding in January. He had fun playing in the Sunday school room beforehand.

Despite the fun Sunday school room, this was kind of a crabby day. Jack stayed up front with Joah during the ceremony for as long as it took for everyone to get up the aisle. Then it got boring and I had to take him to the back.

Here is Jack's new favorite activity: skateboarding with his "howt" (helmet) in our driveway.

Jack and Joah spent a while digging a hole in the backyard for a transplanted flower, and Jack is showing me his dirty hand. This is the same day that Lulu escaped. We'll have to be more careful next time we're playing in the backyard!
In other family news, Joah caught his hand in a saw at work on Wednesday, resulting in 8 stitches and a few days off work. We're hoping he can go back on Tuesday, but we'll see what the doctor says at his follow-up appointment on Monday.

Good News!

Good news for the Widman family: (or at least for the mom of the Widman family...) our wandering kitty Lulu has been found and returned to us, thanks to some attentive girls down the street!
I'm glad she's home, and I think she is too, now that her bath is over!

Happenings

Well, I haven't been very good at picking up the camera lately, but I suppose I can blog about what we've been doing.
Just over a week ago, our kitty Lulu slipped out the door without our knowledge and disappeared. We haven't seen her around, so I assume she's enjoying herself, wherever she is. We've been leaving food out at night, but I've seen two different cats eating it, neither of whom were Lulu. She may be gone for good. If you see our kitty, let us know!

I think the word has spread far and wide, but in case you didn't hear, we're expecting a new Widman this September. We're hoping for an 09/09/09 birthday because that would be awesome.

Joah's brother Jeremy and his new wife Julie have been staying with us since Thursday, which has been a lot of fun. They were married in January in North Carolina, so today we had a reception here for California friends and family. Most of the Gentry (Joah's mom's) side of the family showed up, and many of our church friends came as well. The food was delicious and plentiful. The leftovers in our fridge will be quite enjoyed.

Jack is very into his "howt" (helmet) lately--his bike helmet which my parents got for him--and especially likes to wear it to "eet" (skateboard) with Joah. Sometimes Joah holds his hands and lets him ride "by himself", and sometimes Joah will skateboard holding Jack, which is a really fun ride! They've made visits to the park and the post office that way. He also enjoys wearing his "howt" to ride his "ah-ee" (bike (tricycle)), but he can't quite grasp the concept of pedaling yet, so he'll climb on, push with his feet a little, climb off, push from behind, climb on, turn the wheel, etc. Maybe by this summer he'll actually go somewhere by pedaling!
Another current obsession of Jack's is to drive a car--any car, toy or real. The very best is when he can have the keys and stand in the driver's seat of one of our real cars and push every button, turn every knob, and pull every lever, which we don't like to let him do because he really yanks on the levers (I think a turn signal lever would be hard to replace). However, if we're ever having a tough day, I can take Jack out to the garage, open the driver's side window, let Jack go to town (figuratively, not literally) in the car, and I can sit in my camping chair and read my People magazine next to the car. That's good for at least 20 minutes of entertainment for both of us!

I think things will slow down for us, now that Jeremy and Julie's reception is over. It seems like we've had one big event or another to plan for since Christmas, so I'm ready for a few quiet months. Perhaps we'll finish painting the house, and perhaps I'll even plant something in our yard. You never know what some schedule-free Saturdays might bring!

A Language Only a Mother Could Understand!

Wow! It's been more than a month since I last posted! The last few months have been crazy! We had Christmas, then Tahoe, then North Carolina for Jeremy and Julie's wedding, then we came home and Jack was sick, then I got it from him, then we moved, then we had Winter Dinner at church, which ate up every waking hour for a week. Now, finally, things have settled down a little. I have a husband who is kind enough to empty the dishwasher and refill it while I catch up on e-mail and this blog.
Jack is developing a language for himself that Joah and I can somewhat understand, based on context... here is a pronunciation guide of Jack's words:
o (short o)= hot
a (short a) = hat
ee=keys or toy or kitty or cookie or eat or teeth (or brush my teeth)
i (long i) = eye or outside (when accompanied by a doorknob turning motion) or drive or light (though light has a separation, like "ah-ee")
bew=bear
ew=sticker (if pointing to hand where the WalMart ladies put smiley face stickers) or upstairs or downstairs or ear or hair or yucky (if drawn out like eeew)
ba=up (if arms are raised) or grandpa or Bob (the builder)
ma=mom
da=dad
dowwww=down (his favorite after nap time)
ow=out or nose (though "out" is separated, like ah-oo)
oo=shoe
mo=moon
ba ba =bad bad (referring to Lulu the cat)
uh-oh= uh-oh or milk (I have no idea how uh-oh became milk. Did he drop his sippy one too many times?)
yeah=very well pronounced yeah
no=no
He also has a variety of animal noises and other sound effects (instead of saying "ball", he has a throaty sound effect, somewhat like a gun shooting sound, and a throwing motion to go with it).

We really need to work on the consonants. Yesterday we had a really hard half-hour after his nap when he kept saying "ee, ee, ee, ee!" and I kept trying to feed him a snack or let him chew on his toothbrush, but he was seeing my keys on the couch and wanted to play with them. A simple K sound could have solved a long and frustrating ordeal! I hope those consonants develop quickly!

So next comes Jeremy and Julie's reception in March and increasingly intense VBS planning, but the coming few months should be nothing like the busy-ness of December through now. Hopefully I'll have time to post some pictures in the near future!

Over New Year's week, we went to the cabin in Tahoe with my parents and grandparents. We enjoyed the snow and the time we had relaxing together!

Each day, we took a trek down to the (frozen over) creek where there's a great sledding hill. On the way the first time, Papa gave Jack a ride on the icy street.


If you know Jack, you'll expect that he wasn't content to sit and be pulled for very long.


Jack loved sledding with "Da", learning the exclamation "Whoo!", which he used after each run and when he saw other sledders take a ride!


Cute Buddy!

While we were in Tahoe, we learned that the bank wants to close on our house by January 9, when we'll be in North Carolina for Jeremy and Julie's wedding, so our loan officer is scrambling to get things together by Tuesday the 6th before we leave. This is going to be a VERY busy month!

Christmas '08

The Widmans' Christmas was wonderful, filled with fun and family... we spent Christmas Eve at Papa and Neenee Brown's house, buried in presents (lots of presents and lots of big presents), and Christmas day at my parents', aka Pa and Grammie's, with Grandma Carol also there.

At Papa and Neenee's house, Jack was very interested in the balls on the tree, since our tree held no balls within his reach. Of course, several of the balls ended up on the floor, with hooks still on the tree.

On Christmas morning, he forgot this was on his head for a while.

Papa and Neenee Dean gave Jack a tricycle, which he enjoyed in Pa and Grammie's house on Christmas day (see his excellent parade wave technique), but then was put away for a while, and should be just about perfect for him when the weather warms up in the spring. Thanks, Papa and Neenee!


Hope everyone's Christmas was great!