JAMES' TRIP TO GET HIS FIRST HAIRCUT

BEFORE HAIRCUT TRIP:

AFTER HAIRCUT TRIP:

Well, we decided this weekend was the time to bring James to the super duper kids barber shop in town where he could get his first real haircut in a cool car chair and leave with a lollipop and a certificate. Here's what really happened:

- Showed up to first-come first-served shop at 10am on a Saturday prepared to wait a bit.

- Great, there are TOYS for James to play with! And tons of trucks

- About 15 minutes go by, we're all doing fine and it's getting closer to James' turn. He keeps walking over to the car chair commenting on it's wheels.

- Mom and dad are getting excited for the first cut and the photo opps.

- 20 minutes into the wait, James discovers that one of the larger truck toys could possibly be a nice ride-on toy...whoops, nope, he falls off. Mom and dad give eachother the "that was close" look as other parents and tots look on.

- The next 10 minutes are a blur...Jim feels after the attempted ride on the truck that something bad is going to happen - - -

- James decides to push the large truck as fast as he can across the floor...resulting in a horribly failed experiment.

- After trying our best to clean up a rather bloody, screaming, crying child in the bathroom of the barber shop, we emerge as a family (all rather bloody) proceed to cross our name off the waiting list and announce to the mostly unfazed lady barbers that we will have to try our first haircut another time.

Good thing there was a large bulldozer next door to help stop the crying. And there's nothing wrong with an ice cream on a stick at 10:48am, right? Ahh, the memories. Good thing we had our camera for those priceless first haircut moments.

james and brodie

Our 2 boys enjoy eachother's company and can be found clowning around a lot. Brodie likes to lick James (oh that's right, Brodie likes to lick everyone) and even James thinks it's a little too much sometimes. One of their favorite activities is playing in the hallway and spare bedroom upstairs. Mom will hear the door slam shut followed by barking and toddler squealing...we still haven't caught exactly what happens in there but it sounds like fun.

The State of The Hartigan Blog

We hope our lack of postings these past few months haven't completely deterred our friends and family from checking every so often. We didnt even have any new great pictures to post with this "excuse" posting...how disappointing.
We promise that there is no impending demise of the Hartigan blog. Rather, we expect there to be a surge in activity in the upcoming months. (lofty goal?) Warm weather brings life to even the most tired and rusty of bloggers.
Stay tuned and thanks for sticking by us!!

A day at the office

Last week of February...

Boy are we looking forward to the warm weather! We have serious cabin fever and have resorted to:
wearing dad's shoes and trying (sometimes successfully) to walk around the house. Dad wears a size 12, James is a size 7 toddlers, i.e. big difference!
Pulling on Brodie's tail and trying not to get caught. When we do, we say "i'm sorry" now without being prompted. Atleast all of mom's teachings on this subject have not been ignored.
We stare out the window longingly at our playset and swings in the backyard wishing we could go out to play.
And when we get really bored, we blow fish faces on the window and practice our kissing techniques. Spring please come soon.

Another week in review...

Highlights of the week...Here's a picture when James was 6 months old with his friends (THEN) and a shot of the most recent Valentine's celebration (NOW). James is the one in the blue pants above and khaki pants below. How time flies!

James has been busy putting together 2-3 word sentences this past week. Some of our favorites "come here" (come EEEEre), "stop it" (we must say this to brodie a lot as James will only say it to the dog), and then various "I sit", "I eat", etc. It's fun watching him try new things and get excited over our reactions. We are really looking forward to the warm weather as James has now taken to giving me my jacket and shoes every morning and saying "go outside". It's still only 28 degrees!! Soon enough.

We had a great long weekend with daddy and miss him a lot today. Only 4 days until we get to pal around together again.

The week in review

James enjoyed watching the first half of the superbowl on Sunday...in between playing with his beloved Little People farm set. Of course, most evenings someone in our house is designated the hat-wearer, and Sunday was James' night. This week we got back on track by going to our normal activities (all except our playgroup on Tuesday because of the snow, we hope Spring comes real soon). James has also been taking champion naps these days. By the picture you can see James LOVES the orange cow that Boppa got him when he was sick last week. As great as this napping is for mommy, it does backfire every morning at the 520am wake up call. James also surprised mommy this week by starting to point out shapes and colors he sees without being prompted. Circle, triangle and the color green are the varieties he prefers to comment on most. It was very exciting to hear James declare that his potato pancake was green in a very skeptical voice last night (mom got a variety with spinach in it and yes he did eat it!). He amazes us every day.

WHERE HAVE WE BEEN?

The past few weeks have been busy for the Hartigans hence resulting in the lack of postings. Here's a quick recap: mom and dad took their first big trip away from James to California. James got to stay with Nanny and Boppa and from the daily pictures we were sent (see all the photos) he had a good time. Mom and dad had a nice time up in Sonoma/Napa and then headed down to Southern California for a conference. Mom got the better end of that deal - she got to go see Will and Megan! It was fun to see Will in his own environment (even if he was still a little sickie). We were happy to get home to James late last week but not so happy to be met with our own sick boy and soon to follow sick momma. We're all on the mend now but, is it possible James is getting his 2 year molars? We think so!
James is also getting better everyday with his talking skills. We are practicing a more coherant pronunciation of "school bus" as it still comes out as a perfect "cheeseburger" but those of us in the know understand what he's saying :-) His favorite thing to do is narrate his own day "taste, walk, run, drink, eat, sleepy, watch, see, drive, shower, up and even help me". We are also starting down the slippery slope into the Two-zone. "No" has become a favorite word. "Yes" is gone and replaced with "yeah" and those spontaneous fits are not so sporadic anymore. They've actually become more of a regular activity a few times a day. Patience and consistency (no matter how tired we are) are virtues we pray for more of each day!
Mom is hoping the 530am wake up calls go away again soon as we had gotten used to the 7am lazy mornings before we left for CA. James is looking forward to this winter-thing being over soon so he can get outside and run around. Thank goodness for the Danbury PAL center open gym and our other activities!
We hope everyone is having a good winter and Happy Groundhog day!

Spoon practice

James has been feeding himself cold cereal for some time now but really prefers to sit back and have his servants wait on him for most other spooned foods. Up until a week ago, he was perfectly happy being fed anything that he couldnt pick up with his hands. So mommy let him try his hand (and spoon) at yogurt today. Mom may have turned away for a few minutes to clean up in the kitchen and when she turned back, she was greeted with this smiling face.

the tides turn

A few months back, James took over Brodie's bed. Brodie was a pretty good sport about the whole thing and shared rather reasonably with the little person. Little did we know he was plotting his revenge. James' chair is now the favorite resting spot of our furry pal Brodie. However, James isn't as eager to share the chair and we sometimes find James trying to sit on Brodie to get him to move.

Couldn't resist sharing a "then and now" photo. James used to love his exersaucer (see 6 month pic). When Nanny brought out hers for Emma to try, James had flashbacks of his fun times and insisted on giving it another try (he climbed in head first and got stuck with his feet in the air).

Our Future Ski Bum

Dad is getting ready to head out to Steamboat, CO later this week for a visit with Uncle Vince and Aunt Karen. We're all real excited for dad's trip as skiing is dad's third love after mommy and James.
Because of this, James is learning a thing or two about the great sport of skiing. This weekend we helped dad pack and our little curious monkey got an opportunity to check out dad's gear. Getting to wear dad's boots was a real treat and there were many "more"s and "boot"s being spoken during packing. And dad was kind enough to leave the boots in the family room that night so James could inspect them thoroughly. While he's on the slopes, the rest of the clan will be up in MA visiting Anna and Emma. Here's to champagne powder!

TOUCHDOWN!! GO GIANTS!! (yes we have taught James how to enthusiastically say "touchdown" and "foooootball"!!)

Belated Christmas

After 4 straight days of celebrating Christmas, we've been taking a backseat to webpostings and enjoying all our new toys and quiet time at home. We hope everyone enjoyed the holidays as much as we did. James thought all the Christmas celebrations were pretty cool: he got so many new trucks in all sorts of shapes and sizes that his little mind couldn't keep up with the excitement! Most of the past week you could find James clinging to his yellow school bus (see picture) and his prized red ukelele (the guitar in the picture he borrowed from cousin Ryan on Christmas day). James has also been increasing his vocabulary and amazes us every day with more and more words. We hope 2009 proves to be a year filled with many happy times & exciting milestones. Happy New Year!