"I'm cleaning up my mess so ants don't come."

I woke up to NJ brushing up crumbs around his little table. He says, "I'm cleaning up my mess so ants don't come." Thank you! I have a talk with him every morning about the amount of mess and crumbs on the floor around his seat. Ants are always looking for food, they usually come for his crumbs. 

"I want to help you, Mama! Don't get them because I will!" 

It's a lazy, lay around in your pajamas kind of day. He's really getting comfy. Actually, he had an itch on his foot so he unzipped his entire pj to get to it. Silly guy.

"Dotty, you hungry?" 

Mama needed a pick me up, so NJ and I sat for a little while he talked and talked and asked question after question like he always does. 

We passed this store and he says, "Woaw, look at all that stuff!" (Yeah, expensive stuff we don't need!) 

He wanted these garlic peanuts. My mistake for agreeing to his request. I couldn't crack them open fast enough for him to eat them. When I let him do it himself it's a crazy mess. He'd get a nut out of the shell and say, "Oh my nuts!" when it didn't make it into his little bowl. 

NJ gets the giggles when we play ball. He asked to ride his tricycle, but it was windy and chilly outside. So instead, we threw the ball back and forth. Almost every time he'd say, "ow" because the ball would land on his foot or hit his chest. We need to practice his catching.

"Start!"

Good morning sleepy head. 

I sliced up the loaf I made and it was twice the size of NJ's face. I toasted it with some jam, it was very yummy. NJ kept asking for crunch bread, which means toasted. He used to say, burned bread for toasted. This was the first time I heard him change it from burned to crunch. 

We had the leftover soup for lunch and NJ was all pouty over there not being any more. We have to make it again. 

The dishwasher was loaded so I asked NJ to put the dishwasher cleaner tab thing in (what is it called?) for me. He loves doing that so I said it before he could ask. He says, "Thank you, Mama. Now tell me which button to press."  This is what he says anytime he wants to help with the dishes, laundry, and or other safe appliances. So (as usual) I pointed at the first button "normal" and the second button "start".  After pressing the second button he says to me, "Start." 

With complete surprise I said, "What?" (I didn't say and I don't normally say what it says) 

NJ- "S-T-A-R-T start."

M- "How did you know?!" (I'm hugging and kissing him excitedly!)

NJ- "Because I know!"

M- "Where did you learn that? Did you learn that at school?"

NJ- "Yeah." 

He's wondering why I'm freaking out, but that's the first I've ever seen him reading anything, besides some kind of word recognition. I was very, very excited and proud. I have to do better about teaching him stuff. 

"Who's coming over?"

Helping me with the ingredients to make some bread. 

We made dinner with Auntie Ma-cole (he mistakenly kept saying Auntie Ma-chelle). I love using the kitchen, I love the kitchen more and more, it's perfect. We made some creamy chicken and zucchini soup. It didn't look like much, but we were surprised by the flavor, we finished almost all of it. NJ loved it too. He especially liked dipping the bread. After NJ was off to a bath and bed, Auntie and I had a chance to talk and bake some brownies together. That was nice, wish we could do it all the time. 

Sadly, the bread wasn't done by the time the soup was. Baba picked some up to have with soup. The french bread was done after we finished dinner and dessert. I couldn't find something for a proper size comparison, the loaf was huge! Some toast and jam for the morning it will be...

NJ stopped to say hi to the lizard that we often see by the garage when we got out of the car today. We did our usual library visit for story time and also went to the park so he and baby Connor could run around. I had my camera around my neck, yet I didn't take any photos of them! My mind's preoccupied!

I love his squishy little lovable face.

Finally a trip to the grocery store and a home cooked meal. Since returning from my trip my annoying lingering cold has really slowed me down and makes me sluggish. I'm so tired of it. Good thing the boys never caught it. 

Watching and waiting as our friends park and get out of their car so we can walk in together. 

NJ walked up to the display and pointed out everything he wanted. Which was pretty much everything in there. But we were just looking. 

A stop to stare at the assortment of nuts. 

We walked around the 99Ranch that were picking up Ah-ma at. After, we went to dinner at one of our favorite Taiwanese places. NJ ate some of Ah-ma's noodle soup, some of Baba's plate of corn, broccoli,  egg, and sausage, some onion cake, and pork. On our way to dropping off Ah-ma, NJ caught her up on everything that's happened in the last week. In so much detail it was kind of impressive.