SJ is 3-Years-Old

SJ turned three in March, so I wanted to write down some thoughts about his cute little personality at 3-years-old. He's got a great sense of humor, loves the color green and talking about colors in general. He has assigned a different color to everyone he's close too. I'm pink and Scott is blue and apparently no one can have the same favorite color so we run out of colors to assign to people pretty quickly :)

SJ knows most of his letters and we are working on the sounds of them. He loves Little Gym, which is gymnastics class. He can do a forward role, donkey kick, assisted back hand spring and assisted bar/beam exercises. He loves crafting, painting, playing with cousins, playing with grandparents and jumping on the trampoline. His best friends at school are Dylan and Eve. He likes to tell us about his adventures with Dylan and Eve every time he gets home from school. He says Eve is "the pretty girl at school". He starts official preschool at Summit Academy in August of 2015. I think he's ready to be in a more structured school environment.

He is still obsessed with the ninja turtles and every time we see a sewer in the ground he calls it a turtle hole and genuinely thinks ninja turtles live down there. His favorite ninja turtle is Mikey because he's a "party dude".

He's definitely got a case of the why's and what's and literally asks questions all day every day. He's afraid of bugs for some reason (maybe because his mom is haha), but he's even afraid of rolly-pollies and ants. Now we've moved on to spiders and bees which is at least more rational :)

I love him so much!

2-Year-Old SJ

SJ is 2-years-old and he loves singing the ABC's and can count to 15 or so. He loves telling knock-knock jokes and loves his grandparents very much. He likes playing with cars and ninja turtles and loves Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, Elmo, Yo Gabba Gabba. He also loves singing along to those shows. We regularly catch SJ walking around the house singing "Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh..." to himself in his cute little singing voice. 

 SJ is in pre-school two days a week and no longer uses a bottle. He has a big boy bed, but he doesn't sleep in it very well. We are working on that. He knows his colors and his animals well. He loves farms and singing and talking about animals. He loves singing "Old McDonald Had a Farm" and loves jumping on the trampoline. He also loves putting coins in his piggy bank. His favorite book right now is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear - What Do You See?" and he has already been to Disneyland TWICE!! 

We love him so much and he is the greatest joy in our lives. Thank you universe!

Vulnerability, Daring Greatly

I've been watching a lot of Super Soul Sunday lately on the OWN network. For those that know me - you know I'm a big fan Oprah. It's been nice to have such a great show to watch on Sunday's... It's thought provoking, spiritual, uplifting, etc. I highly recommend you all check it out. You can watch the show on Oprah.com too of you don't have cable or satellite. She had an author on her show today called Brene Brown who wrote the book "Daring Greatly" and she has received over 8 million view on TED with her lecture about vulnerability.

The book starts out with this quote that I love:
“It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; Who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
President Theodore Roosevelt
Speech at the Sorbonne
April 23, 1910

I think vulnerability is a very interesting topic. As Brown says, most people are raised that vulnerability is a weakness, but it's so important to ask for what you need and have those hard conversations. Take the risk of being vulnerable and being yourself. You are beautiful! Show the world your beauty. Let people in. "You can't get to courage without walking through vulnerability. It [vulnerability] is the key to having meaningful relationships and intimacy," said Brown.

Brown also talked about how our culture lives in fear more than ever, and because of this - we are all less vulnerable and don't enjoy "joy" as much as we should. "The number one casualty of a scarcity culture is vulnerability. Get rid of fear. Be open [and vulnerable] enough to take the risk to fail. Let go of what people think."

By doing this and practicing gratitude she said we will all experience joy more deeply. "Don't forebode joy. Push harder into those moments of joy. Be vulnerable enough to enjoy joy. Practice gratitude." She said we cannot experience joy without gratitude and that a way to battle fear is by practicing gratitude. For example, if you are scared your plane will crash, just start being grateful about the fact that you have enough money to be in that plane and going where you are going in the first place.

I really enjoyed the discussion and can't wait to read "Daring Greatly"!