After a long day of playing 7:00 rolled around and this is how Jason fell asleep tonight. He laid down on Dad and about 30 seconds later he was out. Phew! Being 2 is hard work.

I have a public announcement! I have not changed a poopy diaper in two week! Sorry to discuss matters such as this, but to all diaper changing folk this is a BIG deal. After Easter I decided that I was going to bite the bullet and officially potty train Jason. I realized this would be a great way to portion control the sweets and provide a reward for him "keeping his big boy underwear dry." He has been doing fantastic and I could not be happier with the progress he has made. One unforeseen side effect of spending a lot more time sitting on the toilet and the fascination of flushing the "things" down the hole is that Jason decided last weekend that the toilet was a good place to thrown away other things. It started with an apple core which made it down fine. Next was another apple, this time with only one bite taken out of it; fished out of the toilet by daddy. On Sunday it was his pull up. Unfortunately this was not fishable and no.... it did not make it down fine. Poor Benj. After lots and lots, and I mean lots of plunging it would not budge. This is where my research begun. I am going to share a secret to all you moms out there who may be potty training and who may have a toddler with the disposition to flush objects down the toilet....

• empty the water out of the bowl ( yuck, I know right.... but it has to be done)
• Add 1 large pot full of boiling water
• 1 cup of dish soap ( still debatable if this did anything or not)
  
• Let sit for an hour or so and then try with all your might to plunge it again

If there is no change ( like in our adventure)

• Empty it out again
• Add another large pot of boiling water
• 1 cup of bleach
• Let sit for a really long time
  
• Plunge again!
• Sigh in relief that you do not have to call a plumber
  
• Have a really really long talk with your toddler about what exactly goes down that hole :-)
  

We got to meet the cousins a couple of weeks ago at a gymnastics place for their open play time. Jason LOVES it because he gets to run around on the squishy mats, jump from crazy heights into a huge foam pit, bounce on the trampolines, swing in big swings, and scare mom with his fearlessness!
Cousin Reece-Yes, he has a mustache:-)
Cousin Micah-Yes, he has a mustache too and he is wearing all white to be camouflaged in milk which is very important just in case you need it :-)

Climbing up...
Waiting his turn...Jumping!Stuck!

After looking through my old videos to find the Easter one I rediscovered some movies I had forgotten about. Humor this proud loving mommy :-)! The first one Jason is about 13 months showing off his signing skills and the second he is about 18 months being his wild self.

ok.... so I might have missed 1 talk yesterday afternoon, but it was only 1 I swear!

Haircut time again. Traumatic times this morning but, we survived another haircut. This time we buzzed it all short. As a reward for being brave mommy made a cake. He insisted we get a candle for him so we sang "Happy haircut to you...."

So for $9.99 at GoodWill Jason and I couldn't pass this one up. Luckily mom was off looking at the books or something. It didn't work the best but Jason helped me strip it down and realign the motor gear. One other quick mod while we were inside lets us use a rechargeable airsoft battery pack. Can you believe what Melinda allows in our house?!!

Benj has had the week off for Spring Break. We have had fun just being together. Tuesday we drove up to Seattle and took Jason to the aquarium and then stayed the night. The next day we had great plans of walking around Pike Street Market and downtown, but it was pouring so we headed back to raining Portland instead. Our little vacation was fun even if it only lasted for a day. Here are some pics from the aquarium.

Lately Jason has not been taking a nap and I am ok with that because it usually means around 7:00 HE is asking to go to bed. No nap does mean that I have 3 more hours during the day to entertain/teach/pacify him. I have been trying out different "sensory" items for him to play with. We have done rice, water and bubbles, beans, ice cubes, play dough etc. Here are some pictures of him playing with bubbles.

In an effort to lower that dreamy picture of mine off of the front page I will post something about JB Weld. If you've never heard of the stuff than I suggest you do some self-educating. This stuff is amazing. I just recently used it for a replacement piece for an airsoft gun. You can check it out on instructables. Anyway, this stuff is basically an epoxy / filler type stuff that gets hard like metal after it cures. You can use it to hold things together, make new parts, and fix pretty much anything. I think that JB Weld deserves a place right up there with duct tape.