Our Jarvis Jive: February 2021

Our Ander boy is THREE!! :) We love him SO much. He has such a sweet and calm temperament, I've felt it since he was in my belly and it's stuck with him. Sure, he gets upset with his siblings from time to time, yells and cries and throws little toddler fits, but that's all really normal, overall, his personality is very wise, calm, happy, sweet, and loving. He has definitely gotten more opinionated in the last few months, but he is talking SO well and it really helps him to not get so frustrated because we can communicate better. I absolutely love to watch him play, his imagination is incredibly vivid. In the last six months he has started to play more with his brothers, but because he's so little still they get frustrated with each other sometimes, and he still is completely happy to play on his own or he will ask Mommy or Daddy to play. He is also very, very independent. He can already get himself undressed and dressed, he puts his own socks and boots on, if he's sticky he will clean himself up, and he will usually clean up messes he makes (like spilling water etc.) without me asking him to. If I communicate with him, talk to him, help him understand what I need him to do, or stop doing, he is usually super agreeable. BUT, if I'm just angry and tell him to do something and frustrated, he will usually get very grumpy and not obey, so I've been working really hard to respond better, ha ha. He loves to play in the bath, or in the sink during the day (when he can get away with it), he also loves to play outside with the hose, or with the water in his cup if I won't let him play with any other form of water, lol. He is very persistent. He and Benson are pretty close, partly because they are so close in age. I'll find the two of them upstairs playing and making forts and pretending all the time, and also getting in to trouble with water, lol.

I love that smile. And his huge hazel eyes. And all of him.

He has the biggest imagination! I constantly see him pretend playing and making sounds for his tools, cars, play kitchen, basically everything, lol. It's adorable.
He absolutely LOVES fire trucks the last few months. He got a Playmobil fire truck for his birthday and he plays with it alllll the time. One time he took one of the wheels off and said, "it's stuck in the mud!" And then hooked the fire truck to one of his other favorite cars and pulled it out, lol. I got it on video, he's so cute.
He loves to cuddle before naps and bedtime. When he's ready to go to sleep he says the sweetest little "goodnight, Mommy," sounds like (goonight) and that means I need to leave, ha ha! He does it to Daddy and Grandma, too. He is so funny. And when we check on him before we go to bed, we will move him back on to his pillow and get him all cozy and he says this sweet, sleepy "goonight, I yuv you." It makes me want to crawl onto his bed and snuggle him all night. He is so tasty. When he wakes up in the morning, or from his nap, he walks out of his room all sleepy and rosy-cheeked and when he sees me he says, "good morning, Mommy." So sweet.
He is talking SO good!! He was so quiet all the time, saying just a word here and there until he turned about 2.5, then he just started speaking in full-out sentences! He came to me and said "I'm poopy, I need you to change my diaper." Like, complete sentences, lol.
He LOVES anything to do with tools. He and I went to the store on his birthday, per tradition with each of our kids, and he chose a power tools play set and they are still some of his favorite toys.
He LOVES fresh vegetables, I would say better than cooked in his food! It's so wild. I'll be cutting vegetables for dinner and he will come in the kitchen and I will give him a raw sweet pepper and he will happily eat it, go off to play, and then come back for more. He also loves to eat strips of fresh avocado, raw butternut squash, cherry tomatoes, oranges, grapes, apples, bananas, raisins, carrots, celery (and he loves to make celery juice with Grandma in the mornings and drink some), and he loves pecans, almonds, cashews, and salad. Yes, salad. Ha ha! He also loves peanut butter & honey sandwiches, peanut butter & grape jelly sandwiches, pizza, and Annie's shells. He will usually eat most everything I make for dinner, but lately he hasn't been loving fajitas or anything with a tortilla. He's also so busy that it's hard to get him to sit at the table long enough to actually eat a meal. Lol.
He's been wearing 3T clothes for over six months already, and they are getting a little small. He's tall!
He goes to bed between 7-7:30 and sleeps through the night until between 6-7 AM. He always sleeps with the blanket with the silk trim Grandma made him when he was tiny, and he still sucks his binky. He tries to take his binky with him throughout the day, but he's been getting better about leaving it in his bed for sleep.
He is partially potty trained. About four months ago we started potty training and he caught on really quick, he wasn't having any pee accidents after a couple days...but the poop has been a whole different story. We sat on the toilet for hours trying to get him to poop (we knew he had to) and he would just hold it, so we decided to put potty training aside. The problem is, he poops laying down, usually playing with toys, laying on his belly. Sooooo...I'm not sure how to help him transition from pooping laying on his belly and playing with toys to pooping on the toilet. He's our fourth kid to potty train and we've never dealt with that. Ha ha.
He has amazing manners. He will say please, thank you, and you're welcome without being reminded and it is soooo sweet.
He thinks butterfly kisses before bedtime are so funny.
He LOVES to play outside. He would play outside all. day. long. if I let him. He puts his adorable little squeaky cowboy boots on and goes charging outside as soon as I tell him he can. He does try to get in the water with the hose and gets in trouble, but otherwise he plays on the swing set, plays in the dirt and the rocks, rides his cute, tiny scooter, or rides his balance bike (which he is amazing at!). He has also been having fun kicking the soccer ball around with his brothers and Roz.
He can already count so good!! He skips a couple numbers here and there, but he can count to 30! Benson has been doing UPSTART this year, and when he finishes his school he tells Ander it's time for HIS school and gets him all set up on the computer with the headphones and he watches all the little videos, I think it's helping a lot! Lol.
It was so cute. A few weeks ago we were sitting in Sacrament meeting and Grandma had passed out mints to all the kids, he had dropped his and it rolled to the row behind us (we were sitting in the folding chairs in the back), he tried to squeeze between my chair and the one beside me and I kept telling him no, because I didn't realize why he needed to. So, he finally walks down to the other end of the row, walks to the opening of the row behind ours and takes a good look at the family sitting there, then he puts his little hands over his eyes and, peeking between his fingers at them the entire time, walks over to his mint, picks it up, and runs back to our row. The family behind us was laughing and so were we, it was so sweet. He is adorable.
He used to call his binky his "beeky."
He loves to play with Hot Wheels and got a whole bunch of new city pieces to connect to their tracks for his birthday. He also really loves to build train tracks! And he likes to sneak into his older brothers LEGO's and play with their trucks and cars and buildings, lol.
He likes to watch Umi Zoomi Fire Truck episode. It's his very favorite. He also likes to watch Baby Einstein at night and cuddle with Grandma before bed, he also likes to watch fire truck videos on YouTube with me and cuddle.

Eating sandwiches with Daddy.

This is when we visited a farm and were going on a tractor ride in these little carts it pulled behind. He was a little freaked out, lol.

He loves this hat! Lol. He's adorable.

Grandma, Roz, Ander, and I ran some errands and got lunch together. We had so much fun. :)

This is adorable.

This picture!! He had just finished his smoothie and ran outside with this amazing mustache, undies, and his squeaky cowboy boots to ride his bike. I can't stop laughing.

Wearing my sunglasses in the car on our way to Vegas to greet Jarom from his year-long deployment.

Benson made this "blanket" for him and he was set on using it!

He loves to play with Hot Wheels and make tracks!

He is so handsome.

Water toys!! He LOVES to play in water, and outside. lol.

This is when we went to swim in the river, but he really liked the sand.

Wanting to go outside.

My baby boy and I. :)

This picture speaks for itself. lol!

This happened as we were packing to move from Spanish Fork, lol.

He had found a dropper and was dropping water in his and Roz's mouth, she loved it, lol. It was sweet.

At Fiesta Fun!

Benson holding Ander's hand while we were on a hike in Hurricane. This melts my heart. :)

I found Ander outside like this. He had decided to put his own shorts on (one of his first times getting dressed on his own). I'm still not quite sure how this happened and I don't think I could recreate it, but I got a good, long video, haha! This was hilarious. I am still laughing. He is so stinking cute.