Jasper

I am migrating the Jasper blog to a family blog. Please visit us here:
http://www.chadmanning.com/mannings to see what we're up to.

We had lovely brunch birthday party for Jasper and invited a few of his friends over to celebrate and play.

Ella, Zoe and Jasper playing.

This week every time he sees a volkswagon bug he says, "little car". Jasper's articulation and vocaublary have exploded in the last month, he says things and Chad and I look at each other and say, "did you teach him that?" and we say "no"
I was drawing pictures with him and drew a trapezoid and said, what's this? I knew that in one of the Blues Clues he watches they have a trapezoid in it but I wasn't sure if he could name one....but he did. He looked at it and said, "trapezoid!"

The other day Jasper woke up and wanted to play with his little green bouncy ball, and he kept saying "boing....boing, boing" I'm not sure where he picked that word up.

Yesterday Chad had a gig with our friend Arann's band, the Bluebellies and during the show he kept saying, "YAY Papa!!!" and then after the show, Chad was changing his diaper and he looked at Chad and said, "good music papa"

Jasper has also been coming up to us and saying, "hug?" "hug and kiss?" "i love you"

When he's tired or after he's just woken up, if he yawns...he always says, "not sleepy, just yawning"
We look at it as his way of saying, "nothing to see here....i definetely don't need to take a nap....just keep on doing what you're doing...i'm NOT sleepy....JUST yawning"

Jasper is TWO!! It's unbelievable to us how fast the last two years have gone and we now have a two year old.

We spent Jasper's actual birthday Friday May 4th hanging out doing the things Jasper loves the most. We opened presents in the morning and then took the bus to Berkeley, had lunch, went to the bookstore and then took the train (BART) back home. Jasper was so worn out by the end he was riding his tricycle back home and he started nodding off--hands on the steering wheel and all...it was so funny.

Of all the funny first things to catch in a picture I never thought it would be Jasper taking a drink from a drinking fountain by himself... but here it is.

Jasper got his first haircut yesterday 05.01.2007 and we forgot the camera---we were really bummed because it was incredibly cute seeing him sitting in the barber's chair and he looks so handsome with his locks all in order.

Dana is one of my fiddle students and her Mom Vicki takes fiddle lessons from Chad so when they come for lessons Jasper and Dana play during Vicki's lesson. Then throughout the week, practically every day Jasper asks, "where's Dana?" and usually reply, at school or at home...and then he always asks, "where's Vicki?" and I usually say, at work or at home with Dana and Dana's papa.

I love that Jasper really thinks about people when they're not around. On a daily basis Jasper will talk about any combination of the following people: Dana, Vicki, Emma, Hunter, Zane, Uncle Jan, Uncle Ivan, Noah, Ella, Uncle Barry, Aunt Lichee, Ama, Agong, Grandma Rose, Grandpa Virgil

April 28th, 2007

Jasper's birthday week!! Jasper's birthday is this Friday and we're all super excited....Jasper is even excited which is cool to see. He's been going around the house singing Happy Birthday to himself for the last couple of weeks. I'm not exactly sure where he learned about the whole birthday party process....we went to a few birthday parties in January and maybe he's tapping into his memory but whenever he sees candles he says "Happy Birthday!" and I had gotten this bendy flamingos to give away to the kids at his birthday party a few weeks ago and whenever we mention birthday party he says, "Happy Birthday flamingos....open flamingos?"

We plan on spending his actual birthday on Friday doing the things he loves....riding the bus, going for a hike, going to the bookstore, drinking apple juice. Then on Saturday we're having a little brunch birthday party for him--and yes there will be flamingos!

Jasper and I went to visit Eve and her new baby Lindsay! She is so adorable and it was great to see Jasper so excited about holding the baby...he kept asking to hold the baby.

The last few weeks Jasper's articulation has improved immensely, one of his most articluate phrases: "What IS THAT?"
One of his funniest words is "watermelon"....he says "water melalalalalalal" and sticks out his tongue a lot for the last half. it's sooooooo cute I can't stand it. He'll stand under the counter and point at the watermelon or cantaloupe and say...."melalallalalalal" and then in a very clear pronunciation "please"

We had a short but nice visit up to Spokane to see Chad's family. Jasper's Great Grandpa Virgil treated us out to delicious Red Lobster meal....we had fun with Great Grandma Rose, Great Aunt Linda, Aunt Jen and Uncle Andrew. We also had a nice visit with Great Grandma and Grandpa Simpson, Great Uncles Neil and Greg and their families....we got to go to Cousin Corey's basketball game and best of all Jasper had some good quality time with Great Grandma Rose's dog, Maggie.

April 12-15th, 2007

Fun with Uncle Jan. It's been so great having Jan live with us the last few months....Jasper loves having him around and for the next couple of months we'll be having Uncle Ivan stay with us too!
Double the Uncle fun!

We went out to Ardenwood for Easter and Jasper was so cute looking for Easter Eggs....the egg would be right in front of him and we'd keep saying... "where's the egg?" and he'd say "where's the egg?" and we'd say...."where's the egg?" he would eventually see it but it took him awhile....cute.

Easter Sunday
April 8th, 2007

April 4th, 2007

Jasper decided to join the jam this day, he played the guitar and the fiddle and later played the mandolin....
April 4th, 2007

These two are always so much fun to watch together....they really ham it up.

April 2nd, 2007

This was our first time out at the Discovery Museum, what a great place! That's the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance and we barely saw any of the indoor activities because there was so much to do outside. We had a great time hanging out with Giuseppe and his parents.

Friday March 30th, 2007

Doing some recording on the piano with Josh.
March 23rd, 2007

Friday March 23rd, 2007

Petaluma, CA
March 17th, 2007

Petaluma, CA
March 17th, 2007

St. Patrick's day up in Petaluma was very relaxing and we got to visit with some good friends. We had lunch at Adina and Adam's new place with Olivia, Mark, Liz, Jadu, Emily and Andrew and we finally got to introduce our friend Arann to Adina and Adam.

We also got to visit Arann's new place which was beautiful, up on the hill with a view of Petaluma....horses, cows with massive horns, fainting goats....it was great!