Fall 2011

There is too much to write, our little boy has changed so much in the past 6 months, if only I could keep up with him. I see other blogs and I don't know how women find time to get on the computer and do this whole downloading and writing thing more than once a month! Nevertheless I will try. We went to Wisconsin and Illinois to see family and friends. Here he is with cousins, what a wonderful time.

On our way to see cousins, we went through Moline, home of John Deere. We stopped in to the pavilion and snapped some photos.

On our trip was anything short of large equipment, He loved everything he saw and experienced. Here he is with Grandpa in a friend's combine. I love how he tells and retells his perspective of it, including details about the corn shoot, the tractor and wagon, putting it in the trucks and then into the silos. HAHA! What a guy!

We had the sweet opportunity to go on a hay ride...in a manure spreader! It was cold, but beautiful and another thing our little guy loves to recount.

Driver(s) of the hay ride.

He just had his 3rd birthday, so he has taken on some more responsibility around the house. Here he is putting away the silverware, with narration of course...'knife, fork, big spoon, little spoon'

Another shot from vacation, great aunt Janice does face painting, so he had his hands, and feet painted with wheeled things, no surprise.

A great garage sale find...$.25 The thing is I bought it for a quarter, works beautifully, and when I opened the case I found another price tag $6. Sweet, I thought what a deal! I peeled the sticker off and found another price tag underneath for $10. As I chuckled at my quarter type writer, I lifted it out of the case and under the machine was another price tag $35. Well, he has had much more than $35 worth of fun with it and it's still ticking, er, I mean clicking.

At a friend's wedding, learning to play crochet. As soon as the hay bales were discovered, they were the hit of the party for little people, for jumping on and off of.

Here is one from the beginning of autumn, when we cleared the garden. 'Carrots from garden!' the whole time he crunch, crunch, crunched on his carrots.

Oh-the fun we've had!

We found out he is NOT allergic to bees this summer....6 times.  Poor guy.  He's showing me "tough" after the first attack which yielded 3 stings.

 Dishsoap, a little water, a bowl and a straw provide hours of fun.

 Only once will spoil 'em.  You can hear it coming for an hour before it reaches our street, and for that hour I periodically hear a little boy repeat "Cream Truck!"  Really it was only once he partook of this treat, but he will never forget.

 Some of the raspberries we picked at our friends' house.

 He's got some business to do...notice the phones in each hand...and his typical strangle hold on "Moo".

 He just so happens to love the one chore I always put off because I despise it so.  Cleaning the shower...I think it helps that we got a new scrubber brush.

 Showing off his skills on the trike.

Made for Megan

Makin' Jam

Here and there

Some friends of ours are building a house and live seriously in the boonies. So much in the boonies that they have to tell people to look for the road that veers right with the dead Isuzu trooper in it, then take the right after that....there are no road markers. They have had many many people come out to their property to help with the house, so I had an idea (slightly plagiarized from Dr. Suess)...My gift to all those who wander the roads in the boonies looking for my friends' house. Go 'Here'

Then go "near" to the end of the road :)

J's Grandma passed away the second week in July, he went to WI for the funeral and S and I stayed home and goofed off. Oh, yeah, we also kept the house immaculate for showings, of which we had zero. Here we are goofing off with empty thread spools...they make a great addition to a set of blocks ;)Here is the fantastic rug/mat my mom made for my boy, many hours have already been clocked playing here.

Fourth of July swimming. It was really the first time we had been in the water for the year. It was still pretty cold but my little fish wanted to swim. He remembered seeing fireworks (maybe from last year?) and the day before we went to see the show we were praying, thanking the Lord that we were going to be able to see fireworks and instantaneously he said "Boom, Boom, Boom!" It was a trying not to laugh moment.

Posing for a shot after his haircut...it has now grown out and is sooo blonde. I love it and don't want to cut it off.

some of June

Above is photo of Grandma and Grandpa H when they came for a visit in June. Their help watching S was much appreciated so I could finish the touch up painting on the new house, which we finished the week of July 4th.

Daddy-o's birthday...helping blow out the candles. Happy 33rd!

He has become quite the big helper in the kitchen. This also helps keep him from unsupervised exploring while I'm working in the kitchen, he's right there with me. Here he is helping with the dishes (licking the spatula) after we made brownies for Daddy-o's birthday.

A favorite place to play during the somewhat rainy months. Rain is something we haven't seen for about a month, and we have spent almost everyday of that month outside.

Grandma Judy came to see us the beginning of June.

Check back soon, I will be posting more soon about the rest of the summer :)

Spring happenings

For some reason I could not post words with the photos yesterday. So I am trying again.

We had noticed some marks on the inside of S's teeth so we went to see a pediatric dentist. He did awesome! I was so thankful he kept his mouth open and didn't cry. The biggest blessing of the trip was that is was staining, not cavities. The dentist said staining can come from the minerals in your saliva, so it was nothing wot worry about. Yeah!

About a month ago he started putting more words together, which is really cute because he uses the adjective after the noun, which is common in many languages, just not ours :) After seeing a shoe had fallen off my friend's newborn, he said "shoe baby". One morning I showed him the difference between a ripe banana and a green one. That afternoon he asked for something to eat and I offered him a banana. His reply was "banana green".

For months now when I would be putting him to bed he would lay his head on my collar bone then sit up, touch it with his hand and say "bone". Now he does this all over, he will touch my wrist or elbow or jaw or knee and say "bone" then find the corresponding bone on his body.

He has also been playing copycat, when we put our chin on a fist or cross our arms, or sigh or say mm, hmm. J put his hands behind his head with interlocked fingers after dinner one night and sighed. S followed suite exactly. Last night in the garden he had a hand spade and I had a regular shovel, I used my foot to dig out some dirt and then next thing I saw was S putting his little foot on the little spade (complete with a grunt) and thrust it into the dirt. Haha!

One Sunday evening we were driving home and saw a combine on a truck heading to Alberta. All through town we passed it and then it passed us, while we were showing/telling S about it. From then on for the past few weeks if we are driving through town in the evening he asks "tractor, gone?" I love how his little mind is remembering and being sparked by familiarity. He does the same thing when we are close to the airport. On day he saw a red plane, so when we are on one of a number of roads around the airport he asks "eeeeeeooooooorrrrrr, plane red?"

I have been buying bananas by the box (the ones they take off the shelf when the green ones arrive) for $.10/lb....awesome! So I've been dehydrating them to make banana chips, 64 lbs total so far. S has been helping with this as much as a 2 yo can and calls them "chips." We started some seeds for the garden, he love to water and outside help me weed. I am so thankful for rubber boots. Last night he decided the dirt in the garden looked good enough to eat, quite a sight :)

With spring came the big yard clean up from the dog. As S played in his sand, he would repeat "poop, Chee, Mama" Yep.

Several weeks ago we had clear skies for a number of nights and before bed, he would stand at the window and watch the moon, telling me "moon, ars (stars)". We then had some cloudy nights and he asked for the moon, I explained to him it was still there but behind the clouds. When the clear nights returned he asked again for the moon, but it has not been visible until after his bedtime, and this week was the new moon, oops. Someday He'll understand the moon calendar.

This week we went out to help some friends who have 10 acres and are planning to build this summer. S has country running through his blood...he had a blast! He wandered around through open forest and bushes (glad he has a bright orange coat) with confidence to explore like a boy should. S and Chile...when she would get out of his sight, he would call "Chee!" and she would return to his side to explore some more. I loved that he was so comfortable out there!...and it makes me anxious to get out of a subdivision :)

this spring

So many new things

Our little boy is stretching out physically and mentally. He surprises us and makes us laugh everyday. Here are some things he's been up to lately:
* He continues to play at the sink daily...helping me with the dishes and washing his hands, after he washes his hands I fill up a bowl of water for him and set it in the sink and then give him some spoons and the funnel.
*He's really into coloring right now, I bought some Christmas paper when it was 70% off and the back makes great big coloring pages.
*He plays the harmonica to make Chile "sing"
*When the oven beeps he tells me "hot", he also points to J's coffee in the mornings and says "hot" then goes on to blow (spit) on his coffee.
*One day I told Chile "Out!" in a low growling voice, and he mimicks me to a T now when he sees Chile where she should not be.
*He uses Chile for a stepstool, as she likes to lay in front of the cabinets.
*We go to the mom's room during church and halfway through the message he picked up all the toys, told me "all done" and tried to open the door saying "Daddy-O!" I told him to wait, we were not all done yet and to get a book. When it was over I opened the door and he saw Daddy-O about 100 ft. away through a bunch of people, he began to shout over and over "Daddy-O! Daddy-O! Daddy-O!" and ran down the hall, I have never seen him with such excitement or fervor ;)
*He could eat sauerkraut, shredded parmesan and beets exclusively everynight for dinner.
* He is also really into his colors, saying "meen, lellow, puwpul, boo, ree, orr, yite, ping" my favorite to hear is lellow, but I love that he is always telling me the color of everything.
*He looks at grocery ads with me and points out the numbers he knows, 2, 3, and 8.
*When he is on the potty we sing the itsy bitsy spider, he loves that, but he is convinced that apples and bananas is the next verse. As soon as we are done with "climbed up the spout again" he says "apples?"
*When we are out driving he has some sharp eyes, telling us each time we pass a skidsteer or backhoe, or train.
*He watched parts of "the voyage of the dawn treader with us" and now uses his builders square as a sword on the dog.
* He has added some animals sounds to the normal barnyard vocab including his own rendition of birds "teet, teet" and mouse "eek, eek"
*He now has favorite clothes, including solid green shirt, solid green pants, red pants, a sweatshirt with earth movers, and some pajama bottoms with fire engines on them.
*When he sees a fire engine now he says "ding, ding, cang, cang" (clang,clang) from the fire engine book.
*He has also been calling 2 of his friends by name, a little boy named John he especially likes to play with and frequently comes to me and asks "Yon? Yon?"
*Yesterday morning I heard him playing in his bed and then it was really quiet for a long time, when I opened his door he was talking to his monkey who was in a lineup with all the other animals along the head of his bed. Was too funny not to laugh.
*some other things he likes to do include the high 5 up high, etc. he loves to be fooled but he usually isn't too slow for me :) and he holds up his pointer finger for E.T. phone home, he still asks to be tickled daily, we love to tickle :)

These are some things I've done lately...I finished a scarf for S and one for his friend. J had this great idea when we were at this cabinet facory warehouse bargain place, to take these drawer fronts and make coat hooks out of them with the display knobs we had scored at a hardware going out of business sale. They work great and it's nice to have a nice looking coathook by the entry, in our room and in the guest room, that cost us around $5 total for all
J and S in the skidsteer during one of our good storms.

What else to do with 9 month old puffed rice I found in the pantry? Play with it! It looks like a mess but when you have a four-legged, large-mouthed vacuum continually scouring the floors it's not really a problem :)

Drawer redo

Here's one more project off the list I picked up this set of drawers at a garage sale for $2 because I was in need of drawers. Here is the before picture:
Here is after my redo of the drawers:

Picture of the week, he is helping me unload the dishwasher.

What started as shoveling...

We have had some great snowfall this winter. S is enjoying it more each time. This is a new one, and you can see the dog loves it just as much as the other two.

End and Beginning

Every week there is something new with our little guy but I can't always remember them when I sit down to update, so here's what I can tell you this week: S has really been into his books about colors, numbers and shapes. Most colors he calls green, most numbers are 3 or 10, and most shapes are "wheels", sometimes he'll throw a "sqaure" in there just to excite me. He can now reach the light switches, enough said about that. Things that look like a comb or a brush he uses as such, including the vacuum attachment, which he also tries to use in my hair, ouch! He continues to amuse us by trying on our hats and mittens, and finding new places to hide. We got a cabinet for the laundry room and it has the perfect size door next to 2 drawers, so I hear the door snap shut and then it appears that the drawers start opening and closing on their own. He has also recently watched the curious George movie. There is a scene where George is in the bathroom and unrolls all the toilet paper he can find. S has had a hard time resisting the fun of unrolling tp, but after he watched George one day he was about to grab it and I said "no,no naughty monkey!" and that has been the end of that. Now he looks at the toilet paper and shakes his finger saying "no, no meemew (monkey)" We both get a good laugh about it and there is no more rerolling :) Here's some more photos.

The day we went to Spokane, we found a park with a huge wagon slide, he loved to be in it, but didn't want to slide down. Understandably, it is a big slide, and when we got him down he went FAST!!
We also found this antique carousel, with original horses and music, also in the park, I think I had as much fun as he did.

My folks gave him some tools last summer so I made him a toolbox to keep them in, out of yard sticks and paint sticks.

This is the table J made me, isn't is lovely? oh, this is also recycled...I found the butcher block at the dump last summer. So he sanded everything down and it's beautiful.

This was my recycled gift for J...a key/message board made from the paintsticks from the houses this summer and a leftover piece of trim, and the hook ends are solder beads I collected when he was welding over a year ago.

Here he is just hanging out in the kitchen helping me with the dishes.