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.

Life of a 2 year old boy...and his dog.

My latest completed project, that I started oh, sometime this summer as I was collecting old yard sticks I could find at garage sales. So it's like a piece of history, but functional. If you know me I don't have much use for things without function. S is quite the helper and he loved this project, probably because it was like playing with lots of swords until I finally got it together. Now he just uses my knitting needles as swords, and bats, and drumsticks.
His first black eye...mean kids. Just kidding, it was of course from his best friend Chile (the dog).

The delights of paint, "it looks great on the paper I bet it would look even better on my belly!" The brush was used for a short period of time, haha.

Despite the negative consequences he receives, he continues to play in the dog's water, and takes many of his toys for a swim therein. Here is bunny soaked and ready for the washing machine.

Chile has to get in as many photos as possible :) A boy loves his boxes, and this one is the perfect size for him to fold himself up inside. Hours of fun.

This is the typical scene in the kitchen as I'm cooking dinner...two creatures crawling around under my feet. And what fun would it be without a collander on your head?

As he is such a great helper in the kitchen, he must inspect, take inventory,and rearrange his ingredients. He frequently brings me a can of pineapple or peas and says "eat". I haven't openned a can for him yet, they are more fun unopenned as he can then continue to play with them.

As for other news, he is becoming more able to dress himself, feed the dog, do somersaults, help unload the dishwasher, and with baking. He is more than able to clean his room, put books, clothes, and toys away from around the house, put the clothes in the dryer, take his dishes to the sink, and entertain the dog for hours. I love my little helper and I'm so proud of him! One of my favorite things he does is get out a dominoe or 2 and hold it up to his ear like phone and say "Daddy-O, Daddy-O, truck, Mama, Daddy-O" It's too cute to behold. Hope you all enjoy the pictures.

Birthday 2

Our little boy is 2! He is so much fun and is continuing to learn and show his personality. We often find him with a bucket on his head, or lining up his cows, horses, sheep and pigs on his truck, for market I guess :) He spends a lot of time on the stool next to me in the kitchen, doing whatever I am doing. He is also now in the habit of taking my fingers and saying "room", which means he wants me to come play in his room. He loves to tell the dog "NO" and is pretty handy with a hammer. We went to Home Depot for their kids workshop and once I set the nails in the predrilled holes he put them in the rest of the way with hardly a miss. As for mischief, his biggest temptations seem to be the dog water, because everything needs a bath or needs to go swimming :) and the dog food, as it is so much fun to dump out and withhold from the dog. Here he is visiting his gifts before his birthday. He knew they were for him.
Openning some gifts from family, he had a hard time remembering how to do it since it was half a lifetime since he had done it last.

Here was his largest gift, a teepee made by my parents, with his flashlight of course. This was a big hit at the party and it's big enough for me to go in and play with him...very nice.

Party and cake...this is the second year I have bought ice cream and forgotten to put it out, and the second year no one has asked me about it! He loved the cake and the friends but had quite the strange look on his face when everyone started singing to and looking at him.

"I can eat cake all by myself anyday, but I still need help with vegetables!"

It continued to snow for over a week after his birthday and he didn't like it the first time out, maybe because Chile jumped on his back and he went over like a tree facefirst into 6 inches.

But he loved making snow angels and falling on his back into the snow, he is by the way a great snow angel maker :)

Chile!

So in October we got our puppy and named her Chile. S loves her and sometimes hates her (puppies have sharp teeth!). We are thankful that she now sleeps through the night. Puppies are worse than newborns for the first couple weeks :)

This is S and Chile on the swing. One night I let her out, sleepy and groggy as I was and she didn't come right back to the door, I started looking for her and spotted her on the swing by herself in the middle of the night for a joyswing. I wish I had captured it on video, she has done this several times since then, but I didn't get a video.

Here is S trying to play in his sandbox that we forgot to cover before it rained, a lot!

Playing in the yard with a four-legged-walking-turd

J snuggling the Chile dog the first morning we had her.

One of the most recent pics I took of her, she has grown so fast!

S loves to get down and try to snuggle with Chile, which lasts for moments before the nipping begins.

Here and there they do get to snuggle.

Chile just can't stand to see S in the tub, I'm not sure if she's worried about him (because she hates the bath) or if she thinks she's missing out on all the fun (because S makes so much noise giggling and splashing and laughing during bathtime.) So She spends the entire time he's in the bath with her front paws on the edge, trying to lick him and grap his toys.

Vacation! Part 2

These pictures start from the end of our trip and work backward...oops.

At Crater Lake, Oregon...beautiful and cold.

Boat ride on Lake Shasta to Caverns on other side...touristy but not busy the day we went.

The one night we spent at a hotel, we had so much fun and got a much needed good night's sleep after sleeping in the truck for over a week.

This is at Lassen National Volcanic Park, the hike was to a place called Bumpass Hell where a guy named Kendall Bumpass discovered mud pots and boiling pools, but lost his leg to one when the surface gave way burning his leg in 240 degree sulfur water. So they built boardwalks to prevent this for tourists ;)

This was in a ghost town called Bodie, and old mining town in California preserved as it was left, they just locked up all the buildings and you walk around looking in windows. I thought this site was pretty cool because it wasn't set up to look like "how it used to be". It was actually left as the people left it...dusty beer bottles and papers on the bars, junk in the sheds, merchandise on the shelves in the mercantile. So if you ever drive through this terrible area of miles and miles of nothing, stop at Bodie.

The picture doesn't show truly how dirty he is, but our campsite was ALL dirt, and he had a marvelous time. We also had a bear visit us during the night here is Yosemite, and I was so thankful for the locked bear boxes the campground provided.

Hiking in Yosemite, stopped for a snack.

Sequioa National Park...he looks like the size of a chipmunk.

We drove through Las Vegas, I hope I never go there again, but it is pretty amazing what they have built in the middle of the desert, the energy that goes into each building and the effort they give to get you to spend money....Most of it a waste, but amazing what man can build. For example S and J are watching the light/water/music show at the Bellagio, where water shoots like 20 stories high or something like that.

The shark aquarium also in Vegas....it was pretty cool, we all thought so.

He's got it.

I showed S how to play and now I can't keep it out of his hands (and mouth)!