I wonder if out PAT Educator hates us

(PAT is Parents as Teachers.)
I don't really think she hates us, but this idea didn't go over as she had explained it.
The beans were supposed to be something that my little peach could practice using spoons to pick up the beans and then pour them back into the bowl or another thing - like a cup. I mean, he had fun with it, but it was the high clean up for mommy kinda fun. I was told this helps him with his fine motors skills... which eventually helps him learn to write. This kid better have some beautiful handwriting! I am finding a bean here and a bean there - throughout the day...
:)

You would think this is a special event

since i seem to photograph it so often. In reality, it's just a daily event that I find adorable. Note the cute, cute outfit. Today will be it's last appearance on Phin. It's become too tight. It was good while it lasted, and we loved the "E" (elephant) on the front of the shirt...

Can you see what it is? I know it's out of focus and NOT the best picture. This is for me to remember... one day far from now, when I can leave my bedroom door open without the fear or realization that Phin has gone inside, taken the glass of water by my bed and poured it on the floor. THIS PICTURES is a picture of his little wet footprint - walking from the bedroom with his new favorite toy - my water cup.


You may notice in the upper right corner, his little toes in the picture. He came back to view the photo session. :)


THIS is a picture of what I looked like today for my launch at the gym. Even with the pregnancy, the sciatica and the pneumonia, I was still there to partake in the workout fun! This picture is significant - for what happened AFTER the gym. I decided that Ethan might get a kick out of having lunch at the "old 63 diner" where they wear 1950's and call you "babe." The lunch was fine. Phin had a grilled cheese sandwich. What happened after is what I find significant. Ethan came to the women's room with me after lunch - before the drive home. Obviously, my belly is growing and Phin finds it interesting to say the least. Dan and I have been telling Phin that my belly is the baby. Today, in the restroom, Phin saw my belly and said "the baby" which was the cutest thing ever. I don't know how much he actually understands, but there is a slight glimmer of understanding, right now, today.

Saturday fun!

This morning, I worked at the gym for a "launch" - which is where instructors teach together to introduce new music and choreography in the group exercise classes. I taught the new moves for biceps and lunges. Afterwards, Phin and I took a little ride out to 63 diner. There is nothing quite as good as greasy food after a sweaty workout, right?
Phin got the broccoli cheese soup and a grilled cheese sandwich - which came with fries and an ice cream. While he took the fries home, we asked them to keep their ice cream with sprinkles and Phin was given a balloon instead. Those fries ended up in this highchair seat for dinner and the balloon was his best friend alll day long.



Yes, I am aware of how dirty my windows on the door are. I clean them - which it seems is a personal challenge to the pets to dirty them up straight away again. At some point, given my pneumonia, I have given up on keeping them clean...

He is, in fact, sitting on a ball while holding his balloon. He was even bouncing on the ball a bit while looking outside. I am telling you, he felt like the coolest, big boy out there!

a BIG boy!

It's funny because I was just reading in some "Parents as Teachers" literature that Phin is now at the age where he will try to demonstrate to us that he knows he's growing up. The article suggested that one way he may do this is to try to walk around in OUR shoes.
As if he got the memo that the article had been read, today he started trying to put on my sandals. Then we moved on to my corduroy, clog style Birkenstocks.



After he was finished with my shoes, he moved on to some apples I had put out for him to play with.
He lined them up, he carried the around the house, and finally tried to eat one. Note to Daddy, he was not impressed with the flavor...

All by himself...

While playing in the backyard, Phin decided that he wanted to be like mama and sit at the table - on the chair. I turned around and he was climbing into place. I ran and grabbed my camera...


and then he started getting silly. No, he's not "ripping" a "yucky" here, he's just being a happy little boy!

Dec 08, 2008

Out of complete necessity and a bit of experimentation, this soft and cozy monkey blanket was made - by me - for Phin. In reality, I measured it up like I was going to cut a mat for a picture and then, instead of cutting, I sewed the pieces together.



Now, a year and a half later when my sweet little baby boy is more of a toddler who likes to "throw" balls and chase the dog and has an opinion on most everything saw me sitting with the blanket on my lap on this rather chilly April afternoon, what did he do? Well, he did what any toddler who knows what is his would do. He yanked it from my lap. Luckily, he did not walk off with it. Instead, he crawled up onto my lap and we BOTH got to use the blanket - while we read books. I think that is a pretty good negotiation. :)

Later, he noticed some pictures that are eye level to him. They are picture of Dan and me. He very astutely pointed out "Dadda, Mama." I think I know a little boy who is missing his Daddy...

Kirby Club

As parents, we have discussed a variety of "lessons" we feel we must teach our children - to help them become productive members of society. We agree that one of the most important lessons parents can teach their children is about MONEY. Saving, credit, credit scores, etc. So, now that Phin is almost 20 months, and he knows his alphabet and can count to 11, we thing it's TIME to start the first lesson on money. Phin does have a piggy and frog bank that we "feed" when we find spare change lying around - but we felt it was time to take it to the BANK. :)

Ethan is now a proud member of our credit union with his very own "kirby kangaroo account." The lady who helped us set up the account told us that once he has 500.00, we can buy a CD which gets a better interest rate. I'm afraid that's a WHOLE TON of cans away, but it's good information to have! :)

Easter Egg Hunt!

Phin had a great time finding and picking up eggs.
The eggs did all fall from the bucket a time or two, but we still had tons of fun.







After the eggs, Phin found the "doggie" door and looked it over carefully.

Phin and Grandma and Auntie all sat on the swing before the day was over. Fun times!

BLOCKS

We never expect gifts for Phin - ever.
So, imagine our surprise when we found a gift card for Phin in our Christmas card this year from our friend, Vance.
It took a long time for me to find the perfect gift for Phin from Vance - and just this last week, it came to me!

MEGA BLOCKS!




As you can see, Phin is super "into" them.
Thank you Vance!

Mommy, help me

The last two times we have visited, I have MEANT to take Maggie's blue and brown water dish home.
Now that it's turning into summertime, I need to put her big water dish in the kitchen back outside - so PLEASE don't let me leave the house without that dish in the Camry!

YOU are the best and I can't WAIT for some TURKEY!

xoxo


your (favorite) daughter ;) ;) ;)

??? spaghetti ???

See, something is wrong with this picture. What you may ask? My son does NOT eat noodles.
Really, he ate the turkey meatballs more so than the pasta, but he did try the pasta near the end of the meal.
Are we past the pasta boycott???

Ways to get money

As I am sure you can imagine, listening to the worker at Civic Recycling fighting with his "woman" on speaker phone as I unloaded bag after bag of pop cans was both informative and annoying. Hey, it was all for a good cause. See, as YOU know, our family isn't "rich" so we find it necessary to keep it "creative"when it comes to making/finding/keeping money. One way we are funding Phin's "youth bank account" is to keep all of the pop cans we use in this house and save them up in the garage until they are completely annoying. At that point, we throw them all into the truck, take them down to recycling and Phin comes home with no less than ten new bucks to put in his piggy bank. We are also happy to know we are not putting all of that trash in landfills too! (You know I feel the same way about his diapering situation...
So, tomorrow, we will take all of the bigger bills out of his piggy bank and go to the credit union to make an account for little Phin. I was reading online that children get PRIZES for opening their account and PRIZES for saving certain amounts of money in their account. So every time he makes his next level - some kind of (hopefully not sugar based) prize will be his!

In other news, today was not awesome - regarding his physical wellness. We DID go to the park for him to get some walk time in - however, he kept dropping to his knees (tired?) and got a couple scrapes and scratches on them. Then it was time to go home!

Community contracted phenumonia with a double ear infection

Yes, this is what it looks like. A little boy with a cough and a snotty nose for about a week. Certainly Phin has a high pain tolerance to be dealing with all of this - and his only relief was benadryl and tylenol. This evening, we came home from the doctor and pharmacy with a medicine cabinet in a bag and instructions of how to make little Phin feel better. He should be feeling great by tomorrow evening - probably. So, he will get his appetite back and no longer require FOUR HOUR naps in the middle of the day. Go drugs, go!

Video time

Usually Phin sits in his strap-in chair to watch his video. The problem with that system is that Phin keeps getting bigger and bigger and the seat is really no longer "made" for a boy of his size. So, today I let him sit on the sofa (one of his favorite things) to watch his video about animals in the rainforest. He did a good job of paying attention until near the end. When he started wiggling around, the video magically turned off and we went on with our day! :)

Great Grandparents come to visit!!!

How lucky did our weekend turn out when we learned that the Great Grandparents would be driving through town and we were actually going to be IN town and without a ton of plans. They stopped through and got some reading and ball playing in with Phin before they were back on the road - headed to their next stop to see Grandma Barb. Phin had a blast playing games and showing off his extensive skills with his alphabet and numbers. The phrase of the day was "ball, get"

Make sure to scroll down at least two weeks.

I just added stuff - by date. :)

Phin loves to read...

He goes over to his daddy's chair often - with book in hand. We actually play a new game where Dan or I will read the book to Phin - stopping before the last word in the sentence. We let Phin say the word - as he's been reading these books for months and - most probably has them memorized word for word anyway. :)

The usual suspects:

All around the house, there are lineups - of random items. This is one of Phin's favorite surfaces to make a lineup. His AIRPLANE!


He also reads - all over the house and in a variety of positions.

15 week ultrasound!!!

This one is self explanatory. They have labeled all of the parts. :)




This is a front view of the babies head. The head is on the right side of the picture. The top of the head is at the very most right. You can see the holes for the eyes and mouth and the other big circle on the left of the picture is the abdomen. :)




This last one is a 3D ultrasound picture. She rotated the picture so we are looking at the baby head at the top center of the picture - like we would frame up a picture of you or me. Baby has their hand up to their face - ?maybe sucking on their thumb?



We are still a few weeks early to know if it's a girl or boy for sure - but on April 27th we will have the ultrasound through my OB (Grandma Barb is going to come down and help with Ethan during that ultrasound) and the baby will be big enough then to know for sure. All I can say right now - for sure - is that from what we saw, I can still have HOPE that it's a BOY! :)

15 weeks

So, this picture is similar but different. Note that I am wearing a different kind of shirt. The first picture, the green shirt shows an exact line where my stomach is at the bottom. The new picture, the gray shirt does not. Second, my hands are lower on my waist in this new picture. It changes the way, I think, my stomach looks. Anyway, this is me yesterday!

12 week ultrasound

Can you believe that I JUST got this photo CD yesterday. I guess Dan has had it for some time, but I just never got my hands on it. This scan was taken at 12 weeks, so you can imagine that things look a little different now. They did video of the baby doing a little jig (dance) - but it didn't make it to the cd. :( Oh well, it was fun to see. :)
I actually go back tomorrow to get another scan. I will be 15 weeks and a couple days. I am excited to see how different it will look. No, we won't know if it's a girl or boy yet. This baby will need a few more weeks before they can tell...

Last time with EP

Grandma Susie wanted to see a picture of how I looked when I was carrying EP. I believe I was about 4 months along here. In the picture below, I am about 14 weeks - so, 3.5 months.

Cottage Cheese is FUNNY!

I couldn't pick just one!

Every day is different

I see his brain working and changing and he's learning every day.
On this particular day, he's now big enough to take the bowl off of the kitchen counter to "finish up" his breakfast.
He did just that - and do you see how happy he is in the second picture when it's "all done!"

HAPPY ST.PATTY'S DAY!!!

Smiles all around

I have no great story for these pictures. Most simply, they are pictures of my beloved son - on a random day when the camera was at hand. We love this little boy...