Success

Oh yeah. Tonight Cole pooped and peed in his little potty. I know that you are thinking that is totally gross that I even mention it, but this is the first time. He's been sitting on it occassionally before baths. He will often tell us he needs to go and then poop or make me change a wet diaper, but this is the first time anything has happened on the chair. And the best part is that my daughter SAVED it in his little potty for me to see since I wasn't home when it happed. But you're in luck. I didn't take any pictures.

Cole's words2

Cole expands his vocabulary daily. You'll say something and he'll repeat a part of what you said. He understands so much too. Today we were talking about putting your bowl on top of the napkin so the fan doesn't blow it away. And he wanted to put his bowl over his napkin too and pointed right up at the fan.

Sometimes he just cracks me up. We were going swimming and I told him he needed to get his swimsuit on. He looked at me seriously and said, "Chuck E. Cheese?" The kids got to go there in June and he keeps bringing it up out of the blue. He will also randomly ask for candy or tic tacs still too.

He asks me, "Daddy home?" when he wakes up in the morning. If Chad is at work I'll say no and then he'll ask, "Sissy home?"

We will also walk outside to go somewhere and he will say, "hot day". It's so cute. I'm just amazed and the changing during this age.

Train adventure

The kids and I had an fun trip with some friends. We took the local public rapid transit train. It was great. The kids loved riding on a train and our friend brought dum-dums for all the kids to enjoy on the ride. We went to a new park. Had a short visit to a small train museum and there they saw this 97-year old train (that they are sitting by in the picture). We enjoyed a picnic lunch and then rode the train home. I wouldn't have attempted this adventure by myself, but with a friend who knew the way it was a great day!

It happened to me last night. . .

I must say I had a gross and disturbing incident occur last night. I was peacefully working away at this very spot I now sit, at my computer, when my peace was interrupted. I heard this faint noise coming from above me, but I didn't even look up. Next thing I know was a light object fell down to my keyboard. Yes, the very same keyboard I was typing on. "What was it?" you ask yourself. And for a split second I asked myself the same question. But as it began to move I realized. I was an incredibly large cockroach. Oh yes, it was. It was approximately 4"x2". (And I'm not making that up either. My husband used the words "good sized" after he saw it.) So what did I do. Scream. Push in the key board. Fall back to the floor behind me and ram my shoulder into our newly purchased coffee table.

Within a few minutes of me continuing to freak out, Chad found the flashlight and started to look for it. He pulled out the computer tower and saw it, but it was quicker than his shoe. He lost it somewhere between the bookshelf, computer armoire and wall. I made Chad promise to look again before going to bed and I went to be NOT happy it had not been found. And completely grossed out. I read my current book for a few minutes and heard more slapping of his shoe. I really wanted it to be dead.

I did NOT sleep more than a few hours last night. I kept imagining something falling on me. If I did fall asleep I had bad dreams about bugs and cockroaches. Not a good night.

The good news is the bug was killed. I even looked in the trash to prove it to myself. And so far a bruise hasn't formed on my shoulder. But that may still be coming. I am assuming the roach made it's way through the air conditioning vent close to the computer armoire.

The moral of this story is: if you hear a small noise above your head like a light object falling, make sure you look up.

Teddy Bear Picnic

So here are my kids enjoying the Teddy Bear picnic. This is a community event and our second year in attendance. These are my kids with the teddy bears they chose to bring doing the "Teddy Bear March". And of course both the teddy bears won awards for "greenest bear" and for "huskiest bear". Gotta love the preschool activities!

Daddy time

Here are the kids showing off their Saturday project with Chad. This time they went to Lowe's. They ran out of aprons, but got a patch and these cool goggles. They did a Home Depot one a month ago and got their apron and pin. Can I just you how GREAT these projects are? We have a sail boat that goes into the bath and now some new dune buggy cars. Chad was proud that Cole knew to put the tire stickers on the wheels. I just had to take a picture because I was lovin' the goggles.

Ducky towel

So, this is my son NOT wanting to have his picture taken. Some days you just suddenly realize how fast your kids are growing up. This was one of those days. This is Cole after a bath. Chad had pulled out the too small ducky towel. I was remembering how my friend, Jeran, made this towel when Makalia was born. This towel is adorable and way better than the store bought kind. I have tons of pictures of Makaila wearing this towel when she was a baby.

Now here's Cole. He can walk. He can say "burrito" after I call him my baby burrito wrapped in a towel. And he's way too big for the ducky towel. But this night I thought to myself, "I don't have any pictures of Cole in the ducky towel". And he's so cute. And since he's growing out of it I needed to hurry and get my camera.

Of course, this happened to be a night when he did NOT want to have his picture taken. So, that is why you see here 3 pictures of my cute son telling me not to take his picture. You can even see the word "No" on his mouth in one of them.

Television

Is it sad that our television dictates which shows we get into. No, seriously. Make sure that you're sitting down before you read this next part. See, we don't have cable. Nope. Nothing. No digital viewing. No Tivo. No digital recording device. Nothing high DEF in this house. No dish (although there is one on our roof. Not hooked up). No surround sound (although it's wired, just not in use). No cable box. How do we do it? Rabbit ears, baby. Pure old school. No tin foil involved, although one side of the rabbit ears broke of when my dad shut the door on it. . . but that is just one of the hazards of having my dad come to visit (ask anyone). I think we were the last ones on the block to get a DVD player too for that matter.

So how does our TV dictate our viewing? When we lived in CA, we had NBC crystal clear. We had other stuff at various levels of clarity depending on the night. So, we really got into Law and Order. The original. SVU. Not Criminal Intent because we think that main guy is way too know-it-all and his female partner is just worthless to the team. I really don't remember what else we watched, but it was for the most part NBC. Maybe ER for a while. Now we're in a different time zone with different stations coming in. Of course we get all the upper stuff great, PBS, a few spanish channels, Ion, the WB, etc. That's good for late night reruns of Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, Seinfeld, spanish soccer games, you know what I mean. But NBC is probably our worst channel. Unusally it comes in black and white with a little bit of snow. Fox comes in color, but not real clear regardless of antennae placement. But CBS and ABC are good to go. That means we're all over all the CSI's. CSI original. CSI miami (we like to analyze why Horatio rarely looks directly at people and always has his head tilted). CSI New York (mediocre). Grays Anatomy (until everyone everyone was sleeping with everyone). Numbers. Criminal Intent. The Unit. We even got into Lost this past year. But we won't give o House or 24 or anything like a chance that because Fox is too difficult to watch for too long. We even will look at the TV guide and instantly rule out anything on Fox or NBC.

It hasn't been too bad since NBC has kind of gone down hill on the shows we want anyways. They haven't had as much sports Chad wants to watch either. Sorry, we're not NASCAR fans. BUT I was very sad to realize that the summer Olympics are going to be on NBC. Don't know what we're going to do about that one. And don't even bring up 2009 and the HDTV business.

Winnie

When children learn to talk they don't always get the names right at first. Cole loves Tic Tacs. But he either calls them Tic Tac Drawer (he says this as pointing at my dresser drawer where they are stored) or Tic Tac Toe (it sounds like it to us, but I don't think he'd know to say that). While my family was out he found out Grandma Maxine had his favorite orange flavored Tic Tacs in her purse. She had to change where she stored her purse so it was out of his reach. He would be walking by and just see her purse and start asking for Tic Tacs.

He recently learned the character Winnie the Pooh. Now at Cole's age he is fascinated when others go to the bathroom. He will follow you in there and ask, "pee-pee, poo-poo?" to ask you if you are going to the bathroom. He does know there is a difference because sometimes he will tell me "pee-pee, poo-poo" when he wants his diaper changed. If there doesn't seem to be an odor sometimes I'll ask him if he went poo-poo and he'll say, "wet". So he knows. But whenever he sees Winnie the Pooh, he just remembers the Pooh part and says, "pee-pee, poo-poo". Yes, you heard me right. My son calls good old Winnie the Pooh, "pee-pee, poo-poo". I tried to read him a Tigger book tonight and everytime Winnie appeared on a page Cole pointed and said "pee-pee, poo-poo". My appologies to the creator.

Movies

Took the kids to a free summer kids' movie today. It was Charlotte's Web. Well, it was after we got into the correct theater! We followed a bunch of kids into a theater and sat down to wait for the show. They played this cartoon in place of a preview and I was worried about it scaring my kids. It didn't have a bad message, but it had a monster in the main story line. Definitely aimed at older kids and way too LOUD. I won't be surprised if we have a bad dream or trouble going to sleep tonight because of it. Then the movie was able to play and they said, "Flushed Away". I couldn't believe it. I had researched the movie and it was supposed to be Charlotte's Web. I'd even gotten a friend to come and bring her 2 girls. I was very disappointed. Until we found out we were just in the wrong theater. At these free kids' movies they often play both a PG and a G movie. Quickly we gathered up our popcorn that we had smuggled in and off we went to theater 8. Much better. Makaila enjoyed the entire thing. Cole did quite well. For a 22-month old boy. Next time I'll need to bring him a bigger bag of popcorn, but he was liking watching all the animals.