A day of Pictures July 2014

I tend to space these out about 6ish months apart, so we were due for one. A day of pictures (and video!).

Typically I start these out with going to wake him up, however this time, the opposite happens. Peanut, being in a bed instead of a crib, woke up before us at 630 (awww, I prefer it when he makes it to 7-730) and came into bed with us until I could manage to crawl out. He didn't sleep great last night, but it was great compared to a few months ago. He's been fairly consistently sleeping through the night, he had a hard time falling asleep though last night, woke up crying at 4, and woke up early. But he does have two molars pushing through (the last two!).

So he convinced me to get up, he begrudgingly took care of business, and we headed downstairs. I asked him if he wanted to play or eat, and he said "play." So we went downstairs to feed the cats and play with toys for a little bit. Peanut immediately grabbed a truck and headed for the train table. Then after that he strung all the train cars together and tried to take them under the bridge and up, but they got stuck, and he got quite distraught :/ I'm hoping this was random and not an indicator that we're going to have a more emotional day.

We headed upstairs for breakfast. Usually he's a peanut butter toast kind of guy, but ever since Daddy brought home some Chex on sale, he's been begging for some. So I've relented a little on the Chex stance (we had a cross contaminated box in the past) and let him have some. And now that's all he wants to eat. I'll likely hide the rest of the boxes after we finish this one - it just makes me nervous that both us and the internet have had bad luck with them. But he gobbled it down with one little problem. He freaked out a little bit and started babbling on when I got him set up, and it took me a few minutes to figure out why. He's often dressed by the time we eat, and especially if he's headed to school, I put a bib on and a towel over his lap. So he wasn't happy that his normal company was missing.

But that was easily remedied and breakfast went on with peace. Up until he noticed his favorite book sitting on the table, The Big Red Barn (well, it's his favorite book this week). And of course he wanted to red. Sly me asked him to take it upstairs to sleeping Daddy and have him read it to him. So we went up, I got the picture, and came down here to start this up. So begins the day of pictures!

It'll be fun, trust me.





After typing that, I turned around to Peanut dragging his Thomas tent over to me, we got down and played with it a little bit, then moved on to making block tunnels. Block tunnels are on his ASQ36 form, so another one I'll be able to check off the list later on when he turns 3. Daddy joined us and they began to play a little yellow. Peanut loves when he plays yellow, and saying 'Daddy died.' when the sound effect comes up. He also likes pretending his Percy plush is a rocking horse, silly kid :)

So soon after this, it was time to go get dressed, I gave him a few choices in shirts, and he choose the green one. Excellent choice kid! It'll be great for later *foreshadowing* we came back down (well, Peanut chose to pretend to fall down the stairs a few times.

Then we got out some different trains and train tracks and got out our 'funnel tunnel' and played around with that for awhile. The light even chose to work on it today :)

But the morning was quickly was going by, and we had some tasks to do. We needed to hit up the library to return a few books and a movie, I wanted to get a few pictures at the park for a side project, and we need to go exchange his sandals. More on that later.

For now, there are few things that Peanut loves more than a car ride, also I inched up that chest strap after the photo, should have just done that before, but ah well. Adventure time!

We swung by the library then headed to the park. Peanut loves his 'white water.' We drove over there, saying hi to the kids playing there, and ran right over to the white water tower. ZOMG SO BIG SO FUN FREAK OUT TIME!!!!! but soon after that, we heard train noises. Specifically I heard what sounded like the train crossing going off, but no horns, but we walked down to the trainyard from there. A park... with a water tower... a block from the train tracks. This is heaven for Peanut.









Unforunately it was quieter then I hoped. The 'green car' was shunting a tank car around, but it was behind stuff and not easy to watch. There was some other stuff going on, and it was intriguing, but not AMAZING for him. So as soon as he remembered (well, turned around and saw) the white water tower, he was happy to return.

He ran straight to the tower, but as it was going late, we got him to go run over to the slides, he went down them several times before I asked him if he'd like to go drive by the tracks, which he was down with that idea. Momma knows how he ticks ;)

So we took off, here's the new car, I don't think I've posted a picture of it yet. Fairly confident. We took off to exchange his shoes. A few days ago we tried on a bunch of sandals as the velcro is dying on his current pair. We found a nice pair... got it home and it was a WTF? It was clearly too small. So not sure what happened there, but we went back and... there wasn't a single sandal that fit him there. We even had an employee scan each one to make sure.

Sooo we got a size up with adjustable straps that we could cinch around his ankles to keep them on and let him run around the store to make sure he wouldn't trip. It looks good, so we took them. We'll see how this afternoon goes. It was really getting late at this point (as it took us FOREVER to decide about what to do with the sandals) so we went home and just put some water on to boil (Peanut loves 'bubble' water) and cooked up some 'yellow pasta' aka GF mac and cheese. It just sounded nice on a cool day, and it was quick and brainless.

And he loves it.

Loves. it.

Of course he was getting tired and there wasn't a lot of time to let it cool, so there was a little drama when he forgot to blow, but otherwise he cleaned his bowl. Omnomnomnomnom!

I neglected to get a picture taken as he was getting ready for a nap, my bad, I laid down to read him stories, and found myself dozing off, so we cuddled up together until he fell asleep (pretty quickly despite a cat wanting to join us and the tornado sirens going off) and then I slipped out. And there he naps. My snuggle buddy :)






-----Nap Time---

He took a good nap and woke up in a pretty good mood. Here he is showing off his bedroom, it's kind of haphazard right now, we're planning on getting him a nice bed for his birthday and doing some redecorating in there, now that we know he's a trains and vehicles type of guy.

It'll be crazy bright in there, but none of us care :) It just makes it fun! And zomg I can't wait for the new windows to be in! New curtains! Everything!

Apparently also we lost a big branch/trunk thing (well, significant) we were checking it out with Kiara before we left the room. Though it doesn't look like you can see it here. I've always loved the view from his room though <3

Anywho, after that we just had some generic free play time. Lot's of train plaing, I had some work to finish up that didn't quite fit into his nap period, dinner to plan, misc around the house stuff. I had been thinking of setting up a ton of animal crossing and seeing if he was maybe interested in checking that out. Maybe in a few months, it was fun and nostalgic though. Makes me really want a 3DS so I can check out the most recent version though :) Ah well, dreaming! We'll save those upgrades for when Peanut's older and we'll go, hey, you've been playing SNES/Gamecube/Sega, but check out THESE graphics, mwaa haa haa haa haa! Yeah, we're raising a gamer ;) there are worse things.

HE'S RUNNING RIGHT AT ME, RUUUUUN!

The temperature is dropping outside (is it still July?) It's just after dinner time right now and it's 59 degrees. So we changed him back into pants and into long sleeves. We had a hectic moment there and I completely forgot I was doing this for awhile. I went outside on the deck to harvest some vegetation for dinner, and let Peanut come out with me. A week ago we sprayed a hive under the deck and it seemed like there wasn't much going on out there, so I figured it was safe, but I told Daddy to keep an eye out just in case there were scragglers. Well, I think there's a second hive, because shortly after I left the deck for the garden, they started to swarm under the patio furniture, and Daddy was quick to scoop him up to safety :/ I'm not sure the kid's even going to want to play out there any more.

But the boys had rice and chickpea curry for dinner and I had egg drop soup (I only eat grains for one meal). It was apparently pretty tasty, we have to get that cleaned up so we can fit in the rest of our plans before bedtime!

Oh, after the hornet incident, Peanut took his revenge by... shoving a thermometer into the screen door? Great >< good thing we have a new sliding door in the works.

So yeah, soon after this we decided we needed to run to the store for Peanut's school lunch tomorrow. So I took him out as we were getting ready to go and got this awesome shot of him playing hopscotch <3 I think this one will end up on FB too.

We played, headed out, stocked up on food for tomorrow and used a few coupons. We love coupons! Then we decided to make a detour.

Guess where?!?!

Yeah, the train tracks of course. We parked nearby and walked up and down them for a little while, sending him into preschooler fandom.

It was fun and lovely and then I realized I was getting texts from I who had stopped by. We hurried to the car so we could have a quick rendezvous, which was delightful. We ran around the house outside (well, one of us did) and chilled out till bedtime.

Of course when we went in we realized Peanut barely ate any dinner.

So we sliced up some cherries and we warmed up some leftover and Peanut polished off every single bite. Hungry boy! The up the stairs for bath time, which when Daddy's home, it's a freaking blast.

We read wore warm pajamas since it's like below zero out there in July or something. We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Big Red Barn and The Blue Train. He was an excellent sport and actually fell asleep right away. I presume, I haven't heard him so he must have.

So that's his day, it was a pretty good day, I like to think it was swell, but he's got school tomorrow, I'll try to update on... Thursday! We'll see how that goes! Thanks for reading!

THE DEER, School and talking!

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Well, at the end of May, Peanut and I hit a deer. That sucked. But actually things have turned around a lot since. We were all fine, aside from my right leg which is doomed anyways. Still bruised. Still hurts from the running accident a few years ago. It's doomed. We got an amazing deal on a new to us car which is ended up as an upgrade, Peanut essentially got a scholarship and is going to pre-school 3 days a week. And he's getting even closer to talking.

So let's see here, the talking is the main one, I think, as this is his blog. As long as you talk about subjects he's interested in, he can get quite chatty. We were driving to visit Daddy today after picking him up from school. We were working on getting him to say "I do it" after he incorrectly asked for help when he was getting into his carseat (as in, I asked him if he wanted help, he said need help, even though he had already gotten up there). He could say all three words fine, but putting them together he wouldn't pronounce 'do' at all. It was just like a dropped sound. ANYWAYS we stopped at the light before the tracks and this was the conversation.

Apparently no more splash pad - too much train!

Me: We're almost there now.
Peanut: There it is! A choo track!
Me: Yup, but we're stopped at the light.

<pause>

Peanut: Go, green!
Me: Yup, here we go, should we go over the train tracks now?
Peanut: Yup, o'er choo tracks! <bump> Wow!



It's so fun to watch this develop :)

School is going pretty great. We mainly wanted him to interact with other kids. He's still only 2 so he's not really playing with other kids, just alongside, but he's making improvements. He'll yell goodbye to them on the playground, the teachers say he'll clean up after them (toys have to stay in certain areas, Peanut is apparently really great at following those rules) and he's learned one of their names. Well maybe he knows other names, but distinguish-ably one of them. We'll call her T! Also he loves the Guinea Pig, called Sweetie Pie. On our way out today he stopped by it's room and called 'Bye-bye Sweetie Pie' which was adorable. He pedaled a little bit in the school's parking lot for a fourth of july parade, we're still working on pedaling, he defaults to hoofing it a lot. Plus someone gave us their old bike (pink!) that their kids had outgrown, so we can practice at home.

So yeah, often as not I come to pick him up and he's wandering the playground, but he likes to wander. Or coloring at the picnic table, but that's cool too. Every now and again though I find him playing with another kid and my heart warms <3 and I know it'll only get better over time as he gets older and gains new social skills.

So yeah, that's the synopsis. I'm not going to promise to update, but I'll try to update Tuesdays and/or Thursdays. This is important to me, it's just hard to find the time/energy to make a nice update. But days alone should really help that, as long as I remember :)

31 months old and Happy Mother's Day and Plus a lot more days...

Ok, let's do a post. What's going on? Well, as the title states, Peanut has reached 31 (.5) months old. And it's Mother's day! We're at Papa and Meemaw's house, Peanut has decided he'll call her that. And she's embraced it since it's waaay better then (did he maybe just say something like grandma???).

He's talking a lot. Not necessarily sensical, but he's pretty good with 3 or sometimes 4 word sentences. It's mostly the same stuff (Where mama go? What is that? See Papa, by water!)




OH HELLLO, I never finished that. I've got like... 5 half started posts, so instead of making a new one, let's just continue this one. Peanut's got a cold, taking a nap on the couch upstairs watching a train video of the Kootenai River. It looks like a pretty place. I woke up this morning to find my PC possessed and trying to manage 50 different things. Sigh.

He pooped in the potty. I give up on this post. So I'll hit submit. It's about a month old now, lol!

A Week in TX and Sadness Back Home

We've been down here for a week now. Over a week ago we left. We've had ups and downs down here, like me being pretty violently ill for a bit. Highs too, like seeing the glee on Peanut's face when we were at the train museum, or seeing how much he loves his new cousin already.

Today though, way back home, Boi took the family dog in for us to be put down :( He was getting sick while we were up there, and the doctor confirmed it wasn't something he was going to get over. Sighs. It's weird thinking of him not being here anymore.

Peanut must have grown down here or something. We keep getting these few days of massive eating though, every couple weeks. Plus his 2 year molars are pushing through, I saw them during a scream fest on the way down.

He's got his trains, his fist train, and his shoe train. He's napped most days to a boring train video. We saw trains our whole drive down. We went to a train museum. He's in train heaven.

The trees are covered in ice this morning. As we were coming down this morning, I though he wanted to know what that was, as that was interesting for me to see, but he was really interested in the roof. He's also been interested in fingers and signs a lot down here. And water. We always have to say g'bye to the water, else I'm tormented by endless 'where watey go?'

Not sure what we're doing today, I need to investigate a rumor I heard about  the Zoo being free after 2 on Tuesdays, but it's only going to get into the 40s today and currently raining. I have his winter coat, but the rain would still bunk that.

There's my quick update!

Peanut all excited to see grass again.

Scraped Knees :( Nephew! :)

He asked to have his picture taken

My poor munchkin has a scraped knee :( I don't even know how it happened! I was vacuuming his room as a fun activity, he ran away, and came back crying and limping. We spent the rest of the morning snuggling, I gently cleaned it best I could and affixed a few bandaids in a pretty star on it, and then he went down for a nap no problem. Hopefully when he wakes up it'll be a little less tender.

But on the flip side, I have a new Nephew! Baby E joined the family early Wednesday morning, sounds like everyone did well with the encounter. Grandma and Grandpa have already made their way down there, I get to wait until it's a little closer. It wouldn't be too nice to Boi to take away HIS baby for an extra week and a half just so I can get a few more snuggles in. Sigh.

More happies, today Peanut put on a hat and said 'me hat!' More pronoun fun! Then he put it on MY head and said 'you hat!' Huzzah!!! That's my smart boy! We're catching up, just gotta get him to start saying his name and I'll be even happier! And we haven't had any gluten contamination lately either, that makes everyone happier. Although he is getting sneakier about finding/grabbing food out of most of our 'hidding' spots, so we have to be careful.

Grandpa's Retirement Party

Looking forward to the next 36 hours or so. Boi comes home a little after 4 and has tomorrow off to boot. I might be going into work tomorrow, not sure. But even then it's still a great time to be had, we've got new paints, it's movie night (How to Train Your Dragon), I think the both of us have been having more energy. Maybe we can convince him to read a train book instead of pretending it's a real train. Or that all our shoes are trains. Or that his fist is a train. Or there are invisible trains zooming around the house that he has to catch.

It's looking like Boi is going to be working mostly closing shifts? So I guess that means I need to just suck it up when it comes to bath time. That or he's never going to get bathed! But that does work well for the new job. Hopefully I can at least work 4-6 hour shifts then on most days. Gotta figure out a way to make bathtime less dreaded for me. Maybe a bathtime song would help. He's really inconsistent about bathtime himself. Somedays he'd stay in there for hours, somedays he's randomly afraid of the water, somedays it's 5 minutes and done.

Argh, I still haven't eaten lunch, and it's 2:00 already. If I was going to make chicken/veggie fried rice, I really should get that rice cooking now. I love making two versions of everything. It's either veggie and non veggie, or gluten and non gluten. Of course, there goes my chance, he's woken up. Time for more snuggles!

Yellow Cow Moo

Apparently I didn't ever publish this. It's been forever, just going to cross my fingers and hit publish!

Part of this phrase 'yellow cow moo' is my fault. Because when he says 'Milk' it sounds like 'No'. So the day he noticed that there was a cow on the carton of milk, I decided to start calling it 'Cow Milk' but Peanut just chimed in with 'cow moo.' We almost always get 2%, but the expiration date on it wasn't as nice as the 1%, so I picked that up. This is the first time we've had 1% in the house, and so everytime he goes in the fridge, he sees that yellow cap and get so excited and says 'Yellow Cow Moo!'

So it means he wants milk.

Yeah, we're pretty awesome here.

We watched the Olympics last night, which was an awesome opportunity to work on colors. Alas when the Russians walked on in the parade, we were serenading with a bunch of 'Ho Ho Ho's'... since they were wearing Santa-esk outfits. With the fur and what not.

A note, he slept past his 3 hour wakeup. Ugh, I was so happy for that. I went to bed early, then when Boi crawled in, I noticed the hour had passed, and I was so relieved. He still woke up a bunch, but maybe we've broken him of that habit now. Ultimately poop woke him up.

And it woke him up just now too. How to get him to stop pooping in his diaper and in the potty... it's gotten to the point that I need to figure something out. Right now he's in bed naked. Well, bottomless at least. Hear me out, he woke up waaay too early from his nap. And he was unhappy about it, and about the status on his butt. So I cleaned him up... and then since I didn't have another cloth diaper handy, I just plopped him back into bed.


Ok, time passed, the bed thing went fine, but OMG I just have to share. We were playing downstairs, I asked him if he needed to use the potty. We brought down his old little potty weeks ago to help remind him, but he's always ignored it. Today he jumped up, said potty and pointed at it. I said sure, why not, and we used it. I told him we didn't have toilet paper, but it would be fine this one time. He disagreed, got up, ran to his play kitchen, grabbed a plate??? and brought it back and tossed it in. Ok, well, I guess a plate works as toilet paper in the sense that you can put it in there. Sure. Why not.

Also, random, I love how he happily says 'helicopter' but train is still 'choo choo.' Ah well.

Overwhelming few days!

Well, it's been busy. Damn busy. I had written up a post, but apparently did not save it. So you know, it sucks but I'll move on. Highlights, Friday was Grandpa's last day of work, he's now retired. We spent our weekend over there as family convened for a fun weekend of crafts, scrapbooking, trains and fun. Peanut enjoyed it all immensely, here he is at the train museum. Both of his cousins got to control a train, while shorty here demanded to be carried non-stop so that he could see what was going on. H volunteered to hold him from time to time though. She's a good kid ;)

On Monday I started a new job. It was fun, I got to work with cheese, what's not to love? So things went well, I think, and then after picking up Peanut, I pulled into the driveway and heard the train. So I backed back up and headed down the hill and saw it. It was a nice looooooooooong train, so I pulled onto a side road and we just watched it come (and go). That night though I hurt my neck, it's been cropping up everynow and again so I'm trying not to play crazy with Peanut. He got a cut on his hand :( on the inside. And his damn rash won't go away on his left cheek. But he's happily napping right now. He'll actually likely wake up soon here.

Yesterday we headed out to Boi's new store, and we hit up the peanut butter, and Peanut and I decided we'd make peanut butter cookies. I've made flourless peanut butter cookies before, they're ok... but I like the cookie texture. So I googled a recipe that had a GF flour in it. Alas I thought the recipe looked stupid, no egg, and sure enough the first batched sucked. Tasted fine, but was like a peanut butter crumble. So I beat some egg into the remainder and they turned out way better. I'm going to make up a new recipe to try based off of it. A little less four and an egg, and see how it goes.

Peanut was a big fan of the idea of making cookies though. From the moment we got home he had that jar of peanut butter constantly in my face. I guess we named him right!

Hoping this constant lethargy I'm fighting wears off by tonight, I've got so much I need/want to get done. Just vacuuming the house, man, we've been so busy that the basics aren't getting done well. We still have one more family trip out of the house today, but then we should be good to go for an evening of fun tonight. It's Uncle M's bday, so we'll give him a call/facetime, promised to have facetime with GG, so we'll do that. Annnnnnnnnnnd hopefully clean up before the facetime. Bleh!