New Photographer!

The little guy has taken pictures for years (where did the time go?), but the baby picked up the camera this weekend and took a few shots of her daddy, me, and some furniture.

What talent!

Woohoo! Reading!

This is SO EXCITING!!! The little guy had homework-- which was to read a specific book. Really read the book-- like, all by himself, sounding out the words, reading the book, himself. And he read it like a boss! This was his second time through. Sorry about the fussy baby in the background. She was out of food.
AAAAAHHHHH!!!!

In other news, the baby is feeling better. She's also showing some interest in nonparametric statistics. Assuming normality is so passé.

The Angriest Ladybug

The little guy said "I'm the angriest ladybug" tonight. Eric replied "That strikes fear into everyone's hearts." Ha!

Anyway, at dinner the little guy showed off his latest talent. Not only can he wink like a see-saw, but he actually has the best winks. See?

Out Maneuvered?

First of all, I ended up taking the baby to the doctor this afternoon because she was tugging on her ears and crying-- but the doctor said it's just teething combined with a head cold. We're going to try school again tomorrow, but maybe with some ibuprofen first.

The little guy and I fed the baby some applesauce tonight since her appetite is back (yay!). He kept asking if he could have the rest of her food. I kept saying no, because seriously, what a mooch!

Next thing you know, he sneezed and sprayed sneeze-juice (gross!) all over her food. I let him eat the rest of that applesauce and got the baby a sneeze-free serving. Was I outwitted by a three-year-old or did he just get lucky?

He Did It!!!

The little dude got to have a REAL HOCKEY STICK today with a REAL PUCK!!! The teacher got some hockey sticks out for the older kids, and the little dude was like a moth to flame. He skated over and, after a brief but serious conversation, got a stick of his own!

He was beaming when he came off the ice.

Thank You, and Goodnight

For your viewing pleasure, here is an amateur rendition of the puppet show "Are You My Mother?" that we saw at story time the other day. 

So he could work on giving the puppets some personal space, but we were pretty entertained. (It's good that we thought it was cute because we'll probably get to see encore number 752 tomorrow.)

Mixing Business and Pleasure

We headed down to the coast yesterday evening to visit some old friends and to check on our rental property today. It's been several years since we've been down there to visit either so we were excited to go.

It was great to catch up with a few of our friends from my first job. So many things have changed in the 5 years since I worked down there, but with these dear friends it's like we never left. As you know, we have 2 kids and they have a super cute (almost) 2 year old. Stinker Pants and Copper Top played very well together only fighting over lap space once or twice.

After an awesome breakfast and some visiting we headed on over to Beaufort to check on our house. Then, a lunch on the water and a short walk on the boardwalk provided an awesome photo op for our budding young photojournalist.

I think he could work on framing his shot, but maybe that's just me.

Wahoo!

He did it! The little guy skated for real today! See?
Not only that, he did it again! There's an open skate after the lessons, so we stayed an extra 20 minutes or so today to get in some more practice.

The little guy was thrilled with himself.

That's not food in his mouth, it was something on the glass.

His sister was not impressed.

BORING.

Happy Valentine's Day!

The little guy filled our hearts with joy by participating in his skating lesson this week. Here's a pretty long video of him on the ice:
Hopefully ice-crawling is just the step before ice-walking... Anyway, a side benefit of the ice skating is the little guy's post-ice-skating nap.

Big and Small

She might not be as big as a toy garbage truck yet, but she rolled over yesterday (front to back) when I was at work! Apparently she rolled over three times! She hates tummy time. I still haven't gotten to see her do it, despite putting her on her stomach about 500 times last night, but I'm sure I will at some point.

To be fair, it's an enormous garbage truck.

Skating lessons!

Hockey Player Baseball Player Football Player Silly Goose (which seems to be what he wants us to call him these days) had his first of four skating lessons today.  It was a sweet little class and all the instructors have the patience of saints.  There were two other boys Goose's age in the class and all the other kids were older.  Sadly, he was the worst.  He survived without any aches or pains though, but that's mostly because he was doing this the whole time.

However, because of his reluctance to stand, he monopolized the time of the college girl who was helping teach the class.  Here she is (lower right) trying to get him to stand up the way they taught them.  (Like a puppy, one foot here, now stand!)  Maybe I should add "Sly Devil" to his ever growing monicker.

He did get standing a few times (albeit with someone's help) so not all was lost.

Three more lessons to go so we'll keep you updated.

Baby Girl just slept the whole time bundled up in a fluffy blanket.  She was probably the warmest of anybody there.

Move South, Go North

Being a stay at home dad has been a joyful experience, though one I wouldn't want to do forever unless we could also put the kids in daycare or hire a nanny.  Emily always says that you need to get out of the house everyday so that you don't get stir crazy and I think it is good advice.  So, as I mentioned in a previous post, we've been going to the Hurricanes practices regularly.  Really our only two activities are going to hockey practice or story time at the library.

Last week we were at practice and the players started really shooting at the net.  Every now and then a puck will hit the boards or the pipes and careen up into the netting and then out of the rink.  There is usually an usher down there to make sure everyone stays on this side of the rails (party poopers).  That day the crowd was sparse and the guy down there hoped the rails and picked up a puck.  He then gave it to Goose.  Like I said before, the boy had been skating around the house in his socks skates, but now he has a puck and is alternating between a miniature Cincinnati Reds bat and a long straight piece of train tracks as his hockey stick, which he swings lefty. (Aside: one step closer to first!)

He's even made a net with "baby fence"!

Tonight we signed him up for ice skating lessons that run on every Thursday in February.  We also had to get him some waterproof mittens and pants.  It's funny; we moved down South and now the boy might as well be Canadian, though we did get some good barbecue tonight.

Here he is at our other staple, Story Time, just soaking it all in.

I hope he participates in skating lessons more than Story Time.  He just sits there, observes, and refuses to participate.  Then he sings all the songs and talks about the stories at home.  What a stinker.  Sorry to say, but we don't have an ice rink at home so he'll be out of luck.

Daddy's got skills

My foray into stay-at-home parenting is going okay.  I only yell at the big one once or twice a day (his listening ears somehow aren't connected to his motor systems just yet).  We've only not gotten out of the house once so far and we even took a trip to the local library today for toddler time which included stories, songs, and dancing.  Today's theme was the first snow of winter.  Winter?  I think it is supposed to be 75 this weekend.  Plus these 3 and less year olds have probably never seen snow like my mountain boy.

Anyway, Goose just sat in my lap slack-jawed while 8 other moms and their kids sang and danced.  I was embarrassed.  Thankfully the baby just slept.

Oh, and we got there early thanks to some awesome multitasking by Dad.  Here's a photo of the feeding situation while I got the big one ready.  Physics is a wonderful thing.

Negotiations 101

One nice thing about parenting the little dude is that we can still outsmart him on occasion. He didn't want to eat his dinner tonight, and we asked him to eat five bites. He countered with four. We said ok, four, and he re-countered with two bites. We said no, four, and then he said no, FIVE. Awesome! He ended up eating it all, which was even better.

He might look like a genius, but a master negotiator he is not.

The new one is still doing baby things (and charming her daddy).

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

We had a nice meal at home to celebrate (and we have enough leftovers to feed an army!). The little guy rearranged the 'supply tower' in the bathroom for the holiday. He's been doing that every time he's in the bathroom. This was the craziest arrangement yet!

He also supplied one of the side dishes.

Lately he's been asking us to each pray at dinner. He wants Daddy to do a big huge prayer, Mommy to do a short prayer, and then he prays to wrap things up. Now that Grandma's in town, she has to pray after me and before the little guy. Tonight, I did my usual "Thank you God for food and friends. Amen." that I learned in preschool. My mom thanked God for the rain that makes the trees and flowers grow.

When it was the booger's turn to pray, he said "Thank you God for the rain" and then whispered "It's not raining" while shaking his head no. It was hilarious... we were all weeping with laughter.

Wrenching on the Jeep!

A couple weeks ago, I'm sad to say, I gave a little love tap to a VW Jetta so the good folks at State Farm cut me a check to fix my bumper.  What else could I do but get a new one (packaged with a winch, D-Rings, and grill guard)?  The new bumper was delivered the other day so after dinner I decided to tackle the beast.  We still had some time before bedtime so I got to have some awesome under the Jeep time with my boy.

He eventually thought it was a little dangerous under there so he got some protection.  Also notice the tool everyone needs when working on a Jeep; a stud finder.

We finally got the bumper off and even Mommy got in on the project by removing the factory fog lamps.

Nothing like getting your hands dirty!

Wait, I think I've seen this before.

Playground!

While we were eating breakfast, the little booger asked if we could go to the playground today. I said sure-- we could go to the playground after school and dinner. The little stinker scarfed down his breakfast, got dressed in a flash, and then announced that he was ready to go to the playground. Whoops! Have you ever tried to explain something to a not-quite three-year old? Yikes. Anyway, we went to the playground tonight and had a blast.

Look at how big he's getting!

Wow!

The little guy learned how to pedal the other weekend at his Nana's house. Here he is showing off his new skills on his tricycle:

To quote one of his teachers, "Wowee, wow, wow, wow!"

Really?

The little guy just figured out how to open ziploc bags. So, tonight he got one out of the kitchen drawer and filled it with grass! What?

Finger Licking Awful?

The little stinkpot is TERRIBLE at licking his fingers.

 

It's kind of hilarious, though... so I hope he doesn't get better at it for a while.