"Helping" Again!

Laundry Day ....

Helping Dad, The Zoo & Haircut

I observed the "Michael helping Daddy" last night. I think Michael was a little distracted by the camera, he likes to come as close as he can to the camera which makes it difficult for me to take pictures. So I had to sort of hide to take pictures.

"I've got my shovel and my rake Daddy, now what do you want me to do?"

"That looks fun, can I play in the dirt too?"

"This thing is funny, it makes me laugh!"

"Mommy, look at this pokey thing. Isn't it cool? Daddy lets me play with it while he's not watching. Don't you think he's a good Daddy??"

"Um, Daddy ... I think you're doing something you haven't shown me before. Are you sure you want to do that? Shouldn't you let me help you?"

"Wait! Where you goin'? Take me with you!"

"Really Mommy, I'm not the one pulling leaves off the plant and eating them. There must be someone else who comes into the garden at night and does that. I was just inspecting the leaves for you!"

"How does this thing work again?"


"Ahhh, my very own hole to dig!"

Here we are at the zoo today with the frog he likes to play on ... it took him a while to warm up to just wandering by himself. There was another kid there and he was entertained by just watching him.

"Mommmmmmeeeeeeee, I NEED my shuck shuck (pacifier). Can I pleeeeeease have it? Mommmeeeeee? I'm going to diiiiiiiie if I don't get it right now. Mommmmeeeeee?"

Bubba with Aunt Jenny ("Nenny") at the zoo.

Michael's Second 1st Haircut! This time I broke down and paid the outrageous amount and had a "professional" cut his hair. I told them it was his first haircut so we'd get the picture taken and a little frame for it ... it was his first professional haircut! He looks like such a big boy now! I guess it's time to have another baby so Michael can grow up. (for those Aunts and Grandmas, etc out there ... NO we're not pregnant ... don't read into that little comment!) That's about all I have to share tonight. We're headed up to the campground this weekend, so I'm sure I'll have more stories to share. Hopefully it won't be "falling out of the trailer" stories!!!

New Snack Table

We bought Michael a new snack table. He ate breakfast there yesterday ... he loves it!

Michael has been spending a lot of time with Tony out in the backyard working on projects. Last night he was "helping" Tony dig post holes. Tony said that it was more like Michael would work on filling the hole Tony had just made. But he had fun. He even has his own little shovel to use and he feels so important! If they go out tonight, I'll take some pictures to post here. It's funny to listen to them outside. Michael is just talking away with Tony as if Tony understands every word he is saying. Maybe I'll work on posting a video too.

A Bunch of Pictures

Michael found his stick this weekend while we were camping. This was the ONE he HAD to have. Three times the size of him! The pathway between our trailer and Grandma and Grandpa's trailer
Michael unpacking what I had packed to take camping for the weekend. Such a big help he is! I guess he just wanted to make sure we had everything, but had to lay it all out on the table to make sure.
Michael and Daddy relaxing together ...


Cousins Andrew and Rachael playing with Michael. Rachael says Michael is "so soft".
Michael keeping an eye on things while wearing my shoes in the trailer. Notice the gate up in front of the screen door. Before we got a chance to put that up Friday night, Michael decided that he needed to follow Daddy outside ... he fell. Three steps down to the ground. I didn't see it, I was inside minding my own business and not paying attention to the fact that my son was about to go outside. Tony said he did a couple flips ... like the Nascar driver Carl Edwards (he does flips off his car when he wins). It was scary, but Michael is okay. He had a little bit of a fat lip, but as you can see from the other camping pictures, he's being his normal self and having fun with his bruises. Now we just leave the gate up and step over it when we need to go outside for a minute!

Hmmmmm .... what's the deal with the shoe obsession? These are Daddy's shoes. (don't look at our messy room with the unmade bed, mom!)

Yes Mommy? I'm in my cave for the moment, could you wait please?
Feeding himself applesauce. I figure I should start getting him used to using utensils. The day will come soon when it won't be appropriate for him to eat everything with his hands. I just hate having to clean up the mess!

Wearing Daddy's hat ... another obsession of his. He won't wear one of his own though!

It's been too long!

It has been WAAAAY too long since I've posted pictures here! We got really busy since Tahoe. Michael got sick, then Tony, then me ... so we lost a week. Then we started our summer of camping! We spent a lot of time setting up camp for the summer, so I didn't get very many pictures but Michael had a blast up there in the dirt.

The two pictures below, I just took tonight. I was looking at our sliding glass door and made the following comment to Tony: "I thought that when Echo moved in with my parents, I'd have a non-slobbered on glass door!" Apparently Michael and Echo had some words and Michael is keeping this up for the dog.

We got tons of toys out of Grandma Maria's basement a few weeks ago! Here are just a few of them. Michael is playing with them by sitting on them all! We'll be rotating some of these toys through the months!

Michael got to go swimming at Grandma Sarah's house... she turns off the heater to the hot tub during the summer so the grandkids can use it as a little pool. I bought a little outfit with floaters in it to help Michael feel more comfortable, but it's still a little big on him so I ended up taking it off of him.

A recent trip to Grandma Maria's house ... we figured out that he's very comfortable with her furniture. This was the last time he was allowed to climb onto a table without getting a spankin' (it was just too cute to watch!)



And finally, a picture of Michael climbing up the steps in the trailer last weekend.

Next time we go up there I'll get more pictures of him outside. It was pretty cold in the morning! He had so much fun running through the trailer and checking everything out!

I took him to a mom and tots play "thing" today and he loved it. He was climbing on all the big structures and cargo nets. It's just a big padded room with lots of pieces to climb, crawl under, slide on and just run around. We'll probably go next week and I'll get some pictures to share. It was a blast watching him!

Lake Tahoe

Here are some pictures from this morning. This is Michael's first trip to a beach and first time in water other than his bathtub and the sprinklers as he's taking a walk through the neighborhood. It's really nice and warm up here right now so we're enjoying the sunshine. I think it's supposed to get cold in a day or two, so I had to document the warm weather right away!

Camping

We're getting ready to think about getting the trailer up to the campground for the summer. We thought we'd get Michael his own trailer so we don't have to share with him! Here it is ...

This picture has nothing to do with camping ... I just thought I'd take a picture of him playing and putting his leg into a box he's made.

Echo went home last night. Michael woke up this morning looking for Uh-Go. He was sad she wasn't around. He stood at the back door looking for her. But, the good news is that now I can start getting rid of the dog hair! I don't think she left much behind, really. I just didn't bother to clean the floors while she was here.

Mommy's Vacation

I went to the Women's retreat near Santa Cruz through our church this past weekend. It was great to get away for two nights! Of course, I didn't sleep much because we were a bunch of mommys who could actually have a conversation without being asked for more food or to be picked up or anything else. When I returned, I was downloading some pictures from the camera that Tony had here at the house .... here's a photo of Michael over the weekend. This was taken after they had spent the day out in the backyard digging holes for posts and cementing them in. Tony says he ate a little bit of bark, a little dirt and a little bit of cement. But he had fun! I don't want to know if Tony washed Michael's hands before he fed him!

During our "free time" at the retreat, we had the option of going on the ropes course ... so my friend Melissa and I were trying to decide if we should do it. I wanted to do it, but didn't want to be the only one from our group doing it. I was a little concerned when the guy told us that it wasn't their most strenuous course, but it was their highest course. So, Melissa said "I'll only do it if you do it". To which I responded, "okay, let's do it". While we were hiking up the hill, Melissa said "I'm only doing this because you are doing this and I'm so competetive that I just agreed" and then I told her "that's exactly why I'm doing it!" We just looked at each other and said "what were we thinking!!!????" So here are some pictures of us/me on the course. Man, when I did these things in my early 20's I wasn't bothered by the way I looked in a harness!!

Waiting our turn to climb. See that cargo net in the background? That's what you climb up, NOT ATTACHED to anything to get up to the rest of the course.

This is the part where I had to straddle the board and hook myself onto the tree so I could get to the rope bridge for the next section of the course.

Here's the balance beam part ... they suggested we go across not holding onto anything, yea, right! The only thing to hold onto was the rope connecting my harness to the cable above, but I wasn't crazy enough to think I have that good of balance! The guy did make me sit and swing in the harness there though, and then I had to get back to standing on the beam ... I guess it really was just a telephone pole.

I'm actually standing on a cable here and walking across it with just a loose rope to hold onto. I figured that the only way that rope was going to be of any use to me was if it was taught ... so I had to lean forward a bit to do that and then just slide my feet along the cable.

This is when I found the true meaning of "tree hugger". I was told to stay on that platform until the person in front of me got across the next cable. I had no intention of standing there without holding onto something.

The final portion of the course was the zip line. This is me jumping off ... like how the guy looks like he's pushing me??? I think he was doing that because he told me to just lean forward and go ... if I leaned backward I might have hit my head on the platform as I fell downward waiting for the slack in my rope to go away. I thought it was pretty funny that the person taking the pictures actually caught this with the camera and got the guy "pushing" me!

All Done. This is me suspended in the air after the zip line ...

So, after we did the ropes course Melissa and I went on a hike and then we found the super slide at the retreat center. It's a really long, windy water slide set up on the side of the mountain. They don't put water in it, but you go down on a burlap sack. It was a blast! We would go down it and then run (yes, I said run!) back up the hill to go down again and again. We were like two kids in the world's largest, bestest park ever! My body didn't stop hurting until just yesterday! (3 days later)