Finally! A beautiful day.

The past two months have been cold here and we are so ready for some sunshine and warm weather! Today was beautiful so we headed outside to help Daddy do some yard work. Oh and play with my camera.

















Spraying Roundup a.k.a. water.



Sweeping the grass? Not really sure what that was about.

Overheard today

This morning while Bryce was napping, I was in my bathroom getting ready. Cason was playing in our shower. He was fully clothed but pretending to shower, scrubbing his hair and his body with pretend soap. After doing that for a good 5-10 minutes, he wandered off and returned with one of Bryce's toys. He put it in the shower and was sitting in there with it. The germaphobe in me cringed every time I saw him press his face up on the glass shower door or touch the shower walls but I didn't say anything. I was walking back and forth between our closet and our bedroom getting dressed. All of the sudden I heard Cason say to the toy, over and over again, "You want to come out here with me? Or stay in there? Your choice!" I had to laugh because Kelly and I use a lot of the Love and Logic ideas and we give him a lot of choices.

Then today after lunch I was in the living room with Bryce and Cason was in the bathroom washing his hands. I heard him say "Bye bye germs!" I'm not sure if I should be proud or scared on that one. I need to find a balance between letting him know some things (like public places) are filthy and turning him into a 2 year old germaphobe.

Golf clubs

Last Easter, I got Cason some plastic golf clubs. What was I thinking?! That just goes along with the whole giving your first kid something way too early because you are excited about it. Anyway, they were only $5 so no big deal. He loved those golf clubs and usually carried at least one of them around the house or pushed the little golf bag around.

Sometime last fall, he started hitting people, dogs, and objects with the clubs. At first we would take the clubs away and put them on top of the refrigerator for the rest of the day and he would be better about not hitting with them for a few days. But after awhile, that failed to work and Kelly and I were tired of the golf clubs and the whacking that came with them.

So one morning I warned Cason that if he hit with them again, we were going to throw them away. Not five minutes later, he whacked someone (can't remember who) with a club. I made him come out to the garage with me and throw all of the clubs, balls, and the golf bag away in the big trash can himself. He still seemed unphased by this. I explained that the garbage truck was going to come empty the can and take them away. He mentioned the golf clubs for a week or so when we walked by the big trash can in the garage and when trash day came around, I pointed out the garbage truck and how it was taking away his clubs.

He basically forgot about the golf clubs from that point on up until a few weeks ago when he saw a golf club in his High Five magazine and decided he wanted golf clubs "for Christmas". Then he started talking about his red, blue, and yellow golf clubs he used to have. I asked him what happened to them and he said "I hit with them." I asked him where the golf clubs went and he replied "in the trash can". He then started talking about how he wants new ones and how he won't hit with them.

This morning we were driving through our neighborhood and I had to slow down to pass a garbage truck.

"There's the garbage truck!" Cason pointed out.

"Yeah, what is it doing?" I asked.

"Dumping ALL the golf clubs." Cason said matter of factly.

Why we had two kids

Well obviously not the only reason but I am happy that the boys are starting to play together. Sort of. Watching this video, I really cannot see how people think they look alike. Bryce has such a round face!

Cason's other new thing is he says he is going to work. Then he goes and stands by the door to the garage for a minute. Then he comes back and says he is home from work. He likes to take random objects to work. Like this morning, he picked up a pack of diapers and said "I'm taking this to work." Unlike other kids though, he tells me what day he'll be home, not what time. "I'm going to work, I'll be back on Tuesday!"

The "get huge" thing comes from Kelly. He tells Cason that he is going to the gym to "get huge".

I want that for Christmas

Cason's new favorite saying seems to be "I want that for Christmas." Whenever he sees something (usually in a book) that looks interesting, he tells me he wants it for Christmas. I tried to tell him that his birthday is coming up first and he could ask for it for his birthday but he continues to ask for things "for Christmas". Whenever he tells me he wants something for Christmas, I usually just say "oh, okay". In the past week, he has asked for a magnifying glass, a megaphone, a set of jacks, a jump rope, a little orange camera, a set of plastic golf clubs, a baseball bat, a breast pump, a push lawnmower, and a broom (although he already has a broom that is perfectly fine). He is also consistent about it. If we read the book again, he will ask for the item every single time.

Turkey makes you what?

The other day we had to make a trip to the UPS store after nap that ended up taking a lot longer than we thought it would. We knew the kids were getting hungry for dinner so we decided to just feed them when we got home instead of letting them eat what we were going to eat which would take longer to cook. We were listing off a few choices for Cason so he could pick. We told him could have peanut butter or turkey and he said "Not turkey. Turkey makes me cough." What???

Tornado

This afternoon I took the kids into the playroom to play after nap. I set Bryce down standing up against the brown table on the left side of the room. Cason's tools and animals were there and I thought maybe he'd play with them for awhile. He instead, tore through the entire room like a tornado in a matter of 15 minutes or so. Starting at the brown table, he played with and threw all the toys within his reach. He then paused at the drawer, pulling out blocks, banging them around for awhile, then tossing them. He moved onto the giraffe, where he stood and played for awhile. Then he walked along the windowsill to get to the other side of the room. He stopped at the train table where he played with, chewed on, banged, and threw cars, trains, and train tracks. He continued on his path of destruction to the clear tote of dress up clothes. He dug through the tote and pulled out several of the accessories such as the axe (firefighter's) and the stethoscope, then threw half the clothes out. He finished up at the kitchen, where he stood for a good 10 minutes or so, banging on the counter tops, throwing all of the dishes, and playing with the faucet. Somewhere along the way, he dumped out all of the Easter eggs (from last year) from the orange bucket. Whew! And he's not even walking yet.



You can click on the pictures to make them bigger if you can't read the words.

9 months

Bryce had his 9 month check up today. He is now weighing in at 21 pounds, 12 ounces, and he is 28 inches long. He has three teeth in and another three at least that are right on the verge of coming in. He still prefers army crawling and cruising as his favorite modes of transportation. He will get up on his knees and rock but drop down and slither off since it is faster I suppose.

Bryce's current likes are:
- opening and closing doors (from the bottom of the door, not the door handle!)
- opening and closing cabinets, especially the one that houses the trash because we don't lock it often
- turning light switches on and off
- playing with door stoppers (boing!)
- his big brother
- pulling hair (I'm so over this one, seeing as I am almost always the victim)
- anything he can push like our Radio Flyer car and our shopping cart
- bath time

Bryce absolutely hates:
- diaper changes
- clothing changes, especially his shirt
- having his face touched whatsoever

Bryce still will not eat ANYTHING off a spoon but he is doing great with finger foods. We are avoiding anything with wheat in it until his birthday because he seems to be sensitive towards some grains. Hopefully he'll grow out of that. He has lately become a big fan of meal time and his favorite thing to do while eating is run his hands through his hair.

More snow fun

The snow finally ended last night around dinner time. I think the final count was somewhere between 7 and 9 inches (depending on who you listen to). This morning Cason wanted to play with a random squirt bottle we had laying around. I said "hey, let's fill it up with colored water and you can go paint the snow!" So I filled it up with water and let him pick out which color of food coloring he wanted to add. Don't give me too much credit, I stole the idea from somewhere or other. We got him bundled up and headed outside to paint the snow blue.



The wrench in his jacket pocket? That's just his ROTD*.

*Random object of the day. You know, the random thing he carries around all day and then sleeps with at night.



Making blue snowballs.





Spraying our Frosty. Last night, I went out to the snowman we built yesterday to grab the Tootsie pops we had used as eyes. Kelly really likes the Tootsie pop minis so we wanted to bring them inside. It was too late, someone had stolen not only the suckers, but the carrot nose as well. I'm still irritated about it. It's not like it had been days, only about 6 hours had passed. Who steals stuff off someone's snowman? Good thing we didn't leave the hat out there.





Eating more snow.







Comparing these pictures to yesterday's, I realize how much more I love my 50 mm lens (that I used today) than my kit lens (that I used yesterday).

Frosty the snowman

It is snowing again here today! Kelly heard on the radio that this is the most snow we have gotten in a winter here since 1985. I don't think it's snowed this much in the past 3 winters we've lived here combined. After Bryce's morning nap, we headed out to play in the snow and attempt our first ever snowman. This was the first time that Cason has really played in the snow. He was a bit hesitant at first but got into the swing of things quickly.

Pay no attention to the hat that is size 24 months, the jacket that is size 18 months, and the mittens which are infant size from his first winter in 2007. They got the job done.





The "roll a ball" method wasn't working so Kelly made a big mound and they added snow to it instead.







My weak attempt at trying to take a picture of Rycie on my hip.



Having fun throwing snowballs.



My dinobear or bearosaurus, I haven't decided yet.





I love this picture. I still can't believe that all three are smiling (sort of) and looking at the camera. Too bad it's out of focus. I'm always in a big hurry to take a picture when the kids actually look at the camera and don't always get it focused.



Figuring out he could eat the snow.



I love this picture, Cason was really enjoying himself.





Next to the snowman.



So pathetic -- we used a baby carrot for the nose, tootsie pop mini's for the eyes, and a Dallas Cowboys hat.