Monday, June 28, 2010

First Sentence!

The Frog said his first complete sentence today! He was working on a little fish puzzle and he said

"Blue one goes there."

Nice one, little man!


Thursday, June 24, 2010

Backyard Water Fun!

My ward has a play group that meets every Friday at a different park, and the last Friday of the month is hosted by someone. I only got a couple of pictures when the others were here (us moms like to chat, you know...) but it was really fun to see the kiddos playing in the slip-n-slide and the kiddie pool.
The Frog's buddy, O. really liked to drink the water. He also had a big spoon that he would scoop it up with and drink from. it was so cute.
The Frog wanted to go back out after his nap, so I had time for a lot more pictures. (too many...)
blowing bubbles
The Frog prefers to slide on his belly, and at the bottom, he would blow some more bubbles.
Practicing his kicks!
being cute and wet
swimmin'
trying to slip 'n slide.
The Frog had a lot of fun moving the balls and other objects from pool to slip 'n slide and back.
lookin' cute in my hat.
When I decided it was time to clean up, The Frog decided he had enough of his swimsuit...
but not his sunglasses :D

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Happy Birthday Jay!

We decided to spread out the birthday gifts for Jay all day, this year, since he was staying home from work (sick! boo) and I had made him a new pair of summer pajamas, so he got those first so he could wear them all day.I bought the T-shirt from Down East, but the "shpants" are my design. Jay's always rolling up his pants to be capri-length, so I just though I'd save him the trouble.
I love seer-sucker in the summer.
He, of course, got special food all day long- french toast and smoothie for breakfast, In-N-Out for lunch, and ribs and potatoes for dinner. I even bought Goodwood's Sweet and Sassy BBQ sauce- it's our favorite so far.
Here's my boys with the cake and all 25 candles. I can't believe how young he still is- I always forget.
Happy Birthday hun! It's hip to be square :)

Monday, June 21, 2010

Father's Day

For Fathers' Day this year, I decided to try my hand at poaching eggs and hollandaise sauce, i.e. Egg's Benedict.

It was tricky, but it turned out okay and I'm excited to make it a yearly tradition. (Though, probably not much more frequently than that. It's more involved than I typically ask from breakfast.)
I forgot to use the camera all day and forgot to get a shot of my handsome husband ready for church, sporting a boutonniere of fresh garden flowers. (I made 3 to make sure at least ONE of them would turn out looking decent...)
We also had one of Jay's favorite dishes for dinner, and tapioca pudding for dessert.

Here's to the wonderful father of my children. I love you Jay :)

Family BBQ

We had the local fam over for a BBQ and we had so much fun, I forgot to take many pics. Family reunions are going to be sooo awesome in my family- we have a lot of boys about the same age. I just hope we can get another girl in there sometime soon to play with our little woman.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Crochet Flowers!

I've been wanting to take up crocheting for some time now, once I discovered how versatile it is, compared to knitting. I especially want to learn how to do all the borders and embellishments, and though I have attempted to learn by myself before, this week, I actually had some success. My buddy Mel came down to keep me company while Jay was away (he finally gets home tonight! Yay!) and brought an amazing book with her: Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker. Despite the risque title, this gem really knows how to teach you to crochet, as if your good friend is explaining it to you. The pictures are great, and there are a lot of really cute, simple projects to try. I highly recommend it.

So, I spent that night just working on a practice swatch, learning to do a lot of the basic stitches, and at the end of the night, I even tried a popcorn stitch with great success! Last night, I decided to finally crochet a flower. I found a pattern online, but after step one, I completely didn't know how to read this pattern (note that it wasn't a "real" pattern, it was kind of vague and just from someone's blog). Probably a "real" crocheter would have been fine, but I was totally dumb-founded, so I just kind of winged it (wung it?) and this is what I ended up with.

Not to shabby, if I do say so myself... BUT not really cute enough either. So I pressed on. Making this little experiment taught me a lot about what I wanted from a flower, and so between that and looking at another crochet flower a friend made for me, I just made up a pattern as I went and ended up with this:

I'm so pumped to keep experimenting. I should have learned to crochet long ago!

First Summer Swim!

We are going to visit Jay's family for a couple weeks this summer, and most of our time spent out there will probably be at the family lakehouse in MA. We've been gearing up for it for months with The Frog by teaching him to blow bubbles and kick his legs when he takes a bath. This week, my buddy, Melissa, was kind enough to invite us up to swim in her pool, and we took her up on the offer! Despite my distaste at wearing a swimsuit 7 mo pregnant, I thought this was an offer I couldn't refuse. You can't tell, but The Frog is actually kicking in this picture, and you can see how pleased he is about it! He wouldn't blow bubbles just yet (though he didn't mind drinking the water) but I'm hopeful that he'll have a blast swimming around with the fish and his dad at the lake.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Child Labor?

I don't use our vacuum very much because we have a Roomba. (HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend getting one!!) But occasionally, I'll need to break out the canister for a little spot vacuuming and whenever I do, The Frog thinks it's the greatest thing ever. He loves turning it on for me (and off and on and off and on while I'm using it) and pushing the button that retracts the cord. Not to mention pulling off the different attachments and hiding them around the room. Hours of entertainment ;) Well, this is the first time he wanted to try actually using it the proper way, and lo and behold! When I collapse the handle as small as it goes, it's the perfect size for The Frog to use. Look at him go! He was really vacuuming in this shot!
Looks like I've found a new slave... muaahaahaaa

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Water Fun!

I discovered the most blessed outdoor toy ever- the water-filled squirt bottle! The Frog spends minutes on end, even tens of minutes, walking around the yard, sucking out the water and spraying things, including himself. In the face.
Good thing he has a sense of humor!
Why didn't I think of giving him one of these sooner? Perhaps I will be able to get yard-work done, after all! The only downside is that the dirt he used to play in now readily becomes mud. Good thing I bought all his summer clothes 60% off! :)

I also decided to try having him run through the sprinklers, but he completely didn't see what was so fun about it. So then, my genius mind tried to engineer a makeshift water slide, and he spent the whole time fiddling with the hose.

le sigh.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Super Frog!

I had a surge of inspiration and decided to make The Frog a reversible cape from my fabric scraps stash. In my vision, he will eventually have a mask too, but I knew he'd never keep that on right now.

Even though he looks amazing, he doesn't like wearing it. :(

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Memorial Day!

I had so much fun on Memorial Day. We tend to be kind of a humbug family, in that holidays to us (Jay and I) mean resting up and we rarely try to plan any excursions. (Plus, we justify, The Frog is too young to remember anyway, right?) Well, the weather was too good to pass up, and so Jay suggested going to a nearby park after lunch. On our way to the park, we passed the elementary school, and decided the playground looked reputable enough to stop here. I was finally able to take some good pictures of The Frog enjoying himself (without having to worry about his safety) and I think Jay had fun being a kid again too. Here are some of my favorites!








Here's to a memorable Memorial Day!