Meeting Uncle Scott

My brother, Scott, is in town for a few days this week to help his mom out. Unfortunately, the weather has been really snowy, but the boys and I braved the roads last night so Adler could meet his uncle. Adler, as I think many babies are, is a bit more grumpy in the evening and so this was the only time I was able to get a shot of Scott with Adler. Due to the snow, we decided to stay overnight. Entertaining a 2 year old for more than 24 hours indoors can be challenging, but lucky for us, grandma and papa are prepared for anything. Here is how we spent our day.

Playing trains with grandma.Reading Uncle Remus stories on Papa's lap (this is one of my best memories of a kid, papa can do the voices just right!)
Watching Bob Builder in a "yittle" chair.
Adler snoozing in a big bed.
LT napping on a little pull out couch in a little sleeping bag (with brown B of course.)Big Thomas needed to be fixed a lot while we were there. He used tools such as elastic to fix it.
The boys snuggled in bed before naptime.
Adler asleep in a big bed again, different one this time.
Adler joining in on the adult conversations in a big chair.
Snoozing again in his carseat. We made it back home to daddy tonight, roads were totally fine. The boys did great being away from home, and my parents were very helpful, but it sure is nice for me to have some of our baby/toddler comforts of home (crib, pack n play, proper sized diapers for Adler and LTs snacks!)

Few Quotes

LT (as do most 2 year olds) says really funny things all day long. Unfortunately, I always think I will remember everything and don't write it all down, but here are a few quotes from the past two days that, I think, are worth writing.
Yesterday while I was cutting onions for soup:
LT, "Mommy, why you crying?"
Me: "Because onions make me cry, LT"
LT: "Well, onions make ME happy!"

We are having a major snowstorm in Denver right now. My older brother flew in for a few days and last night was the only night I thought we would be able to see him. The boys and I drove through what I thought was going to be horrible road conditions (but ended up not being too bad) and made it for dinner. I brought a few diapers and a change of clothes for each of us just in case we needed to sleep over. Luckily I did that because the roads today are pretty awful and we are stuck here again (but get to see Scott another time!)
I asked LT if he wanted to stay here tonight again. His response: "YES! Can I nap here too?!"

Working again

Today was first real snow of the season and LT donned the puffball outfit and his green mittens and went out to help mom shovel the snow. I helped by standing on the porch and taking pictures.

The Girl Next Door

Nearly a year and a half after we moved into the north side of the 'plex we finally have neighbors! That's right, someone was actually foolish or desperate enough to move into the 'plex next door and live 'attached' to us. We've only talked with them a few times but they seem like nice people complete with a dog, lots of skis and bikes, a Subaru and a Jeep (sound familiar?). They also have a little girl around the age of six that LT absolutely adores.

Two weekends ago LT helped rake leaves but insisted on wearing his babose [dog] foot jammies (he also went to Tenn St. on his trike in the same outfit prior to the yard work).

This picture is included to dispel any rumors that LT only works. He's a work hard, play hard kind of guy.

Both the work and the play stopped, however, when our new neighbors arrived and LT focused all his effort on impressing his new friend. Above he's trying to make small talk while holding his stuffed cat and wearing his foot jammies. What can I say? The kid's got game.

At least she likes cats...

She is actually really good with him considering she's nearly three times his age. Still, it's pretty clear that the interests of a six year old girl are a little different than those of a two year old boy. I'm afraid poor LT might just be at the beginning of a long and disappointing struggle for her attention.

Adler has some friends too!

We were supposed to go to a pumpkin patch again on Thursday, but the temperature was in the 30s. I decided to host the play date at our house at the last minute. LT had lots of his friends come, Ewan, Joe, Zack, Isaac, Sophia, Sofi, and Ofelia. Two of LTs friends, Ewan and Isaac, had baby brothers born within weeks of Adler and so they were there as well! Isaacs little brother is named Jonah and Ewan's brother is Holden. They don't know each other exist at this point, but I am hoping that Adler will enjoy their company soon enough as LT enjoys all of his buddies. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of Holden.
Isn't this how all second babies are, just being carried around from place to place to entertain the older sibling?MC (Isaac's mom) holding Jonah, born September 27th.

Yittle Hands and Yittle Feet

[Con]'Struction Thursday

LT and his friends often have play-dates on Thursday mornings. Our basement still isn't finished so our house is kind of in chaos but Kari was nice enough to host the most recent one at our place. Perhaps two year old's just like tools or maybe LT is trying to recruit his buddies to finish the work downstairs but the toy tools and construction* stuff was a big hit on Thursday morning.


In the last post, Kar said we have no pictures of Joe which isn't entirely true but here's another one. You can see the tape holding the orange hardhat together - LT and I repaired it a few weeks ago with packing tape after he jumped on it and broke it into several pieces. Unfortunaly due to this and similar Rube Goldberg repair jobs, LT seems to think that anything can be fixed with a little tape.

Sofia showing that construction and tools aren't just for boys.


No hardhat for Sofi with her hair all done up.



* When LT says construction he drops the "con" part and it comes out 'struction

Joe

I realized that I mention Joe in my blogs, but haven't posted a picture of him yet. This is partly due to my lack of camera skills. I have never been good about taking pictures and now, with two kids, I can barely get them out of the house with diapers, snacks, and toys, let alone a camera. Brian bought a new camera, but I am too afraid to take it places and my little point and shoot camera has been out of batteries for weeks. I have plenty of batteries, but they are upstairs and the camera is downstairs and well.... I have no excuse. I will try to be better about taking pictures.
The other reason that I don't have many pictures of Joe is that he is an ATHLETE! He is so fast, that unless you have camera skills comperable to a sports photographer, it is easy to miss him. He does, however, love to snuggle and so here is a picture of Joe with Shawn.
Shawn and Shannon (Joe's mom) went to high school together. They had lost contact, but found each other this past spring on Facebook and realized that they had toddlers just weeks apart in age! We are so happy to have met and gotten to know Shannon, Dan and Joe.

Personalities...

LT and Z are really great buddies, but have totally opposite personalities. When they play trains, one has to drive the trains clockwise, the other counter clockwise. LT has to have a crack in the track (broken track) and Z wants everything perfectly set so the trains can run on it. LT can't eat enough food (mostly kid food), Z needs to be reminded to eat (and then loves sushi and shrimp). LT asks for his nap, Z asks to pull all nighters. LT can be a pretty serious kid (although lately he has declared himself a "jokester") and Z has always laughed hysterically at everything. We took Shannon (Joe's mom) to dinner for her birthday tonight. We went to a pizza place that gives the kids little amounts of pizza dough to play with.LT took the dough and his fork and started eating the raw dough, you put food in front of LT and he eats it!
Z made a train track out of the dough, you put food in front of Z and he finds a way to play!

More Pictures from Anderson Farms

LT proud to have found yet another "punkum" in the pumpkin patch.

Playing on the train and making "woo woo" train sounds.

Sofia.

Sofia and her dad.


Riley and her dad.

Ofelia

The boys discovered a few more "punkums" on the way out.

Gymnastics

Landon, Zack, Joe and Ewan all take gymnastics every Tuesday morning. Sometimes the best part is the picnic snack outside after class. Above you can see LT and Zack enjoying some quality buddy time today on the bench!

Punkums

LT is obsessed with "punkums" right now. I dug out a book about halloween from my literally hundreds of books from when I taught. It is called, "Biscuits Halloween" and LT loves it. The book is very basic about a dog, Biscuit. It has a little story on each page about different halloween events, pumpkin patch, dressing up in costumes, trick or treating etc. He has me read and re read it. My mom brought over some pumpkins and helped LT decorate our house and our neighbor, Diane, has been growing pumpkins for LT which he checks on periodically. Yesterday, LT and a bunch of his friends went to Anderson Farms, which is a huge farm that puts on a grand "fall festival". One thing you can do is take a hayride out to a pumpkin patch and pick a pumpkin. I don't think I have seen LT any happier than he was in the fields of pumpkins. There were thousands and he could have spent hours there. The pumpkin vines would trip him, he would fall, wipe off his knees and tromp around some more, looking for pumpkins (not too hard to find in a pumpkin patch!) Seeing LTs smile, seriousness and absolute adoration for the pumpkin patch was one of the best moments I have had with him as a mom.
I really wish we lived closer to my grandparents in MA. Grandpa is a farmer and grows pumpkins each year in his garden. LT would love exploring and playing in the pumpkin patch.

Little LT

Its really hard not to compare the two boys, despite my best efforts. I am sure they will be more different than they are the same, but looking back at pictures of LT at Adler's age, they looking strikingly similar. Adler has a lot more dark hair than LT had at his age and I think, though could be magically forgetting, that Adler is a bit chunkier than LT was (which I think is absolutely adorable!)
Brian and I both think the boys will be great friends (probably a bit, or a lot, of fighting along the way!) LT adores his brother, he wants to wake him up to play, hold him, kiss him, help him "be happy" when he's crying. Adler, not always, but often, settles down when he hears LTs voice. Next to my voice, LT has been with Adler since conception the most out of anyone. I am sure there is something very soothing about his brothers voice.
Smile? We think so! It was about the same time with LT that we were wondering if he was truly smiling.

A Fall Afternoon

On Tuesday afternoon my mom watched LT while Kari went to the dentist (and took Adler). I was trying to work but it was hard to ignore the little shrieks of delight from LT coming from right outside my office window. Eventually I decided to take my camera out on the balcony and try and sneak a few pictures.

Hugging trees (I blame Peter for this).

Bury the kid in leaves!

It wasn't long before LT caught me surreptitiously taking pictures. You can see him smiling and pointing at me here - proud of his discovery.


I headed down to the front yard just in time to catch LT stealing the hat off of the Halloween scarecrow and running across the yard declaring, "I'm a farmer!"

Then it was Sam's turn to get buried in leaves.

Worker

LT is all about "working". Despite our best efforts to get him just to "play", he wants to "work". He loves helping grandma in our garden (lucky for him, my mom is a wonderful gardener and thanks to her we actually have a decent looking front yard!) He helps dad "work" on various projects in the house and he helped Madeleine work in our backyard gardening. He "works" by helping Papa unload and load the dishwasher and cook. He "works" picking tomatoes with uncle Steve and "works" to fix his house (jungle gym in our living room). Today, he helped me rake the piles and piles of leaves (7 bags full and we didn't even finish nor do we even have a tree!). After we had raked a huge pile of leaves, I said, "LT do you want to jump and play in the leaves". He replied, "Nope, I am working mama, not playing" and went back to raking leaves. We are both glad that he enjoys working, but sometimes wish he just wanted to play!

Baby Adler Pictures