For the birds

Of all the fun places we have here in Kansas for Christopher to play, I believe his favorite has to be the trail by our house. The trail system out here is fantastic and the particular trail we go to is 15 miles long in total.  (No he hasn't walked the whole thing yet, but he did walk over a mile and a half straight on Saturday when it was so nice out!) Over the past week, we have gone to different parts of this trail literally every day. Chris loves to walk, run, and explore on the trail. We've even hiked up an unpaved part to the top of a ridge to watch the trains go by! (On his way up, CJ says, "I think I can, I think I can" during the steep parts).  I often come home with my pockets full of Christopher's treasures that he finds along the way. We've explored the trail so much that Chris is becoming a birding expert. There are tons of birds to see there including red tail hawks, great blue herons, ducks, geese, blue jays, cardinals, etc. We've also seen some beautiful woodpeckers-- two different types in fact. One is the red-headed woodpecker and the other is the red-bellied woodpecker. They don't look very different from each other, but Chris knows the difference. When we were watching our bird feeder in the backyard today, one of them flew onto it. Chris says, "Red-bellied woodpecker, Mommy!" and indeed he was correct.

As much as he loves being out in nature, his favorite part of the trail is the "choo-choos" he gets to see there. We were fortunate enough to see five trains while at the trail this morning and a very cool thing happened with one of them. We were out in the open and Chris was standing there watching the train go slowly by. The driver must have seen him because he opened the engine's window, waved to us, and blew the horn especially for CJ! You can imagine how excited our little man was as he waved back and gave his own best "choo choo!" It was a fun morning!

Christmas Decor

We hope all of our readers had a lovely Thanksgiving! Ours was quiet this year and we spent the day watching the Macy's parade with Chris, making homemade playdough, and eating our holiday food...

I like to wait until the day after Thanksgiving to put up our Christmas decorations and Christopher helped me do it with much enthusiasm! I remember setting up the tree last year and worrying about the fate of our ornaments as last Christmas was our little boy's first as a toddler. He was so good with the tree last year, but I already see that there will be some ornament casualties this season! He usually stops playing with the ornaments when I tell him too, but he is two and impulse control is not high on his list. (Dear Santa, This year I would like a toy plane, blocks, and the ability to control myself when necessary!). He is thoroughly enjoying the season so far, however. Here is a video of Chris enjoying some of the things we have put out in the house this year...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jhF_UJ38nE

Laundry boy

My, my, I sure do love doing laundry! When my clothes get all messy and smelly from my endless days of playing, there's nothing I like better than to give them a good scrubbing in the washing machine. Say, would you like me to do your laundry too? I only charge $25 per hour. For that price, I can sort your laundry, bag it...

... and drag it down the hallway to your washing machine...

... and supplied with a properly-sized step stool, I'll even put in the detergent along with the clothes!

I do charge extra for drying and folding, but if you just want me to do the sock sorting game, I will happily throw that in, free of charge. Contact me for details!

Such big kids!

Okay, seriously? Will you look at these two big kids? Can you even believe how much they've grown? It's so fun to see Chris and Olivia and how they've become these big kids together! I mean, they're not even toddlers anymore. Olivia came over to play this morning and, after Kasey was finished giving her kisses, she got to play with Chris. The two of them literally played with every toy in the house and then some and they had a wonderful morning together! Here are some more pics...

Brrrr!

Well, I guess considering that it is November, the weather is supposed to get chillier, isn't it? After a cloudy morning (and a nice run for Mommy where she could see her breath the whole way!) the sun came out and we got outside to play. Buds is sporting his new fleece hat and looks as cute as ever, in my modest opinion. Anyway here is some footage of Christopher exploring the great outdoors (and getting some good vitamin D, Grammy) before his nap. He is currently recharging for his friends Lahna and Liam, who are bringing their parents over for dinner tonight. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuRhExvC-SE

Open gym

So, thanks to Jaime and Olivia, we have now discovered a fabulous new place for indoor fun. With the weather starting to cool down, we need to expand our options beyond the local parks. Anyway, we met Olivia and Jaime at Emerald City Gym which is a place where they teach actual gymnastics but have an open gym time for an hour each day. The only things the kids don't get to play on are the uneven bars, horse, vault and 4 foot balance beams, and would you want our little monkey on that stuff anyway? Everything else is fair game, though, including a rope swing and foam pit, trampolines, huge slides, obstacle courses and the bouncy floor that gymnasts use in their floor routines (and when I walked on it, I now understand how they do all those super high flips--it's really bouncy!). Anyway, Buds was in heaven and it's just too bad they don't have open gym all day! His favorite part on Wednesday (although not today when we went with Maddie!) was the three person swing. Here are some more pics...

 

Man, I wish I was two again. This place is super fun!

Goings on

Much has been going on in the life of little Chris Woglom these days. It is very busy being a two year-old, you know! First of all, we watched the condensed version of the New York City Marathon last night on TV and Chris liked what he saw. I told him that I ran the race 8 years ago, but I'm afraid he thought I was running the race we were watching. Hence, he kept saying "Go Mommy go!" when they showed the lead women's pack. (I could only dream to run that fast!) He was also not apt to sit while watching the race. He would watch for a minute and then take off around the family room. He also ran zig zags saying "go crazy" while he did it. The boy loves to run! And you are hearing it here first: when we watched the men's winner cross the finish line, I said "There's the winner Chris. He wins the race." Christopher said, "Chris." I said, "Chris wins the race? Are you going to win the marathon?" And our little runner gave us a definitive "YES!" Mark his words... Chris had a blast yesterday at his friend Lucy's birthday party. Not only did he get to play with her toy planes, but he also got to stay up past his nap time and he had a cupcake (plus another one after dinner). Christopher adores Lucy and even sang "Happy Birthday" to her. It was truly adorable. Here is Chris playing with one of her planes as well as one of his own...

Because of the time change this weekend, we let Chris stay up a little later on Saturday. Since Mommy and Daddy got to go out on Friday evening (yay!) we all just chilled at home and played until late. Christopher likes to make himself comfortable, that's for sure. I think he was having flashbacks to when he used to sleep on Daddy's chest as a baby. Only, now he weighs a whole lot more and it's not quite as cozy for Daddy!

 

New Video

I'm not sure what was in the pancakes this morning (perhaps some supercharged blueberries?) but Christopher was on his A game this morning. He was exploring the laws of gravity with this little blue ball we found on the beach in San Diego. He was also trying out his throwing arm which, I have to admit, could use a little work. The cutest part of this video (in my opinion) is when he says, "Ball, come back, come back, come back!" Enjoy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uhQMce1qic

How you doin'?

My little man

I wish I could videotape the entire story hour at the library and put it up on this blog so you could see how stinkin' cute Christopher is during it. That's right, I'm a proud, gushing mother right now. So be it! This is the second week in a row that we've gone to story time at Lackman Library and Chris knows what to do. First of all, the man who runs it is also named Chris so our little man likes that whole idea. CJ goes in, gets his little carpet square and sits down to listen. He listens so well to the stories and occasionally answers questions that Mr. Chris asks. In between stories, the kids get up and sing and dance to songs. CJ watches very carefully and catches on quickly and it is so awesome to watch him! Today they sang "Six Little Ducks" and the first time through he watched and soaked it all in. Then the second time through he did all the movements along with Mr.Chris. It is so highly enjoyable that I don't want it to end. Now, when we go play with the trains in the library afterward, that's a different story ("No sharing, Mommy.") :)

By the way, if you want to see the cutest Halloween tiger ever, click on the Bennett Chen Da Ching Pariso blog on my blog list. This kid is so cute!