Pictures from our day

Here are just some fun pictures from our ordinary Saturday, starting with buds and Kasey...

And then some funny ones from our dinner this evening...

Our birthday gift to Christopher was a new big boy bike. Here he is trying it out! He still has to get the hang of peddling but we made it down the sidewalk at least...

Little Bunny Foo Foo

Today was Christopher's last day of the summer session of Kindermusik. As you can see, the kids made bunny ears and sang songs about creatures that you find wandering in the grass. As usual, we will miss Kindermusik and can't wait for it to start up again in September!

And CJ made a statement today that, as a Space Camp alumna, warmed my heart: "Mommy, I will be an astronaut when I grow up and I will fly to the moon and I will be a pilot of the rocket and I will use the astronaut potty." I couldn't be prouder...

The Old Ballgame

Here is Christopher's rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxRv6MKn8ns

Party time!

On Saturday morning, Christopher was excited to go to his friend Emily's birthday party. The two kiddos are only a week apart in age. Emily's party was at a great place called Franklin Park in Prairie Village and it was one we had not been to before. There is a little man-made stream system there that the kids can play in (as seen in the picture above) and mucho sand, which of course made our boy very happy! Another bonus of this park was that it was mostly in the shade, which we appreciated as we are entering our third week of triple digit heat. All the kids were having a great time and it got even better when the cupcakes and cake arrived!

Notice that Chris is just working his way up to the front to get a closer look!

Today we went to the brand new outdoor pool at our gym. It is fabulous! Zero entry, lots of shallow water, waterfalls, fountains, and a splash park. But the highlight of the pool was watching Christopher jump off the side, into the water. The boy has no fear! And his jumps got bigger and bigger. He had his arm swimmies on and I was catching him so he was pretty confident. A couple times, I let him dunk his head a little when he jumped because he really wants to go under. And then, there was a point when he said, "Okay Mommy. You back up a little so I can do a really big jump, alright?" I stood about four feet out and he jumped about three of those feet. It's fun to seem him get better and better at this! Obviously I have no pictures of this, as my hands were occupied with keeping Chris afloat. We were at the pool for two hours and if it wasn't for lunch time, we would have stayed longer. The boy is a fish!

I love my plane!!!

Thank you Grandma Jan and Grandpa Eric!

Birthday Celebration #3

Yikes! I was on such a roll updating the blog and now it's been 4 whole days! Anyway, on Christopher's actual birthday we went to Spin Pizza for dinner. This was CJ's choice and his parents were very happy about it, as we are totally down for Spin anytime. We brought Grammy along with us to celebrate and Chris chowed down on the yummy kids cheese pizza and complementary gelato...

And then Christopher found out that there was no cake. How did he react?

Just kidding! We brought a leftover piece of his birthday cake to the restaurant with us. Even though he was totally caked up the whole weekend, we figured a boy has to have cake on his actual big day. By the way, that is Christopher's "serious" face. After he makes it, of course, he completely cracks up, as do we all!

Birthday Boy

Christopher spent the first part of his 3rd birthday hanging out with his buddy, Luca! The boys were busy for a while in the backyard making more sand pies until it got too hot to be out anymore. These two are becoming the best of buds! Later we are off to Spin Pizza, Christopher's choice for his birthday dinner...

A Baptism and Makin' Mud Pies

Today we went to Olivia and Elliot's church to celebrate Elliot's christening. It was a beautiful service and we were happy to partake in the day's festivities! Here is Chris with Elliot afterwards...

And one of the gifts Chris received yesterday from Luca was a great toy called Makin' Mud Pies. For starters I thought we should just make some sand pies, as they are sure to be less messy. Here is Chris whipping up a sand pie this afternoon in the little bit of shade we could find. Grandma Jan, check out the mixer!

Birthday Celebration #2

Christopher had his big birthday bash at My Gym this afternoon with ten of his closest friends. It was so wonderful to be in one place with all of the wonderful friends we've met out here in Kansas! Our only friend who was missing was Maddie and her mother Randa but Randa has a good excuse because she just had a baby a week ago. Anyway, the kiddos went crazy today running around, playing, and just having a good old time. Here is Christopher with Nico jumping on the trampoline...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p_EF5V8I5o

The kids did some exercise and played games at circle time; then they were able to just have free play for awhile. Here is a video of a game the children played where they had to be different animals followed by miscellaneous pictures of the fun...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk_9gVYQqlw

And then, of course, here is Chris with his favorite little guy, Connor...

After all the fun and games, it was time to get down to the serious business--the cake! But before the cake, there was the "birthday sled." That's right, the birthday sled. There really is no explanation for this so just go ahead and watch the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xMh37r4CQ8

After that craziness, the cake happened!

And finally, after some major cleaning up and wiping down, the kids were able to go back and play for the last little bit of the party. They finished up with the zip line! Here is Chris on the zip line. I have to say, this video does no justice to the look on CJ's face as he zipped across the room. Let's just say his eyes were opened about as wide as I've ever seen them!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SxmKEFz174

It was a fantastic party AND we didn't even have to clean up. Fabulous! Thank you to all of our friends who joined us for the big day!

Air Show

We went down to the New Century Airport this morning to see the Commemorative Air Force's air show. More than anything, it was a way to get a close up look at some of these great military planes including the bomber you see in the picture above. As you can imagine, Christopher was in plane heaven! There were planes everywhere and you could see them taking off and landing and even "buzzing" the air field. Chris even got to sit in the cockpit of a real fighter jet!

You were able to get up close to some of the planes on display. Here is CJ marveling at the landing gear...

For good family measure, we took a picture of him in front of a Navy plane...

Overall, we had a great time checking out all the planes and Christopher did not stop talking about the planes the whole time we were there! Now he is resting up for the big party this afternoon. Updates to come!

Birthday Celebration #1

Okay, people. We're approaching the big 3 and today was Christopher's first celebration of that milestone. After My Gym with Luca, my mom's group had a gathering of all the kids with July birthdays. Christopher's friend Emily was there with, of course, Christopher's favorite 1 year-old on the planet, Connor. When we got there, CJ spotted the coolest cake ever on the picnic table-- a mermaid cake with M&Ms on it that Emily's mom made. Emily loves "The Little Mermaid" and that is going to be her party theme next week so she did a trial run of the cake and we all voted it a success! Then the kids played and played, despite the crazy heat. This was a new park for us and it was really fun! Chris is fine as long as there are swings and this park had them. They also had this crazy rope structure that CJ found quite interesting...

One of the moms brought these big birthday stickers too for all the kids and I actually let Chris keep his on during nap time, which made him very happy. Anyway, this was just the first of our celebrations. Tomorrow is the big party day which will be at My Gym with all of his friends. And shhhh, don't tell buds but Daddy found info about this air show going on at one of the small local airports so we might check that out this weekend too. They have a B-52 there! Christopher will be in heaven!

Cheeeeeese!

Today's smile...

Thank You!

This week we've started receiving birthday presents for the birthday boy. We happened to open one today and it was a figure 8 Thomas set with a water tower. I just want to say thank you to whoever sent it! The order didn't come with a name anywhere on it to say who it was. So whoever the mystery person is, Christopher thanks you from the bottom of his heart!

What do I do with this?

Unsure of what to do with this new sweet treat he got after his haircut, Christopher makes his best attempt to enjoy a lollipop...

Holy Hot

Due to the unGodly heat today, we decided to bust out the old school sprinkler in which Christopher had a wonderful time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw4o8VfPXiY

Special thanks to Grandma Jan for the new swim suit!

Chicago

So I have a good excuse for leaving town this weekend--want to see it?

Yeah, he's a cutie, isn't he. That is my friend Chrissie's little man, Bennett. I went to Chicago to visit the Chen-Pariso's residence and enjoyed what is quickly becoming my second favorite city. I missed my little man tremendously but it was very nice to not have to make breakfast for anyone (or lunch or dinner, for that matter). I enjoyed my time with everyone, especially Baby Bennett!

Ummmm

Has anyone seen my mom? I seem to have misplaced her. No matter, though. Daddy and I are having a really crazy time without her. Love you Mom!

Love,
CJ

A Solo

Who knew our son has some musical ability in his genes. Well, okay, he needs to work a little on his tuning but his love of singing cannot be questioned. Here is his rendition of "Let There Be Peace on Earth" performed at Lahna and Liam's house this morning...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COUaAXNzZhk

Read, read, read

Sometimes I feel like all we do all day is read with Christopher. I'm certainly not complaining. No sir, not this teacher with an added degree in reading education! But we often start the day with books, read before rest time and night time, and recently we have been listening to stories on CD that we get out of the library. It's fun to hear Chris retell the stories he hears throughout the day or even make up his own words to the books he has. I never get tired of it!

Outdoor Day

Our morning child was up and ready to go this morning, the day after Independence Day. We were going to meet Luca at Splash Cove but that wasn't until 10:30 so we had some time to fill before that. It was hot this morning but not too bad at 9AM, so we went for a hike over at Ernie Miller Nature Center. First we went into the center and saw some amazing birds at their bird feeder set-up and even got a private visit with a Great Horned Owl and its caretaker. Our hike was nice and Chris found some very colorful leaves to bring home with us. Soon, it was off to the pool! We went to Splash Cove in Shawnee last year but Chris is a whole different animal this summer and he is enjoying it even more. Here he is playing with some of the toys he brought from home...

CJ went down the slide this year all by himself. We brought his swimmies too and he was using them in the wave pool. That is, until the life guard told me they are not "coast guard approved" so he's not allowed to use them in the pool. (My first thought: Soooooo, I am to take them off and then my child has no form of floatation?) But then she said I could get a life jacket at the front desk. We did that and Chris loved it. In fact he said, "This life jacket is cool. Can we take it home?" He really enjoyed the wave pool with it on and I could relax a little...

Now he's ready to go boating! Anyway, we had a lovely morning and a nice lunch with Luca after swimming. Now we all need a nap!

It's my day off

Hey, quit bugging me. I'm trying to enjoy my day off! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

A Perfect Day

We had a wonderful Fourth of July morning as we trekked out to Clinton Lake in Lawrence for a day of swimming and playing in the sand. It was Christopher's first open water swim and what can we say? The boy loved it! I'm pretty sure that if he didn't have to take a nap, he would have stayed in the lake all day long. We took some breaks from the water to build sand castles, of course. And Daddy thoroughly enjoyed his day off from work...

The combination of water and sand is perfect for CJ. We brought some of his sandbox toys for him to build with. Here he is, hard at work...

After some more swimming and sand playing, we washed up and had a lovely picnic of PB&Js and stayed cool in the shade...

And what better way to celebrate America's birthday than with a stop at the place that America supposedly runs on, Dunkin' Donuts? There are officially three Dunkin' Donuts in Kansas and Lawrence has one of them. I often feel obligated to stop at a D and D, just because it's there, so we got coffee and three munchkins to round off our picnic! It was a beautiful day and now buds is resting up for later because Grammy is coming to dinner for some vegan sloppy joes and corn on the cob. Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Piggy and Kasey

So Christopher brought Piggy out this morning to read some stories with us and left Piggy on Kasey's (that's right, Kasey's) chair. A little time passed and when we looked over later, Kasey was snuggled up with Piggy! Chris then joined his two favorite animals for some snuggle time...

Kasey didn't seem to mind. We can't seem to get a straight answer from Piggy, however.