Water is SO much fun

Christopher has had so much fun with water these past two days. Yesterday we joined Luca and his mom at the Legends outlets to do some back to school shopping and they have this awesome fountain that the boys got to play in. It was a beautiful day and the water felt really good to them! Here is Chris giving his plane a bath...

And then today, after My Gym, we went to Grammy's place to take part in their water party. Chris had a blast running through the sprinklers, playing with water balloons, catching rubber duckies, and blowing bubbles. Here are some pics from our morning...

And we're not quite sure what he was trying to do here with the umbrella. It certainly wasn't raining but I guess it's pretty cool to walk around holding an umbrella three times your size...

After the water activities were done, Christopher found the putting green and showed us that golf is, in fact, too slow a game for him...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQD6K_TDQTU

Look!

We found the yellow brick road! It really is in Kansas...

CJ and Olivia

Chris and Olivia hung out this afternoon and, among other things, they chased each other all over the house, played hopscotch, and made "pillow chairs" as seen in the picture below...

Roller Derby

We returned to roller skating today, and this time we brought friends! Luca joined us today for Tot Skate and the boys had a blast together. There were also a few other kids from my mom's group there. Chris really enjoys skating; I think it's in the genes! Here he is taking a knee while they were doing the daily skate lesson...

He was even more confident on his wheels today. Here he is going on his own... until he got distracted by the lights!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWJXxyPvF-w

So now the question is, when are we going to get him his own pair of skates?

Shhhh, don't wake the...

Our precious little man had a sleepover at Grammy's house last night and Mommy and Daddy went over to the home of a couple we are friends with for dinner, good conversation, and game night. It's weird, however, not having a little voice call out, "Mommy, I neeeeeeeed yooooouuuuu!" from the other room at 7AM. I thought, perhaps, that I would be able to sleep in (HA!) since I didn't have to get up and make breakfast for anyone (on the contrary, my fabulous husband is out picking up the midwest version of egg an cheese bagel sandwiches as I write! thank you Brian!), but if the sun is up, Mommy is up. Never mind, though. We are so grateful that Grammy has helped us out by watching our little Christopher, but I am so excited to see that little guy when we meet at church in a couple hours!

Sporting his new Yankee hat...

Upstate Fun

We have just returned from a lovely visit to upstate New York where we spent a full week with Grandpa T, Nancy, and G.G. It was a busy and relaxing week all at the same time. Christopher even got to meet one of his step-cousins. Here he is with Luca, Nancy's grandson. Notice that Chris is making his "serious face." This was something we saw daily during our visit.

And here is Chris with Grandpa T, Dave and his son Luca...

The boys had a really fun time playing together but the real fun started when Grandpa let the dogs out! Here are Luca and CJ running around with Nadia and Maggie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP88shvlUNE

There is much to do and explore up in the country and Christopher explored everything he could. Grandpa found this old turkey nest while he was working in a field and CJ got to inspect it up close...

Some of the fun things we did while upstate included blueberry picking (wild blueberries, mind you, in a field that the little man had to hike to, trekking through brush and tall grasses), a visit to the Chenengo County Fair to see the 4-H animal exhibitions, swinging from trees, picking veggies from Grandpa's garden (including fresh zucchini and also Chris ate his first straight-from-the-ground carrot), dancing and much more. But sometimes it's the simple things that impress Christopher. Nancy and Grandpa have a slant board to help them stretch their backs and CJ found a new use for it. Jumping! Every day, he jumped and jumped and jumped some more. Here he is getting ready:

And then the big jump!

We also spent a lot of time with G.G. and even ate dinner in her dining hall. Chris received a few compliments on his behavior from her fellow residents.

Then there was the making of the pancakes! Chris was very excited to be using the blueberries that he picked himself to put in his breakfast. And as you can see, he takes his work very seriously.

Another fun thing we did was go to a park in Oneonta for one of their free summer concerts. This time it was a "50s Rock and Roll Band" although we have to use that term loosely. They played some good tunes though and Chris loved dancing with Grandpa and Nancy!

During the concert, Christopher took the initiative and made friends with a little boy named Mason, who was two. It was the first time I saw Chris actually go up to another kid that he didn't know and initiate a friendship. First he pet Mason's dog, then he wanted Mason to chase him and the two were off having a good old time! Later, the two boys joined some of the bigger kids at the foot of the stage for some dancing. Well, the lead singer played right along and gave the kids some hats and instruments and they sang "Don't Worry Be Happy" for them to play along with. Here is Chris in his hat:

 Aside from these children, much of the audience was elderly, with some of them being from G.G's apartment complex. The next day we found out that some of the residents who had seen Chris at dinner, recognized him at the concert and said they got a kick out of his dance moves. Anyway, it was a wonderful trip and as usual, it was great to have Chris spend time with the Turick side of the family. Here is one last picture. It is of four generations of Turick's altogether...

Another funny

We were reading a book called "Space" tonight at bedtime. It's about, well, space. So there's a section about nebulas which is where stars are born. Here was our conversation...

Mommy: Chris, do you remember what this is called?
Chris: A nebula... Mommy what is a nebula? What is it?
Mommy: Well it's a big cloud of gasses where stars are born.
Chris: Hahaha! Gassy. It's like when I'm a gassy pants! Hahaha!

Funny

One never knows where the mind of a three year-old might be going...

Chris: Is Daddy Jesus?
Mommy: Are you thinking that Daddy is like Jesus?
Chris: Yes.
Mommy: Why is Daddy like Jesus?
Chris: Because he makes sure everybody is safe... and he makes sure they don't run too fast!

A Day of Firsts

So today was a very busy morning for Christopher and a morning of firsts as well. Some moms from my meet up group met at Skate City where they hold a "Tot Skate" every Wednesday for kids ages 2 to 6. We had never been before but Chris had so much fun and I'm pretty sure we'll be going back there a lot! We rented the skates that go over his shoes which I was a little skeptical of at first but they ended up being great. The first lap around, Chris held my hand (I was walking next to him--the parents can just walk since there are just little kids there). Then he was on his own! He would not hold my hand anymore! It wasn't until later when he started to get tired that he held on again. He loved it and laughed every time he fell! Soon he really got the hang of it though and thoroughly enjoyed going "fast." (Fast is all relative when you are 3). Here is a brief video of him skating. I apologize for it being a little blurry and that I can't figure out how to rotate the video, so just lean a little to the left! This was at the beginning of our skate so he got much more steady as the morning went on...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU9ty3C-_o0

After some skating, they gave the kids a brief lesson on the basics of skating and then gave them a little snack. The music they played was very fun and Christopher got to go on a "bear hunt," played the freeze game and learned the chicken dance. We will certainly be back!

As if the skating wasn't exciting enough, we also got to go to the dentist this morning! Okay, well maybe that's not as exciting as learning to skate but it was certainly fun for Chris. He felt like a big boy this morning and said, "I like the dentist!" They counted his teeth and gave him a cleaning with chocolate toothpaste (no wonder he liked it). And afterward, he picked a toy out of the "treasure box." The dentist said his teeth look good and after the cleaning, they are very sparkly! Here is Chris in the chair at the beginning of his appointment:

It was a big morning of firsts for our little man!