What a beautiful day...

After school today, we met Grammy at Deanna Rose. The weather was perfect today. As far as I'm concerned, it can stay like this forever. We have never been to the farmstead in the afternoon and it was nice because it was so quiet there and not very crowded. We fed just about every animal they allow you to feed and Chris met his daily swing quota. Here are some cow pictures because, well, I dig cows...

Christopher and I at dinner tonight in Lawrence.

Strutt With Your Mutt

So this morning we went down to Brookside to participate in Strutt With Your Mutt, a fundraiser for a local animal shelter we support called Wayside Waifs. The weather was gorgeous and we had a lot of fun seeing all the other doggies that were there, especially the bulldog wearing a tutu! Many vendors were there, including Pawz at Play, the doggie day care where we bring Kasey and board her when we go away. Snuggles managed to get some treats out of her visit to their booth! Here is our four-legged family member scoping out the course of her 3K walk...

Daddy and Christopher warmed up by racing each other on the trail!

The walk was really lovely, going through the neighborhoods of Brookside and Morningside. You just had to always keep an eye out for where you were stepping! Afterward, we went down to the plaza to have lunch at Eden Alley. Kasey joined us too, as we were able to sit outside and enjoy the nice weather. Here is Chris snacking on some bread and lemonade...

We had an enjoyable morning and now everyone is tired and resting up!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Mooostache

Christopher and Daddy have a little inside joke of late. They pretend to have mustaches but say they have a mooostache. Yeah, I guess you have to be there... Here is Chris at dinner pretending to have a mooostache and then making his "mooostache face."

And then here is buds looking all preppy for church this morning. Grandma Jan, these are the Vineyard Vines pants you sent us a while back!

Just for the Record

I'm writing this so that when we look back at Christopher's life, we can laugh and say, "Remember when Chris was 3 and went through that phase?"


Christopher's new favorite phrase is, "No, I won't." As in...
"No, I won't eat my lunch."
"No, I won't go to sleep."
"No, I won't take a nap."
"No, I won't do what you say."


Is it margarita time yet? 

Old Settlers Day

As if riding a pony wasn't exciting enough, Christopher decided to forgo his nap and we went to Olathe's Old Settlers Day festival. Oh yeah, you know there's some exciting stuff at Old Settlers Day. We saw a side of the local population that we've never seen before. Chris got to ride the carousel with Daddy...

Then he "drove" a big dump truck...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3isQ2hL57BE

And finally, he shared a ride with some other kids in a genuine mustang...

It was a fun afternoon that just added to his fun morning. We even ran into Christopher's friend Maddie while we were there! Hopefully buds is so worn out that he will sleep the night away.

Happy Birthday Olivia!

Today we went to Olivia's 3rd birthday party and Christopher had a blast! We were the first ones there and Olivia went running up to Chris and gave him a huge hug. It was so cute! Anyway, much to Olivia's delight, her parents had pony rides at her party but they hadn't told her ahead of time. Imagine her surprise when a trailer pulled up in front of her house with three little ponies on it. Chris was also excited to ride and went on four different times! Here he is on the ponies and two videos follow with him riding...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2A7j_aJy5Y

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

Chris also got to see his buddy, Luca and his friend, Emily. Here they are playing at the sand table.

And Olivia's baby brother, Elliot, is getting so big! Here is the happy boy playing in his exersaucer.

Another highlight of the party was the bouncy house they had set up after the ponies left. Christopher had a ton of fun in there jumping with his friends. Here he is playing with his friend Aidan followed by a video of him bouncing around. The little girl bouncing with him is Lia, who is a girl from Christopher's class last year and this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0J5SGfrzYI

I would say that all the kids had a wonderful time celebrating Olivia's birthday today, Christopher included.

First day of school!

Christopher is off to his first day of school for the 2011-12 school year! He will be in the older kids day out classroom and his teachers today will be Miss Debbie and Miss Bev. We are all so excited, including the school boy himself! We will let you know how it goes! Here is Christopher practicing being a ham...

I'm Blue, Da ba de, Da ba da...

Here is the result of Christopher's first experience with "blue raspberry," the lollipop he picked after his haircut today...

Yikes! What will we tell the dentist?

S.J.

For those of you who did not previously meet Swim Jacket the Wolf (S.J. for short), he is a wolf that we brought home from our weekend at Great Wolf Lodge over Labor Day. C.J. and S.J. have certainly bonded over the past couple days so Chris decided to bring his new friend to the park to meet his old friend Olivia today. Here he is with S.J. swinging...

Lazy bones

What a life these two have! I mean, seriously... 

Correction

Okay, seriously, the doctors office must have been hallucinating. Christopher is not 42.5 inches tall. More like 40. We stood him up next to the measuring tape at Great Wolf Lodge to make sure he was big enough for certain slides and he still has a way to go. So maybe he'll run cross country instead of playing basketball...

Great Wolf Lodge

Well we all look like prunes on this fine Labor Day because we spent the last two days in the pools of Great Wolf Lodge! This was Christopher's first trip to the indoor water park/hotel/kids heaven and he had an absolute blast. When Chris first entered the water park yesterday, he was amazed at all the fun things he saw...

We spent the next two hours swimming in the pools, going down water slides, getting splashed, and floating down the lazy river. It was fun for all (and brought back memories of Action Park for Mommy and Daddy--c'mon Jersey readers, I know you've been to Action Park!). Finally, Christopher announced that he was ready to dry off so we went up to our room and got cleaned up for dinner. The restaurant was really fun; we got to eat in a pretend tent!

As dinner drew to a close, Chris reflected on his trip so far and talked about his favorite parts. Then he transformed into a wolf!

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

Once he became a wolf, he needed a wolf of his own to add to the pack so he got to stuff his own pet wolf (a la Build a Bear). He named his wolf "Swim Jacket" (don't ask) and S.J. proceeded to join us everywhere for the remainder of the vacation. 

After a proper treat of ice cream, we hung out downstairs in the arcade where Chris made his first attempt at playing skee ball. Let's just say he needs a little more practice! Then, before bed, they have a mass story time for the kids staying at the hotel that we attended. Many kids were in their PJs and brought blankets but we were such party animals that we didn't have time to change into ours. Here is Chris listening to the story...

After a "good" night's sleep, we were all ready at 9 AM when the pools reopened this morning for another few hours of water play. One of the highlights for Christopher of any swimming experience is wearing his life jacket (or swim jacket--do you understand now?). Here he is proudly donning a Great Wolf Lodge swim jacket.

There was so much to do and I think Chris would have stayed at the water park all day long if he could have! One of his favorite things was this huge bucket on top of this play structure that fills up every five minutes and dumps a huge amount of water on everyone. At first he was a little cautious but then he wanted to get right in the middle of the action with all the big kids! Also, there were some bigger water slides for older kids and adults. I wasn't sure if Chris would go with me but after a while, he said he wanted to go. We had to climb quite a ways up and then the two of us went flying down on the big slide (which, of course, also got really dark at one point). It was super fun! I think one ride was enough for buds though. This slide was more his style...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQoJMJrN150

All in all we had a great little Labor Day weekend trip and for once this week, Chris did not fight his nap when we got home. He was ready for some sleep!

Official

It's official. Christopher's full size bed is now put together and Kasey has a new bed to curl up on too!

Party Time!

Happy birthday to Christopher's friend Nico! Nico had his 3rd birthday party today and it was rocket themed, which made our child very happy. The kids had a blast playing in Nico's backyard. There was a bouncy house and a sandbox so Christopher was thoroughly engrossed in both of those things. We are so excited that Chris and Nico have become friends this year and we are looking forward to playing with him more in the near future.

Yesterday Christopher took a good nap and was in a singing kind of mood when he woke up. He really enjoys a Bob Marley song called "Trenchtown Rock," a song that his daddy really likes too. He especially likes the part that goes "groooooovin', groooooovin'." Here is Chris showing off his reggae skills...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfmkf5vdAtc

Big Kid

Christopher is becoming such a big kid, as you can probably tell from recent posts. A couple days ago, we said good-bye to the crib and moved Chris to his big kid bed.

Most kids I knew (myself included) grew up sleeping in a twin bed. Well, that would have been my preference for CJ but his crib converts to a full size bed so there you go. For the first part of the transition, we just put the mattress and box spring on the floor to see how he does. This weekend we'll put the actual frame together to make it official. But regardless, Chris loves his new sleeping arrangements and is telling everyone about it!

We also had Christopher's 3 year check up today and after hearing his numbers, Daddy can't decide whether to make him a goalkeeper, a center, or a pitcher! CJ's weight was 37lbs. (90%) which is really where it has stayed for the past year. His height was 42.5 inches (99%!) which blew us away. And do you know they actually do BMI for little kids starting at 3? Christopher's was 14.5 which is in the normal, healthy range. Crazy! We know Chris has some height running on both sides of his family so we'll see if this 99% thing continues. But our "little" man is certainly growing up!