Kasey in the AM

Kasey is in much need of rest after I wake her up early in the morning to go running with me. (Don't worry, I will hopefully have some CJ videos/pics at some point today).

Our Second Mother's Day

As I did last year, I would like to start by wishing all the moms out there a very happy mother's day! This goes especially for my own mom Cathleen, who has taught me so many things including how to be a good person, and Brian's mom Jan, who raised Brian to be the wonderful dad and husband he is today. And as Kasey reminded me, mother's day is for all you moms out there who have furry, four-legged kids too! Anyway, my original plan of "sleeping in" today morphed into a new plan of running the Mother's Day 5K in Overland Park at 8AM with 3500 other crazy women. I also thought I could bring Christopher along in the jogger but you could only walk with the jogger. The thought of walking a 5K sounds pretty painful to me! Brian was going to bring Chris to watch but when little man woke up this morning, he was coughing and very congested. Being that it was like 45 degrees and windy out, we thought it best for the boys to stay home. And unbelieveably, they don't let you run with your dog so Kasey had to stay home too! When we registered yesterday, the woman signing me up convinced me to get this adorable shirt for CJ, which I thought he would wear at the race.
If you're having trouble seeing it, the shirt says "My First 5K." I couldn't resist, but now we'll have to find another 5K to jog with Christopher. Anyway, it was a good race and I set a PR! My time was 23:26 and I finished 37th out of 3500ish women and 5th out of 338 women in my age group. (I'm allowed to brag a bit... it's mother's day!). It was a great start to the morning. Even better, when I got home, my fabulous and wonderful husband made me chocolate chip pancakes (don't tell my "Healthy for Life" blog). They were yummy and we had a nice morning hanging out together as a family. More than anything today, I am so proud to be Christopher's mother. It is the best job in the world and it is amazing to watch him grow every day of his life!

Can't Stay Away

So we cannot stay away from Lawrence, Kansas. Brian and I had our date night there last week and we returned today. It ended up being another beautiful day here, although a little cool. After Christopher's nap, we drove out for a repeat performance of little man's last trip there. We stopped to play at the park and then enjoyed a nice dinner at the Tenth Street Bistro. Here is a video of CJ playing on the "fire truck."

And although I did not get it on video, there was a funny incident when Christopher got on a bouncy horse (one of four horses, all attached to this one metal circular piece in the middle that a father was standing on and bouncing the kids). The dad slowed down when Chris got on but I said it was okay to go fast and I just held onto him. CJ was laughing SO hard. And one of the other kids started saying something like "aiy, aiy, aiy" and Chris loved that so he said (as loud as he could) "aiyaiyaiyaiyai!!!" and then laughed hysterically. He thoroughly enjoyed himself. In addition to this, he was on the swing for a record-setting 20 minutes and then showed off his balancing skills, as seen in the next video.

Wild Fridays

When I was fresh out of college, Friday nights meant going out on the town with friends. Ah, how times have changed! And I have to say, we have just as much (if not more) fun now spending our evenings with The Buds... Look at how happy he was to discover his new farm:
And here is that bead rollercoaster I was talking about in the previous entry:
I believe that Christopher's favorite new toy was the airplane. He flew it everywhere! The plane also joined us for dinner and helped us water the plants outside.
After a lot of active play, the boys settled down for story time. They read (what else) Curious George. (Notice the airplane joined CJ for this activity too).
And then, of course, it was time for bed. Here was Christopher's reaction when that fact became apparent to him:
Night-night, everyone!

Garage Sale Season

Oh, you know what time it is in Johnson County, Kansas, don't you? You guessed it, garage sale season!!! Kristen was watching Christopher today and Mommy got to go and scope out the scene. The neighborhood next to us had their sale start today and I found some great pants and shorts for the buds. I also located a cool bead "rollercoaster" (pictures to follow if you're not sure what that is) that Chris was very interested in. I also visited a great store today called "Once Upon a Child" that has all second hand clothes and toys. I found a fabulous farm set that Chris has been having some fun with. Here he is playing with the farm animals:

I also went to a fun toy store on the plaza today and found Christopher a little model plane. He has been talking about our plane trip to Baltimore since we returned a week and a half ago and now he has a prop to help him tell his story:

Fun with CJ

When you spend the day with Christopher, you cannot help but enjoy yourself! We started the day with a beautiful walk with Kasey through the neighborhood. This was followed by a trip to yet another one of Johnson County's fabulous community centers to see a storyteller named Priscilla Howe. We met up with some of the moms from my mother's group and listened to some stories, watched some puppets and sang a few songs. Christopher was especially happy when we sang "5 Little Monkeys!" Then this afternoon, we spent over an hour and a half at the trail near our house and boy was there a lot to see today! First of all, we saw five trains. You can imagine Christopher's excitement from this fact alone. More than the trains, CJ is fascinated by the gates that stop the cars when the trains go by. He will talk about these gates whether we are near them or not and will say "gate...down, down, down" while moving his hand down and do the reverse for up. Then he will open and close his hands while saying "flash" (talking about the flashing red lights). I'll try to get that on tape because it's really funny. Anyway, after playing on the slide a bit, we walked through a tunnel and over a bridge to the big pond where we saw white ducks, a blue heron, and many geese. We even saw two geese that had babies! They were so cute and Chris was talking to them saying "honk, honk" and laughing. Then he said "mack, mack" to the ducks (his version of "quack, quack"). On our way back to the car, Chris said hi to at least 6 people walking and riding their bikes. He also tried to join a nice man for a jog. We stopped to check out the stream before returning to our car to head home. Then, when we finished dinner later, Christopher took his little watering can and helped me water all my flowers. This might be the first year I don't kill my flowers because little man will not let me forget to water them for a minute! Anyway, here is a little clip of CJ watching one of the trains go by. It's not very exciting but you can see the intensity with which he watches the train and the gate. Enjoy!

PS- We should take a video of Chris watching this video because he loves it and just says "ding, ding, ding" over and over. (He also loves the sound of the gate!)

Cooking with Christopher

I would like to propose a new show to the Food Network in which a 21 month-old toddler prepares scrumptious meals for his mother, an alligator and his puppy. What do you think?

And here is one more excerpt from our new cooking show...