Cooking with a Two Year Old

We have a small kitchen to begin with so if you add a small child that likes to sit on the counter when Mommy is cooking, then you are looking at some small space to do any kind of culinary work. Thankfully I found a recipe for some blueberry muffins that only needed five ingredients, so we had enough room to do our work and even found a spot for the fire chief's hat.

Location:Cooking with a Two Year Old

Tripp's Second Birthday

Today was Tripp's 2nd birthday and it was probably one of the best days of his life so far as well as one of mine. It brings a tremendous amount of joy to me to watch him get so excited about things. Perfect example: When he saw the car of his friend who was coming over to play this morning he came running to me and said "Mommy, this is so fun!"
We started the morning at the donut shop eating breakfast.


Then we headed to the fire station with a friend for a visit.


Even though Tripp has been to the station lots before, he could tell this was a special time- even the fire fighters were excited for his birthday (probably cause we gave them some cupcakes)!


We opened presents and then finished off the day with dinner and custard with Nonny and Papa.


What a great day!

Birthday Bike

Tripp has been wanting a bike for a long time and we finally decided on one to get him. So this weekend we got him an early birthday present- a new trike (or bike to him). He also made sure that we got a helmet for him too since all other bike riders wear helmets. I think if he could sleep and eat on this bike he would- he loves it!

Happy Easter

Note to self: when you go out of town Easter weekend, you should probably go ahead and buy the groceries you will need to make the dish you are supposed to bring to Easter dinner. If you don't and wait till Sunday, all the stores will be closed and you will be making something up out of the almost empty pantry that you have. But that's how new traditions are started right? Besides me forgetting about the cheesy potato casserole I was supposed to bring to my parent's, we had a great Easter complete with an Easter egg hunt (inside since it was raining) and some delicious food.

(maybe one day he will learn to smile better for pics)

Tripp got some new animals in his Easter basket and was mesmerized by a little wind-up flipping dog my mom got him.

In other news...

I'm pregnant! Yep, we are expecting number two around the beginning of November. It's been a totally different and crazy pregnancy so far, but we are thankful for this babe, and I am really thankful for modern medicine. More on all this later, just wanted to share the good news!

The best weekend ever

Ok so that might be a bit of an overstatement but not by much. Let's just say that last weekend and the beginning of last week were pretty rough with sickness and some other things and then the week continued to get worse with the culmination of it being Tripp falling down a whole flight of stairs and landing on concrete on Thursday. He is fine, but I am really not sure yet if I am. I saw the whole thing happen (it's a story that I don't really feel like telling again) and I haven't really been able to get it out of my mind yet. Anyway, all of that to say that it was just one of those weeks that nothing seems to go right. Until Friday. While everyone in St. Louis was busy hanging out in their basement because of tornadoes, we were off in Washington, MO enjoying some amazing family time at a log cabin on a farm. It's really a bed and breakfast but you get the whole cabin to yourself. And you can go anywhere on the farm. So for an almost two year old who loves farms, this was almost too much to take it. We got up close and personal with the "cock-a-doos" (roosters) and also hung out with some cows (or as my dad, the cow expert, later told me- some white-faced black angus).

The whole reason the little get-a-way even evolved was because we wanted to take Tripp on a train ride. So on Saturday, after an awesome breakfast at the cabin (part of which included some fresh eggs from the chickens living right outside our door), we got on the train and headed to Hermann. Tripp couldn't believe that there really is a such thing as a conductor in real life who really comes by to get your ticket. So we heard a lot of this while we were riding: "Where's the conductor?" and then "Where'd the conductor go?" Then after looking around: "Here he is! I found him!" this was repeated numerous times throughout the 20 minute ride (at which point we were really thankful we were only on the train for 20 minutes). We were back in time for naps for everyone and then just spent the afternoon around the farm. .




After one more great night, we drove back on Sunday morning just in time for church! This was definitely one of our best weekends together- no other pressures, distractions, or even people to take us away from each other. We are definitely planning on going back!

In true toddler form, Tripp was imitating me the other day by carrying around a purse (he even put the strap around his neck like me since I have a messenger bag). He would say things like "Mommy has a purse, Tripp has a purse."

I was fine with it for a while until my mom told me that one day when he was at their house with the purse, he went up to the contractor working on their basement and said "Do you like Tripp's purse?" My mom said that thankfully the man didn't hear cause she was afraid of how he would answer or what the contractor might think of her grandson. So we promptly decided to order him a backpack (one with a fire truck of course) and it has barely left his back since it arrived on the front porch.