Football Players

We have a quasi-tradition of getting donuts on Sunday morning. We used to go to the "Donut Shop" (aka Ray's Donuts) but after going to Schnucks one morning when Ray's was closed, we all had to admit that we liked the Schnucks' donuts better. So ever since, we have been going there and have bonded quite a lot with the Sunday morning donut crowd (apparently other people have figured out where the tastier donuts are as well). Well, this morning, Tripp was so excited to see a "great big football player" (blow up figure) inside Schnucks! So excited in fact, that the "pay lady" (cashier) sensed his excitement and thought it would be great if he got his picture taken in front of it. So at 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning, we were the strange people in our pajamas taking pictures inside a grocery store in front of the blow up football player.

The "Festibal"

We had a "festibal" (or festival for those of us that can pronounce both "v" and "b") this weekend in our neighborhood and it was a lot of fun. Free rides, delicious funnel cakes, and the highlight- a fire truck and ambulance parked there at all times for all to see, climb on, talk about, etc. We even entered the raffle for dinner at the fire station, prepared by the fire fighters. I can only hope we would be so lucky as to win. We talked with our favorite fire fighter to see what he could do as far as pulling some strings and helping us win. So we will see.

Tripp loved the parade (and I loved the fact that it came down the street right behind our house so we didn't have to go far at all to see it). He was extra excited to see the bands and the "bandleaders" since we had just recently got Curious George and the Parade from the library. The bandleader is very important in that book.

He also really loved the car ride at the festival. So he rode it quite a few times with some different friends on different occasions.

(please notice the fire gear showing up in this picture- Tripp was very excited to show it off to the firemen during one of our visits to the fire trucks)

And as always, it is always so fun to see your kid enjoy fun things in life. There are not many other feelings that compare to that!

Halloween Comes Early

A certain someone's Halloween costume came already and he is super excited about it.


I have a feeling we will have a lot of "emergencies" around our house soon so that that certain little boy will have a lot of excuses
to put on his gear, use his megaphone and go fight some fires!

My favorite place on earth

I got an email from my mom recently that said they were going to Door County and that I would have to find another babysitter for Tripp that week. My reaction was not to find another babysitter but to call my dad and make sure we got invited. and of course that tactic worked. In fact, I am pretty sure my dad even thanked me after we got home for being willing to take time off of work and come with them. Yep, I had him tricked :). Anyway, because Nelson needed to save his vacation days for when the baby comes, he stayed at home and held down the fort while Tripp and I headed up north. Flying by yourself with all the gear that comes along with a toddler and being eight months pregnant is not the easiest thing, but I was willing to take the chance. We had such great time. I think there nothing like the joy that comes with seeing your kid ridiculously happy and enjoying the same things that you enjoyed as a kid yourself. Tripp absolutely loved the beach. He loved the sand, the water and most especially loved playing with his Papa. My dad introduced him to "surfing" which when done on a lake is the perfect thing for a two year old to do. In fact, Tripp commented "I really love this water" as he was riding the raft through the waves.

We spent a morning at The Farm where we got to see all kinds of animals. Even though there were lots of cows, chickens, goats, sheep, etc, Tripp's favorite part was the tractor. He probably could have spent the whole morning climbing and playing on it but we made him go check out some animals.

This year we made it to a restaurant that Tripp loved- PC Junction. Your food gets delivered to you on a miniature train! He was mesmerized by it and was pretty quiet the whole dinner cause he was just taking everything all in. We got to play outside on their wooden trains and then also took a "roller coaster ride" as Tripp called it- I am sure it felt that way to him. It was really just this tractor type thing where two people pedal in the back and two people can sit up front and ride. Tripp rode up front and thankfully he held on tight, cause with me and the wheel and my dad in charge of the speed, it was more like a roller coaster ride than a tractor ride.

We had a great time and are so glad it worked out to go. This is definitely the best place ever!

Playmobil

We have entered into the world of Playmobil. Already, many hours have been spent with "my guys" or "my friends" (as Tripp calls them) and I have a feeling there will be many more to come (if only I could find some good deals on them...)!

Big Boy Bed!

Well, it is rather crazy, but at least it seems to be working. I am referring to Tripp's new bed, in case you were wondering. Why crazy? Well, I decided to relinquish some of my "control" over Tripp's life and let him pick out his own bedding for his new bed in an attempt to get him excited about it. It worked, but the bedding is a little less than desirable. I have nothing against Thomas, the number one blue engine, but these new sheets are a tad on the crazy side. But, I also was not about to pay somewhere around $60 for a set of much more tasteful sheets from Pottery Barn Kids. So we stuck with Thomas. Tripp loves them, loves his bed and we love that he loves his bed. The process actually went pretty smoothly. I had fully planned on letting him stay in his crib even after the baby was born (hey, I'll buy another crib if it means my toddler is confined to his bed still) but after walking into his room one morning and seeing him attempt to climb out of his crib, we decided that maybe moving him out was the safest thing to do. Besides, when thinking through all the transitions he will go through in the next year (new sibling, potty training, etc) we figured better do it now at this relatively calm time in his life. So we bit the bullet and went for it. We got my brother's old twin frame from my parents, bought a new mattress, and Tripp and Nelson set to work taking down the old crib and putting up the new bed.

Everything went smoothly until I realized that his lovies could fall out of his bed. This is a major problem at 4 in the morning when he woke up screaming (he made it sound like he had fallen out of his bed). So we ended up getting a longer guard rail and thankfully, the lovie situation has pretty much been resolved. He definitely talked about his crib for a couple of days after we took it down, but has since seemingly forgotten about it. We left all his blankets the same and even use the same "system" we did in his crib- one blanket for under his head, one for on top of him (not sure how that system got started but oh well, he likes it). As much as I would love to get a big comforter to cover up those sheets, I don't see that happening for a while for one big reason: 1. It is something else for me to have to wash and considering there are practically dirt piles on the end of our bed from my infrequent washing of our own sheets, adding something big (like a comforter) to my washing list is a very terrible idea. So for now, we will just "enjoy" those Thomas sheets (although I might have to buy an extra set for those days when I find a little wet spot on them from a leaky diaper) and be thankful that he loves his new bed!

Reed's First Birthday

Last weekend we decided to make a somewhat spontaneous trip to Dallas to celebrate our nephew's first birthday! It was also the perfect excuse for us to go- it had been all too long since we had been there last. But now that Tripp is two and we would have to buy him a plane ticket, it makes it a little more difficult to get there (seeing as it is a 10 hour drive and you basically "waste" two days driving there and back). But I have to say, despite me ignoring the GPS and taking us on at least an hour detour, the time in the car really wasn't bad. I even had a moment of thinking that it was nice to be together as a family. This was one of them (a really awesome rest stop with a nice picnic dinner):

And that is big for me, I really used to despise long car rides. But maybe the price of an extra plane ticket is enough to have changed my mind. But anyway, we had a great time in Dallas- we celebrated Reed's birthday,

watched Tripp and Weston (and Reed too) play together for hours,

and just had some good quality time together. It was just what we needed!