Happy "Boot-Day", Grandma!

To my grandmas, and all my wanna-be grandmas - I LOVE YOU!

D and I have a nightly ritual going on...we entertain M by silly marching through the house. The idea is to perform the goofiest "dance" possible which usually ends up resembling a bizarre, rhythmetic foot stomp. 333333333333333333331444444- I must be dreaming about St. Louis. (Yep, I got ahold of the keyboard from M and starting typing...imagine that!) Well, anyways, I'm becoming quite a good little mover and shaker, but sometimes my dances are so obnoxious that I run into the door frames or sofa or even my dancing partner!

Let's see, I love cold lunch meats theses days. Oh, and beef ravioli (although its a mess and does funny things to my normal digestive routines). I love trying new things like grapefruit juice, spinach salad, and foam alaphabet letters. But, my all time favorite thing to consume is still dirty bath water!!

I visited the farm again the other day and fed the sheep for about half an hour. They had the loudest "baaa" that made one little girl nervous to the point of tears, but not me. I loved letting them nibble out of my hands on the alfalfa pellets, but I'd rather eat the ice cream cone myself than share it with the animals. After seeing all the animals, I played in the sand with some older kids - just sat down right in their play area and joined in digging out a tunnel, removing sand from the train sculpture and practicing my sandbox swimming.

My newest thing it clapsing my hands behind my back and strutting around. I'm also "talking" up a storm to anyone and everyone, but most especially just to myself. I read a book to monkey last night as I was falling asleep in my crib. See you later!

Watch out for the trees!

We took advantage of the unusally cool July weather (70 degrees) and went camping. I helped D by blowing into the fire to get it started (from two feet away). I helped the dogs by playing in the dirt pit they dug out under the picnic table (Gertie was so enthusiastic that she nearly buried Bongo who was trying to nap). I helped M take down camp by putting the tent pegs into the bag, and then dumping them out again over and over. And, boy did I get dirty...and, I loved it!

I had fun playing with a wooden glider (for all of five minutes top before I disassembled it and used the wings to dig in the dirt). I had fun playing with the battery operated toy jeep that climbed over sticks and rocks...until the battery ran out. I had fun playing with the dogs water and food bowls, of course. I had fun crawling through the canvas tubes into my play hut that was connected to our bigger family tent. I had fun playing with the spiders - I even picked them up. I had fun trying to climb into the grill and play in the cold ashes. I had fun exploring through the woods, and luckily came away without any ticks. I had fun sitting in the sand, and inspecting the cacti up close (this was Sand Ridge State Forest after all), and made mom promise to bring along my bucket and shovel next time. I had fun playing in the tent after D fell asleep, and M was ready to nod off herself...climbing over the sleeping bags and tapping the sides of the tent. I had soooo much fun that when I finally fell asleep, I slept without a noise the whole night through in the crisp, cool, silent air! Ahhhh....I'm ready to go camping again!

Handy-baby

If you can't find the baby cute or rich....you ought to at least find him handy!! This is a picture of me helping D put the legs back on our "new" dining room table (from Great-Grandma Alice). Boy, was I sure a busy baby supervising the re-construction of furniture.

Let's see, on Monday at the McDonald's playground an older lady (a 20-month old girl) called me "baby" then threw her arms around my neck and kissed me square on the lips. Ewwww, yuck!

At book babies, I remembered the parachute that Miss Cheryl brought out from three months ago; I showed the other kids how you could run under it when the moms tossed it upwards. Wheeee-what fun!

We toured the Zoo yesterday and again today...I was especially interested in the feeding times (feeding of the other kids that is! Hey, one mom felt sorry for me and passed a french fry over to me!); checking out the wheels other kids were riding around in (wagons, strollers shaped like little cars and more); and looking around for the hidden speakers that were playing African percussion music (one time I even put my ear up to the speaker to see if the cool rhythms were causing the speaker to vibrate). I laughed at the rhinos guarding their corner of the yard from the zebras, and snorted like a pig at the red river hogs. Then, I played in the sand box with some older kids (especially a sweetie with red rimmed glasses) who were at Zoo Camp.

Blast off!

This weekend, the Peoria airshow takes place. It's been a busy aerial week so far. While at the park, I watched helicoptors fly low to the ground, two aircraft fly close by one another, five jets zoom by in formation, and more. I'll have to ask D to tell me more details about all the planes as I'm VERY interested in them. I can even sign "airplane" now! This shuttle is one of my favorite toys at the park to climb aboard and rock on.

In other news this week, I was so thirsty the other day that I tipped over the dog's water and sipped the cool liquid right up off the sidewalk. Yep, I'm all boy through and through!

M didn't even have to ask me to help bring in the emptied trash cans yesterday - I carried the tall kitchen trash can back inside all by myself and was trying to push it up the two steps before M took over. I also like to find things that look "trashy" around the house and put then IN the trash can, but that's another story.

Boy oh boy do I love to sign. I ask politely for help, to go driving, to take a bath, to have a drink (which I didn't want to use when I had the option of sipping dog water off the sidewalk), to eat, and more. I've even made up a few gestures of my own that M&D haven't figured out yet - geez, what does a kid have to do to educate his parents?!

Happy 4th of July!

It's so fun to be patriotic! I loved pulling this hat over my face and trying to find M&D, but M didn't think you'd appreciate a picture of a hat with two arms and two legs. Earlier this week I was entertaining myself with some rubber stamps...then, it grew quiet-too quiet-so M came to check on me and sure enough I had found the ink pad and must have licked it because I had a redish blue nose, mouth, chin and tongue!

I'm "helping" with the chores these days - when the dogs bowls are empty, I march right over to the dog food bag and fill up the bowls myself. That way, I can proceed to drog the food pellets into the water dishes to see how they float. I'm very good at entertaining myself.