Adventures at the Duck Park

Yesterday morning was cold and dreary. Fortunately the rain stopped, so we were able to get outside! We decided to go to the duck park because we missed our chance on Thursday.

The creek flooded again and the water was rushing over the road -- always fun to see!





























Oliver pretended to fish in the creek while Buttercup finished her snack in the stroller.


































"Hey Mom, I caught a baby whale shark! It's melting -- I better put it back in the water!"














Nothing like jumping in a puddle. :-)



























We hit the swings for a few minutes, but it was really too cold for the kids to comfortably hold the cold chains. Next time Mommy should remember to bring their gloves . . . oops!

The Trouble with Boys

Oliver is a typical 3 year old boy. Adventurous, not afraid to get dirty, willing to try any crazy stunt, seemingly impervious to pain and fatigue. In short, he's Curious George in a human body. Two days ago, he gave himself a goose egg with a PVC pipe. Yesterday, he jumped off of a play structure and either sprained or bruised his toes. Today, I decided to go to the duck park because surely he wouldn't get hurt while we were there. And I was right -- he didn't get hurt. Instead, he ended up soaking wet and coated with mud and sand at the baseball field. And it's 45 degrees today. Needless to say, we had to go home in a hurry for a warm bath. :-)

PVC Pipe and 3 Year Olds

For Oliver's 3rd birthday, Dennis took him to The Home Depot and bought him some PVC pipe and connectors. Seems harmless enough, right? Initially, things were fine and we played with the pipes outside, doing all sorts of things like jack-hammering, weed-whacking, digging, and we even used them as actual pipes with water running through. Then Dennis bought Oliver more pipes and we let him use them inside in his "worker projects." Possibly not the best idea. The pipes have left marks on the walls of almost every room, Oliver has used them as golf clubs (and you can imagine what happened there), everyone in our family has had some sort of pipe-related injury, etc. Then this morning, Oliver was "working" with one of the larger pipes and really banged it hard into his head. He's fine, but it hurt him enough to make him cry, so that was the last straw and I put all of the pipes away. Maybe we'll use them this summer for a fun project outside. :-)

Other than the pipe incident, we've been having a fun morning. It's cold and raining again, so we pretty much stayed inside all morning except for a (very) brief jaunt outside so Oliver could ride his bike in the rain.

Buttercup spent a lot of the morning pushing her toys around in the doll stroller or the laundry basket.















Oliver and played "teamwork" while Buttercup was busy. I got the Home Depot drill (the orange one) and Oliver used his new IKEA drill (the yellow one). The drills are named according to the stores they match. ;-)

















Picture for Aunt Anna -- see, it matches!

Buttercup and Baby Mady

Buttercup loves babies. Loves them. So how fortunate for her that Aunt Anna takes care of a 7 month old baby girl every day! Buttercup has seen baby Mady about 3 times, and she loves to hold her, sing to her, kiss her, etc. Here are pictures and a video of Buttercup and Mady at our house the other day:












































It's so funny that Buttercup is so much a girl and Oliver is so much a boy. They are both special and wonderful in their own way. I'm so glad I get to be their mommy! :-)

Conversation with Oliver

A preview of things to come:

Me: Oliver, can you please go wash your hands?
Oliver: Nope!
Me: What's the nice way to say "no"?
Oliver: No, thank you, ma'am. ("Ma'am" was said with some serious attitude.)
Me: Excuse me?
Oliver: No, thank you.
Me: Okay, well you have to wash your hands before you eat your lunch, so you won't get to sit down until you wash your hands.
Oliver: silence
Me: silence
Oliver: I'm going to wash my hands. He washes his hands properly, then stands in the kitchen, looking at me.
Me: Thank you for washing your hands.
Oliver: I will NOT say "you're welcome".

The teenage years are going to be interesting! I'm glad I have 10 more years to prepare. :-)

Sibling Snuggles

AKA -- proof that Oliver is getting better at tolerating his little sister. Granted, he was watching the bull shark episode of Shark Week (again), but he didn't seem to mind her snuggling with him while he watched! There is hope. :-)

Spastic Dancing and Coloring Sharks

Last night, I dug out some old CDs for Anna and Dennis to make playlists for their iPods. Oliver loved the songs -- here he is dancing to "Opposites Attract". (Unfortunately for him, he has to learn his dance skillz from me.)




The other day, I decided to surprise Oliver by tracing shark pictures for him to color or paint. He was so excited when he saw them! Then he sat down and colored for approximately 1.2 minutes before saying he was done. Ha ha!! I saved the papers and I think we'll try again on a different day. I think I should have gotten the glitter glue out instead. :-)