Ooops Forgot One
One more video from the recent trip to see Grandma Marcia and Grampa Dave…
Video
Click here to watch Nina hand Grampa Dave his crossword puzzles, one at a time!
One more video from the recent trip to see Grandma Marcia and Grampa Dave…
Video
Click here to watch Nina hand Grampa Dave his crossword puzzles, one at a time!
February 17th… and it is silly picture day! Ok this one’s cute instead of silly, but give us a second to get warmed up. See this image larger.
Ian giggles shyly. He’s sitting in the spot where he would be in time-out, but he’s just taking off his shoes after a hard day at school. See this image larger.
Ooop, the show has started, folks! Sit down and prepare for silly. See this image larger.
That’s my boy! See this image larger.
Grrrr. See this image larger.
Yahoo!! See this image larger.
Hi sweet pea! See this image larger.
Quick kiss! See this image larger.
*Scuse me, Daddy!* See this image larger.
Three of us! Should have gotten Mommy in there somewhere. See this image larger.
*I’ll call Mommy and get her over here… beep beep boop boop beep boop beep* See this image larger.
Video
Click here to see Nina deftly swipe Daddy’s phone off of his belt-clip and hold it ransom.
Dialog
Ian – “Guys, in 5 minutes I’m going to neeeeed some wipin’.” (Ian, from toilet, sounding strangely proud.)Ian – “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Ian – “Let’s have a clothes folding party! Mommy will be impressed with us.”
Nina – “More.” (Verbally, plus sign language.)
Video
Click here to watch Ian preparing for Valentine’s day, on February 10th.
Video
Click here to watch part 2 of the above video.!
February 13th, we were coming up on a melt, so I took Ian outside while the snow was packing well… the snow was still ridiculously deep, though. See this image larger.
I pulled up his hat eventually, I swear. See this image larger.
Body of snowman created. See this image larger.
Nina supervises from where it is warm and toasty. See this image larger.
A bucket for a hat, and a shovel were considered. See this image larger.
Alas, poor Yorick… See this image larger.
Final assembly… See this image larger.
Hi Mommy! It’s cold out here! See this image larger.
Nina chills in a bristle-block container… See this image larger.
That night we had a gorgeous sunset… See this image larger.
Ah, water tower… you give us water pressure but you are an eyesore. I’m just being honest with you. See this image larger.
I’m giving this ONE VIDEO its very own blog post and keeping it the latest post for 24 hours. That’s right. It is that awesome.
Video
Click here to watch this conversation, recorded on February 13th.
And so our family of four made the 10 minute journey to Grandma Sue’s, and lo Santa had visited there as well. He is wise, swift, and an excellent project manager. Huzzah to you Santa!
So here we are at Grandma Sue’s! Ian and I had gone over a couple of thing since the Johnson Christmas and also the opening of presents when Uncle Gordon and Aunt Leslie had been over. He had done really well, but I wanted him to learn not to ask for another present, and another. He’s three at this point, I know, but I don’t think it is too early to be a little grateful. See this image larger.
Hilariously, Ian interpreted this advice by saying “LOOK, THIS IS WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED!” for many of his presents. Here you can see that such a reaction is what Grandma Sue always wanted as well! (Of note, he really does love all the toys he got, but sometimes he followed up the above exclamation with “WHUDIZZIT?” and then it felt decidedly less genuine. The important part of all of this is, he’s a sweet kid for trying.) See this image larger.
Sometimes Ian says the most hilarious things, and the funniest of them also involve a facial expression like this one, and usually a little hand gesture he picked up from Melissa or I like the palm up in the air as he explains something. This shot is worth every penny of my camera, as I wasn’t sure I’d ever capture that moment. See this image larger.
Nina plays with a sweet light-up drawing pad, and enjoys! See this image larger.
Ian plays Santa and gives Grandma her present. Nina reads the bottom of the package *This side up, fragile, handle with care* See this image larger.
Ian loved Grandma Sue’s adjustable bed… he played with it every night. He’s wearing the baseball hat light that Grampa Ray got for all the boys… kind of a funny story, on our first day at the Johnson’s we went to a market where I almost bought one of those, but Grampa Ray talked me out of it, knowing there was one snuggled inside a stocking with my name on it. See this image larger.
Video
Click here to watch a video of Ian hypnotizing KC with his hat-light!
Thank you Grandma Sue, for your generosity! It was a great Christmas!
That was it for the 27th! More soon! (We may need to start doing a couple entries a day pretty soon, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do…)
Christmas dinner was the one last event before Christmas celebration turned into Nina’s Birthday party! See this image larger.
Grampa Ray holds Nina while we try on the appropriate hat! See this image larger.
Ok, little one, this is just like what happened this morning, except that it’s all about you instead of all the kids… and Jesus… and Santa. Oh, just open some presents. See this image larger.
Cuuute! See this image larger.
*I ordered a half-caf double chai tea… this is a plastic toy. Aw to heck with it, I’ll suck on this for awhile.* See this image larger.
*A star is born.* See this image larger.
The smoosh cake was almost as big as the “real” cake. See this image larger.
And heck the cake is almost as big as Nina! Another angle thanks to somebody else’s camera… I KNEW that was Mommy’s arm! See this image larger.
Nom, nom, nom… Wish you could see this in action? See video below! See this image larger.
When cake is involved, we all win, right Ian? See this image larger.
Video
Click here to watch a video of Nina daintily consuming her first birthday cake.
Our first day had been about getting ourselves situated and taking advantage of the Saturday-only attractions. But the next day (November 7th) was our big day at the waterpark!
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BONUS VIDEO!!! In this video Nina calls for Mama, and I try to reassure her that Mommy is going to be there shortly. Click here to see her response in this somewhat longer video.
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But then it was showtime! Nina wore her awesome watermelon one-piece. See this image larger.
We got to the waterpark, time for some family shots! Ladies first! See this image larger.
And then little man! See this image larger.
And finally Daddy pulls off an everybody shot! (Not bad for getting all four of us in the picture!) See this image larger.
The waterpark was huge! I don’t have a good picture of all of it — I do have a video but it doesn’t have any of the kids in it, so forget it. You’ll just have to look at this picture of the central tower. See that mountain at the top? About every 15 minutes there is a warning alarm and then hundreds of gallons of water gets dumped out of the mountain. See this image larger.
So you can probably imagine how that warning alarm struck fear into the hearts of every waterpark guest. Eventually that sound would no longer frighten Ian, but that happened later. See this image larger.
Was Nina afraid of the mountain? Not sure. Here she considers crying after having to see Daddy in a bathing suit, however. See this image larger.
Ian and I took it easy at first on this rapids ride. See this image larger.
And then we worked our way to the top of the tower… (there I showed Ian that we were safe in the tower during the water dump, and he was much more calm about the whole arrangement.) See this image larger.
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BONUS VIDEO!!! Daddy and Ian slide to a landing! Click here to see a quick landing.
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Ian and I went down one of the waterslides together. Suddenly he couldn’t have enough! We went on the slide over and over. Before you ask, YES I let Melissa go on the slide with Ian a few times!!! Eventually we went to a pool area where the water was up to Ian’s armpits. I was surprised when Ian stumbled at one point and went under… mostly I was surprised at how it wasn’t nearly as horrible as my nightmares since he was born. I just reached under and scooped him up. Granted my nightmares usually involve the ocean or something, but whatever, let’s not get into it. We left the park eventually. See this image larger.
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BONUS VIDEO!!! In this video Nina shows how she can shake it! Click here to see!
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That night at dinner I was confronted with this sign. It said one of two things, but I was sure it was my door, regardless. See this image larger.
*What say you bust me outta here and we can go back to the waterpark?* See this image larger.
This video deserves an entry all to itself. This is Nina playing with a balloon. Yes that’s her little hand gripping the string/ribbon and pulling it. If you look carefully you should be able to see her smiling, and hear her cooing. At one point I could swear she would have laughed if she had developed one.
The video is a bit larger than the others, but it is hard to make out her expression if I made the video a smaller download.
Alright so this is pretty much a bunch of random stuff.
Funny Ian story — I was being a little on the lazy side, but also trying to teach Ian the importance of washing one’s hands before one excuses himself from the table… (We even ask him to say “Can I be excused?” much of the time.) so I asked him to get me a wipe after he stood up. The canister was on a nearby table, and he approached it with his food-caked hands and some trepidation. I’m not sure exactly where he saw this, probably me, I’d imagine… but he looked down at his messy hands, and you could see the wheels turning in his mind. How to get to Daddy with the wipes canister to get clean hands, without making the wipes canister dirty too? He reached forward and pinched the canister between his wrists, splaying his hands outward so as not to touch it!
We’ve also had some fun daycare drop-offs and some significantly less fun.
I understand potty-training is the last thing Ian needs to do before moving on to the next class, so we’re anxious to keep that training up. It is difficult, however, when the diaper-changing experience reminds him of being a baby, and he gets our complete attention all that time. We’re trying though, Lord are we trying.
No news on the house yet, but we have an open-house tomorrow, so hopefully something then.
Nina is inching forward in the sleep category, although not quickly enough to keep Melissa and I from being a little “intense” at times.
Work has been tough lately. Programming is hitting a hard stretch, and it is very hard to concentrate sometimes. I literally have to tether myself to the computer by wearing headphones, sometimes. The right soundtrack does wonders. I’m “behind” enough that I’ve been skipping out on the kind of things I usually don’t miss. For example I’ve had to have Melissa pick Ian up a couple times from daycare this week, or trips to stores… I’m even going to skip out on the Easter trip to Ohio. I’ll miss playing with my niece and nephew, but will hopefully gain all kinds of ground on my work. I did manage to go with Melissa to Nina’s cardiologist appointment… the entry below this details that out, but mostly she’s doing awesome and gaining weight like a champ!
It is funny watching Ian try to sell us into “one more episode” of a show or one more book before bedtime. We’ve got Ian up off the floor a bit now at bedtime… there’s a boxspring under his mattress now. At first he liked it, then before his first sleep on it asked us to remove it. We didn’t. He hasn’t looked back since, and is doing great on a double-decker.
Nina’s been doing a lot more smiling and cooing lately. It’s great to see and hear these positive forms of expression from her!
Here’s a few great movies for you to chew on, click on the links to see each video, they’re relatively small:
Ian pedaling very well!
Nina thinks her Dad is a goofball! (Look at that smile!!!)
Ian dance! (Might be hard to see, but wow is he wiggling and moving right after I say “Ian, dance!”)
Let’s take a moment and honor Nina’s battle with Jaundice, which our physician says we have won. A little battle, but one that’s over, and that’s important. How to beat it? A bili-blanket, a lot of love, and… well… see the video!
Click here to see the video. It is 5 MB in size, which isn’t too bad.