A New Sled!

Daddy came home today with a fun surprise...a new sled to replace the cardboard box we used yesterday! Mr. Mister had a lot more fun going down the hill on this one (since it actually slid without needing to be pulled). He went down with Daddy and held on tight, looking a little nervous. But he was all smiles at the end and wanted to go again.

Maybe even more fun than going down the hill was when Daddy pulled Mr. Mister and me across the ice covered sidewalk in front of our house. It was clear of snow, but icy, so we zoomed across...it was so much fun! I felt like I was on the bobsled team.

Daddy pushed us all the way down that path behind Mr. Mister.

Making a mini snow angel. You can see that he's very excited about it.

Fun family day in the snow!

Snow Days

Here are pictures of the snow and ice storm we've had the last two days. With thick ice on the branches of the trees and several inches of snow covering the ground, it is a beautiful winter scene (as long as you don't have to drive in it).

We played in the snow yesterday morning and Mr. Mister made a pint sized snow angel. It was adorable, but I don't have pictures of it. Today we built a tiny snowman and took him sledding down the hill next to our house in a cardboard box, since we don't have a sled and the store was sold out. Mr. Mister loved being outside and wanted to stay out longer than we did. We finally coaxed him inside with an offer of graham crackers and hot chocolate...who can resist that?

2 Days

That's how long our newly cleaned carpet stayed clean. And we were out of town for 1 and 1/2 of those days. Any guesses on who was the one to spill first?

This morning, Mr. Mister chugged a lot of milk too fast and then ran around as we played. He bent over to pick something up off the floor and spit up a nice puddle of milk onto the carpet. At least it wasn't red Kool-Aid. And now I can relax and not worry about getting our carpet dirty!

A Taste of Summer

We had a fun taste of summer this weekend. We met the whole PA family at an indoor waterpark for two days, where Mr. Mister had a blast playing with everyone and splashing in the water. When we first got there, we put him down a kiddie slide that went a lot faster than we thought it would go. He zoomed down and flew off the end, going underwater before I could catch him. He came up wide-eyed and shocked and then said, "again?" He went one more time but every other time we asked him if he wanted to go, he shook his head and said very firmly, "no."

He spent the rest of the time in the kiddie pool. It was like a never ending bath in a huge bath tub. Even with pruny hands he didn't want to get out. It was so much fun and a nice escape from the cold winter. We were welcomed back to reality, however, by a snow storm as we left. We escaped it after driving south a little ways, but the rest of the family followed the storm east for their entire drive. Thankfully, everyone made it home safely.

We got one more taste of summer when we arrived home to a very HOT house. Our heat was at 90 degrees! We had a guy here cleaning our carpet right before we left Saturday morning, so we think he must have hit the thermostat with his equipment on his way out. So we opened some windows and put on shorts and t-shirts.....it didn't feel like a snowy winter night!

Why I Love My Mr. Mister

I just can't get enough of him lately. I think he's the cutest person in the world. So I thought I'd make a list of the things I love about him. (Not a comprehensive list.)

I love....

1. How he says hi to everyone in the grocery store and then blows them kisses.
2. How he loves giving anyone a kiss.
3. How much he loves his dada.
4. How he cries when I leave.
   
5. How observant he is.
   
6. The way he says cracker, yuck, and quack. They all sound the same because of the k sound.
7. How he'll attempt every word we ask him to say, even if it sounds nothing close to the real word.
8. His smile.
9. His laugh.
10. The smell of his skin when he wakes up.
11. The way he yells mama when he wakes up.
12. How he LOVES to help...empty the dishwasher, sweep the floor, make dinner, dust...he gets so excited.
13. The way he lights up the room and makes everyone laugh.
14. When he's shy around people at first and he clings to me.
15. The way he says brrrrr when we open the door to feel how cold it is outside.
16. The way he says yes so properly.
17. The way he says men when we're done praying.
18. The way he dances every time he hears music.
19. When he blows us kisses as we're walking out of his room after putting him to sleep.
    
20. His adventurous spirit.
21. His facial expressions.
22. How he would spend an hour outside in the cold looking for cats and dogs.
23. How tough he is.
    
24. How compassionate he is.
25. How he makes my life complete.
    

Mommy and Mr. Mister

We haven't taken many pictures since Christmas, but I felt like my blog needed a good picture posting. So here's the one that's on the background of my computer. It's one of my favorites.

Tiptoes

Yesterday, Mr. Mister started standing on his tiptoes. It was very random. I have never showed him that. I guess he just figured out that he can do it. It's really cute to watch because he pushes up on his tiptoes and then stumbles...it kind of looks like he's dancing.

Smooth

After a little practice, Mr. Mister now knows that my face is smooth, not rough. This morning when he woke up, I leaned over the crib to kiss him and he reached up and touched my face and said "mooooo" which translates into smooooth. It was the first thing he said this morning. He keeps making us laugh!

Toddler Blowout

Mr. Mister has a case of the runs. This morning he had a huge huge huge huge blowout. It was the grossest moment of parenting thus far. Newborn blowouts aren't fun, but at least they don't smell that bad. A toddler who eats everything we eat has some stink to his blowouts. It smelled so bad I really thought I was going to get sick. And I'm not usually that queasy with smells. Afterall, I spent entire summers working in garbage dumps.

So I was thankful that Daddy was home to help me. And thankful that Mr. Mister is still himself despite his rumbling tummy. He's chugging the Pedialyte (he thinks it's juice) and we're monitoring the diaper situation closely. I just keep putting sleepers on him so that I don't have to pull dirty clothes over his head when I change him.

The joys of parenting! And this is for sure not the last of these moments....

Rough

Mr. Mister has learned the word rough. He knows that a tree's bark is rough and that daddy's unshaven face is rough. The only problem is that he thinks every face is rough. So he rubs his hand down my cheek and says rough. We'll have to work on that one!!

Oil Spill

The other day I had a friend over. As we chatted in the family room, Mr. Mister was playing. I saw him walk into the kitchen but since our house is so baby proof, I don't really worry about him going out of my sight. Soon, however, I realized it was too quiet. I entered the kitchen to find him holding a bottle of popcorn oil upside down, pouring it all over the floor, and standing in a huge puddle. He was even stomping in it, as if he was playing in the rain. When I gasped, he just looked at me as if this was a normal thing to be doing. Which I guess for a curious toddler, it is.

I completely froze at the sight of the mess as I thought about cleaning up oil and washing it out of his clothes. As I sat there staring at him, my friend (mother of 4) went into action, taking the bottle out of his hands and lifting him out of the puddle...both great ideas that I couldn't seem to come up with in my moment of shock. I stripped him down to his onesie and started cleaning up the mess. I wish I took the advice that I read on another blog about taking a picture of the mess so you can laugh later. But I didn't even think of getting the camera.

Thanks to a quick application of stain stick, the oil came out of his shirt on the first wash. I have to try again on the pants, but it worked much better than I thought.

As for our babyproof house....I think we need to fix the broken lock on the lazy susan!

Birthday Fun

Yesterday I celebrated the big 2-8. It was a fabulous day. Mr. Mister and I had a fun morning playing together and then one of my friends came to play with him in the afternoon so that I could go to Starbucks for a couple hours alone. What a treat - uninterrupted time with a latte and a good book on a cold day.

Last night my wonderful husband and I went on a fun birthday date. We used a gift card we got for Christmas to enjoy dinner at a very nice restaurant and then went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It was so nice to get away for a little bit...a much needed time of catching up and reconnecting. We always say that when we go on dates we finish all the conversations that we've started but never completed!

BUSTER!

When we were in PA, my sister-in-law's dog, Buster, chased a deer and ran away. As were all yelling, "BUSTER!" Mr. Mister suddenly began yelling very loudly, "Butta!" It caught us off guard and made us laugh so hard. Not only was he yelling, but he was completely into it, as you can see in these pictures. The pictures don't even do justice to how funny it was.

Making us Laugh

I think that Mr. Mister just gets cuter as he gets older. He is cracking us up these days as his personality continues to develop. He is learning so many new words and is imitating almost everything we do. Here are some highlights of the things that make us laugh:

- He says, "shhh" and puts his finger to his mouth. He especially does this if he thinks someone is sleeping.

- He used to say "hum" when he wanted to say yes. So if we asked, "Do you want to go outside?" He'd say, "Hum." Every time he said it, I'd say "yes." Finally he started saying, "hum, yes." And now he is just saying yes! The way he says it is so cute. He nods at the same time and it comes out as "yeth."

- He loves to tell us who things belong to. He'll point to books, phones, cups or anything else he has seen us use and say, "mama" or "dada" depending on who he saw use it last.

- The other day, he took my cell phone, opened it up, held it at arm's length and started smiling. He was imitating how I take pictures of him with my phone! Talk about a 21st century kid!

- Something dramatically changed and all of a sudden he gets excited for diaper changes. We taught him to sit down on the floor and then lay back. So now he'll say to me "poo poo. ba" (meaning back). He'll run over by the diapers, sit down, and lay on the floor. Half the time he hasn't even gone poop.

- He loves when I do "this little piggy" on his toes. When I say the last "and this little piggy," he laughs before I even tickle him. After I finish tickling him, he says "please" and points to his foot. He wants me to do it over and over!

I wish you could all hang out with him. He is so fun to be with!

Cucumber

Mr. Mister always wants to know what's going on when I'm making a meal in the kitchen. He stands on a chair next to the counter and loves to help. Tonight, he helped me put the salad together for dinner. He put the lettuce in each bowl and after I cut up the vegetables, he put those into the bowls too.

Here was our conversation as I was cutting the cucumber:
Me: Can you say cucumber?
Mr. Mister: mano (this is his word for both banana and tomato)
Me: Cucumber
Mr. Mister: mano
Me: (very slowly with emphasized pronunciation) CU-CUM-BER
Mr. Mister: (very slowly with emphasized pronunciation) MAN-O

So mano it is. We'll keep working on it.

Ketchup

Last night, the three of us went out to dinner, intending to use a gift card that someone recently gave us. They ended up messing up our order, so not only did it take an hour, but it was the wrong food. While it was tempting to get frustrated, we knew our server was having a rough night and getting upset wouldn't really help anything. So we were patient and tried to encourage him a little bit. We weren't in a hurry and Mr. Mister was doing amazingly well (thankfully they had already brought his food out).

I figured they would give us a discount, but they ended up giving us our entire meal for free! It was such a fun surprise.

One of the ways Mr. Mister stayed entertained was by dipping everything we gave him in ketchup. He randomly started this at McDonald's on our way home from PA after Christmas, when he not only dipped his chicken in it, but his apples too. (Daddy is excited, I think it's gross). So at the restaurant last night, he dipped everything from bread to broccoli to pasta in his ketchup and when the food ran out, he just dipped his hands in it. That really grosses me out, but he stayed quiet and content so I'll take it!

Nephew Pics - Finally!

Here are pictures of my sister's new little one!

PA Christmas Pictures

Some Pictures

Here are a few pictures from the holidays with my family.

Catching Up

It's been a crazy couple weeks with traveling and me not feeling well, so I haven't been up on my blogging. I feel like there's so much I could blog about but I'll just give you the highlights and then post pictures in another post. Here's the recap of our last couple weeks in December:

- I had the annual Christmas cookie making day with my sisters and my mom. This year Mr. Mister and his cousin helped us out. Or played in the flour...whatever you want to call it. See pictures in the next post...it was very cute.

- On Thursday, the 18th, we had to take Mr. Mister to the emergency room at 4:30am. He woke up gasping for breath and ended up having a bad case of croup. It's common in little kids but was scary nonetheless. After taking steroid medicine and receiving an oxygen treatment, he was fine. I was so proud of him - he was very brave. We had to wait in the small room for 3 hours after his treatment so they could monitor him and he did an excellent job staying still and calm. (that has never happened before!)

- We celebrated Christmas with my family on the 20th and had a lot of fun just relaxing with everyone for the day. Mr. Mister loved opening his presents and made his excited face every time he opened a gift.

- We headed to PA on Christmas Eve and enjoyed a wonderful 5 day visit with family there. Mr. Mister ruled the roost and loved spending time with his grandma and grandpa and aunt, uncle, and cousin. He did a great job with all the family gatherings, although he did bite one of his second cousins and developed a little crush on another. We'll have to work on both of those!

- I finally got to meet my new nephew yesterday! He was a cute little bundle, all swaddled in his blanket. I forgot how tiny new babies are! But I forgot my camera. I'll have to get pictures from my sister.

- We enjoyed spending a couple days this week with my parents, who just returned from a week in Colorado with my brother's family. So they got to see all 6 grandchildren in two weeks...a fun treat for them!!

I am so thankful for both of our families who support us, love us, and help us with Mr. Mister so much. Despite the ER scare with Mr. Mister and some health struggles for me these past couple weeks, it has been a wonderful December, enjoying our family and welcoming new life!!