Life in general

Not too much exciting. Last weekend we went to the Sweetcorn Festival, and had dinner outside one night. Here are some pictures (if they say a thousand words, then I shouldn't have to type as many, right?)


Leo hanging out at the festival.













That's one of the tallest buildings in downtown Urbana. Metropolis this isn't.












Look at that face! (Hey, you knew when you signed up that this blog was all about Leo--what other pictures do you expect?!)












Leo trying to comprehend the comics.












Another reading shot--this time he's sitting on the table and holding onto one of his trains.

Catching up on pictures

A theme in reading. Leo is getting good at entertaining himself in the mornings when we get ready or in the evening when we make dinner. He likes to sit on the big yellow couch and read. I use the term "sit" loosely, as you can see from the pictures "perch precariously" is more apt most of the time.



































Last Wednesday we went to the last concert in the park for the summer since it was at Meadowbrook. I took the camera because there are some beautiful flowers.

























This is one of my favorite pieces on the sculpture walk. It reminds me of Spaghett-io's, but in a good way.











Here Leo and Jeff are checking out the band and the popcorn. Leo still likes to wear his hat backwards sometimes. I guess I don't blame him, since it wasn't sunny.

















Last weekend the boys washed the cars--unprompted! Our cars have now (I think) officially been washed more times during the year we've lived here than in the entire time we owned them in NC.








I don't know if Leo got more water on himself or in the bucket when he wrung out the sponge, but it didn't matter, he loved helping his Papa with such an important job.

Beans!

Lately ,whenever Leo's being impatient (which is pretty much all of the time, can't imagine where he gets that from!), I've been telling him to "chill your beans." I don't know why, I just made it up cause it was cute and I can say it fairly vehemently and it still sounds funny. Now Jeff, on the other hand, prefers to tell Leo to "cool your jets." Last night he told Leo to cool his jets about something, and Leo replied, "No, I'm not going to cool my jets, I'm going to chill my beans."

weekend in MI

It was a busy trip to MI to see two sets of grandparents--with two parties, a trip to the children's museum, going to church, a trip to the zoo, a trip to the park, and three visits with friends. We were all very tired when we got home yesterday.




This was his favorite exhibit at the children's museum. I'm sending them money to get a complete set of strings--it only had two of the four.









Leo also really liked playing piano at the Dunns.














We didn't have time to see everything at the zoo, but Leo liked the goats--he even petted them.











He's trying to count all of the penguins--which he insisted we see before we left.










We also went to the new big park with Granddad--here he is trying to teach Leo how to use the digger--it took a lot of coordination. We'd been planning to go to the Splash Pad there (I think it's the same product/company like the one we took him to at my Mom's) but the weather was cool and cloudy.








Leo climbed up this rope bridge all by himself.














Ms. Brenda taught him how to eat a cherry with a pit. He liked it. That night he had three slices of cantaloupe, two strawberries, two raspberries, and a cherry (after eating hardly any dinner).

new camera

The grainier ones were me experimenting with the digital zoom (as opposed to the optical zoom).

Right before I left for CA.















Playing the airport while waiting for Mama's suitcase.











Digging after dinner tonight.













Dinner outside













Racing Papa

random singings

have recently included the baby bumblebee song (to which I think there are more verses than I just linked, but I can't remember them all) and Where is Thumbkin (which I remember from when I was little.)

I have also managed to at least partially corrupt him, as he sings "like a tea-tray in the sky" during Twinkle, Twinkle.

ludicrous speed, go

As usual, even though I had to wake Leo up most of the week -- which was actually pretty easy most days -- he woke up really early this morning. As in, before 6:00 really early. I managed to get him to lounge in bed with me until around 6:30 before giving in and getting up.

He got plunked down in front of Manny and Rocket Ship while I showered and got dressed, followed by making waffles. He's been squirrelly about eating most of the week, so I wasn't surprised when his total consumption was two bites less than half a waffle.

Trying to take Leo to the farmer's market when I actually needed to get a couple specific things was the exercise in idiocy that the trip to the pool was not. Of three things sought, we got one (and a couple honey sticks as surprise bribes for Leo), discovered that one was out of season and required a trip to the grocery store, and had to rely on something in the freezer as a fallback for the third. There were several times where I felt like we were holding up traffic all around us because of needing to deal with him changing his mind about whether to walk or ride in the stroller or, in once instance, just wanting to sit down in the middle of the walkway because it was so hot. (The official thermometer temperature at the time was 72, but the humidity was near 100%.)

He settled down after we got home, and I've actually managed to get most of the house cleaned. We got to play with Mason for a few minutes before they leave for a week and change, which was followed by lunch and a nap that it took him a while to settle down into. When he wakes up, I'll finish cleaning (vacuum), and then we'll see how much time is left before leaving for the party and picking up Kirstin.

Are you sure about this? No. Let's go.

Neither of us slept well last night -- more on that in a minute.

Since Thursday was the last night that the pool was open until 8:00 (they close at 7 pm except during July), I decided to brave a possible tantrum on leaving and go, since we can't otherwise usually get ready after dinner with enough time to make a trip effective. It ended up being a very good trip -- not only did he go down the water slide in the little kids' area more times that I could count (after usually freaking out about it), but we ran into his friend Rosie from school. They had a blast frolicking around the inner tube holding pen, until Rosie's mom and I had to settle them down before somebody went head-first onto the concrete. He was good for our trip down the falls and into the lazy river, and didn't complain when it was time to go. All in all, not the trip into idiocy that I was expecting it to turn out to have been.

He went to be at 8:20 or so -- a little late for this week -- but was up every half hour or so until I went to be at 10, and even afterward until 12:30. The first few were the usual delaying tactics -- water or snuggles -- but many of them were triggered by a cough that sounded a little tight. I think that something might have triggered allergies while we were at the pool, because I haven't hear the cough today.

I took tonight easy and let it be movie night -- with the evening's selection being Toy Story 2, which I acquired while errand-running yesterday because a) it was on sale and b) I've seen the other Pixar films enough to be sick of them (except for The Incredibles, which he's too young for.) We had a meltdown when I interrupted the movie for bathtime, which was excessively abbreviated. Since I used some of the end as a distractor while I trimmed his nails, he ended up getting to see the end, just because of how timing worked out.

I've had to interrupt typing this once for him, and few times because I got distracted by other things. Here's hoping we both sleep better tonight. Tomorrow's agenda includes going by the farmer's market on the square, to a tae kwon do academy potluck, and picking Kirstin up at the airport -- yea!!