Cabelas - Another Ideal Muffin Monday Location

Another perfect location for Muffin Monday is Cabela's!

They have realistic animals, fish, an escalator, a cafe, a mountain and a cave.  Christian's comment, "Wow, this is amazing!!"

And of course, what is Muffin Monday without a visit to a park!

Happy Fourth Birthday, Christian!

Christian's Pic in the School Newsletter

It has been a while since we've seen a pic of Christian in his school's newsletter, and so we were excited today to see he was in TWO pictures this time.

I love the face he's amking when his hand is in the pumpkin! :)

Christian's 2011 Birthday Card for Sprout

Our little guy's fourth birthday is tomorrow - I can hardly believe it!

This year's Sprout card is similar to last year's card, in that "Calliou" is the "theme" (the card must feature a character from "Sprout").   I selected this same theme again because Calliou is a four year old kiddo, and the theme song (which is on the front of the card) works nicely for Christian.

I was down to the wire on getting this card in by the deadline.   If I was successful, the card will hopefully air on Sprout sometime tomorrow!  And if it does, hopefully I can record it and post the video online, like last year.

front of card



Inside of card

Happy Halloween!

As always, Christian makes me laugh!

For two weeks preceding Halloween, Christian would say - out of the blue - "I don't want to go trick or treating."

As the big day approached, I told Christian he was going to be a train engineer for Halloween.  Since he loves trains, he seemed pretty okay with the idea.

So we got him dressed last night and took him to the part for pictures.  Initially he refused to wear his hat and bandana, saying, "I don't want to be an engineer!!"    But eventually he warmed up to the idea.

Two houses down from ours, several neighbors had gathered to hand out candy.  I carried Christian over there - crying and protesting - with the hopes that he'd get inspired to do a little trick-or-treating.   He was really hesitatn at first, but when he was given three big handfuls of candy, he got very excited, "I GOT CANDY!!!"

He told everybody, "I'm a costume!"   Oh, it was so funny ... he thought he was a COSTUME!   I reminded him he was a train engineer.  So then he'd say, "I'm a costume!  I'm a train engineer!"

I went back home to hand out candy, and Christian and Jonathan went trick-or-treating for a few minutes.   When they returned, Christian was VERY excited to dump out all his goodies - it was so cute.

Wordless Wednesday - October 26, 2011

Three Years in Pumpkin Pics

This year marks our third year of going to the local Pumpkin Patch ... and that makes the event an annual tradition.  

I present to you three consecutive years of Christian picking a pumpkin.   How cute!

(Click on any picture to enlarge)

2009

2010

2011

Pumpkin Patch 2011

More Pumpkin Patch 2011

(click to enlarge)

Muffin Monday - October 17, 2011

One of the best places to have "Muffin Monday" is Barnes and Noble.  Here's why:

1. It's always nice and cool
2. It's clean
3. There's a bathroom
4. There's food and drinks
5. Christian is entertained the entire time
6. We adults can grab something of interest to look at, too.
7. Christian no longer gets upset that we don't buy him something every time. WHEW!
8. And ... he no longer gets upset when we tell him it's time to leave.  DOUBLE WHEW!

Dancin' Dancin!

We paid a visit to Best Buy today, and Christian discovered the Xbox Kinect and the "Just Dance" game they had on the TV and started dancing all over the place.  He was so energetic and so happy!

Funny thing is, we have the "Just Dance" game at home on our Wii.  It's been a few months since we tried it with him, and back then, he wasn't interested.

Time to break out the game again.  I think he'd LOVE it now!

Wordless Wednesday - October 12, 2011

We Found More Trains!

In case ya'll didn't know, Christian LOVES trains.  And happily, we found a new train place in Phoenix to take Christian to.

Waiting with Papa for the train to arrive.

 Getting on board!

Anxiety starts to kick in when Christian sees Mommy won't be coming along for the ride. 

Christian decided the train wasn't for him.

Papa still wanted to ride the train, so Christian and I ventured off to the model train exhibit.

Papa returned from his exciting train ride (which broke down along the ride,

so I'm glad Christian didn't go after all.  It was a hot day).   We went outside to look at a larger model train.

We gave Christian a few minutes of doing that and then told him it was time to go.

WHOOOO LAWDY!   The fit Christian had ... unbelievable!

Papa's awesome solution?   On-site time out for three minutes.  

It worked ... Christian sat there and calmed down.

Tuesday Giggles

Christian just cracks me up these days.  Whenever he says something funny, I try to remember it so I can share with ya''ll ... and I'm typically unsuccessful.

Here are a couple of funny statements from the past 24 hours:

Yesterday, I was getting Christian undressed and was trying to get him to help out.   I said, "Take off your underwear, please."  He replied in a very whiny voice, "No, you do it."   I said, "Christian, please take off your underwear like a big boy."   His reply, in that same very whiny voice, "I'm not a big boy ... I"m a little girl."  I guess that was the best excuse he could come up with to not get undressed.

This morning, I walked into his room and said, "Good morning!"   He cheerfully replied, "Good morning, mother dear!"

Mother dear?   Ha ha!  Haven't heard that one before!

Auntie Liz Comes a Calling

Today Jonathan departed for a week in Southern California.   Happily, Auntie Liz stopped by to keep us company.  Thanks, Auntie!

Happy Fall!

Happy First Day of Fall!  (that is for those of you not living in the Phoenix area).

Happy "The Temps Are No Longer 110+!"  (that is for those of you living in the Phoenix area - though, today is supposed to reach 107 - mighty close to 110!).

Still super hot here, but the overnight temps have gone down significantly (mid to upper 70s, as opposed to upper 80s/low 90s), so its not as not in the mornings.

Christian and Jonathan were able to get out and play outside the other day - finally.   And despite not being able to ride his tricycle since May, Christian took off today peddling ALL BY HIMSELF!    At last!!

Muffin Monday - September 19, 2011

This week's Muffin Monday had an unexpected surpirse!  Christian ate a chicken sandwich!

What's the big deal, you ask?   

Christian is a VERY picky eater and rarely tries anything new.   He'll eat chicken by itself.  He'll eat bread by itself ... but the only "sandwich" he'll eat is PB&J. 

Today, Jonathan bought hima mini chicken sandwich from Chic-fil-A, hoping that Christian would eat some chicken and some bread ... when lo and behold, Christian ate the two together as a sandwich.

Yep, little things like that get us VERY excited around here!   Progress is progress!! :)