"Tony the Cheeks"** is back

I'm not quite sure what I was thinking putting whole cherry tomatoes on Anthony's dinner plate. I cut grapes in quarters before serving them! To make a choking hazard worse, Anthony then proceeded to stuff his cheeks with them.

On the bright side, he liked the tomatoes. They are really good, out of our CSA box. He also ate broccoli yesterday!

**Anthony acquired the nickname "Tony the Cheeks" last year when we were visiting the Techau's for the 4th. It was decided that it can be his gangster name if he chooses to join the mob. When we arrived this year, the kids were all clamboring for attention from "Tony the Cheeks", they all remembered!

Budding Artist

Anthony's regular daycare provider is on vacation all week. Fortunately my work provides back-up daycare at a great center for FREE. Today Anthony got to color with markers. Boy was Mama pleased to see how much fun he had. He colored the paper, his arms, his legs, his face and his beautiful outfit. I really, really want to be the Mom who lets her child play without worrying about his clothes. I really do. But couldn't they have put a smock on him???

On the other hand, check out his artwork!

He's a Dancing Fool

Last night we headed downtown for another of our city's summer concerts. Anthony had so much fun dancing; we had a great time watching him.

Highlights included:
Cutting in on another couple and getting the woman to dance with him
Finally getting a big kid to dance with him
Improvement in his dancing skills--in addition to his little baby butt bob, he can stomp, twirl and clap
Dancing right up in front of the band

Anthony spent a lot of time trying to get the big kids (4-5 year olds) to dance with him. He'd join them in their circle, they'd ignore him. They'd try out new moves, he'd imitate them. Finally he just grabbed one boy's hands and made him dance for a few minutes. Another girl came over to dance with him, but he'd just gotten distracted by a runaway balloon and didn't even notice her. Silly boy.

Anthony's Doll Stroller

We brought my sister Erika(?)'s old doll stroller back with us from visiting my parents back in May. Anthony LOVES pushing his teddy bear around the house in it.

He recently discovered that he fits in it too. Daddy was really nice and pushed him around a bit.

Makes me a little nervous. The fabric in that stroller is probably 25 years old. Even older if it was Andrea's stroller. I know it is top quality, though. My Granny bought it and it was made in Sweden!

Moon Day

How did I forget to blog about this??

Nasa has a center a few miles from our house and they had a big celebration for Moon Day, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. We rode our tandem there with Anthony in the trailer. Most of our time there was spent watching various model rockets go off. They were pretty darn cool.

In the main festival area there were tons of booths, including one with a model of an atmospheric studies airplane Sofia. Anthony took one look at it and made a bee-line for that booth. He got a sticker to wear on his belly and a glossy photo of Sofia. He thought it was the coolest thing EVER. Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of him staring in awe at the picture.

It was pretty hot in the sun so we didn't stay too much longer.

Fun at the park

We've enrolled Anthony is "swimming lessons" again this year. He's not enjoying them quite as much as he did last summer. I think he's afraid of the pool. Daddy swims with him as Mama doesn't really like the pool either.

After swimming we play at Eagle Park, which is right by the pool. There's two great play structures, a small water feature and swings. This picture is last week. This week's photo would be very different as Anthony discovered the water. Its basically a faucet that will run some water after you push the button. You can stick your head under the water, you can stomp in the wet sand underneath, you can splash.... Lots of fun!

Some beach pictures

We had a nice time at the beach 4th of July weekend. I think it was Anthony's second beach trip--the first being last year. He still thought the water was pretty cold. Well, it was! Heck, the air temperature was pretty cold, too. Shortly after these pictures were taken we all put on jackets!

Anthony enjoyed a little sand play and took a nice long walk down the beach.

4th of July

We had a GREAT 4th of July weekend. As tradition dictates we spent the weekend down in San Louis Obisbpo visiting our friends the Techaus. They had a decent sized crowd this year--Anthony had lots of big kids to overstimulate him!

The top two pictures are of Anthony playing with Scott's K'nex roller coaster. It is motorized but they disconnected the motor so that Anthony could push the cars around himself. He LOVED pushing the cars up to the top and then watching them loop around the rest of the track. Honestly, it was pretty darn cool to watch.

Other highlights of the weekend included fireworks in the backyard and a day at the beach. Anthony slept through the fireworks again this year. Lisa took some beach pictures, I'll post them soon.

Bob flew us down in the bonanza. Anthony was a good sport for the airplane ride. Slept the whole way there! He was an amazing sleeper on this trip--only woke up once the first night and slept through the second night. Its still not as good as he does at home, but much better than he usually does traveling!