Great Weekend!

We had a great weekend!!

Saturday night we helped Bindu celebrate his 50th birthday. Bob got Anthony to say, "Happy Birthday Old Man!" Anthony had a great time playing with all the big kids, I was almost free to socialize with my friends without supervising. Almost. He and I left early for bedtime, Bob came home quite late.

Sunday morning was "Children's Day" at our church. The highlight was all the Sunday School classes coming in to sing, "This Little Light of Mine." Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any decent video. They had the teeny ones sitting down in front, so we couldn't really see him. When we were leaving the farmer's market, he did treat us to a rousing rendition; even got applause from other families!

This afternoon was our neighbor J's fifth birthday party. Anthony loved playing in the bounce house. I totally saved the day with the pinata. Anthony and Robert didn't really notice the pinata (or so I thought) and were busy bouncing away. I grabbed lollipops for each of them just in case they noticed that the other kids had candy. Well, as the pinata was finishing, they decided to come look for candy. Of course, there was nothing left, but look here, lollipops at each boy's feet!



















Anthony picked up the samba dancer after the parade. Her group marches every year, usually in FAR less clothing (some variant of bright bikinis).

Downtown Parade

Today was Mountain View's downtown parade. Honestly, the first few times I went, I was unimpressed; there were clearly more participants (little league, Scouts, preschools) than audience, no marching band, etc.

Watching said parade with a two year old is completely different experience. Anthony LOVED it. Bob taught him to wave his arms in the air and shout "Hurrah" and he certainly did. Some of the highlights included the fire trucks, goats (from the farm), and his pals Claire and Robert who rode with their Dad with the Parks Commission.

After the parade, we continued the celebration in Pioneer Park. We picnicked in the sun, listened to music, watched some dancers... It was a great morning!

Farm Tour

Deer Hollow Farm offered farm tours yesterday, of course we had to go! We went inside pens for the goats, rabbits and the chicken coop; everything but the cows and the pigs. ALL the animals had babies. I made a keen discovery--goats that are accustomed to children bearing food are far more aggressive than random farm goats. The goats were generally uninterested in the children and only one of the sheep was even interested in being petted. Anthony did get to try on a sheepskin, it was very soft.

Anthony got to peek inside and see the eggs in the chicken coops. He's been fascinated by birds lately. We were on a walk and he heard the birds singing.

Anthony: "Where are the birds?"
Mommy: "Probably in the trees."
Anthony: "Sitting on their nests?"
Mommy: "Maybe"
Anthony: "With eggs in their nests?"
Mommy: "There could be eggs in their nests."
Anthony: "The egg jumped! Just like in my book!"

Lunch with Daddy

Today after the park we headed over to Palm to have lunch with Daddy. We had a great time. It was a beautiful sunny day so we ate lunch in the courtyard outside, Anthony was able to run around while we finished eating.

A funny story: Anthony has been infatuated with lemons for quite some time. He sucked on one for awhile, looked up and announced, "It tastes like chicken!" (That would be a line from "Pigeon Eats a Hotdog.")

Hopicopter Fun

We love it when the days get longer. After dinner tonight Bob and Anthony took the hopicopter out for a spin. You'll see that Anthony even has his own remote control. The best part is the boys saying, "Cleared for takeoff" as Bob gets ready to launch.

Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head

Winter isn't quite over. Rather than spending the entire afternoon sulking in the house, we took advantage of a break in the storm to go puddle stomping.

Palm Sunday

Yes, Palm Sunday was two weeks ago. Little dude practiced shouting "Hosanna" in the car driving to church!

I waited to post this until our church posted the streaming of the service on-line.
March 28, 9:30 service.
The highlight (as far as Anthony's parents are concerned) was the processional of the Sunday School classes with their palm branches.
It starts at 11 minutes and goes on for SIX whole minutes. (Our church has a very popular Sunday School program.) Unfortunately, they didn't get any good shots of our little guy.

I did note an interesting phenomenum. Now that Anthony isn't a baby anymore, people don't coo over him the way they used to. However, when the littlest ones entered the church, everyone was ooing and aahing over how cute they were. It was sweet.

(The 2 year old class had one adult for every two kids, so each kid had their hand held. Anthony made it up the aisle intact, but he needed some persuading as the whole church filled with people singing was just a little distracting.)

A Trip to the Farm

Friday we went to Deer Hollow Farm with Ciaran's playgroup. We had a nice time visiting all the baby animals--two calves, three piglets and a bunch of lambs and baby goats. Anthony, as usual, liked the chickens best of the farm animals.

The highlight was clearly the gopher. We spent quite awhile watching him dig further and further out his hole pulling plants in after him. I had to keep a good grasp on Anthony as that gopher had some pretty serious teeth on him!

One Silly Monkey Jumping on the Bed

Evidently I slept through all the fun this morning.
Bob brought Anthony into our room to show off the video they'd made.



One silly monkey jumping on the bed
He fell off and bumped his head.
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,
"No more monkeys jumping on the bed."

By the way, Anthony has not yet figured out that he can climb out of the crib. I know he can, but he doesn't seem to care to. He does sleep in a sleepsack that he can't remove yet and it does make it harder to climb out. Even after naps, though, he doesn't climb out. I'm not complaining!

Best Friends Forever

Two and a half years old

Easter Sunday marked 2 1/2 years old.

Our month by month updates ended quite awhile ago, but these seems like an appropriate milestone for another one.

1. We're a little vague on height and weight. I think he's about 35 inches and 28 pounds. He was just shy of the height needed to go on the roller-coaster at Happy Hollow. He wears 2T clothes although the pants are often a little long on him. If the waist isn't adjustable I need to tack it in by hand; he's on the thin side.
2. Boy is he two. Everything is "MY do it." He's a relatively good sport about letting me help, though.
3. Anthony has also become a picky eater. I miss my little baby who would wolf down everything. His favorites include goldfish, eggs (scrambled or hard boiled), pasta in any form except lasagne, cheese, and peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat. He loves most fruit, especially kiwi and mango. He generally won't eat french fries, chicken (unless its nuggets), bread/toast, hamburgers or much meat in general. Everything else is generally hit or miss.
4. Favorite toys include his airplane fleet and my shoes. He still LOVES to wear my shoes around the house.
5. He still loves to read. Current favorites are "Cat in the Hat", "Harold and the Purple Crayon", and "Where the Wild Things Are". The other day I said, "Look at me, look at me, look at me now" and Anthony immediately responded with, "Its fun to have fun but you have to know how!"
6. He's really quite easy to understand for a two year old. I think that strangers can generally understand most of what he is saying. My favorite mispronunciation is "Hopicopter". "Cheese" also comes out quite mangled. "Milk" is improving, I swear he puts a southern accent on it trying to get the l-k combination out. Its more like "may-ulk." I think he still calls music "mu-gis."
7. Potty training. He's definitely motivated, sat on the potty 3 times this morning. I'm not really ready to drop diapers yet, but he can sit on the potty all he wants.
8. He enjoys climbing at the park, but he's not a natural like his pal Robert. On Thursday evening he insisted climbing on this BIG structure, at one point he was well over my head. I was pretty nervous, but he did okay. It was a big loop and you climb up one side and then turn around to climb down the other. He struggled with the turn around, but aside from that did okay.

Happy Easter!

I think Anthony had a pretty good Easter. Our morning started with a surprise Easter basket on the porch from Miss Kathryn across the street. We learned that Anthony does not consider marshmallow peeps to be edible. Unfortunately, since he licked it I didn't really want to eat it either. He had an Easter Egg hunt and planted flowers at Sunday School and when we came home the Easter Bunny had come.

Anthony got some goodies in his basket including a solid chocolate bunny, chocolate eggs from Grandma Kay, a bunch of jelly bellies which appear to be his favorites, some airplane stickers, and a new airplane AND a hopicopter. Miss Mary down the street came over later with a candy stick which Anthony enjoyed immensely.

I'm getting ready to make dinner and I hope Anthony chooses to eat. So far today he's eaten one hard boiled egg and a bunch of candy. May be my fault, who knows??

More Block Party Fun

Anthony woke up kind of hard from his nap this afternoon so he toddled off to the party with lovey bear and teddy bear. Once he decided all was well, they were abandoned in the corner, but at least someone found them an egg.

I missed it, but the big kids played tug-of-war in the backyard while I was helping set up dinner. Anthony jumped right in!

Block Easter Egg Hunt

This afternoon was our block Easter Egg Hunt Extravaganza. It started with all sorts of games and fun: balloons, bubbles, games, etc. Then after the kids decorated their goody-bags was the hunt. We separated the two-year olds from the rest of the kids. The other little ones had done other hunts this season and were a little more practiced than Anthony. He found one egg, then immediately needed to open and examine its contents before moving on. (Meanwhile, the other kids were hunting away.)

There was a minor melt-down when Anthony came to the conclusion that he didn't have as much candy as he anticipated--a bunch of the eggs had stickers and mine were sidewalk chalk. Fortunately, the host house had a candy dish and I immediately grabbed and empty egg and filled it with M&Ms for Anthony to find. Problem solved!

We then had potluck dinner and a showing of Cars on a movie screen in the backyard. Anthony did not get to stay for the movie, though.

Easter Bunny at Hiller

The Easter Bunny arrived by airplane at Hiller Aviation Museum this morning. Mama waited in a fairly sizeable line for Anthony's turn to meet Mr. Rabbit. Unlike the other kids, Anthony went right up to say "Hi" and get a plastic egg full of jelly beans. As with most other forms of sugar, Anthony took an immediate liking to jelly beans.

Dying Easter Eggs

Anthony had a GREAT time dying Easter eggs. The process actually went relatively smoothly. I covered the table and measured the vinegar while Anthony napped. I let him put the Paas tablets in each container and we watched them bubble and dissolve. Then I measured the water into each container.

I showed Anthony how to put the eggs in. Then my back was turned (had to call a neighbor to come take pictures) and I discovered that the red dye was now completely full of eggs. Let's just say he caught on fast to the whole process.

I only made 11 eggs and Anthony was disappointed when they were all done. Next year I'll do better. (Fortunately Anthony likes to eat hard-boiled eggs and he actually prefers the yolk.)