Friday Cute- In the Yard

I have no great commentary to add to this first set, as I think they're pretty great on their own. This is my parents' yard, the dog (Mika) is my brother's, and the pig is my Dad's, despite the fact that it showed up on my graduation or some such and he used to claim it was mine (he seems to have given up). (Perhaps I should not have mentioned that. However, it is his, and thus not an issue.)

The second set from my parents' cracks me up, because sometimes it's just a bit difficult to be small. As in small enough to be foiled by an abundant garden, and perhaps eaten by a large plant. Ray laughed when he saw them, so either they're funny or we're a bit cruel:



Have a good weekend, and watch out for baby-eating plants!

Hawaii, Day 4

To see the rest of our Hawaii trip to this point, click here.

Everyone had a pretty full day on Day 3 (the rest of the group checked out a lavender farm), so we all stayed pretty near the boat on Day 4 and skipped seeing much more of Maui.

Eamon hung out with his great-grandfather and his father. Aunt Laura got a lot of great pictures.

Hello, peasants!

Here is the pose I use as an Abercrombie model.

Laura also got this shot of her husband, Brad, which invariably causes Ray or I to start into "I don't smoke often, but when I do..." or some variation of the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man..." ads.

After our relative failure convincing Eamon that beaches were fun, we spent some time dialing it back a bit- all the way back to the kiddie pool on the boat, which was kept at about 70 degrees, but at least stayed put. Ray's Minnesota blood came in handy here, as did his patience. Eventually, he got Eamon to splash about a bit.

After that and a nap, Eamon was pretty much content to work on his walking skills on the windy upper decks. Ray and the boys did run down to check out the beach that we could see from dock. Apparently, they got to see sea turtles, but no one got a picture for me to share (this would happen again!). They did get to play around a bit, though.

If you want to see the whole Picasa album to this point, click the picture below:

hawaii2010

18 months.

Eamon turned a year and a half old today.
Yes, yes I did!
(Look familiar?) (and for more chair, click here)

He's increasingly verbal - "bye", "'nana", all cats are "Mo!" with a grabby hand motion (which, in cat, translates as "RUN"). Hi, yeah, out, shoe, ball, bubble, mine, no... the list is getting longer by the day. He picked up the arms akimbo shoulder shrug that goes with "Where's the..____?", and that cracks me up. But mostly:
BALL.

Eamon is more adventurous by the day. He's still not sure about bodies of water, but he's sure about anything he can climb or jump off of - to the point of questionable judgement. He climbs anything at the playground including ladders that are really a bit big for him, he's learning to slide, he wants to jump off everything (but doesn't yet know how to land), and this weekend he surprised Ray with his ability to grab a bar and swing off (in this case, off the top of a stepstool in Home Depot). He can't quite run yet, and I'm thankful for that!
Just wait, Mom...


He does have his calm moments. He likes putting the rings on his stacker, although he has no love for blocks. He loves books, and he's starting to point out things in the books (cats, dogs, balls). He just discovered the next step up in Dr. Seuss (Go Dog Go!) and it's now an addiction. Daycare lets him paint and scribble and he loves both, although he seems to paint himself as much as the paper. He'll also stop for a few short moments to eat, preferably noodles, bread, or dairy (that's my child!)

Above all else, though, he'd like to have his "shooz" on and be "out" - for a walk, preferably to locate all the unloved balls in the neighborhood. Squirrels, leaves, bunnies, birds, dogs, other kids, and ants are good, too.
Ohhh, good idea, let's go!


In the interest of record keeping, this is the first photo session where he (safely) got himself out of the chair, and was off and running... interesting times keep coming.

Thanks for an exciting 18 months, little man. We love you!

Obsession

I have to apologize because I JUST downloaded the pictures off of one of our cameras and realized that I hadn't done so since before we visited my parents last month. Turns out ya'll have been missing out on some gloriousness. At least in my opinion.

I haven't mentioned this much, I don't think, but Eamon is obsessed with OUT. His first act after breakfast is to go find his shoes and bring them to you, muttering "shoo?" He will drag you out as many times a day as he can, even in ridiculous heat and humidity (as Alli and Jana discovered last week). Visiting my parents' house, with the nice enclosed yard, was like heaven for him. And then he discovered something even better.

Hawaii, Day 3

Day 3 of our Hawaii trip was spent on Maui. I've already posted a good overview of Eamon's view of our trip to Kam 3. Whomever wasn't babysitting was (attempting to) bodysurf. I think Steve had the best luck.

Steve did also succeed in getting a picture of the three of us (which has been the blog pic for a bit).

We came home to find a classic cruise ship item:

The nice woman cleaning our room really didn't understand Eamon's cave, and it took us a couple of days to locate our bathmat (turns out it was part of the elephant). But the elephant was fun!

There are a lot more pictures, particularly of us bodysurfing Kam 3. Some of them are even uploaded (yes, I edited and pruned a lot). If you want to see the whole Picasa album to this point, this link should do it:

hawaii2010

Other Excitement

Our friends Patty and Bart got married this weekend, and it was an epic wedding. It started with a gorgeous Thursday night wedding in Evergreen (also a special day because a) another friend had her second child three hours earlier and b) Eamon stayed home with Alli and Jana (THANK YOU!)). The wedding was followed by everyone shuttling down to Buena Vista to run Brown's Canyon on Saturday - 37 kayakers and 6 commercial rafts full of non-boaters.

The pictures are pretty fun. Can you find me? (Blue tank top, behind the guy in a red shirt). Yes, all the kayakers AND rafters in this pic (and a few who aren't) were with our group.

Two of the commercial pics that are awesome:
Me in Zoom Flume (because I'm just gorgeous in noseclips)
Patty (the Bride) styling it through Zoom Flume (note the veil!)

Huge thanks to Ray for entertaining Eamon on a very long day in camp!

Keep 'em coming

I'm waiting to put up the next post because I am really enjoying the comments on the last post. Please, keep them coming!

Caption This!

Another challenge, at least for Ray's brother, but for anyone who would like to play (humor me? and if you don't, you'll get Ray's captions. :) ).

Caption these:

Hawaii, Day 2

Day 1 here.
Day 2, May 8, 2010 started off mellowly - well, for me. Ray got a jetlagged baby wake up at some ridiculous hour and kindly left me to sleep. Ray and Eamon went out and harasses various shops until they got someone to sell them coffee and donuts, probably after Ray had been up for two hours. And he still brought me donuts, the saint.

I started my morning (post donuts) with a good chunk of the family at Waikiki beach. We thought Eamon would enjoy having the sea nip his toes. The sea was angry, apparently, and decided to eat his shorts instead. It was cold, and surprising, and WAAAAH. So... Eamon wasn't so into the whole ocean thing. Too bad we didn't get a shot of that. But Ray's mom did figure out his iphone, so we bring you these instead:

Hawaii, Day 1

Yes, it is, in fact, beginning. For those of you about to log into grunzilla's fileburst, I haven't uploaded there. I have stolen your pictures, integrated them (resistance was futile), and am ready to start here. What I haven't done is sort through our pictures for what you will want to see... hopefully within the week. Or whenever Steve or Laura harasses me (you could harass Ray, but that would be about useless in this case...just easier on me!).

Okay, so, way back in May, we went on this totally awesome trip to Hawaii and stuff?
(my parents are rolling their eyes... that was for Ray).

Anyway - you already heard about the Portland part of the trip out. The flight to Hawaii itself was exactly as glorious as flying for way too many hours with a toddler sounds, so lets skip that part. We did, eventually make it to Hawaii without being jettisoned out an airlock or emergency exit or whatever. Ray's brother Steve was there to greet us (and share a car) when we got there.
The brain trusts in this crowd quickly decided that since we couldn't take luggage on the buses (What? I know! Ridiculous. No one wanted to hear how you can take bikes, snowboards, alpacas on Boulder buses.), we needed a rental car. So we got one.

Camping: Buffalo Creek

Jana has kindly provided me with her pictures of our camping trip a couple of weeks ago. With that, we are ready to ROLL (the ball pun I'm making here? See below.)

Our camping weekend started out chaotic. Ray was going to be home Friday early, then he wasn't, then he was, then he... wasn't. Saturday morning, we're packing up, and Alli calls to say that they abandoned the original campground for its complete lack of level space and headed to Buffalo Creek Recreation Area instead. Throw in some horrid cell signal, the fact that Jimmy had already gone up and ended up camping alone, and this could have been bad. Fortunately, Alli and Isaac gave decent directions quickly and then went to fetch Jimmy. Jimmy, of course, enjoyed a mellow evening of solo camping and was lazing by the river. So, all was good.

We got up around lunchtime. Everyone else was set up and on epic hikes, rain was threatening, so we set up camp quickly. Ray and Eamon worked together.
Jimmy showed up with Sadie just as the rain hit, and Sadie kept Eamon entertained while we got the rest set up.

Sometimes, it takes a whole village for two parents to eat dinner.
(Those of you who know Alli can see why this cracks us up. She so kindly took Eamon for a bit and ended up running buffalo daycare.)
These little kids loved Eamon. They wanted to touch him, know how old he was, etc., etc. It's good to be bigger than someone, I think.

Efrain's may be forgiven their somewhat subpar food last week just for the buffalo.

ps: Points to Ray for catching those eyelashes with an iphone!

Frankie (Donut) says...

In contrast to yesterday's post.

Some members of our household have no problem truly RELAXING.

The godson

What, you come here, you want to see adorable pictures and hear witty updates, eh? Is that how it is?

Let me tell you how it is... You just smile quietly and I won't feed you this here spaghetti, eh?

(yeah, now you know who really runs this joint... Ohh, gotta go!)

Happy Fourth!

Two thoughts:
ONE:

This is my confession - after mocking the concept for years, I've done the ridiculous. I bought my child a full-priced pair of shoes because a) they're developmentally correct and b) they're insanely cute.  Possibly more b. Particularly when he runs and you can see the yellow caution symbols on the bottoms flash at you.

(Do those ridiculous (consignment-purchased in a pack with other, cuter) shorts make up for this extravegence? They do in my budget, although I may perhaps owe E for therapy for the shorts later...)

TWO:

Ray and Eamon are at Scott Carpenter park right now with Alli and Angela starting the weekend off right. I hope you all have an equally fun weekend!