Advent Calendar

Calvin's first Advent calendar! Each little bag holds a trinket, candy, stickers, or a few coins. He and I made the ornaments after I realized that we were not going to get out of Michael's without buying the clear plastic ornaments. I didn't want them just floating around the house so I also bought pom-poms to fill them. Calvin did the middle one by himself and helped me with the other two. He lost interest after a bit so I had to finish filling them. I hope he enjoys opening the bags as much as I enjoyed filling them!

Preschool!

Calvin has joined the world of preschool! He will be attending every Wednesday and Friday from 8:30 am to 11:30 am at a local Montessori preschool . Well, we're supposed to get there at 8:30 but we were late for his very first day of school! We received our first snow and slush of the season so traffic was a little crazier than usual so even though I gave us extra time to get there it wasn't enough. Oh well, he arrived just in time for circle time. Today it looked like they were working on identifying colors. Calvin actually knows his colors but I'm guessing he didn't shout out the answers because that just isn't his style when he's in a new situation. I think there was story time and singing today as well as play time and a walk outside. Luckily he already has his boots, snow pants, mittens, and winter jacket because he needed all of them today!

The teacher reported that Calvin did great today. No tears, he jumped right in, and it seemed like he had been there forever. No tears from Mom either! Hopefully Friday will go just as well. I think the hardest part for both of us was waking up so early.

Halloween!

My two cows. A couple of people commented on Dan's costume and wondered how Calvin and I talked him into dressing up. What they don't know is that Dan wanted to be a cow! He asked me to make him a costume! We were both going to be farmers but Dan decided that it would be more fun to be a cow. I think he was right. Calvin loves wearing his costume and he's actually worn it quite a bit. He's gotten to wear it at two Halloween parades, a small Halloween party with friends, trick or treating at Sam's Club (more fun than it sounds!), and of course tonight. Luckily it washes well.
Mooing for the camera!
Calvin is still mooing. We couldn't get him to smile so we had to keep asking him to moo otherwise he just had a scowl on his face.
Still mooing...
The farmer and one of her cows.

We tried to teach Calvin to say trick or treat but he never really got it. So he just shouted "Halloween" before grabbing candy from our neighbors. Sometimes he would just moo at them instead which got lots of laughs. Although we didn't go to many houses our neighbors are very generous so we ended up with a lot of candy.
All in all I think Calvin had fun.

A few Calvin updates

Every day it seems as though Calvin has learned a few new words. Most of the time I have no idea where he has heard the word and he's saying it! Luckily, no swear words! I'm not even allowed to say Beaver Dam, WI I have to say Beaver Darn, according to Dan. His favorite word right now is Mom. All day long it's: mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom. By the end of the day my ears are tired.

He really likes playing monster with me. We walk around waving our arms in the air like a monster saying "monster" (if you're me) and "monter" (if you're Calvin). He also really enjoys playing games. He'll grab a ball and say game which can mean one of two things. We are either going to kick the ball back and forth or he is going to hurl the ball at me while I cower in fear. He doesn't have much control over where he throws the ball and it can be a little scary. I try to only play ball with him with soft, squishy balls so I don't get hurt. He also enjoys the few board games that we have for him. He doesn't understand the rules and doesn't really care when you try to show him how to actually play the game. He has his own rules and they are constantly changing. Sounds kind of like your grocery store game, Mom! Oh well, he has fun and it usually doesn't involve throwing things at us so we try to encourage board games.

Books are still a huge hit. One of his other favorite words is lap and he likes to say it while patting our laps with one hand and holding a book in the other. I'm going to miss when he doesn't want to cuddle with us anymore!

Calvin had his two year physical earlier this week. He weighs 26 pounds 6 ounces and is 35.5 inches tall. No wonder we have a hard time finding clothes that fit him! Pants that are long enough usually fall down to his ankles as he runs down the hallway yelling "running."

Now you are up to date!

Timber

Before...
During...



After.

So this skinny little guy shows up at our door by himself saying that he is here to take down the two big pine trees in our front yard. By himself. All I could think of was, really? By yourself? No way. Can't you wait until your employee (our neighbor) is home from high school? Strangely I would have felt better if a high school kid was helping him. Silly me, he took those trees down in no time. It took longer cleaning up the fallen branches than the actual cutting. Calvin had fun throwing little branches that were scattered on the driveway back into the large pile of branches. I am sorry that I didn't get any pictures of the stump grinder destroying the tree stumps. That thing was a monster or as Calvin would say, monter. Now we just have to get the flag pole out of there, a new tree planted, grass seed down and growing, and more plants along the garage wall. Since Calvin has decided this week not to take naps I will be sure to put him to work digging holes. That should wear him out.

Home hair cut

Calvin won't let anyone near his head with scissors (can't say I blame him) so when we take him to get his hair cut they always have to use the clippers. Well, I got tired of paying someone $15 to cut his hair so we decided to give it a try at home. Since Dan cuts his own hair he was willing to cut Calvin's. As you can see from the pictures below Calvin did great! It helped that we had him stand on a chair so he could see what was happening in the mirror. For the most part, as long as he can see what is being done to him he's a little more tolerant and will let you do what you need to do.


I thought this photo and the next few were so cute. Calvin was holding this mirror very close to his face and making silly faces at himself. He was wiggling his eyebrows at himself then making very serious faces. Very cute.




Almost done and not a moment too soon from the look on his face. He actually did very well for not taking a nap yesterday. For some reason this has been a week of very short naps to no naps. Hopefully tomorrow will be better because I have things I need to get done! He doesn't know it but I'm trying to make his Halloween costume and nap time is sewing time!

See how the garden grows

June...
July!



A melon hanging on a tomato cage.

A couple of weeks a go we had a very violent thunderstorm which left many of my tomato plants looking a little ragged. Even with the help of the cages most of the tomato plants were flattened out a bit and no longer stand up straight. For the most part the tomatoes are still doing really well! The melons on the other hand are struggling a bit. I noticed that they were looking a little over watered so I decided to cut back but then we had 3 nights of lots of rain! The melons that are doing the best are the ones that attached themselves to the tomato cages. I didn't realize that I need to get cages for my melons!

Calvin and I are having a busy summer together! We've attended a lot of activities at the library, visited a number of city parks (including a petting zoo), swam at the local outdoor pool (he loves going down the twisty water slide on my lap), looked at fish at the National Mississippi River Museum, and today we went to the Dubuque County Fair. We got to pet cows, a chicken, and lambs. I didn't let Calvin pet the pigs only because there was no one around to ask if we could pet them. Having never been around pigs (not counting cooked bits o' pig) I don't know if they like to be petted. We also saw 5 Bengal tigers, 4 magical poodles (not sure how they were magical and it was too hot to stay to find out), ducks, more chickens, and a nurse that took care of us after Calvin was born. We had a tasty lunch of corn dog, french fries, and water. We bought a bag of tasty, fresh popped popcorn for the ride home.

Calvin is also saying a lot more words now. We can't always understand what he is saying but you can tell by the look on his face and his insistence that he is trying to communicate something to us. He's really taken to signing and is quickly learning the signs for colors. Just yesterday he was standing on a pillow (why I don't know and he wasn't saying) and I asked him to tell me the color of the pillow. He correctly said blue while making the sign! Today we were working on brown and he saw a brown skirt of mine and signed blue but then quickly shook his head and signed brown. He loves going on outings and will make the sign for car with a huge smile on his face! He also signs please, thank you, nap, night night, bird and fish are two of his favorites, and a few others. He's also learning his numbers right now. He recognizes the number one and can say it while holding up one finger. He can say two but has a hard time folding his fingers to show two. His favorite word to say right now is no. Only he says it more than once: no, no, no, no, no. He'll get a toy in throwing position, say no while shaking his head, and then throw the toy. Although he knows most of his body parts I realized last week that I had never taught him elbow! He quickly learned elbow (only needing to be told twice!) and now loves to fold his arm so his hand is on his shoulder with his elbow pointing out and bump "bows" with me. First one and then the other.

We've had a few rough nights in the past few weeks and couldn't figure out why. Rough as in waking up at 4:30 am and not wanting to go back to bed. Nap time comes early on those days. Finally, I was able to see that his 2 year molars are coming in. One has broken through the gums and the others are quickly following suit. It will be nice when teething is over! Next up, potty training!

Christmas posted in July

Tired baby. Thanks to Grandma Sandy for sending me some pictures of Calvin that I didn't have. Hopefully posting some pictures from Christmas will help everyone feel a little cooler! Temperatures were in the 90's all last week and this week looks warm too but at least not as humid.

So tired. His left eye gets droopy when he's tired.
Calvin and Grandpa having a very serious conversation.
Calvin loves playing with the telephone.
So many electronics and remote controls to play with at Grandpa David and Grandma Sandy's house!

4th of July

All set to watch the parade!
Ready and waiting!
Chewing on a piece of candy (one of way too many!).
Calvin loves dogs even ones that walk on two legs!
Not so sure about this dog though.


Getting lessons on how to drive Grandpa's new lawn tractor.


After a lesson from Dad Calvin was all set to drive the tractor himself. Now if he could only reach the pedals...
Handing batteries to Grandpa David...
Look, batteries!

Learning how to hold the ends of batteries and then shake them.
Why do we spend all sorts of money on toys when he's perfectly happy with batteries?