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?

House projects

Old stove.
New stove. Thank you craigslist! Although the old stove was a little (okay, really) outdated it actually worked really, really well so it was hard to justify buying a new one. Occasionally I would check craigslist to see if a nice stove was for sale and I happened to see this one and for a great price. One quick trip to Galena and we had a new stove! An older couple had just moved into a town home a few months ago that had sat empty for more than a year so none of the appliances had ever been used. The woman said that she had to take plastic and other tags off of the stove when they moved in. She only used it a couple of times (what did they eat?) and felt like she need to buy new appliances because someone in her family owns an appliance store. Where were they a month ago when we needed a new dishwasher? See below.

The dishwasher that came with the house went kaput so we got a new one! He requires a little more upkeep but he sure is cuter than the one we had!Dan and Calvin installing the dishwasher. Unfortunately, this ended up being an all day chore. Between Dan's little helper and a trip to the hardware store the entire process took longer than expected. Who knew that electric dishwashers don't come with electrical cords, that you have to supply your own? Strange but true.
Installed and ready to clean, clean, clean!
The garden that Dan and Calvin built with the plants from Grandpa David. Calvin helped add soil to the garden and carried the plants from the garage to the garden. I'm a little surprised that any of the pumpkins are doing well because Calvin had fun pulling them out of the garden shortly after they were planted. He now leaves the big garden alone because I have a small garden (a square container that I used to grow tomatoes in) for him to play in. He loves to use his little shovel to dig in the dirt and then fling the dirt onto the ground.
Our rock collection. Instead of flower beds this house came with a rock garden. We've (okay I only helped a little so it was mainly Dan) been cleaning out the rocks to make room for some shade plants since the beds are right up against the house and don't get direct sunlight. It's kind of hard to tell from the picture but this is a HUGE pile of rocks and half of what we had to begin with. We've had 2 different people come and take some of the rocks away for their own gardens. Now we just need to find 2 more people to take the rest away.
Earlier this spring there were some interesting looking plants emerging from the ground near our garage and at the edge of the backyard. I thought they kind of looked like red asparagus. Dan wanted to get rid of the plants since we didn't know what they were but I insisted that we leave them and thank goodness we did!


Today was really hot and humid so the peonies are starting to droop. I'm hoping tonight when it cools off they will perk up again.
Tomatoes!
Hello, tomatoes!