Stranger Danger

Burn

A few of the younger moms from church got together yesterday for lunch at my friends home. One of the older boys had turned on the fireplace and from the table we couldn't see it. One women had gone to the kitchen to grab something and on her way back to the table she suddenly screamed "NO NO NO, HOT, HOT" I looked up and all I could see was the top of Cordons head going around the corner. By the time I got there he was on the floor crying. He had placed his entire hand on the glass fireplace screen. Hearing him scream on the drive home and not being able to help him was torture. I rubbed melaleuca oil on the burn and within 5 min he was good. That stuff is magical. The rest of the day was pretty hard for him. He would want to play but every time he went to pick something up it would hurt his hand. Fortunately today he doesn't even seem to notice. You can't see it in the picture but he also has two little blisters on the tips of his two middle fingers. Poor little guy.

Christmas In Hershey

The Hershey Amusement Park is opened on weekend nights during the Christmas season. Naturally we had to take advantage, so we bundled up and headed off to enjoy some rides in 40 degree weather. I was surprised at how many rides they had for little kids. Even though I am feeling the effects of cramming myself in little children seats, Cordon had a ball. We took him on 5 or 6 rides. He got bored with some of the rides but with others he laughed the entire time. Like all amusement parks, each ride had a certain height limit, but with Hershey each height limit is assigned a candy. Cordon was a miniature and Chris and I were Twizzlers. Walking around the park all you had to do was look and see if a picture of your candy was next to a ride to see if you could ride it. I thought was a very creative, and easy. Like usual, Hershey went all out. They had tons of lights, decorations, light shows, Santa Clause, and even reindeer. Although one of the reindeer only had one horn and looked a little like this....



How can you not get excited about a 6ft Reese's Peanut Butter Cup?


There is nothing to great about this video, only that it cracks me up how tiny Cordon looks on this big boy ride. He laughed for the first half of the ride then I think he started to feel a bit queasy. Fortunately he didn't produce any partially digested food and he was ready to move onto other rides.


The Ladybug Ride. Cordon laughed the first two times around then he got bored and wanted to move onto better things........


...Such as the Frog Hopper. He thought that was the greatest.


It's a blurry video because of the lack of lights but you can see Cordons big grin bouncing up and down.


And just in case you missed the shear look of terror on this poor girls face it in the photo above, here is a close up

Washington D.C

In honor of Thanksgiving we decided to take the 3 hour drive to Washington D.C and spend a few days gallivanting around our nations capital. I had forgotten how much there was to do there, we are already planning a second trip.

We didn't make it to the main part of the Smithsonian but we were able to go to the Air and Space Museum. Chris has always wanted to go there so he was pretty excited to finally check it off his list. Although, he was a bit disappointed since all the really big stuff is kept out at Dulles (where Transformers 2 was filmed)


Behind us the capsule from Apollo 11


Riding the subway is a whole new experience with a toddler and stroller. It took some coordination to get the stroller on the escalator.


It's was pretty amazing to see the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and the Magna Carta. We were surprised how faded the Declaration of Independence is. You can't see half of it.


"Sooooo Big" Considering he was strapped down in his stroller or car seat for three days Cordon did amazing. Every every time we would let him out of his stroller he would run and giggle with pure excitement with his temporary freedom. Way in the back you can see the Capital building.






That was one gutsy squirrel. I was surprised he came up to me. Cordon gave me dirty looks when I took one of his Ritz crackers to give to the squirrel, but I guess he better start learning how this country works.


The White House was preparing for the State Dinner so they had tents and things surrounding it so we couldn't get any good pictures.

A Boy and His Dog

Chasing Bud has turned into one of Cordons favorite games. He gets laughing so hard that he can't breath. Bud is still a lot bigger then Cordon so Bud usually wins.

Free Counter

Happily Ever Faster

What A Life

I've been trying to decide which one of my 'toddlers' has the better life. Time to pull out a check list to find out:

• Has all his meals prepared for him - Bud:1 Cordon:1
  
• Never has to pick up after himself - Bud:1 Cordon:1
  
• Can take a nap whenever he wants - Bud:1 Cordon:1
  
• Gets lots of attention and priase just for being cute - Bud:1 Cordon:1
• Doesn't have to clean up his own poop - Bud:1 Cordon:1
  
• Will have this lifestyle till the day he dies - Bud:1 Cordon:O
  

Well I guess that settles it. In the next life I'm coming back as a dog.

Bonk

Cordon is finally walking. He first started to try around 10 months but was in no rush to progress. Then last Monday I guess he decided that crawling was sooo last season and has been walking ever since. Chris and I were talking about how lucky we got by avoiding any big injuries while Cordon was learning to walk. Of course it was only a matter of time till the jinx from that conversation caught up with Cordon. Yesterday I walked in a room just in time to see his forehead attack the corner of the wall. Poor guy was not to happy about that. He wouldn't let me put anything cold on it so he got a pretty good goose egg and has a nice bruise today. Fortunately, a cookie and watching Go Diego Go made it all better.

P90X Grad

About 4 months ago Chris and I finally had enough of our muffin tops (probably a direct result of our daily intake of ice cream) and getting winded each time we climbed the stairs, so we got on the P90X band wagon. After spending a small fortune restocking our kitchen, buying 12 workout DVD's, two booklets, resistance bands, and pull up bar we were ready to start. Of course it was at that point that we found out that there is a fitness test you have to pass before you can do the course because of how intense it is. Technically I didn't pass but figured, eh, close enough. We 'passed' the test, measured our fat goo, took embarrassing photos of our love handles then finally, we were ready to let the fun begin. 60 -90 min workouts 6 days a week and 3, made from scratch, meals. Surprisingly, most of the food is fantastic. Just when your body starts to get use to the insanely painful workouts, it all gets switched up to cause muscle confusion. I have decided that muscle confusion is code for 90 days of being sore. Around 8 weeks Chris had some business trips for work and it threw his schedule off so he decided to blow off a few weeks then started over a few weeks ago. As for me? I am DONE!!!! At this point I have no desire to start over, just maintain it. Just in case you are wondering, yes it works! Yes it's hard and takes time and dedication but it works. What blows me away, is that I only put in about 70% effort (I just couldn't pass up on Cordons Birthday cake, and that hamburger, and all those excuses to skip a workout....) and I still dropped 2 pant sizes and 15 lbs. And no, I will not be posting the before and after pictures. I don't want to be the cause of puke piles that are sure to come from viewing the before photos.

Halloween

We had our wards Trunk or Treat and Halloween party this week. Cordon isn't quite ready for the activities they had, but he had a blast exploring (that's code for yanking things down, throwing things off the stage and knocking down some bowling pins. That's what I get for giving him a cookie.) During the Trunk or Treat part of the night he sat in the back of the Xterra playing with the pumpkin and pulling candy out of the bowl. He knows how to have a good time.

Here is Cordon dressed as Winnie the Pooh dressed as a bee. It's two costumes in one. I found this brand new costume dirt cheap at the second hand store. The best part is that it's for a 2 year old so it should fit him next year. Yahoo for bargains.


I snapped the photo just as he decided to fill up his britches. I love that look of concentration.


The YM put together a little haunted house. Being the wonderful parents we are, we decided to take Cordon through it. Fortunately he thought it was great and loved watching the crazy doctor.


My two boys. Aren't they handsome.

Our Little Climber

It's no surprise that Chris and I produced a child that is obsessed with climbing. He spends his days climbing on and off anything he can find.



This was his favorite game for about 3 days. He would spend hours climbing in and out of the stroller and every so often he would take a break from climbing and try to buckle himself in. He has only fallen once and started crying pretty good. I picked him up and tried to hug him but he pushed me away so he could climb back in, while still crying. He climbed in and out twice before he stopped crying. I guess he was multi-tasking.

A Room With A View

This is the view out of the kitchen window and our bedroom window. I love all the colors.

Pumpkin Patch

We headed out to a family farm/market this weekend with some friends. This place was great it had a pumpkin patch, corn maze, petting zoo, bakery, and all sorts of slides and toys for kids to play on. Ironically, we ended up not getting a pumpkin but we had some fantastic shoo-fly pie.

This boy has a good time wherever he goes.


Trying really hard to get the highland cow closer so we could pet it.


This picture cracks me up. Chris ran ahead of us so he could get an 'action' shot of us in the corn maze. I look like the photo bomber sneaking up behind to ruin a cute family photo.

Little Updates

We have been in Harrisburg for 4 months now and I am finally starting to feel at home. Over the last 5 years I have grown accustomed to small town hospitality. People here are more reserved which means I have had to really get out of my shell to meet people. There is a ton of stuff to do here and I have really enjoyed getting out each weekend to explore the city. This last weekend we went to a little shopping/restaurants complex. There was a lot of little crafts and things for kids to do including a fake cow to milk. I couldn't resist, however when I grabbed hold of the 'udder' I got more then I bargained for. The last child to milk the cow left a nice sticky gooey present. I have no idea what it was and I don't want to know.



Chris celebrated his 35th birthday. He says it's strange to only have a toddler when most of his friends are getting close to having teenagers, but he enjoys it because it makes him feel young. As far as celebrating, it was a pretty pathetic day. We wondered the outlets then he spend the evening yelling at the T.V watching BYU lose.


We went back to Chocolate World to partake of the chocolate tasting seminar (mmmmmmm) To waste time we did the tour again. Cordon enjoyed the singing cows a lot more this time around.

Cordon is very quickly turning into a little boy. He is so busy and can't get enough of life. We had a 24 hour flu bug passed around, while Chris and I were knocked out with it, Cordon barley slowed down. He is to busy trying to walk and figure out how to get past the child locks to let the flu get in the way.

We have some neighbors that moved in a month or so ago. They have a three month old daughter and this last week it was time for the parents to head back to work. I volunteered to watch her a few weeks until they can find a permanent babysitter. I know that some women prefer to go back to work and have no problem sending their children to daycare but I am not one of those women and I am so glad I chose to stay home. Each morning I see the pain in the dads face as he drops his daughter off with someone he has only known a month. I see the girl cry as her dad leaves then spend the day looking around trying to find something familiar. Each night I see the moms sadness when I tell her all the cute things her daughter did that day that she missed, especially the day she rolled over for the first time. I could not imagine having a stranger know my child better then me and missing all the major milestones that happen the first year. Not only am I grateful that I made the choice to stay home but I"m grateful that financially it was a choice I could make.

Camping

Cordon may have been annoyed at his over sized playpen, but we sure had a good time watching him try to escape.



We got some rain while camping so we had to dry out the tent. Instead of setting the whole thing up again, Chris got creative and just hung the tarps on the walls and the tent upside down in the garage to air out. It barely fit the one car garage but at least it was out of the way. You can see my legs sticking out of the tent. It was so easy to get all the dirt out this way, why haven't we thought of this before?

Hear Ye! Hear Ye

We spent the day at a Renaissance Faire. 32 acres of 16th century fun. This place had it all, rides, games, food, plays, sword swalloers, flame throwing, jousting, sword fights etc etc. I loved every second of it and wished we could have stayed longer. Cordon liked all the bright colors and music and took it all in. Chris enjoyed himself, although at one point he did say "I feel like I should beat myself up for coming here."


Cordon got a kick out of the "Royal Hound"


The human chess match. When two pieces were confronted they had a sword fight to see who got the square.


Got meat?


This head gear was meant to humiliate women who nagged or gossiped.


You can see Cordon is starting to get annoyed and ready to go home.


This guy did some pretty amazing tricks while the horse was trotting.


Look right above the horse and you can see the guy in the air. He jumped off the horse while it was trotting. He did a back flip later but I didn't get a shot of that.


Jousting.


Scottish Eggs. Hard boiled eggs wrapped in sausage and deep fried, mmmmmm


"Brawl at the Boarshead" Play

Oh, Hello Toddler!

I have decided that on Cordons birthday a little voice popped into his head and said "You are now a toddler and should act as such!" His energy and curiosity have skyrocketed. He never stops moving, which has made church very interesting. Changing his diaper has become an Olympic sport. I can now put a diaper on backwards and with one hand (although not very well) We have had several people comment about how active he is but I knew it was bad when his new pediatrician and the nurse said they were shocked at how busy he is.

Meal time has become a fun game for both baby and dog.


I am still baffled that he not only got the shampoo bottle off the counter but somehow untwisted the lid. Of course it was a brand new bottle. That bathroom floor has never been cleaner.


It's hard to get frustrated when that big cheeser boy looks up at you like that.


This was how he entertained himself while I was in the shower.