Boys

I have been reading a book called "Boys Should Be Boys." While I'm not finished with it I think it should be a mandatory read for all parents of boys. In the first few chapters the author explains why boys have such a fascination with nature. Nature gives them a "physical and imaginative testing ground.... and a sense of freedom."

Last night Chris announced that he was going to sleep outside. He has always wanted to test the limits of his sleeping bag and with the recent snow storm and the fact that it was going to get down to 9 degrees that night, he decided this was the perfect opportunity. The female in me wanted to say "your an idiot. Why would you want to freeze yourself on purpose and sleep on the ground when you have a perfectly good bed 20 feet away?" However, the newly enlightened and educated me realized that Chris was just answering the call of the wild. So I encouraged him. I told him it was a great idea and that he probably wouldn't get another chance like this. Although, I will admit that part of the encouragement came from the prospect of having the bed to myself.

I guess it doesn't matter how old you get, sometimes a boy just needs to be a boy.

Snowed In

If you've watched the news the last few days then you know that the mid west had a huge snow storm this weekend. We ended up with around 18 inches. Poor Chris kept looking out the window wishing he had a resort to take his snowboard to. Just to give you an idea how bad the storm was, the Governor declared a state of emergency, several cities banned any vehicles from being on the road and the mail delivery was canceled. I guess instead of the post office motto being "neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow..." it needs to be "neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow (except when in a state that doesn't have proper snow removal equipment and the public has no idea how to drive in more then 1/4 inch of snow)"

This is looking out our front door. I love the perfectly piled up mound.


Cordon enjoyed himself more in this snowstorm then the last. Although, with the snow that high he couldn't walk and was pretty much stuck.



Chris apparently doesn't know how to film with the iphone. You get the idea though. I remember the days when I would just sit down and eat snow until my face was numb. Just in case you were wondering, Chris is not talking to himself, he is talking to our neighbor.


Bud had a blast running through the snow. It wore him out pretty quick since it was up to his nose. Our neighbor brought his little dog out to play with Bud. I wish I had a picture because all you could see of that dog was the tip of her ears.

Cordons Face

I think I have watched this video at least once a day for the last month. It never gets old. I don't know what is funnier, Cordon trying to make a face, or him laughing at himself .

Trains and Farms

The weather is still cold so our weekend activities are becoming less exciting but we are still taking advantage of the metropolis area and we are seeing all that we can. This last weekend we went to a train museum. There were a ton of different trains, some over 100 years. Some of them have been restored and it was a lot of fun to see some of the different dining cars and sleeping cars. They had some great train models as well. Although I was less appreciative of the work put into it and more confused as to why someone would put that much work into a model?


Cordon had a grand time pulling the leavers and pushing buttons.


Last weekend we headed out to the largest indoor Farm Show. This week long event brings in over 400,000 people yearly. The building was huge. Imagine a state fair but on steroids. It was easy to get lost in that place. And surprisingly with all the animals indoor, the smell wasn't that bad. We spent most of the time clogging our arteries with all the fantastic fried foods so we didn't take many pictures. But we did get a picture of the 1,000 lbs of butter sculpture. That is fine art right there.


This picture has nothing to do with anything, I just think it's cute that having a huge shirt on doesn't faze Cordon. He ran around and played for 10 min with that thing on and never tripped.

Grateful

I was at the kitchen table the other day when I heard Cordon coughing in the other room. He does this at least 10 times a day so I don't worry unless it's prolonged or it sounds like he is choking on something. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him wonder over to my chair and look up at me. I looked down and saw an extremely calm but extremely red face. His eyes were blood shot and watering. Before my brain could register what was happening he opening his mouth and just stood there. It was then I noticed a piece of plastic halfway down his throat. I pulled it out, he gave one big cough, gave me a little smile, then went along his merry little way. Obviously I am so grateful that he is fine and there was no damage done. But I am also grateful that he apparently is the type to not over react. I could not believe how calm he was about not being able to breath. And I love that his little 16 month old brain thought logically. He knew mom would fix it and when mom didn't fix it immediately he knew to show me the problem. I love that little guy.

Christmas and my 29th Birthday

Chris had 2 weeks off for the holidays. We had such grand plans of day trips to the Statue of Liberty, Gettysburg and spending days in our pj's reading and watching old movies. It was going to be a glorious time. And then the video camera died, then the computer crashed. Needless to say Chris spent 4 days trying to fix the computer, save all our documents, install a new hard drive, then reinstall everything. Then of course the closer it got to Christmas the more I started to panic about not having a video camera. So we did what any good American should do, we gave the budget the finger and got ourselves a new video camera. A direct result of this is little to no pictures on Christmas because we were having to much fun taping it all. To justify this new purchase we decided to say it was a Birthday present since I didn't ask for anything before.
Christmas Day/my birthday was a lot of fun with the little man around. We got him a tent with a tunnel that comes out the side. Like everything else, he had to investigate it before he would crawl through it Now he loves the thing and likes to do laps through the tunnel. We spent the day playing with new toys, talking to family, then we headed over to some friends house for a small party.

This is one of the few pictures we got. Cordon had no desire to try and unwrap the gifts. He would just slide his hand between the paper and try to pull out the gift.


Hugging Cordon after we cleaned up his new Christmas toys. Ever since he was 7 months old we have sung a little clean up song when it's time to put the toys away at the end of the day. Now when he hears us sing it he immediately giggles and starts to put his toys away. I LOVE that he picks up after himself and that it's fun for him. Child labor, what a great way to keep my house clean.

B B B Booooring

This pretty much sums up how Cordon and I feel about shopping.

Snow

We got a good snow storm a few weeks ago. Cordon doesn't have any snow pants so I did the next best thing. I put his feet in Ziploc bags then taped them around his pants. They worked great. Cordon started off having a grand ol time brushing the snow off everything, but then he attempted to walk solo in the snow and did a face plant. Of course the loving father had to hurry and get a photo before helping Cordon out.