Feeding the Dogs and Spinning with Pops (videos)

These videos are a week or so old, apologies. The first is Lewis helping me feed the dogs with a milk container he fetched from the recycling bin. He's very careful (and slow). :) When he uses the actual scoops, dog food ends up all over the floor, so I'm not sure which is worse. The second video is just Kevin and Lewis spinning around, being silly.

Weekend in Michigan to Visit the Littles

This past weekend we headed north to visit Joe, Polly, Joey (2 years), and Jackson (4 months). We had a very nice visit and really enjoyed the area in which they live--lots of pine forest around their house and a beautiful river running through town. I realize now that we didn't get any pictures with Jackson--I was either holding him or watching Lew, so I'll blame Kevin. :)

We headed to my parents' house Thursday after Kevin got home from work to knock 2 1/2-3 hours off of the drive (then we drove the rest Friday morning). We tested out Lewis' new LeapPad on the way up--he doesn't necessarily 'get' it yet, but he does like to turn the book's pages and press the pen to the pictures (just not intentionally yet).

Dad was out of town, but Mom and Lewis hung out for a few minutes Thursday evening before bedtime and then a few hours on Friday morning over breakfast. Then it was onward to Michigan!

 Watching Cars or Thomas the Train

He watched for just a few minutes and then started messing with the buttons, so he skipped through the whole movie pretty quickly. It kept his attention for a little while, at least.

 Napping, finally! We stopped for lunch and tried to get him to nap at his normal time, but he didn't. Literally five minutes from Joe and Polly's house, he finally crashed. We tried to get him to nap once we got there, but he wasn't having it. Polly said she heard the pitter patter of feet up in the bedroom where he was supposed to be sleeping, so we just went up and got him. (And installed the crib tent, which we thankfully brought along, for bedtime.)

 Lewis and Joey

Joey, showing Lew how his kitchen works

We hung out at their house that evening and had a great meal, followed by the Louisville football game after the kiddos went to bed. (Same deal Saturday, but it was the Nebraska game.) Boys and their football. :)

 Here, kitty kitty.

Their cat Lance is so very sweet and has this nicely gated area in which to watch the action.

Saturday morning (which turned into noon) we headed out for Halloween festivities at the Y.

 Joey, the Monkey

 Lew, the Lion

(raking hay and leaves)

 Playing at the corn table

Joey's kind of giving Lewis a look like, 'What on earth are you doing?'

 It was really the most age appropriate thing they had (the other activities were more for the older kids), but they both had a really good time and were fine spending all of their time there.

Afterwards we headed out to lunch in downtown Rockford, followed by a decent nap by Lewis. Then it was time to play again! I think Joey and Lewis ran around with each other for at least two hours that afternoon. They both seemed to get along really well!

 Hugs!

 Buddies, sorting shapes together

 Light switch fun

It was up and down the stairs over and over again. Lewis seemed to love the carpeted stairs (like at my parents' and Kevin's parents' house) and was really zipping down them. I think the sweatpants helped him gain some speed.

 Hi, Joey! :)

 Lew loved sitting in (as well as standing on and trying to tip over) Joey's little chair. I'm not sure what J is doing--holding his belly, I guess. 

 Snacktime :)

(Mom, they also had honeycrisps, so we got to eat some 2 days in a row!)

 Saying hi to Lance (again)

 And petting him.

Sunday morning, Lewis woke up earlier than usual (though I'm not sure what time it was). He laid with us for a little while and then Kevin said it was 6:22am after that point. Soooo, we were awake but a little bleary-eyed. After breakfast, the boys played a bit longer while we packed up our things and loaded the car.

One last turn at the kitchen

Then it was back to Kentucky! The drive home was really good--Lewis was happy in the morning, had lunch, and then took a 1 1/2 hour nap in the car (which is great for him, not a big car napper). Kevin rode with him the 2nd half of the day and kept him happy with his DVDs and LeapPad and snacks. We made it home way earlier than we anticipated, which was great--it meant we had time to go out and pick up the dogs to spare them from an additional night of boarding. (jk...we love our boarding place, but it was nice to have them home to snuggle with)

 Napping like a champ

So, great weekend! We're both still not feeling 100% from the late nights and drinking and early mornings, but we'll survive. :) 'We're not as young as we used to be' has been on my mind. It was so great to catch up with friends, have Lewis and Joey play together, and meet Jackson--another family of friends was supposed to also meet us up there but had to cancel due to sickness, so hopefully we can all get together again soon.

Oh, and I think Peter and Lewis both missed each other:

:)

Lewis the Menace

I have a bunch of pictures to sort through from our weekend in Michigan with Joe and Polly, but first I wanted to share the madness that one little 30 pounder can create. :)

Last Wednesday evening, our house was burning up. It had been in the 80s for a few days and I'd had the oven on and I'd mowed the yard (at nap) and had just been sweating all afternoon and could not cool down. I finally couldn't take it and tried to turn the air conditioning on just to cool off the house for a few hours. 

Well, the AC wouldn't turn on. I automatically got mad and figured it was broken. We decided not to worry about it and said we'd have it serviced sometime between now and next summer.

Thursday morning I woke up to cooler-than-usual water in the shower, so I told Kevin (a hot shower person) about it, and he went down to see what was wrong. The water heater (I should say, newer than a year water heater) was dead! However, when he tried to plug it into a new outlet, it worked! We've had to replace another outlet and a light switch in the laundry room in the past 6 months, so I figured the outlet was just bad and needed replaced, too (everything looked good in the breaker box). Lewis and I went to Home Depot Thursday morning and got a new outlet to be installed when I had time. We left it plugged into a different outlet with an extension cord over the weekend because I ran out of time on Thursday before we left.

So we left for Michigan Thursday, had a great weekend (where a huge cold front moved through), and returned home last night to our house being a chilly 59 degrees!!! I then literally got mad and thought our house was shutting down around us and left to pick up the dogs while Kevin stayed back to feed Lewis his dinner. About 10 minutes away from home, Kevin called and said that he fixed all of our heating and cooling problems. Me, ever the skeptic, said, 'You DID?'

Apparently, there is one switch, PERFECTLY at Lewis' level that controls the furnace and air conditioner, as well as the outlet that the water heater plugs into. Someone (Wild Man Lew) is obsessed with light switches and must have flipped the switch sometime last week and turned all three off in one beautifully innocent swipe of a finger. Lewwwwiiiiissss!

So, all is well again, thank goodness. I'm really glad Kevin figured it out and we didn't call out all of the professionals to have it fixed.

What an Equally Fun and Frustrating Weekend!

We borrowed Cars from Ben and Adie, so Kevin and Lewis sat down to watch it Saturday morning. Just the opening credits blew Lew's mind--he was pointing and 'Dah!'-ing and so excited to see all of the characters from his books on the TV. I think he made it about 30 minutes before he got up and wandered to his room. He and I had gone to free movies over the summer, and he averaged around 30-45 minutes with those, too. Hopefully it captures his attention for a bit longer (or at least in multiple spurts) on our road trip to Michigan this weekend. :)

I was creeping around taking pictures of Lewis' reactions:

 

Woooooow!

 

Dad, that's MATER!

 

Following along with his book :)

 

It's Lightning McQueen!

After he was done with the movie, they went to play out in the backyard/pick up poo. Kevin called me out to come and see what Lewis was doing to 'help'--he was picking up leaves and pulling grass to put in the poop bag. Such a good little helper (if only we can tweak his skills a bit).

 

After (a great) nap, we headed out to the U of L football game! The weather was perfect, the Cards won, and Lewis did really well sitting in our laps for almost the entire game. I took him to get our stroller with about six minutes to go in the 4th quarter because he started to get squirrel-ly and the game was starting to get close (so the guy behind us was yelling a lot). 

 Like father, like son

 Trying on Dad's hat

WTF?!

He's started throwing one hand up in the air and holding it there, like 'What the heck?' He was doing it at the game, and I'm not sure if that guy in the background was copying him or if it's just a coincidence that he, too, has one hand up like 'What the heck?' Either way, it's funny.

Sunday morning, I went to see a movie (Pitch Perfect--cute!) while Kevin took Lewis to his parents' house. On my way home, I started getting texts from Kevin saying that Lewis was climbing out of the crib and wasn't napping. After the first few times, he also figured out how to open his bedroom door (which is a new skill). By the time I got home, he had that look in his eye that it was a game and that he was not going to nap. We tried for a little while longer and then gave up (so frustrating!).

We headed out to the U of L basketball scrimmage game that afternoon. Awesome seats--12th row, center court. That was where the awesomeness ended. :)

Watching the intros (with the lights out)

 Nice and close

 Coach Pitino

[Damn that shadowy spot in our camera!!]

He sat still for about 20 minutes, and then our stall tactics (which worked fine at the football game on Saturday) failed. Snacks were eaten, but he was still wild. I tried to hold him/tried to let him stand on my legs, but he started bouncing, then yelling, then pinching me. He cried if Kevin tried to hold him. So awesome. We tried to make it until the end of the first half, but we had to get up and exit with about six minutes left, I think. He was the classic example of being overtired, and it was awful!

Sooooo, we went out for wings and beer because they always make everything better. :)

 Big Boy drinking his milk

He's still not big into coloring, so instead he crumpled up the coloring page they gave him, threw it down, tried to eat the crayon, etc.

 

Lawd, help us...

  

Wild Man Lew

 

Why, yes, that IS a crayon in his mouth.

So Saturday was great, Sunday was pretty horrible. We tried to put him down early on Sunday night, but he was still climbing out relentlessly. Not sure what our options were/are, I installed the crib tent (I found a brand new one at Goodwill last month in case of emergency/last resort). So for now, we're going with that. I'm reading up on the Super Nanny, too--apparently she has a good method for getting kids to stay in their bed, so we might give that a shot (if he's old enough to 'get' it). 

We have also decided to push his bedtime later to see if that will help him sleep in a bit. The past few weeks, he's been waking up at 6 or 6:30am, and that's only 10 or 10 1/2 hours of sleep when he's supposed to be getting 11-12 hours overnight right now. He's been running on a sleep deficit for a while now, so we're going to try putting him down later to see if he'll sleep in later. If that totally backfires (if he still wakes up early thereby sleeping even less), we'll try starting bedtime earlier (because I've also read that putting them to bed earlier can make them sleep later). The adventures of parenthood continue. :)

Cupcakes for the Heck of It

Lewis was incessantly pointing to a cupcake in one of his books this morning, so I took it as reason enough to make and decorate cupcakes this afternoon! (As if we needed a better reason.) :) He was not big on the decorating part, but he did love eating them. I think this is the first taste he's had of m&ms! His life will never be the same. :)

 m&m in mouth, eyes on the cupcake

 mmmm, tasty

 I added a few to guide him along, but he still preferred to just eat the m&ms separately.

Time to dive into the cupcake. 

 Oh, ma, this is the stuff!

 

Yum, yum!

He didn't like having the mess on his hands when he was done, but otherwise I'd say he was happy (how could he not be?). And thankfully we have plenty left over, so he can have another tomorrow! And maybe the next day and the next day. :)

Here is a video of him going to town (it's kind of long, 50 something seconds...I love his face at 30 seconds):

Lewis' First Camping Trip!

So we FINALLY took Lewis camping, and it was a success! This weekend we went up to Yellowwood State Forest (just outside of Bloomington) to meet up with Ben and Adie. Will, Julia, and Carter spent Saturday with us, too, and we even got a visit from Banjo Joe (Bolinger) on Saturday evening. It was great to see everyone and to be outside--we had perfect weather except for some wind and sprinkles Sunday morning. We'd planned to stay out through lunch, but knowing that Ben and Adie's house was only 15-20 minutes away made it an easy decision to go ahead and pack up and head there for a little while.

Lewis took a nap on Saturday, which was a minor miracle. He popped out of his Pack n Play as soon as I put him in it, so Kevin (the saint) stayed in the tent with him and kept him in it until he fell asleep. We didn't pay attention to what time it was, but I know it was at least an hour. Victory.

Then it was time to hike!  

 

Yellowwood Lake

 

 

Letting the wild beast roam free (for a minute) 

 Happy hikers

When we got back to the campsite, Will and Julia put Carter in his cool exersaucer-type thing--Lewis was pretty good with him, but he kind of got excited and started flailing his arms Carter's way (which made me nervous that he was going to whack Carter by accident).

 

Lewis - 20 months, Carter - 5 months 

Joe brought along his banjo and treated us to a wonderful pre-dinner concert. (He has played banjo for as long as I've known him and is a member of The Indiana Boys.) 

 

 

  Lewis was totally in awe!

 

 Eating corn straight out of the can, in true camping style. :) 

 For my sweet sister--I was thinking of you all weekend and wishing you were there with us! You were there in (beer coozie) spirit. :)

 

 One of Lew's new favorite things to do is point out our body parts (and the dogs' too)...it's fine until he pokes our eyes our jams a finger up my nose. :)

 

Camping is so great!

I didn't take any pictures on Sunday morning because we were cooking breakfast with it sprinkling, and I was also trying to pack up our belongings in case it started to pour. Lewis slept all night, thank goodness. He woke up at 7am, which is actually 'sleeping in' a little compared to what he's been doing lately. We ate breakfast and then headed out around 10:30, I think.

Driving out of the woods to Ben and Adie's, I literally pulled over to take a picture like 7 times. It was SO gorgeous--the leaves were beautifully colored and the wind was whipping them all over the place. Something about being back on the gravel roads of Brown County... :)

 

 

 

We had to cross the creek in a few spots.

 

So pretty.

We hung out for a few more hours and had lunch before hitting the road back to Louisville. Great weekend with great friends.