Mom and Dad Easton Part 2

On Wednesday we decided to go to the outdoor Wolf sanctuary.  We planned to get lunch in the nearby town of Battle Ground, IN. We knew it was a small town, but we thought surely they would have a few restaurants to choose from. There were exactly two restaurants in this one stop sign town: a pizza place open only for dinner and "The Eye Opener Cafe."

I bet they get quite a bit of business being the only place to eat during lunch.

 It was traditional diner food and we were pleasantly surprised to find it tasted pretty good.

We went on to the Wolf Park.

The staff had just finished eating some pizzas, and I guess they usually throw remaining crusts and pizza boxes into the wolf pen for them to eat. One wolf got to the two boxes before all the others did. He peed on one box and then ran off with the other.

 

 He did NOT want to share his pizza.

 They took us on a little tour of the place and described what they do with the wolves, research, etc.

It was possibly the hottest day of the year, so we were really sweaty and exhausted. As we walked around the huge wolf enclosure, they kept throwing big blocks of ice into the wolf pen so the wolves could have a cool treat. They never once offered me a cool beverage...

We couldn't take the heat much longer, so we decided swimming was next on the itinerary. The pool is 1/2 a mile from our house, so Mckay took the boys over in the bike trailer.

 Dallin was so excited.

Connor was hesitant in the water at first, but as long as I held him close (instead of trying to make him sit alone in the water), he was just fine.

Eventually, he was comfortable enough to play by himself on the little sprinkler/splash pad.

 

And Dallin was in heaven the whole time.

Back home for dinner that night, Connor was making the funniest faces at us. He kept squinting his eyes, smiling and laughing. 

Thursday we went up north to the Sand Dunes on the shore of Lake Michigan. Along the way, we stopped at Albanese Candy Factory.

I now fully understand the expression: "like a kid in a candy store." Dallin's eyes got so big when we walked in. He was running around wanting to touch everything, and he doesn't even like candy. It was the excitement of lots of brightly colored small items in containers, all at his eye level.

He grabbed a shopping basket and began to fill it.

We just let him do his thing because it made him so happy and he filled the entire basket. When he walked away from it for one second, Mckay ran off with the basket and put all the candy back. 

At the Sand Dunes, we got the kids all strapped in and ready for a short hike.

The sand dunes are blown about 4 feet inland every year, and these tall trees are gradually being buried.

We hiked to the top of Mt. Baldy, the largest sand dune, and then back down to the beach.

Dallin loved playing in the sand.

But he still was not a big fan of the waves and water.

Connor loved eating the sand.

He wasn't as scared of the waves as he was in California, but he still got nervous when the water reached him.

I loved his crawl on hands and toes so his knees didn't touch the sand.

Dallin tried to imitate it.

Mckay and his Dad had a rock skipping competition.

We got back to Lafayette and stopped for dinner at Steak and Shake.

Mckay's mom LOVES Steak and Shake. She ate there for the first time when they came to St. Louis for our wedding, and now she has to eat there every time she visits us.

They just built one in Colorado though, so I hope that doesn't mean they'll visit us less often now. We really loved having them stay with us.

Mom and Dad Easton Visit

Mckay's parents came to visit us from Colorado. We love having visitors.

They slept in Connor's room and he didn't mind being kicked out. But he would still crawl into his room every morning and climb on Grandma and Grandpa until they put him in his jumping seat.

We showed them the sights in our little city.

First we had lunch at Qdoba. Dallin was playing around with our trays.

 Maybe he was trying a Princess Leia look?

Then Mckay went to a meeting while we walked around the city for a bit. It was a sunny day so Dallin needed sunglasses and a hat.

 This hat belongs to his great Grandpa Easton, and he sure loved wearing it.

We walked on the pedestrian bridge that goes over the Wabash River.

Then we met Mckay at his favorite book store just off campus.

It's a small local business and they have rows and rows and rows of books, new and used. Mckay probably stops by 3 times a week on his way home from school each day. He might have a small book addiction...

Dallin and Grandma found a chair where they got cozy.

 The next day we went to the Indianapolis Children's Museum. We've heard many times about how wonderful it is, but had never actually made a trip there until now.  I left the diaper bag at home, so we were without diapers, snacks and the camera all day. Good thing I packed our lunches in a separate bag. Luckily, Mom Easton had her camera with her and took these pictures, which is why is why I'm actually in some of them.

Dallin hit the ground running as soon as we got inside.

 There were so many exciting things, he did not want to wait while we bought tickets.

He went on a dino dig.

And dressed up like a pirate.

Connor got to be one of the terracotta warriors.

There was a Lego exhibit. Dallin spent a loooong time there.

 He mostly went from table to table gathering up Legos and taking apart other people's deserted structures.

Mckay got to clean up the path of Legos left behind.

Mckay probably had as much fun with the Legos as Dallin.

It took him a while to build this.

we finally moved on from the Legos and Dallin shoveled mulch for a bit.

 It's amazing how willing children are to do work if they think they're playing.

 There was still plenty more to see at the Children's Museum but we ran out of time. We'll just have to visit again next time someone comes to visit. Who wants to join us?

I'm not sure which is worse: forgetting your camera, or thinking you forgot your camera when it was really sitting in the car in the parking lot the whole time. DANG!

Exhausted from playing all day and not wanting to make dinner, we went to Applebee's. Connor wanted to sit in the booth and eat fries like a big boy.

And Dallin wanted to sit on his Dad's lap like a little boy.

It was so nice to have them visit, whether we were sight seeing or hanging out at home.

More pictures to come from their trip...

The Dog and the Monster

We came up with these affectionate nicknames for our boys when we went camping a few months ago. It was inspired by them wearing these pajamas:

Dallin, the monster and Connor, the dog

We didn't realize at the time how appropriate those nicknames are to the stage of life they are currently in.

Connor is very much like a dog. Right now he just wants to crawl around and get into everything. He is learning and exploring with his mouth. He tries to play in the garbage and toilet. I always catch him eating shoes or paper.

He will eat pretty much anything you give him. Even if it's a new food, he just opens his mouth and eats it. He likes to crawl around in the kitchen and pick up the scraps of food that Dallin has dropped for him.

He recently discovered he loves french fries.

He bites with his 3 teeth. 

(The best picture I have of the bottom 2 teeth.)

Especially with it being summer and everyone wears shorts with bare legs exposed, he loves to crawl around and bite legs. He drools a lot. When you pick him up he squirms like crazy, he does not want to sit still. One time in the bath he was hitting the water gently with his hand, very much the same way a dog paws at a bowl of water. Do you see the resemblance?

As far as non-dog-related development goes, Connor amazes me. At 9 months, Connor now weighs 19.5 lbs and has been coasting along at the 50th percentile for months now. He crawls with amazing speed and pulls himself up to stand on everything. He is now discovering he can stand up and hold onto a support with just one hand, while the other is free to fly about as he bounces up and down on his knees. He gets a big smile on his face when he does that.

He mimics what we do. He saw Dallin playing with sidewalk chalk, so he picked up a piece and made little strokes on the ground, completely by himself!

He watches what we do with our hands and mimics it. He will copy facial expressions. Yesterday at church he sat there in Sunday school with me, and he lifted one arm up for a good 10 seconds, as if he had a question and waiting for the teacher to call on him. It made me laugh.

I know it's late, but here is an 8 month growth comparison of the boys. First try:

I learned to take the picture faster with this one:

 

 Dallin is a monster. He has quite the temper and will yell if he does not get his way. When he is mad, he will run to his room and slam the door closed. Once it closes, he screams even louder because he realizes he can't open doors and just locked himself in there. I usually give him some time to calm down before opening the door for him.

He has very strong emotions. Most of the time he is happy, but he can also get very sad. He says "Go away." when he is sad and Connor is trying to climb on him.

Along with his strong emotions comes a great empathy and understanding of other's emotion. Often, when Connor is crying, Dallin will bring him a toy, or his water cup or a burp cloth; all things that bring Dallin comfort and he hopes will help Connor calm down as well. When I hit my head or foot on something and yell out in pain, Dallin comes running over. I explain that I got "hurt." Then later, if I yell in frustration (rather than pain) at something like the dumb computer, he comes to me and says, "Hurt?"

Dallin's language is improving. He will put together mostly complete sentences, like "I want cracker too" or "I want bath too." (He thinks everything needs "too" at the end. I think it started when we would offer things to Connor and then ask him, "Do you want a cracker too?") He says "No Connor" a lot when Connor is getting into things he shouldn't. He still asks for pancakes 2 or 3 times daily and often refers to all food as pancakes. Example: one day at dinner, I was spoon feeding Connor some puree and he kept turning his head away. So Dallin said to him, "No Connor, eat your pancakes." I LOVED that moment.

Dallin likes to organize and sort things. I stocked up on some baby food and Dallin helped me unload the grocery bags.

 He put the jars in a circle, grouping all the applesauce together on one side of the circle, with all the sweet potatoes together on the other side. He is amazing.

Dallin may be a monster, but he's a very sweet amazing monster.

July

July has been HOT. We're talking triple digits and no rain for weeks. So we've mostly been inside for the past few weeks. We've tried to keep busy with fun things like hide and seek.

Dallin can squeeze into the best hiding spots.

 But still, Dallin is getting bored from being inside all day, which makes him grumpy, which makes ME grumpy, plus being hot all day equals me not in the mood to take pictures or blog. Hence the lack of posts. 

We did venture outdoors a few times:

Staying cool by dipping feet in water and wearing no pants (at least for Dallin).

The weekend before the 4th of July, a church just behind our house does a big fireworks celebration. So we ate our dinner out on the back patio.

Connor had pureed peas... He loved them for some reason. (I hate peas, FYI.)

As part of the celebration, a parachuter flew in with a flag.

The view from our backyard.

We brought one of our couches outside so we could sit and enjoy the fireworks.

We had to wait a while for it to get dark though. 

It was a pretty good show. It was definitely a perk to be able to watch it from our own home. Tons of people come to watch every year and our neighborhood streets were lined with cars. People were parked right in front of our house watching from inside their cars. I think we had a better view. And we didn't have to deal with traffic after the show.

On the actual Independence Day, we went to a BBQ at a friends house, ate lots of yummy food and then went home. We didn't feel like staying out late to see the city's fireworks display.

We went to a church picnic and there was a dessert contest. I made a Peach Cobbler. It was amazingly delicious, the best peach cobbler I've ever had. I thought for sure I would win. The dessert that did win? It had a fudgy brownie like layer, chocolate pudding on that, and topped with cool whip. Are you kidding me? That beat my peach cobbler?! I do have to admit the winning dessert was very tasty (especially if the maker of the dessert reads this blog) and I can see why people liked it. But really?! Maybe I watch too many Food Network competitions. It's about more than just taste (and I still think mine had superior taste). You should get points for originality (buttermilk in the topping gave just the right tang paired with the sweet peaches, and almond extract gave the filling more depth and flavor), skill and effort (all from scratch! It took 30 minutes just to peel and cut the fresh peaches) and presentation (an egg wash and sugar sprinkled on top made the cobbler look perfectly golden brown and shiny. Mmmmmm...).  The same thing happened last year at the picnic/dessert competition. I made lemon bars (again from scratch, fresh lemons) and they lost out to brownies. BROWNIES!! I'm not sharing my delicious desserts anymore.

Moral of the story: I am bad at losing.

Summer Fun

It's been pretty hot here. At times it's a little too hot out for my taste, but Dallin still wants to go out and play. The other day I sent him out in the backyard with a little plastic honey bear bottle full of water. I showed him how you could "draw" with the water on the concrete patio, then left him to his own creativity.  I think he mostly got the water on himself.

I was inside doing dishes with a clear view of him playing. When he ran out of water every few minutes, he would come press his face up against the glass door.

 Then he would knock and start signing "water."

 He kept knocking until I came to fill his water.

I finally got smart and gave him another bigger bottle: an empty syrup bottle.

He watered the grass for me.

 But then he just watered himself.

He had a blast and it was an easy, free summer activity that watered my grass, kept Dallin occupied and let me do the dishes. Everyone wins!

Father's Day

Who is that handsome man standing in my front yard?

 Why, it's Mckay wearing the new suit he got for Father's Day!

 Since Mckay got me a new dress for Mother's Day, I figured he should have something new to wear to church as well. It fits his slim figure very nicely.

 For dinner, I made Ribs covered in the most delicious rub.

 And for dessert we had lemon bars made with fresh California lemons straight from my parents backyard.

Mckay got to celebrate by going to Sunday School at church for the first time in over 18 months. He is no longer working in the nursery at church. While he will really miss being with those little kids each week, it is kind of nice to be able to sit with him again. The trade off is that his new calling in church is in the Boy Scout program, so he's gone on Wednesday nights each week.

I loved the Father's Day card that Dallin made at church for Mckay. This card had a spot for the children to write why they love their Dads. Since Dallin doesn't really talk or understand a lot of things yet, anything he makes is done mostly by the nursery workers. The card says, "I love my Daddy because he... throws me." It made me laugh. I know Dallin didn't suggest that, and I'm not sure who "helped" him write it, but Dallin does love it when Mckay throws him in the air. Every child should be so lucky to have a Dad who throws them.