Family BBQ

We headed down to Jimmy, Jane, & June’s house for some of Jimmy’s yummy BBQ chicken at lunch time today.  Since good BBQ chicken can’t be rushed, we had plenty of time to visit and play.  The kids played outside for a little while before deciding it was cooler inside.  June brought out a cool little fishing pole for John to play with.  And he had a great time fishing in the backyard.  He looks so serious!

The kids spent a lot of time singing, both together and separately.  And it was so cute when they sang together!  June really isn’t that short.  She was kneeling in this picture.  Maybe Aunt Jane will share some video that she took!

While they did play with some other musical instruments, the Wii guitars were by far the hit of the day.  Jane sung a bit of KISS’ “Rock and Roll All Night” and then John repeated it endlessly.  “I wanna rock and roll all night…”

Isn’t he too cute!?!  Unfortunately, he knows it.

Not to be outdone, June sung her heart out for us, proving that she knows the lyrics to several songs by heart.

Suddenly, he’s serious again.  He’d borrowed June’s hat and wore it in several different ways.  I really liked the way it made his eyelashes really noticeable to me.  It was way past naptime, but John hung in there, making it home before he fell asleep.

-EBP-

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The Big Race

A highly unusual day in the life of our house! We skipped church. Daddy did lots of Work work. This shot was taken around 1100a and none of us were showered or dressed. We had opted to keep a low profile and stay home to watch the Indy 500 on TV. We'd normally be at the race, but we opted out this year. It was kind of bittersweet as we watched the pre-race activities. JHP knows about race cars and as he watched, he called this race "The Big Race". Soon after we ate lunch in front of the TV, something we rarely do anymore, John had decided he'd seen enough and proceeded to keep interrupting us every five minutes with something he wanted us to do with him. I think Daddy and I were both thankful it was very near nap time.

We did get John dressed at some point today. We dressed him in the little shirt we got him last year, which is now a very tight squeeze over his head. It does cover all the belly and since we weren't leaving the house, it worked just fine. When Daddy donned his IMS hat to go outside and cook some dinner, John decided he needed his hat on too. Like a lot of things, this hat is getting a bit too small for John. So when John takes it off and puts it back on, it always seems to sit up high on his head. When this happens, Daddy calls him "Fred" because it reminds him of his Grandpa Algren. JNP admits Fred might not have really worn his hats this way, but that's what he think of nonetheless.

-EBP-

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My Cramra

I took the old point and shoot out and decided that it wouldn't hurt to give it to John to play with. It was only collecting dust on the shelf. I showed him how to use it, but he still insists one putting his fingers on the lens as he shoots. Out of 40 shots, he might have gotten a handful that were in focus and not fingered. He's still working on pronouncing the word "camera" correctly. It usually comes out "cramra." But you can tell he really enjoys "his" new toy. I didn't bank on the tantrum that would occur if we took it away from him, like we did before nap today. Not pretty at all!

Daddy went into work this afternoon and has worked into the evening. It would figure that JHP would wake not five minutes after Daddy left. It made for a long afternoon / evening. But we managed. We did some laundry, played at sweeping, read some books, ate supper, re-potted some plants, got some mosquito bites, and even got John's nails trimmed. It was mostly a good evening, not too many tears. John was in bed and all the chores were done by 820p. Ahh! Quiet!

-EBP-

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Lucky Day

Today was a lucky weekday.  Daddy was home when we got up.  He ate breakfast with us and then went to work, anticipating having to work late tonight.  We didn’t really have anything planned, so we lounged extra long in our PJ’s.  Then we went out to lunch to get a new Fire Chief hat for John at the local Firehouse Subs.  That was the best, messiest sandwich I’ve had in a long while.  YUM!  Then we went to Best Buy in search of a new JHP-sized mouse.  I’ve been trying to work with him on computer skills, but the mouse we have are just too big for his little hands.  We ended up with the smallest mouse they had and it fits just right.

And while John was napping, Daddy called to let me know he was coming home one time (YEAH!), but that he has to go back tomorrow (BOO!).  But I’ll take what I can get.  John was excited to see Daddy and they ended up playing a lot before dinner.

Among the games they played was the infamous Take-Away with the newest addition to our ball collection, a John-sized football that we picked up at Target earlier in the week.  He loves to get physical and laugh when he plays.

 

After dinner we headed out to get the mail.  It looked like it might rain, but we stopped to smell the yellow mums that are desperately trying to bloom before it heats up even more that it already has.

Then since it had been a few days since we’ve had rain, we headed into the backyard to water some of the plants on the patio and to provide some food for the birds.

And while we were out there, the thunder clapped.  “What was that?”  Can you tell we had a very mild spring thunderstorm season?  John is unfamiliar with thunder.  But not after tonight.  After the second clap of thunder, I figured it was time to go inside.  Shortly after a few more claps, the brief heavy rain came.  I’m thankful that we were in that 10% chance that got rain today.

-EBP-

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Scared

Much too busy watching TV to pay me any mind this morning, although he did smile for me.

John is afraid of dogs. He likes dogs, but not anywhere close to him. Tonight we walked to the mailbox and as we were finishing up a lady was walking her weimaraner. We've seen her plenty of times, and the dog always walks gently beside her master and hardly gives you a glance. Tonight she ended up too close for John's comfort, no more than 3-4 lengths behind us. John felt the need to run all the way home. And when we caught up with him, he was at the door ready to go in. I stopped to pet the dog and the lady said her grandkids love this dog. So gentle. The lady commented that maybe one day your son will like to the dog, too. Maybe so. I do think that he's been a bit traumatized by the neighbor's little chihuahua who barks a lot.

-EBP-

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Wordless Wednesday: Naptime Edition

-EBP-

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Tuesday

It was kind of a slow day here. The biggest thing we did this morning is go to the library for pre-school story time. I've never seen so many kids. The place was packed! But we got our tickets and enjoyed the storytime and the parachute that we played with at the end.

The big thing we did this afternoon was go to the podiatrist before nap. I've found that if you put a DVD player in front of John, you've got plenty of time to do most anything. I was lucky if John even paid attention to the nurse or the doctor at all. Little Einsteins was the show of choice. Imagine that! As for the feet, the doc did not do the same treatment as last time, thankfully. He said the treatment worked really well and only a very small bit of each one remains (I have three). So he worked on them a bit more, mostly removing a large calloused area on each foot. They are tender, but nothing like they were last time around. I go back in three weeks.

When Daddy got home at 500p, John was still asleep. Daddy went in to wake him and JHP was not happy. And all he wanted was me and to whine about it. After we got him to calm down and got him a little food, we all sat at the table to discuss our day. And we talked some more about it all through dinner. Daddy's really good at pulling John into a conversation.

-EBP-

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Stuck

On our first day of "summer break" we went to a local park and met some folks. It was in the low 80's and humid at 930a this morning. We were the first ones there. And it was almost bearable in the shade as there was a nice wind from time to time. We brought our sand toys to play with. John decided that his new front-end loader that Nana gave him last weekend would work great in the sand. And it did! When others arrived, soon the sand toys gave way to other things, like the merry-go-round. All the kids had great fun on that. At 1100a approached, it became too hot to play in the sun. So, we left and made our weekly trip to the grocery store before heading home. A/C never felt so good!

I was awoken this morning as I usually am, to the sounds of John talking or singing. So I got out of bed and headed to the bathroom to take care of some business before heading to John's room to gather him from the bed. Then, all of a sudden I start hearing this really loud panicked yell from John. As I rush in, I hear. "I'm stuck!" John somehow managed to get his knee stuck between the slats of the bed and couldn't get it out of him own. As I tried to remove him quickly, I didn't really think much about the logical way to do it. I just yanked him free. I'm not sure if that's why John has matching bruises on his right knee of it he'd have had them anyway from his pulling on his leg. He's getting better about remembering things. Tonight at dinner I told him to tell Daddy what happened this morning and he did, with no prompting.

-EBP-

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Party!

Short post tonight! It's the LOST series finale in few minutes. JHP's already in bed and all I've got left to do it post.

These pictures were taken today at Andrew's 4th birthday party. A small group gathered to celebrate. The big party with all the family will be next weekend in BR. It seems like we always miss out on his big BD party, even if we stay in town for Memorial Day, like we plan to do this year. Regardless, all the boys had great fun playing together in the house and in the pool. In the last picture, John just snapped the ball off of his little paddle ball gift. Can't you tell he pulled it with all his might?

A couple of other things I'll mention:

1). The other day I asked John why he had his fingers in his ears, and he said that he was "cleaning the crap out." Boy, did I feel convicted! I'm guessing he learned that from me. Oops! I need to watch my language. I did tell him that crap wasn't a nice word and that he should call it stuff. He seemed to accept that.

2). Tonight he took all his cars out of the case and lined them all up. I don't think I've ever seen him do that before.

-EBP-

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Lovin' the Cousins

We joined the family for lunch today before Nana and Papa Jim headed to Katy to see the newest member of the family, 10 day old Jude Land Wellman who was born to Heather and Jeff. John enjoyed sitting next to his cousin and being a big boy, eating on his knees. He didn't even try to fall out of the chair! Nana brought him some books and a front end loader which made John really happy.

John and I went to get the mail and his first issue of his Lego magazine came. He was real excited when I showed him that it had his name on it. He and Daddy took some time before bath to look through it.

I should mention that my feet are doing pretty well these days. The warts have calloused over, for now. I'm sure the doctor will have something else up his sleeve when we go back on Tuesday. It might be even more of an adventure since I'm taking John with me. Looking forward to that fun!

-EBP-

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June's Pre-K Graduation

We met the family for dinner before June's pre-school graduation tonight. Nana and Papa Jim drove up and Jane's mom Carol and sister Beth joined us, too (Jane's Dad was working support on a shuttle mission). While John was studying the knife he wasn't supposed to have, June looked on admiringly. These two really like each other and can get into some trouble!

Uncle Jimmy got a big hug from John as usual.

Here's June's big moment on stage when she received her diploma.

I'm not sure I was thinking clearly when I thought JHP would sit through an hour long event when we don't ever make him sit through church with us. Granted, this was less formal. But he was only mildly entertained by the presentations when he bothered to pay attention. He was too busy squirming and acting cute (which is getting really old!). You live and you learn. John knew we weren't happy with his behavior. I told him that if he could sit to watch TV, that he had enough self-control to sit when we asked him to. In fact, he had the whole trip home to think about it. We put him in Time-Out until we got home. And guess what, he was quiet and still the whole way home.

The rest of the day had been pleasant. John and I went to the mall for some birthday present shopping and ate some lunch while we were there. We had no major disagreements or meltdowns and he napped well. But we kept him out too late and the result was a whining crying bathtime and nary a peep from John after lights out.

-EBP-

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Sniff, Sniff

Today was the last day of MDO for the school year. So sad for me and for John! He really likes to go to school. And I like the time, too. So we'll have to work on a new routine for the summer. I need to find us some things to do regularly. I think I might call a local gym and see if they have some classes for us. For now, I need to figure out what we'll do tomorrow for the first day of our summer.

After dinner John & John went to get the mail and ended up in the backyard. I joined them. And John explored the world of sprinklers. So fascinating! To John, anyway. "What is this?" he kept asking.

-EBP-

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