strange new animal sitings!!

Hey there! Welcome to the second edition of 'strange new animal sitings.' I am your host. If you have forgotten the first edition of this program please see the post from February, 26th 2007 featuring the armadillo. In todays edition we will look at the horned toad. Yes, the horned toad. We saw this little (actually pretty big) guy in the road while we were driving on the ranch. Me, being the 'northerner' that I am - had them stop the truck so I could see it. Then Dad W. and Richard even humored me and found a box for me to put him in and bring him back to the house so we could take pictures. I named him samson, because he looked pretty strong to me.

Check out this video of Nathan's first encounter with a horned toad.

fun fact - when an "H.T" gets mad it spits blood out of his eyes!! EEWWWW!!! I was fortunate enough to NOT experience this! We all made sure to use 'soft voices' around him so as to not make him mad!!!

going for a walk

The boys and I went for a walk the other day. It was a beautiful day - and we like to walk. It always gives Nathan and I plenty of time to sing our alphabet song naming things we can see or do (ie. "A" is for apple, "B" is for big truck, "C" is for cat . . . ) It is also fun to have teach him colors and bigger/smaller. We have great conversations about fire hydrants and how fire trucks pull up to them and attach hoses. Nathan is BIG into fire trucks right now. I really think if he ever saw one with it's lights / siren on he would crawl under a leaf and hide, but he likes to look at pictures and read books about them. :)

I also got to teach Nathan a very important skill on this particular walk. I taught him how to pick flowers for Mama. I taught him to:

1- ask Mama or Dada if that flower is ok to pick

2- pull it from the stem, not the top

3- bring it to Mama and say "here Mama" and "I love you Mama"

These are skills no boy should be without. No Mama should be without a boy to do this for her either :) (I have never seen a more beautiful boquet!!)

This walk also marked Nathan's very first skinned knee! Really - can you believe it?!? This was his first one ever. Of course when he stood up, the first thing he said was "dirty dirty. Clean it?" All in all he took it like a champ.

that was wierd

There is a new post - but for some reason it showed up underneath the 'packer post'.
Scroll down and check it out. :)

GO PACK GO!!!

Story of a Wisconsin Mama and her boys on game day.

(Dada wasn't home - sorry Dada, you missed out.)

"Hold onto your hat, this is going to be a good one!!"

"I like it when the Packers are winning"

"Did you SEE that return?!?!"

One Proud Mama!!

Look at this picture and tell me what you see . . .

Did you see it? Look again . . .

Isn't it great!! Here, one more view . . .

That is right!! Noah has not only coordinated his hand-to-mouth, but he is also reaching for his toys!! Oh yeah - that is what I am talking about! Hands to midline - intentional reaching and grasping - asymmetric upper extremity volitional movement. That makes my PT Mommy heart beat!!

the day we made lemonade

We set out to go to the lake last Friday. The jet ski was in tow, the lake gear was all packed, picnic lunch in the cooler, we all were in our swim suits ("water clothes" - as Nathan calls them). The smell of coconut abounded as we all had our sunscreen on.

As we pulled up to the entrance to the park we like to go to at the lake - "closed" . WHAT??? They were fixing a curb and no cars were allowed to pass. We could have walked in, but it is over a mile to the beach from the entrance and that didn't help the jet ski at all. Ok, that was disappointing, but we could just go to another park. This was the only one with a beach, but we could walk into the water at the others just fine. So we went to another one. No go - the water level was so low there was no place that was accessible to walk in easily with two little boys. Ok - this is not going to kill the day. We don't have time to go to another lake before nap time, but we do have time to go to the swimming pool in the subdivision. No jet ski, but at least we could still have some family water fun time.

We got to the pool and unloaded assorted boats and floaties and towels and boys - walk up to the gait. "Closed due to poor visibility." WHAT?? I guess there was something broken or wrong with chemicals.

Determined to not let the run of 'lemons' ruin our day. We went home (Noah gladly went down for a nap) and we had a "sprinkler picnic".

What started out as being such a disappointment, ended up to be a great day together as a family. Who could ask for more?!?