Not working today!!

I am off today! I got my 4 days of work in M-Th. We spent the morning walking the dog, eating and stopping at Cafe Brioso and the Pearl Alley Farmer's Market. They had wonderful soft serve ice cream and cheese at the market today. The cows live in Fredericktown, Ohio are completely grass fed. The ice cream sample I had was yummy. Much better than the ice cream we had the other day in Ashley. W. was extremely tired when we were downtown earlier. He crashed on the way home.

Yesterday I took some pictures on our walk to Franklin Park. Xiola loves to swim in the ponds and W. enjoys watching her. W. especially likes watching Xiola jump in the water. I tried to get a picture of him watching her jump in the water.



Here is a short video of W. climbing up the slide. He's pretty much mastered that :-)

I am officially back to work

I started work yesterday. I have one school that is the same as last year, but a brand new building and 3 completely new schools. I am working with 4 different nurses at each of my buildings. Having new nurses to work with always makes the beginning of the year interesting. I have to figure out how they work. I also need to make friends with the principals, secretaries, custodians and teachers at all of my schools. And the kids wonder why I can never remember their names.

W. has had a good time the past 2 days with Melani and A. Today he woke from his nap before A. did and he wanted to wake her up. Of course Melani would not let him:-) They went to storytime at the library this morning. The read books about money.

Here's a shot of W. eating the yummy, juicy watermelon I picked up the farmers market last Friday. He has loved the watermelon and cantaloupe but was not real interested in the corn. The corn was super sweet and delicious, even Todd liked it!

Friday, our last weekday before I go back to work...

I woke up and got out of bed before W. did today. That is unusual for us. Once he did wake up we opened his curtain to let the sunshine in and we saw a huge digger getting ready to tear down a building. Needless to say we watched the digger doing its work for quite a long time. Here's a picture of the digger in action.



We took Xiola to the park after watching the digger work. When we got back we headed downtown to the Pearl Alley Farmer's Market. We got a cantaloupe, watermelon and some fresh corn, all picked at 6 am this morning. Yummmmmm. Can't wait to eat it!

We had bagels with cream cheese (a new thing that I have discovered that W. loves) at Cafe Brioso before going up to Cardington to see Grampy and Mimi.

At Grampy and Mimi's we played in the sandbox, fed the fish; Flip and Flop, watched the frog jump in the pond, put some pictures in to frames, and read 3 different Eric Carle books.



On the way back to Columbus we stopped to get an ice cream cone at Whipple's in Ashley. W. did a fantastic job eating his junior size twist. I had to lick it to keep it from dripping on him but he didn't get a drop of ice cream on his shirt. Once we left there W. fell asleep and he has not gotten up yet. I wonder if he'll sleep through the night or wake up soon?!?!?!

Here is a street level picture of what the demolition looks like now. They made good progress in a day!

Favorite Books

I love to catch W. reading books. A few of his favorites right now are
Hush Little Digger by Ellen Olson-Brown
Tip Tip Dig Dig and Toot Toot Beep Beep by Emma Garcia
Slowly Slowly Slowly Said the Sloth by Eric Carle (any of his books, really!)

Our first day without a nap

and it didn't go all that badly. Todd had the day off work (but will have to work on Saturday) and we watched K. and F. W. LOVES his girls!! I had a suspicion that W. would skip his nap b/c of the girls. He just wouldn't go to sleep, Todd and I both tried. W. did pretty good the rest of the day, considering...

We ventured to Tuttle Park Pool in the afternoon. W. enjoyed playing with his graduated cups, pouring and dumping. He also liked playing in the gentle sprinklers.

Yesterday W. and I met Angelene and Z. at the Reed Road Water Park in Upper Arlington. For the first time, I noticed W. walking on his hands with his belly in the water.

a wedding and more pottying!!

We got a chance to celebrate the wedding of Jamie and Chris last night. They had a small private ceremony at Franklin Park and a large reception there afterwards. Sarah O took this family picture of us.















W. always wants to sit on his "own potty" when Mom or Dad uses the big one. He sat on it again yesterday with results!!!

potty day and a haircut

We went to Target today to get a few things and one of those things was a potty chair. W. has been showing signs of "readiness" so I figured having a potty he could actually use would be beneficial to potty learning. We got it out and he sat on it, played with it, and read books about using it. He even talked about it while he was getting his haircut. He calls it his "own potty." Before he got into the bath I told him to sit on the potty while I put his clothes in his hamper in his room. When I got back to the bathroom he had pee'd in the potty!!!!!! He was so proud of himself, and so was I!! I don't plan to rush him, just encourage him.

the baby wearer

W. was in to wearing his triceratops today. Here is a cute pic.

Illumination of Franklin Park

I'm a little behind on my postings.

We went to the Illumination of The Palm House at Franklin Park on Friday evening. It is a work by James Turrell. The lighting was beautiful. If you get a chance to go to Franklin Park at dusk you can see how wonderful it is. They illuminate the house every night at dusk.

W. sings HAPPY BIRTHDAY

When we were on our way to a birthday party on Saturday Todd and I sang the "Happy Birthday" song a few times. We stopped singing the song and a few minutes later W. sang it!! It was the sweetest thing he has done recently and I was able to capture it on video!

Zoombezi Bay @ The Columbus Zoo

F and K and their Mom met us at Zoombezi Bay. We floated down the Lazy River w/W. in a life jacket. W. liked going down the slide in the kiddie area and watching the huge barrel dump water on the people below. He was super excited to get his "own chair." We ate greasy fried food for lunch because you are not permitted to bring in your own food.

The Wilds

W. and I went to The Wilds yesterday with Sarah, J. and A. We took the Open Air Safari. We road a bus with no windows around the 10,000 acre park. Along the way we saw many different animals. The first animal we saw was the Przewalski's wild horse which looked a lot like a donkey. We were able to get VERY close to several different species of giraffes; Reticulated, Masai, and Rothschild. We were able to get off the bus to walk down to one of lakes on the campus to see and feed catfish and swans. W. really enjoyed throwing food in to the water. The swans were tough, they would take the food out of the catfishes mouths!!

When we re-boarded the bus we saw a heard of about 70 bison. Then we were taken to the Mid-Size Carnivore habitat. We saw African wild dogs and cheetahs. The cheetahs were all sleeping.

My favorite part of the trip was seeing the rhinos. We got to see them playing and they crossed the road right in front of our bus. They came super close to us. The guide said that it was a special site to see the rhinos playing; chasing one another. Amazing!! We saw a lot more animals than I am posting about so check out the website.

www.thewilds.org

fountains

We finally made it to the North Bank Park when the fountains were on. W. sort of liked the water. He played in the smaller fountains. A few other kids were there when we were and he really enjoyed watching them run through the water. We sat watching the other kids eating raisins and cucumbers. I love the view from this picture.



We are going to the Main St. Farmers Market this morning. We have been going there for the last 6 Saturdays. We get eggs, blueberries, potatoes and apples as well as some other veggies and fruits. The market is very small but I can get all the food (veg and fruit)I need for the week there.