Foto Friday: Books

Captain Husband has been out in the field for the past ten days, which hopefully explains why I've been a bit off of my A-game (slow to respond to comments, visit your blogs, and so on and so forth), but he's home now, so I'm hoping that we'll soon be able to settle into some semblance of a routine; it was rough caring for a newborn on my own, but holy crap, a bull-headed toddler is a horse of another color!

Anyway, Sammy and I are both very happy that CH is home again--Sammy is especially so because CH does all of the right sound effects for his favorite bedtime story book, Bear Snores On.

Be sure to check out the other photos by clicking below; have a great weekend everyone!

Sammy and the splash pad

Yesterday Sammy and I took our first trip to the El Paso Zoo to hang out with some of the members of our playgroup.  We had a great time walking around and looking at all of the animal exhibits, but nothing quite compared to the splash pad.  I was actually a little worried that Sammy wouldn't like it, since he hates getting his face wet when he's taking a bath, but as you can see, my worries were completely unfounded--Sammy had an absolute blast.

Sticking his head directly in the fountain...because he wasn't wet enough, obviously.

"Hey!  Who turned off the water?!?"

Wordless{ish} Wednesday: A new project

{The last time I visited my family in western Pennsylvania, I wound up coming home with this awesome 1950s metal cabinet.  It had been hidden away in the basement of my great aunt's house for years and years, but I knew I'd be able to come up with a use for it in our new place.}

{They don't make 'em like this any more!}

{I spent the better part of an afternoon removing the dirty, old contact paper that covered the drawer fronts, only to discover that it had been placed there to cover some heavy-duty wear and tear to the original paint.  I think I may have figured out a neat and easy way of fixing this cosmetic issue...but that's for another post!}

The A-Z of LLL

There's a new meme floating around the internet so I thought I'd join in on the fun.  Here goes nothing!

A. Age:  32

B. Bed size: King

C. Chore that you hate: Cleaning toilets--and I'm not talking about a cursory brush around the bowl, I'm talking deep-cleaning, on your hands-and-knees, scrubbing everything.  Blech.

D. Dogs: I like dogs, especially ones that belong to other people.  Cats are where it's at as far as I'm concerned (at least until Captain Husband retires and can take care of a dog all by himself.)

E. Essential start to your day: Caffeine.  Loads of it.

F. Favorite color: Turquoise/teal

G. Gold or Silver: Silver

H. Height:5'10 1/2" (yes, the 1/2" makes all the difference)

I. Instruments you play: Trombone, although it's been years.  I also taught myself to play the piano way back when but all I can manage now is some chopsticks and heart and soul.

J. Job title: Historian, wife, mother and sometimes photographer.

K. Kids: One human baby, Sammy, and one fur baby, Sandy Cat.

L. Live: The west Texas town of El Paso

M. Mother’s name: Carolyn

N. Nicknames: Lulu, Lulubell

O. Overnight hospital stays: See one human baby, Sammy

P. Pet peeves: When Captain Husband doesn't replace the empty toilet paper roll and/or hangs it the "wrong" way.

Q. Quote from a movie: "60% of the time, it works every time."

R. Right or left handed: Right, but sometimes I forget and try to write/eat with my left and wind up confusing myself.

S. Siblings: Two younger brothers (here and here), both of whom need to blog more often.  Hint, hint.

T. Time you wake up: My one human baby also functions as an alarm clock; he usually goes off between 8 am and 9 am, so I can't really complain.

U. Underwear: Most definitely.

V. Vegetable you hate: Cooked beets...the texture...ugh.

W. What makes you run late: These days it's a toss-up between the husband and the kid.

X. X-Rays you’ve had: Full-body scan, hands, feet, teeth, arm, shins...I don't think I got an x-ray when I broke my nose, but I honestly can't remember.  (I may be a little bit accident prone.)

Y. Yummy food that you make: I generally prefer baking to cooking, but I got rave reviews from CH and Sammy when I made this crockpot barbecue chicken.

Z. Zoo animal: Lions and tigers and [sloth] bears, oh my!

If you decide to join in, too, be sure to link up your list here!

Wreath winner!

 Thank you to all of you who entered and congratulations to Lori!

Fifteen-month update

I am now the proud parent of a fifteen-month old.  Crazy, right?  Here's a quick run-down of his stats:

Teeth: Twelve (all four molars are present and accounted for)
Weight: Um, close to 27 pounds (I'm guessing here; he's definitely pretty solid)
Height: 33" give or take
Clothing: Mostly 24-month or 2T things; I've also started letting him choose which shirt to wear for the day, which has resulted in some seriously awesome outfit combinations
Feet: Huge (he's now wearing a 7W)
Naps: One big one in the afternoon

Words: Not a lot of new words to add, but he's got a whole new range of sounds going on.  He woofs at dogs, tweets at birds, and moos at anything that's black and white.  He also understands a lot of what's being said around him: Sammy kind of blew me away yesterday when, on a whim, I asked him to get his shoes for me.  Now, I've never asked him this before, so I really wasn't expecting him to run to his room, grab a shoe, and bring it back to me, but that's exactly what he did.
Temperament: Generally sweet (he's usually the biggest kid at his playgroup, but he tends to let the smaller kids push him around), but he can be a real turd when he wants to be--his new trick is to throw things whenever he's really angry.  Fantastic.

Likes: Sandy, kitties in general, cars, balls, looking at picture books, being read to (especially Bear Snores On), juice, daddy, Peppa Pig, taking things out of something and then putting them back, climbing, goldfish crackers, and any and all fruits.
Dislikes: Diaper changes, waiting for meals, empty snack cups, empty sippy cups, getting his face washed, and not being allowed to climb into the fireplace.

Foto Friday: The S curve

Okay, so I know it's a bit of a stretch, but if you look at the dove silhouette on the right side of the photo, there's an S curve formed from the curve of the bird's beak to it's breast (you can totally see it if you close one eye and squint real hard...maybe?).

Be sure to check out the other photos by clicking below; have a great weekend everyone!

Pigpen

We're pretty fortunate that our rental house came with a rather sizable yard--however, approximately 85% of our yard is composed of a lovely mixture of dirt, sand and rocks.  Not exactly a bucolic landscape, but perfect for little boys to explore and get dirty.

 

Want to know why he's pulling the Sammy version of the Mona Lisa smile?  It's because he thinks he's getting away with eating rocks.

Wordless{ish} Wednesday: Wreath time (and a giveaway!)

{For some strange reason, as soon as the weather gets a little cooler, I find myself stricken with the urge to get my craft on. I'd been eyeballing this tutorial on how to make an all-season yarn wreath for over a week and decided to just go for it late Monday night. All in all it, took me about an hour and fifteen minutes to make everything, and that's including wrapping the foam wreath with yarn.}

{My favorite thing about this wreath is the fact that you can easily change the decorations for other seasonally-appropriate colors or decorations thanks to using alligator clips to affix the felt flowers to the wreath. Easy peasy!}

{I had so much fun making this that I decided to make a second one to give away to one lucky reader; the winner will receive an eight-inch wreath with six felt flowers in fun, vibrant colors.  Cute, right?}

{Okay, so here's the nitty gritty on how to enter:

Mandatory entry: You must be a follower of my blog. Just leave me a comment telling me you are.

{Optional entries--please leave a separate comment for each entry}
1. Answer this question: What is your favorite season?
2. Like my blog on Facebook.
3. Tweet, Facebook or blog about this giveaway.

This giveaway will end Sunday, September 25th at 11:59 PM EST and the winner will be contacted via email, so please make sure that I have a way of contacting you.  Good luck everyone!}

This giveaway is open to all of my readers and is sponsored by L to the third (me!).

Fine-feathered friends

 This past Saturday, Captain Husband, Sammy and I gathered our things together and headed off on a little drive to Los Cruces to visit Wild Birds Unlimited; we'd had so much success with our hummingbird feeder that we thought it was time to try and attract some of the other birds we've seen around the neighborhood.  It happened to be the store's fourth anniversary, so there were some wild bird demonstrations on hand (which Sammy loved), and some good discounts to be had as well.  We wound up going home with this:

On the left is the classic bird feeder (with guards to keep the pigeons away) and on the right is a finch feeder, all topped off with a little blue bird of happiness finial.  We figured we'd have birds in our yard taking advantage of this new feeding station pretty quickly, but to our surprise, they've been pretty standoffish.  I actually moved the pole and feeders last afternoon to a more secluded spot in our yard in the hopes that the adjacent shrub coverage will make the birds feel safer about eating in our yard.

On the other hand, the hummingbird feeder continues to bring them in--on Sunday a red-snaped sapsucker stopped by to enjoy a quick meal...Humphrey and his friends weren't too pleased to be sharing with another bird!

Sammy's seeing red

After some minor cursing and shaking my fist at the overlord of the internet, I was finally able to get my photos uploaded and edited from last week's paint extravaganza.  Our new playgroup is comprised of five other toddlers--four boys, one girl--but Olivia was feeling under the weather last week, so it wound up being an all-boy event.  Most of the kids were chomping at the bit to get messy, like Javier Eduardo and Kai:

Sammy, on the other hand, was a bit more fastidious, which wasn't a huge surprise--he hates to have anything messy on his hands, so he was rather reserved when it came to the paint.  You can imagine Samny's surprise/shock when Noah decided to paint him instead of the paper:

I'm pretty sure Sammy is thinking, "ZOMG, there's paint EVERYWHERE!!!"

Connor found Sammy's reaction hilarious.

Yeah, Sammy wasn't too thrilled about the paint in his hair, ears, and belly, but he got over it surprisingly well.  (Captain Husband saw this picture and said, "Oh, wow--it's Dexter, Jr.!")

Foto Friday: Patterns

I present to you, "A portrait of the artist as a young boy:"

This week's play date involved a fun outdoor finger-painting session with five toddlers, so you can imagine all of the fantastic photos opportunities that arose; unfortunately, due to some computer hiccups, your imagination is going to have to suffice for the moment because I wasn't able to get all of the photos uploaded and edited like I had wanted to for today.  But that just means you'll have to come back on Monday to see the rest!

Be sure to check out the other photos by clicking below; have a great weekend everyone!

Some fun in the backyard

Sammy has recently shown an interest in climbing just about anything and everything, so I decided to promote this in a somewhat reasonable manner and found him a gently-used climbing/sliding toy on Craigslist.  At first Sammy tried rather unsuccessfully to climb up the slide side, but it didn't take him too long to figure out the easiest and fastest way to surmount his new toy.

We weren't the only ones outside enjoying the gorgeous afternoon that day; Sammy and I were soon joined by a black-chinned hummingbird who had just discovered the new feeder that I had hung on the back patio.  Captain Husband has decided to name the little guy "Humphrey."  (I think Humphrey may actually be a girl, but that's only a minor detail.)

 

(I wish those clouds were real, but they're actually a texture that I added from an awesome website that I found earlier this week; if you like textures and you like free, you definitely need to check it out!)

Wordless{ish} Wednesday: My new nephew

{Say hello to Henry Joshua Libert! He was born yesterday at 2:26 pm (EST) and weighed in at 7 pounds, 15 ounces and 19" long.   Henry had to be moved to another hospital last night due to having fluid in his lungs; I can't even imagine the range of emotions that my brother and sister-in-law are going through right now and it's killing me that I'm so far away from them at this time.  I would really appreciate it if all of my lovely readers keep my brother, sister-in-law and brand-spanking-new nephew in your thoughts and prayers.}

A trip to the park

At the playgroup gathering last week, one of the moms there told me about a park that wasn't too far from our place; she couldn't remember the name of it, but told me to be on the look out for a castle-like structure not too far from the road.  All I had to hear was "castle" and Sammy and I were soon on a mission to find the place.  We drove around for a bit and then we saw it--a huge playground complete with shade structures (in El Paso, this a definite must have) off of Doniphan Avenue. 

White Spur Park, as I learned it was called, had everything I could ever dream of and more--a tot lot with climbing structures and swings just the right size for Sammy, musical instruments built into the climbing structures for the kids to play, water spritzers for when your little one needed a bit of a refreshing break and nice shady benches where an overheated mom like myself could sit and relax.  Needless to say, Sammy and I had a blast.

Sammy had a great time climbing everywhere (albeit slowly) and even went down the slide by himself...after some coaxing from me, but still--I'll take what I can get.

Sammy was very adventurous in taking on the climbing structures on his own, but he was a bit wary of the tunnels--I tried and tried to get him to go through, but he wouldn't budge.  Maybe next time--and with a park this awesome, rest assured that there will definitely be a next time!