Big News

Anders and I went to Colorado last week - I was a little unsure about the flight, but Anders was super good even though the flight was during his nap. Luckily he napped a little earlier in the day and the flight is only about an hour and half long.

My parents picked us up and we headed over to Becky and Tom's house for the remainder of the afternoon and dinner. Apparently the flight wiped Anders out.

On Friday we headed to the Denver Zoo. Myles was ready for a day in the sun. The weather was perfect - mid to upper 60s and sunny.

Anders was all about holding cousin Cam's hand at the zoo. (He calls Cam "Na").

True to form, he was climbing fences.

And he was WAY into Myles (who he calls "My-mo").

Back at Grandma and Grandpa's house he enjoyed climbing into this cheap stroller I bought last year and then strapping himself in. This stroller was a total pain until my dad fixed the front wheels - they kept getting stuck sideways, but even when it was a pain, it was nice to have in the airport.

Anders also made lovely music for us. This is his very own set of bongos that Grandpa found for him at an antique store.

And he really enjoyed riding in the jeep in the big backyard Grandma and Grandpa have. I swear, their backyard is twice the size of ours - I cannot imagine what we would do with a yard that size. We would love it for sure.

Grandma, Anders and I took Sadie for a walk down to the play ground at the elementary school my sisters and I attended. As usual, Anders was all about the slides.

One day we went to the Denver Botanic Gardens. I worked there writing interpretive information for the exhibits when I was in college and hadn't been there since. Unfortunately I didn't have my MN Landscape Arboretum member card along, so I didn't get in free. I need to find that card...

Cam was a very good older cousin and hung out with Anders, keeping an eye him and playing with him. When we first sat down to eat there were tons of elementary and junior high school kids playing in this amphitheater and I told Cam that I really didn't want Anders to go down there. After lunch the kids had cleared out and as I suspected Anders got up from lunch and just started heading down hill. Cam was quick to try to stop him, but Anders is pretty fast. I tried to get a picture of him running down the hill, but I had our old camera as I wanted to take a smaller camera on the plane and it is just too slow.

After lunch we walking through the gardens. Anders was very interested in these tools.

He also decided to go down a different path than the rest of us. I love this picture with the flowers in the back ground. The other bummer about the old camera is that it doesn't take as nice pictures as the other one. I am very spoiled by that other camera - it is just too big to carry on the plane when I was loaded down with snacks and toys for Anders.

We saw some koi in the pond in the Japanese garden. Anders climbed right up to the top of the fence overlooking the pond. After this, I had to put him back in the stroller - he was just all over the place and there was a fair amount of running water and cacti around and I didn't feel like dealing with him after getting into either one of those.

This is our last night in Colorado having dinner at my parents house. He was very silly.

And now to some pictures from today. Anders rode on a tricycle with Cam in my parents house and seems to be even more interested in this old trike I bought at the flea market a few years ago. He can almost pedal it around and when he has shoes on, he can push himself around on his tip toes.

His hippie-hair, fly away and fine like mine.

And no more hippie-hair. Anders got his first hair cut today.

He was very, very good. No tears, no sudden moves. He didn't want to sit in the chair by himself, so he sat on my lap.

Checking out the new do.

And another first - an ice-cream cone. Or whatever you call the stuff you get from Dairy Queen. We rode our bikes over for the haircut and treats.

He got silly and decided to give his dad a kiss. It was very funny.

And then we stopped at a park on the way home. This is his first time swinging like this (instead of alone in a baby swing). It must have been tickling his tummy because he kept cracking up at random times.

And of course, he went down the slides. He had a big day - started it at 6:15, went to his new music class, and then crashed at 7 pm.

Oh and in case you didn't figure it out, the big news is that we finally cut his hair.

Dare Devil

Anders and his dad have been riding home from work and Montessori for a week or two now. This has greatly increased Anders' obsession with bikes (which was pretty big to begin with).

He really likes to wear his helmet now, and mine and Will's...

He might miss winter and bundling up a bit, I bet he won't miss it too much in a few months.

He did some building today. This was all done on his own, maybe he can be an architect if professional biking doesn't work out.

Or maybe he will be a chef, famous for his use of applesauce as a condiment. I actually did get him to eat all of this, despite how disgusting it looks.

Oh! We just had an exciting moment, Anders just came and got me and said "ba-ba" which means bathroom. So, we went in there and he sat down and pooped in the toilet! This is the first time he has told us he needs to go. I would love it if it was the first of many, but I won't hold my breath.

I'm cleaning out the secretary and Anders discovered these twine balls. I worked out a trade for a real ball before I had twine all over the house.

Here is an action shot of his throw to his dad.

We also had some outside time today.

This is his new coaster bike. He loves it, but is a little leery of it. He is much more comfortable on his little Radio Flyer tyke bike, but he is getting the hang of this. Hopefully we can get motivated to put a video of him on the bike on the blog soon.

We also refilled the bird feeders for the squirrels, chickadees and cardinals.

After nap time today we rode bikes over the park near the Mississippi. We had two main purposes in going - so Will could ride his new bike and so we could check out the herons, which have returned to their rookery.

Anders has a new found love of slides.

He went head first down this one on his own. No kidding.

This is a big slide - probably 7 feet or so. Here he is getting ready to go down.

Again this was all his decision to do this. He decided to treat it like stairs.

And go down feet first on his belly! He went at least twice more and loved it!

Hah!

Usually this time of year my sister, Sarah - who lives in Iowa, and I have a conversation that goes something like this:

"Mom called me today and just happened to mention that the crocuses are blooming. It is 20 degrees here."

"Yep, I was on the phone with Becky today and she was getting hot sitting on the deck in the sun. We have 6 inches of snow on the ground still."

Becky and our parents still live in Colorado.

Well, this picture is for those of you who usually experience spring several weeks ahead of us in the upper Midwest (and who got snow while we had a 60 degree day yesterday).

Yes! My tulips are coming up already and they are even about 3 inches tall. I just discovered them tonight when the Schwan's man stopped by. It is very exciting.

We do still have some piles of snow, but those will be gone this week.

So, Anders is 18 months old as of March 4th. We went to his 18 month appointment and his doctor was pleased with him. He was back down to slightly above 20 pounds, but he had been sick for a couple of days and hadn't eaten, so she figured that was the issue. He had a bit of a belly ache last week, complete with messy morning diapers and throwing up a few times right after breakfast, so we kept him home Wednesday and Thursday.

Here is what happened with his play dough on Thursday. This happened while he was in the seat.

He also did a little reading.

On Sunday we enjoyed some tea and milk in our mugs after breakfast. That lump on the table is what is left of the banana he ate. He lately has been interested in eating bananas out of the peel rather than sliced up.

So, as I said, we had a wonderful, warm, sunny day on Sunday. We spent a bunch of the afternoon out in the backyard. Anders is trading in his shovel for a broom.

I had forgotten how dirty Anders gets when he plays outside, so that combined with being sick this week led to lots of baths. Last night he didn't want to get dressed, but instead wanted to watch his dad make spaghetti (which he called getti).

Finally, this is one of his new things. We give him a napkin and he puts it in his lap. It is very hilarious. He did it for the first time last week and had to remove his bib in order to get the napkin just right.

Another thing he just started doing is when the 3 of us are standing close together saying goodnight or goodbye he pushes Will's and my heads towards each other so we kiss. It is very funny! New words include: owl (which he correctly identified in one of my bird books), goose, turkey, chapstick, dirty, back, and truck. Also on the way to Montessori every morning we see about 8 buses, which means I hear "baa!" about every 5 minutes.

Catching Up...Again

Why is it that I feel like I am in a perpetual cycle of catching up? I'm trying to remember when it last was that I actually had real free time where I had absolutely nothing I had to do? Anyway, here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Anders made some wrapping paper for me to use to wrap presents for his cousin's birthdays. Drew just turned two and Cam will be 4 very soon. This highlighter was left out by his dad and one of us (I think it was me) gave it to him to use. He now loves markers way more than crayons. He looks like a very serious artist at work here.

He found some M&M's in Grammie's bag. Nothing is safe from him any more - he can climb pretty much anything these days and does. Thankfully he cannot doorknobs yet.

Ah, the new skis. It was a very exciting day when we opened the skis. Anders was very excited about them. Skis in one of his words - it sounds more like keys though.

Once we got outside on the snow (aka "no") he was a little less confident, but did well. There were a few tears involved and now the snow is melting away, so we probably won't make it out again this winter, though I'm sure there is a huge March storm in store for us.

The other morning he decided to take some of my shoes for a spin. This is the first time I've seen him do this.

So the highlighter led to washable markers. He did get some on the paper, despite how it looks.

And some on his face...

And some on his shirt. He didn't want to pose for this picture. Thankfully, the markers truly are washable and the shirt is clean again.

Saturday morning I was sitting across from Will, eating breakfast and looked out the front window behind him and saw this!

Yep, that is a wild turkey walking down our street, right in the middle of Minneapolis. Anders and I looked for it on our way to music about 45 minutes later, but it wasn't in plain sight.

Crazy!

Out of laziness, or rather being behind-ness, I have a laundry basket full of diapers in the living room and we just started changing his diapers downstairs for the day. Well, that led to trying some more time on the toilet and Anders ended up pooping and peeing in it twice. It was very exciting for all of us!