Painting my eyes

After doing some laundry I went to check on Ian who had been rather quiet for a while.

He told me he was painting his eyes.  So after I took a quick video and the above picture we put the caps on the markers, placed the markers on top of the entertainment center and headed upstairs to show daddy and look in the mirror. 

I would like to take an opportunity and thank Crayola for making washable markers and to the inventor of baby wipes.  I think it came off faster than it went on.

What a change

Do you see that? Oh my goodness I am loving our table more than ever right now!  Our table got such a fantastic "facelift" and the old wood chairs have been to the furniture graveyard in the basement before they get the Goodwill boot.

The chairs are from Pier 1 originally and are still available they are on sale for $119 each. Now, I tell you that because well I think we know each other well enough by now to know that we would never pay $119 for a chair let alone to buy 5 at that price. Instead I paid $125 for all 5!! I came across them at a garage sale near our house. I was in fact on the phone with Marcus when I pulled into the subdivision an we were having a pretty serious discussion in regards to professional job life when I so rudely interrupted with "I just found our new dining area chairs!!!!!". May have not been the most appropriate time but I think tw price made up for my bad timing.

And then our light fixture got a nice upgrade:

I'm unsure of it's original price it was on clearance at one of our Lowe's store for $119 and at another Lowe's store for $59.  We LOVE getting a good deal and I think our dining area makeover is now complete aside from maybe a piece of artwork and of course refinish the floors. So I think we say it's 90% complete!

Big Blue

My Poppy has been waiting for this day since Dec 31 2009.

And to make it all even better when he asked Ian if he wanted to get on the tractor there was zero hesitation, no looking back for my approval, just straight running to climb up.

He even got to help out and do a task (move the bushes that Poppy and my cousins dug up and move them down to the burn pile) with his Poppy and my cousin Andrew.  It took five trips to complete the task and by the end he was almost sleeping on the job (Ian not Poppy).

waiting for the grunt work to be done

When we pulled out of the driveway to go home Ian said "that was FUN".  So I do beleive he had fun!

mini vacay

This past week we headed south to Indy. Upon arrival to the city we headed straight to the Indianapolis Zoo where we meant up with Jennifer and Grant (my SIL and her hubby).  Of course in the whol 3hr drive Ian choose to nap the last 20min of the drive so we had no clue what his demeanor would be like: clingy, silly, or down right grumpy.  Surprisingly he was in good spirits with only a lil' clinginess other than that he wanted to walk by himself  or was content in the stroller so YAY!! At the zoo we saw all your typical zoo animals dolphins (Indy Zoo has a fantastic dolphin show but due to a new calf being born the show was not being preformed while we were there), tigers, polar bears, giraffes (which we got to feed, Ian was of course gun ho about this adventure up until it was his turn in which he tossed the slice of sweet potato over the fence and then was given a 2nd chance to feed and made me do it instead.  FYI a giraffe's tougue feels like sand paper, turtles, snakes, the whole animal works.

napping

penny smashing

snake charmer

we got to feed him

not bad after 3hrs in 90+ temps

Playground fun:

that was a fast slide

mulch in the shoe

being a kid

heading to the playground with Grant

Children's Museum:
Ian slept the entire way, unlike the zoo we didn't take the stroller and I'm so glad we didn't it. I'm still amazed at what all Ian was willing to do without me having to do it too.  FYI: The Children's Museum is one of the best in country, if you get the opportunity to go and visit and you have lil people I highly encourage you to go!

dino digging

just being a dinosaur

train fun

penny smashing

more digging

scuba diving-he didn't like it

polishing up the Hot Wheels car

driving the Hot Wheels car

in case he crosses the pond and needs to know how to drive on the wrong side of the car

and this is the best pic out of 12 taken plus one movie that was accidentally made

I'd say our trip was a success, and we will go back again! We tossed around the idea of heading to the Shedd Aquariuam in Chicago but decided to hold off for now. 



eat much

I failed in the 2.5 update to mention Ian's eating habits or lack thereof.  To be all kinds of honest here I despise feeding him, now now lay off judging mothers I still feed him I just don't find joy in it.  I find mealtime to be all sorts of frustrating and irritateing and it turns into how many bribes can I try before I find the winning combo.  Dinner options consists of:
cheese pizza (which lately he's been pulling the cheese off of)
mac n' cheese paired with the any of the following often all 3: mixed veggies along with a pinky size of whatever meat we are eating that night and fries (often times sweet potato fries) 
Waffles or any breakfast item of the like.
 I know, I know such a wide variety to get you through 7 days worth of dinners. Yet, at the sitters he will consume chicken noodle soup (only took him a yr or longer to warm up to that meal), popcorn chicken, fish sticks, peanut butter and crackers, etc.  I know he is capable I guess I'm just not willing to host 5 toddlers every night for dinner so he will eat.  We all eat dinner together (aside from fire station nights) and for the most part on the nights we are altogether at least 2 meals a week we all eat the samething or parts of the samething. 

I will back track and start with breakfast which rotates between: waffles, pancakes, french toast sticks, and cereal all paired with a smoothie containing strawberries, banana, spinach and milk (and oatmeal when I remember). So I'd say we rock breakfast!

Lunch is again better than dinner but still a huge task to get him to eat. Usually consists of yogurt paired with any of the following: apples, grapes, carrots, PB&J (1st time was yesterday after not eating it at home since December), crackers, soft pretzel

Snack: depends on when he wakes from nap which is another thing I forgot to mention.  We still nap anywhere from 2.5-3.5hrs.  I'm thinking we may need to start cutting naptime a bit shorter as bedtime is not pretty.  So maybe I'll start with waking after 3hrs and see how that goes for bedtime.  Anyways snack if snack time is needed usually whatever is leftover from lunch is offered.

Needless to say our menu options are small.  When we do get him to try something (a pinky size protion) after trying is then totally done with eating and whats nothing to do with whatever is remaining on his plate even if it's something he really likes such as mac n' cheese.

Yes, he is growing and developing as he should so I guess I shouldn't be all that concerned it just annoys me. He knows it annoys so it's a power struggle, that I feel he is totally winning.  Heck, we had to resort to giving him the option of going to bed or trying ice cream, he finally caved and he LOVED it!  Score: Parents 1 vs Ian 1,000,000,000 We're getting there, right?

ugh...off to plan our meals for the week.

2.5

Ian my little man you are 30 months old also known as 2.5yrs old.  You have tons of words and not just words but sentences.  Lately you've started adding "ey" or "y" to words. Here are some off the top of my head:
Forkey= fork
army=arm
mouthy= mouth
helpy= help

You have started to dress yourself, the 2 holes in your shorts sometimes throws you for a loop and well a t-shirt causes you just as many struggles.  I would say you are 99.9% potty trained, the .1% is when you are too busy playing to stop and go and during sleep time.  Speaking of sleep time you still nap wonderfully for approx 3hrs.  Bedtime is still a struggle, due to daylight savings time the sun doesn't start to go down till about 9:30 and in the last week or so you have developed a love for the pool.  So often times after dinner we will go out and before I know it I look at my watch to see it is 8:30 and we have to start bribing you to get out.  So in short there is no real bedtime routine at the moment.

Now, that we have the bike trailer on days that I workout with you, you get to pick whether we ride bike or run. I perfer bike and I think you prefer run.  We run for a shorter period of time than we bike for.
Onto develpment and your accomplishments I'm sure there are more than what is listed but at the moment I can't remember them all:

• ride tricycle
• swim
• hop
• run (you like to either look at your feet or look behind you though)
• gallop
• dress yourself (pants are often times on backwards, and shirts confuse you at times too with all the holes so close to each other)
• put own shoes on, not always on the right feet but you very rarely give up trying.
• stand on one leg

You mister have an attitude at times and get frustrated very quickly when things aren't operating how you would like them too.  When there is something you don't want to do you say your eye hurts.  You are also very shy when out and about but when you are home and in your own environment you are quite the talker.

You have manners you don't always use them but you do have them we just need to work on being more consistent with using them.  You will say "no, thank you, bless you, please, thank you"  And when we are out and about you decide you are capable of walking and the place we are going has a door that requires opening you say "no, momma me" and then after opening (with some assistance) you will say "momma, you first".  It's all quite adorable and sweet all at the sametime. 

And now time for some pictures:

using mommy as a human balance beam

just hanging out and relaxing while on a run

being cute and goofy

uh oh, didn't get his way

patiently waiting for tires to be rotated, wearing favorite hoodie sweatshirt

beating the heat

This past week we experienced some crazy temperatures everyday well over 100.  I'm so thankful we have a pool as that is where we were mutiples times throughout each day.  Although by the end of the week the pool temp was 90 and was no longer refreshing from the heat unless you were acquiring vitamin D for a 1/2hr or so.

Showing off his swimming abilities:

how our 4th of July was spent