Blog Archives - August 2008

First they take SG-1 and now Atlantis! Atlantis feels like it's just taking on a life of its own. It's been overshadowed by SG-1 for so long, but now that it's out on its own it finally feels like it's becoming a mature show.
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There were a bunch of babies born in the last few weeks (and hours). Congratulations to:

My cousin Amy and Jay on their son Liam - August 16 - their first child.

Nick and Cecily on their daughter Chicory - August 27 - their third child.

Tony and Rachel on their daughter Eve - August 26 - their first child.

Congratulations to everyone! Parenthood is wonderful (and wonderfully exhausting).

Julie has a new blog now called Wash The Diapers.......Again. It's at http://washthediapers.blogspot.com/ - go check it out!
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I had no idea that this was going on! My friend found this online and forwarded it to me. I might have to get out and campaign! Here's the original news source: News 3 - WREG-TV

This weekend we went to Cornfest. This year Cornfest was held at the airport because they're beginning construction downtown. We went for a little while and saw airplanes (there was a B-17 Flying Fortress, a MiG, a crop duster, and a helicopter), ate some corn, showed Mike the carnival (he was too small to ride anything still), and saw Travis Tritt sing for a bit. We had a pretty good time, but it'll be more fun when Mike is a little older and can go on the carnival rides.

The airplanes were really cool though. The B-17 was very impressive. They were giving rides in it for $425 (we passed on that). Julie heard one guy say "$425! I'd only pay that if I could bomb something!". But Mike was fascinated by the planes, especially when we saw the B-17 take off. And they were also giving helicopter rides (for a more reasonable $25), but we passed on that too since the helicopter wasn't enclosed. But Mike liked watching it take off and land.

After the airplanes we got some corn (which Mike enjoyed thoroughly) and watched the carnival rides for a bit. Mike really wanted to try out some of the rides, but he's still too small. Maybe next year. On the way out we got to watch Travis Tritt sing for a bit. We didn't watch too long though because Mike was getting fidgety.

On the way back to the car Mike had to point out all the license plates and show us all the letters and numbers he knows. He also found the names of all the cars and found letters and numbers there, too. It was really cute. You can see the fascination in his eyes as he realized more and more that letters and numbers are everywhere. It won't be long before he realizes that they make words, too. Our little guy is growing up!

And, as promised, here is a video of Mike and I going through his ABC Book. He was a bit tired and easily distracted last night, so he wasn't getting all the letters he usually does, but it's still pretty cute. This is a short version of the video. There's an 8 minute version of us going through the whole book (most of it anyway) in the August photo album if you're interested. It's long, but cute.

I've been meaning to post this for a few days now, but wanted to wait until I got a video of it. But alas, I keep forgetting to take a video until night and then Mike is asleep. Anyway, since last weekend Mike has been learning his ABC's! He started recognizing a few letters at the end of last week (most notably O's). In just the past week he's gotten a sudden huge interest in letters.

I got out an alphabet book and he's working on learning all the letters now. He can repeat all their names after me and is now learning to identify them on his own. He can identify most of them all the time now and all of them some times. I point to the apple and say "Apple starts with..." and then point to the A on the page. Mike responds with "Aye". And he can do B, C, D, E (sometimes), F, G, H (usually), I, J (sometimes), K (sometimes), L (usually), M, N (sometimes), O, P, Q, R (usually), T, U (sometimes), V (sometimes), W, X, Y (sometimes), and Z (sometimes). And then he says "ABC's".

We're very proud of him, especially when he goes around the house finding all the letters he knows. He goes through magazines, books, clothes, mail, anything with letters on it and points out all the O's, W's, D's, A's, B's, I's, L's, H's, M's, S's (his current favorites), and any other letters that he can think of. And if he remembers the picture in his book he makes the sound or says the name of the object in the picture (OoohOooh for the Fire engine, Woo Wooo Woo and tapping his mouth for the Indian, Ho Ho Ho for Santa Claus, Hawse for the Horse, etc.). The best is when he says "Hot" for T because he drinks hot tea.

I'll do my best to get it all on video this weekend, but I just couldn't hold off posting any longer, especially after I caught him reading to himself in his room this evening. He was sitting in his chair with his ABC book in his lap looking at the Train going "Tee, Choo Choo, Huh". The "Huh" is how he says honk, which is the sound choo choos make when they go by and he waves.

In the mean time I've included a picture of Mike eating corn (from our garden) and wearing his new sunglasses.

This weekend we went to the Threshing Bee and Steam Show in Sycamore. It's a pretty cool festival with antique steam powered (and gas powered) tractors of all sorts. There's also a steam powered saw mill, train, petting zoo, and more.

The steam powered tractors were really cool. They looked like old steam locomotives and had whistles and everything. But the wheels on them were huge metal wheels with spikes for traction. We all thought they were really cool. And the old gas powered tractors were amazing, too. I never realized that tractors came in so many different shapes. A lot of the old ones looked very insect-like. They had spindly wheels and skinny fronts like some strange mutated wasp.

Unfortunately we left without seeing everything. Michael was too fascinated and since so many of the tractors had boilers they were all very hot. And it was very frustrating for Michael to see all the really cool tractors but not be able to go near them. So hopefully next year he'll be old enough to know that he's not supposed to touch the hot tractors. We can't wait!

We planted corn in our garden this year and it's finally ripe! We had fresh corn straight from our back yard the last two days at lunch. It's kind of cool to know that you're growing your own food. I've had tomatoes and peppers and stuff straight from gardens before, but this year we've had tomatoes, squash, blueberries, strawberries, chives, parsley, basil, mint, broccoli (ok, Julie had the broccoli - I skipped that), and now corn. Next year we'll try even more stuff.

It's funny how sometimes Michael will notice something that he's seen hundreds of times before, but all of a sudden he finds it fascinating or funny. That happened this weekend with an episode of Curious George that he's been watching for months now. It's the episode where George goes into space to send a payload of food to the crew aboard the space station.

He's always liked the episode, but this weekend he became fascinated by the rocket launch. So much so that he started saying rocket launch (it comes out more like "rock rauch" though). So we had to watch the rocket launch scene over and over. He even counts down the numbers before the launch!

So we put in a documentary about the International Space Station and found clips of rocket launches for Mike. I even found some video on You Tube for him to watch. He loved it all! He even started saying "naut naut" for astronaut when I ask him what he wants to be when he grows up. It's really pretty cool.

So today we took Mike to the park and launched a foam rocket. He had a blast and had to bring his (it used to be mine, but he's taken over) Curious George stuffed doll. We had a great time pretending to be "naut nauts" and making "rock raunches".

We had a great time on Thursday! Aunt Missy came out to visit with Michael's cousins Joey and Ava. Since they were sick for Touch a Truck / Touch a Tractor day two weeks ago we decided to have our own truck & tractor day. It ended up being a real blast!

We started off the day just visiting for a bit and letting the kids play together. Then it was off to lunch at Portillo's and then to the John Deere dealer. All the kids loved it, of course. They loved sitting on the tractors, seeing the huge combines, and looking at all the plows, tillers, and harvesters. Joey kept alternating between asking me what different things did and telling me how things worked. They all loved the loader especially, and Mike even figured out how to turn on the lights.

Then it was off to the DeKalb Fire Department, where we got a personal tour of not only the trucks, but the entire fire station. It was really a neat experience, not only for the kids, but for us, too. All the fire fighters were great and took a lot of time to teach us all kinds of stuff. We really appreciated the tour a lot and learned quite a bit, too.

And right outside the fire station was a construction crew using a big digger truck to excavate a hole for a foundation. All three kids were pressed up against the chain link fence watching the shovel dig into the dirt.

Finally, we ended the day with Ollie's, pasta dinner, and some play at the park. It was a really nice day and we can't wait until we get the chance to do it again.

I got in trouble yesterday... Julie's not happy that I taught Mike to climb stuff. Yesterday she was working in the kitchen and heard a loud bang coming from the other room. She ran over there to find Michael on top of the piano. He had pulled out the bench and climbed up to get at a picture of him and his cousins and some Curious George audio CDs (the books on CD), insisting they were DVDs. He wanted to watch them.

So anyway, I got yelled at for teaching him to climb, despite the fact that he would have figured it out on his own very soon anyway. I'm not too upset =)

So this weekend I had to fix a few shingles on our gazebo. I took Mike outside so he could play in the yard, set up the ladder, climbed up and started working. A few minutes later I turned around to head down and get a tool and there's Mike, two rungs up the ladder behind me!

So that was the end of working on the gazebo until mommy came outside to watch little monkey boy. But now that I knew he liked the ladder I decided to see how far up he would go. And Mike decided the exact same thing. So I let him climb (with very cautious hands below him and over him). Mike thought it was great and climbed all the way to the top! It was all I could do to keep him from continuing onto the roof of the gazebo! And then when I told him it was time to come down he backed down the ladder just like a pro!

I don't think he gets this from his mother, this is all daddy's genes at work here =)