Vacation to the wedding

Oscar had a fun vacation en route to and including his cousin Brittany's wedding. Our first stop was the Milwaukee county zoo. It was very nice with some animals we had only seen pictures of previously.
Another two hour drive took us to a camping spot just off the beach at Illinois Beach State Park. We live near a lake and beach, but this one is much bigger!

In response to the rain, we headed to the Kohl Children's Museum. It is geared for kids under the age of eight.

Oscar attended most of the wedding activities including the rehearsal dinner, most of the wedding, and the early part of the reception dinner. For his parents to let loose a little at the reception, Oscar had a baby sitter at our hotel. We introduced him to her at the reception then headed over to our hotel together. After we left, Oscar cried for five minutes. He then went into the bedroom. When the sitter tried to check on him he tried crawling under the bed. She chose to let him mellow out. He chose to fall asleep at a very early hour on the floor. At which point she put him on the bed where he slept for 12 hours.

The rest of vacation was eating too much at Mike's sister house. Very relaxing and fun for Oscar to play with other kids.

Mike was pleased that Oscar chose to sing a blues song while we traveled home through northwestern IN into Chicago. We also assume he was somewhat lamenting the end of his vacation.

In case you can't understand the lyrics...Rain is falling down (repeat for 15 minutes or so)

Burn Season

Hey now, what do we have here . . . ? Lets have a little lookie loo . . . Hmmm, I think there is one just like this in my machine book. Yes, I think it's an A T VEEEEE!!!!!! Lets see, just swing the leg up, pull up on the seat, drag up that other leg, hang onto the handle and voila!

So burn season is well under way, which for me means some late nights, lots of eating out and lots of mama and papa leaving for work early and getting home late. Its a bit crazy, but it's so important to get out and get fire on the landscape that I'm being very flexible and helpful. On Saturday Papa was burning, and Mama took me out to help. I got to drive the ATV! (To prevent child services, concerned grandparents or the NWCG police coming after after mama, the ATV wasn't even on)

I also got to hold the hoses, sit on top of the engine, and watch for spot fires. The smoke went way up high, and the flames raced across the wetland. I wish they made Nomex in size 2T . . . I'd be all over it!

On the more typical 2 year old front I've also been busy easter egg hunting (thankyou Mr CE Bunny!);learning to fall asleep on my own, and sleeping the whole night through. I'm learning to brush my teeth, use the potty (well at least sit on it) and am able to construct real sentences eight or ten words long. And I discovered that since mama won't let me use the camera, her alarm clock is a close enough substitute so I go around asking her to "smile into the camera Mama!" I'm branching out into a few new foods, and actually eating several regular meals a day now. New faves are keifer, tomato juice and peanuts Life is pretty darn good! Hope you are all well. And if you are out there burning . . . Be safe and remember your LCES (lookouts, communications, escape routes and safety zones for you non fire bugs!)

2

Oscar is two. To celebrate both sets of grandparents visited.

There was a drum circle. Even with just one drum it was still LOUD!
A puppet show with some confusion as to who was an actor and who was the audience.

Lots of smiles

Present opening and of course fun with the boxes

A nice meal and even a cake

The only problem was Granddad Spaul refusing to let Oscar sit in Oscar's chair.

8

Oscar can count to 8. Twice he counted the 8 birds hanging from our mantle. I don't know if we should be impressed, but we are.

While we are on the theme of 8. Let's upload 8 photos because we have been so neglectful in posts.

This small cabin at Indian Lake County Park has a small woodstove for heat and cooking. We had sausages, eggs, hot chocolate, and lots of snacks.

Getting there was fun!

Winter adventure with Alden (Alden's blog has more photos of this adventure)

Papa is wicked FUN! His face might not show it, but the horses were a hit.

Cooking and washing dishes are VERY popular activities.

He counts and paints!

Two soon!

christmas 2009

Christmas Day 2009: Granville Ohio

Talk aobut local, hand made and sustainable. Check out my new train set! Grandad is pretty amazing. How did he know I wanted a train set?

Here is my Papa with my Uncle Tom in the middle and my Uncle Rob on the left. Notice they all have the same exact sweater on just in different colors? Apparantly they all got one last year for Christmas. Grandad has one too. It's a little weird with everyone wearing the same thing but it is really great to be with everyone. It was so great to play with my uncles!

Mama really likes to play with my new train too and I have to keep telling her to keep her mitts off my train.

See? . . . I make a great train engineer, i've even got my coveralls and stripped sweater on! After I got my train, i couldn't really stay focused on anything else and i was too wiped out to open the rest of my presents. So some are saved for tomorrow!

Wow Grandad, you can really push it fast!

Uncle Rob and I spent some quality time reading my new Elmo Book. I had to teach him who Elmo was, but he was already well familiar with Bert, Ernie and Big Bird.

My new buddy the snowman. (My first snowman ever)

Mama and I built him two days before christmas. I didn't get what was going on until the eyes, carrot, and hat when on it and then it all made sense. We said good morning and goodnight to him every day until his head rolled off as the snow melted. I still like to visit him, but it's not the same. Fight Global Warming! I want to be able to teach MY kids how to build snowmen one day.

This is me in my future new bedroom. Papa has been working upstairs pretty much my whole life. Sometimes he lets me go up and help; like this afternoon. It's an amazing place, I hope I get to move up there before I graduate from high school. In the mean time, papa build this awesome chalk board for me and hung it on the wall in my new room. We draw out plans and learn how to spell words. Sometimes when no one is looking I like to taste the chalk.

I drew pictures while papa was busy laying the 1st floorboard.

Here you can see Papa installing the 1st floor board in the new upstairs. I'm not sure how many more he has to do before we can move upstairs, but I'm pretty sure it's more than three (which is how high I can count). But I didn't even get to use all the numbers that i know because it took him all afternoon to get this one in. But, it's a step in the right direction.

Wednesday this week was a snow day! 17 inches fell in Madison and Mama and Papa and I got to spend the whole day at home playing games and reading and eating. It was great, except when we tried going out side. Now think about it, I'm only about 31 inches tall, so if the snow is 17 inches, that's up to my armpits in snow. Explain to me why I'd want to be out in it?

However, I did get NEW BOOTS which you can see me in here. They are big boy boots. I have also discovered the benefits of mittens, they really do keep your hands warm!

This is the front of the house now. The snow is great but I'm not a big fan of the cold. What kind of parents do I have that are trying to document my misery? Can't we just go inside?

The best part about the snow storm was the neighbors skid steer that came to plow out the driveway. It moved that HUGE pile of snow into the front yard. Back and forth, back and forth . . . Papa and I watched it out the front window for a long time. It snowed again later in the week and when i got up in the morning I raced to the window to see it again, I asked it to please come back, but papa said there wasn't enough snow. How disappointing. More snow please!

In other exciting news, I'm learning how to swim. Mama and I go every week to the pool. When i first get there I'm so excited that I can hardly stand it. We play with balls, kick our feet, sing songs and jump off the side of the pool. The Grand ole Duke of York is my favorite, I go way up high, then plunge down into the water. I can blow bubbles and when i go down the slide I can hold my breath and go under water. After about 2o min or so though i start to shiver. By the end of class I'm frozen, but even on the way out I'm still saying "more pool please!" Thursdays are great!

Happy Halloween!!!!

Well I thought the day was going to be just like any other fall Saturday. You know the routine, mush at 5:30; play hard all morning; nap; play hard all afternoon; have a fussy time at bedtime. . . But no, today was different!

So Mama pulled this big round ball called a "pukin" in off the front porch and cuts the top off. I cried, not sure why. But then we pulled all the guts out with spoons and our hands, and that was just great. Then Mama went at it with the knife again but i kept a stiff upper lip this time as i was so interested.

Then all of a sudden I had this really cool looking thing to cart around the house in my cart. Pretty great. I like this halloween thing. It's not scarry at all! Or so I thought . . .

Oh the horror! I can't begin to explain. What the heck, just cause my papa works to protect little tiny butterflies that are smaller than a postage stamp DOES NOT mean I have to dress up like one. I made my case with some foot stomping, some squawking and mayby just a couple of tears.

Since it was clear I was going to have to dress up if I wanted to keep the pumpkin and go to the parade, we made a compromise.

Hey, my pumpkin bit me! (That's my story and I'm sticking to it)

Yeah, you stay down there where I can see you.

yeah, I know, I'm cute.

Allright allready with the photos though, can we go the the PARADE or what?!

Finally! We made it to the parade. We were going to walk IN the parade, but i wouldn't let Mama help me with the wagon and we got left behind. So we stood and watched everyone else go by. It was fun, I saw lots of my friends.

And I spied out of the corner of my eye a pretty cute little girl pumpkin too. But she was stuck way up high on her mama's shoulders and no way could I make a move.

Had tried to get up a bit higher to see her, but she was gone in the parade just like that.

Yeah, all around a pretty awsome day!