Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The "Real" Polar Express

Last weekend we went to Owosso to see and ride behind the engine that was used in the Polar Express movie. The movie was animated, but they used the image and the sounds of this engine to create the train in the movie. It was very cool. There was just enough snow to make it pretty, but luckily the roads weren't bad getting up there. At almost every crossing along the way people were out with their cameras and tripods getting pictures of the engine. They took us to the "North Pole" (aka Saginaw County Fairgrounds)where the kids got to see Santa and ride on a bunch of carnival rides.






Halloween

Before posting Christmas pictures I thought I would post a few from Halloween. Joey had two costumes this year, one for trick or treat (the Knight) and one for school (Woody). Because the knight costume had a sword I didn't want him to wear it to school. It was super warm here on trick or treat night and I dressed him too warm. He wanted to quit after about 10 houses. Then he went back home and ate almost all of the candy and realized he wanted to go out again. So, he switched into his costume from last year and went back out.


Thursday, August 14, 2008

Catching Up!! - Pics from July

Wow - summer is really flying by.
We spent our vacation at our cottage up north and did a few day trips around the area.
We found the cutest petting farm called "Aunt Tude's"
Here are a few pics:







Another one of our "day trips" was to Tawas Point to see the lighthouse and swim in Lake Huron. Joey said he didn't want to swim and didn't want his swimsuit on, but then he ended up swimming in his clothes:




Grandma came up for July 4th weekend and we took her on the Au Sable Valley miniature railroad. Someone built this huge track for a miniature railroad as a hobby and he opens it up for kids on weekend. Joey loved it.





And, last but not least, a few pictures of Joey catching his first fish:

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Strawberry Fields

Wow - I didn't realize I haven't blogged for a whole month. We've just been so busy, especially on Fridays, so I've been missing Favorite Foto Friday!
Anyway, for Father's Day Dave requested that we go strawberry picking, so that's what we did. Here are some pics from our day:


Friday, May 16, 2008

FFF: Fun in the Sun (the Ice Cream Truck!!)


This picture is from earlier this month. Joey and I were hanging out back playing in his sandbox when we heard music. I told him it was the ice cream truck and he immediately wanted to see it, so I told him we could go out front and look. I didn't expect it to come down our street because it's a dead end and they usually don't bother. Wouldn't you know - it was turning around right in front of our house. We ran after him and flagged him down and then I had to convince Joey to come inside with me to get money (the ice cream man was actually a little scary looking and I didn't want to leave him out there alone LOL!) Anyway, Joey had this supercool Spiderman ice cream bar and I had a Push-up (hey -did you know they are only 90 calories?!) That's one of the fringe benefits of being a mom - a 38 year old should normally fight off the urge to chase down the ice cream truck, but with a 3 year old in tow it becomes acceptable behavior.

Friday, May 09, 2008

FFF: Mommy and Me

Three years ago this week, we were in Guatemala meeting Joey for the very first time. I was telling him about it today and I told him that I cried when I had to go back home. Later in the day he asked me "Mama, why did you cry when you had to go to Home Depot in Guatemala?" It took me a while to figure out that that was his interpretation of what I said (he loves Home Depot). Anyway, here are some pictures of my first week with my sweet baby boy: (I'm so glad that I was digging through these because I realized that I had accidentally forgotten to copy some of them from my old laptop which is now dead - luckily I had uploaded them to Winkflash and they still had them so that I could order a DVD - whew!!)



Friday, May 02, 2008

FFF: Having a Ball - Fishing and Kite Flying

The theme this week is "Having a Ball", i.e., pics of the kids doing something they love or trying something new. Joey has been trying some new things - fishing and flying a kite.
I missed FFF last week because we went to the lake a day early. Joey was so excited to go fishing that he was practicing in the back yard for a week before we left:





I did get some pictures of him fishing "for real" but they are in my other camera that I left at the lakehouse.

His other new thing is flying a kite. They are learning about wind in daycare and he came home and told me that he wanted to fly a kite. So, being the good Daddy that he is, Dave took him right out and bought a Dora kite and the two of them flew it:

Friday, April 18, 2008

Favorite Foto Friday: Siblings (well kind of!)

The theme this week is siblings. Since Joey is an only child, his closest thing to a sibling is our dog, Honey. He loves to climb in her bed with her.
Here is a picture of them rough-housing a few months ago;

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Wacky Wednesday


Joey got these funny lips from the "Poop Fairy" basket (the Poop Fairy fills it up with goodies and toys and he gets to take something whenever he poops on the potty). He thought they were pretty funny. He talks about the Poop Fairy all the time and wants to know when he can talk to her. I told him that she doesn't have a phone, just e-mail, so we sent her an e-mail the other night! I'm just hoping he doesn't start telling too many people about the Poop Fairy or they'll think we are crazy at this house!

Friday, April 04, 2008

Favorite Foto Friday: Favorite Picture of the Week

A couple of days ago, out of the blue, Joey said "You take a picture of me". He was standing in my messy bathroom. So, I told him to at least stand by the door. He gave me the nicest smile too - why isn't it that easy when I take him to get professional pictures?



Today Joey went to his first movie - "Horton Hears a Who". He was pretty good, but he did have to leave the movie to sit on the potty. He was unsuccessful, but at least he tried. Lately he's been wanting to try out public toilets every where we go. I guess that's a good thing.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Looks Like We are "It"

I just read Lisa's blog and saw that I was tagged on Friday for a game. The rules are post 10 bits of random info about your child, then tag 10 others.

1. Joey loves broccoli and some nights that's all he wants for dinner.
2. Every night, Joey sleeps with his stuffed pig, giraffe, elephant and bear.
3. Joey can do perfect somersaults.
4. Joey loves the Detroit Pistons and can name almost all of the players.
5. Joey loves to run around the house naked.
6. Joey calls milk "knock knock". We don't know why, but it continues even though he can say milk now.
7. Joey loves Shrek right now and is constantly reciting lines from Shrek 2.
8. Joey pretends that he is talking on the phone to Grandma and Papa all the time, but when they really call him he is pretty quiet.
9. Joey says he wants to play football every time he sees kids practicing on the field.
10. Joey's favorite restaurant is McDonald's.

I don't think I have 10 people to tag (and some might have already been tagged), so I'll just tag these 7:
1. Janet
2. Heidi
3. Sabra
4. Sarah
5. Susanne
6. Carol
7. Robyn

Easter Pictures - Finally

I finally got around to downloading the Easter pictures off of my camera. We went to Ohio for Easter and I got sick -- again! Anyway, luckily the Easter Bunny found Joey and left him a basket. He dug right in and pulled out the Thomas Easter train first and said "hey I saw that at Target", then he proceeded to point out the other items that he saw at Target. So we told him the Easter Bunny must shop at Target too.





I didn't get many pictures of Joey with his cousins because these three don't sit still for long when they get together. I did get a picture of the big "candy dump" that happened when Grandma gave them their Easter baskets. For some reason they all dumped them out together in a big pile:

Monday, March 17, 2008

Happy Poop Day to You!

OK - potty training has officially driven me crazy. Today I could tell that Joey was trying to go poop in his pull-up and I started pleading and bargaining with him to please just TRY the potty. I started off with offering toys and candy, everything I could think of. Finally I said "if you just try, we'll make a cake" and that did it. Not only did he try, but had success! This is the first time he has pooped in the potty, except once where I think it just accidentally happened, and we have offered him every kind of bribe under the sun. So, to keep my promise, we baked a cake and he even got to frost it himself (I improvised on a lot of ingredients because I was not planning on baking a cake today, but it turned out pretty good). He loves to blow out candles and sing, so we even sang "Happy Poop Day to You". Anyway, by the time we were done eating our cake he pooped again IN his diaper. So, I don't know that we've actually made any real progress and I'm exhausted (I woke up this morning to find him snuggling up next to me with an overly full diaper which required me to have to wash all of the linens, my pajamas, his pajamas and my brand new pillow).
Here are some pictures of my proud boy with his "Poop Day" cake:

Sunday, March 16, 2008

A Weekend of Easter Fun

This weekend was our city's egg hunt, so we took Joey up. We made it on time this year, but somehow we forgot his basket, so the poor kid had to use a Target bag that I found in the car (not that he minded much).




There were three Easter Bunnies this year, so Joey actually got to get a picture with the bunny instead of the infamous "Easter Duck" of last year. The Easter Bunny gave him a coupon for free fries from McDonald's and he was so excited that we had to go right away (it was actually still breakfast time so we had to wait for a half hour before they even started serving fries). He was so amazed that the Easter Bunny actually KNEW how much he loved McDonald's fries.


When we came home we colored eggs:


Joey peeled and ate two eggs right away. I never knew he liked hard-boiled eggs so well. I might have to let him color some more. We only colored a dozen because I was afraid nobody would eat them.

Friday, March 14, 2008

FFF: Spring Fever!

The theme this week is Spring Fever, which is perfect since it FINALLY warmed up around here. Today Joey and I decided to go to the zoo since we still have a month left on our annual pass that we bought last year. It was actually pretty warm even though there is still some snow on the ground (and a lot of puddles everywhere which Joey thought was fun!).



Wednesday, March 12, 2008

"Wow"

Joey started an "All By Myself" class today at our community's rec center. There were only five kids in the class and they were all so cute following the teacher down the hall. Even though he goes to daycare two days a week now, this really seemed like "school" and I felt like crying because he's growing up so fast. The teacher said that he didn't talk much, but when they were making their construction paper flowers he told her "My mom will say Wow!" He was right - that's exactly what I said when he showed it to me.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Who needs toys when you have a ladder?


We are getting pretty bored around here in this nasty cold weather. On Saturday Dave got out the ladder to change lightbulbs and Joey had so much fun climbing up and down.

Friday, March 07, 2008

FFF: One Year Ago

I went back to find a picture from a year ago and instead I found this video of Joey dancing to the Wiggles from one year ago today. I have no idea what he is saying! I can't believe how much bigger he is and how much better he talks since a year ago.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

More celebrating


Over the weekend Joey and I went to Ohio. We had another birthday celebration for Joey, Andrew and Aunt Angie. Ever since we got back Joey has been asking to "Go to Ohio more". Poor guy - I wish we lived closer. The 4 hour drive on the way home about killed me because I was really sick and losing my voice and Joey wanted me to talk to him the whole time.

Friday, February 29, 2008

FFF: Happy Leap Day!



The theme of the day is leaping and since Joey is always in motion - I do have a picture of him "leaping" or at least jumping.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Happy Birthday Joey!!

I can't believe my baby is THREE. I'm having trouble uploading pictures tonight, so I'll just post one. This is Joey making his own birthday pancakes. (I was going to make him pancakes, but he told me he wanted to make the pancakes - so I let him measure everything and mix them up):



When I asked him what he wanted to do, he told me that he wanted to get his haircut and go to McDonald's. So, that's what we did. We went to Chuck E. Cheese this evening and he had a blast until he got a nose bleed and had to leave (poor guy!).

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Video Message for Grandma

I was talking on the phone to Grandma while Joey was in the bathtub playing in his bubbles. He wanted to let her know that he looked like Santa ("Fo Fo" as he calls him) with his bubble beard. So, we got out the camera and took a little video clip.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

It's Birthday Week



Thursday is Joey's birthday and the festivities have already begun. Today we had his party with his Michigan cousins. After much flip-flopping between Thomas and Shrek, he decided on the Shrek cake. He's the only little guy on this side of the family so he loved being able to sit at the table with all of the big kids.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Happy Valentine's Day!


Joey and I baked this cake today. We didn't have a heart pan, so we made the heart out of one square pan and one circle cut in half. I got the idea from a Betty Crocker website. I thought it turned out pretty cute and he always has a blast helping me bake:

Friday, February 08, 2008

Our Disney Vacation!

We had a great vacation and Joey is at such a fun age. He is still talking about everything that we did.

Our first evening, we decided to just stay at the condo and swim. This picture didn't turn out too great, but the sky looks so pretty. Here are Dave and Joey heading into the pool:



On Friday, we went to Chef Mickey's for breakfast and Joey got to meet Goofy,Mickey, Donald, Minnie, and Pluto:



We went to Magic Kingdom for a while and then went back again later for the Spectromagic Parade and the Wishes fireworks show:







The next day we did Epcot:



On Sunday, we went to Animal Kingdom. While we were waiting for our Fast Pass time to ride the safari we went to a little petting zoo. Joey loved it because they had brushes that the kids could use to brush the sheep and goats:



Before he sat next to this goat, he tried to sit ON it like he does with our dog. Luckily it was a really friendly goat. I love how it looks like it is smiling in this picture.



He also loved the bears from the Jungle Book and playing the bongo drums in "Africa":





On Monday, the temp was in the upper 80's, so we decided to head to Cocoa Beach instead of the parks:


At night we went back to the Magic Kingdom. While everyone else was at the parade and fireworks, we rode the Barnstormer roller coaster five times!



On Tuesday, we spent most of the day at the pool and then went to Hollywood Studios at night for the Fantasmic show. The highlight of the night for Joey though was going to the "cool McDonald's" as he calls it. Here he is standing next to the giant Ronald McDonald statue:


We spent our last day at Epcot, where Joey got to ride Nemo and see Crush turtle one last time. He also got to see the Mexican Donald Duck and enjoyed some more of the free Coke products from around the world (another of his favorite things!):