Building New Book Holder

I didn't pick up the camera until this project was almost done, but Travis truly helped build this. Ms. Krystel started it out by having Travis hand her the rods. Then he would put the screws where they went and tighten the screws. Sometimes I would start to tighten the screw and he woudl finish the job, but other times he would do it all.
This book rack was on sale at Babies R Us today, and we've been needing a place to hold books in Travis's room.
You can see he is helping to put the books away after it is finished. I wish I could say he was eager to pull out a book and read it after this, but no such luck!

Kerry planting, Travis mowing

Travis wondering what Daddy is up to. Kerry got some plants for the front porch.

Travis likes to help with the lawn care at our house. He also has a weed wacker. When the lawn guys come, Travis is glued to either the window or has me hold him and watch from the back porch. All other activities must stop at our household when the lawn company comes. There is no compromising on this point, according to Travis.

I didn't actually mean to post this photo now...still learning the photo and blog thing. Can't figure out how to get it off either. Anyway, this is Jessica helping me make mashed potatoes for Papa's (Grandpa O) fishing tournament. It turned out to be an all day affair, with the natural kid interuptions!

Garage Sales

Grandma and I took the kids to a couple of garage sales. At one garage sale, where there were actually a lot of toys, Travis was more interested in the truck tool bed box thing that was for sale, the car lift thing you use when you have a flat tire, and some screws that came with a used light fixture. We didn't even know the names of some of these guy-type things that he was looking at!

Scary Moment

Yesterday Travis disappeared for a few minutes while I was holding Jessica and preparing a bottle in the kitchen. After enough time had passed, I went to check on him and could not find him anywhere in the house. I put a crying Jessica down in her room while I frantically went through the house saying Travis's name. It was probably only like 2 minutes, but seemed like 1/2 hour. My mind was racing..where could he be? what would I do if I couldn't find him? would I call a neighbor to help look? Just before full on panic stage, I lifted the covers of our bed to find a peaceful wide-eyed Travis staring up at me. He was covered in oregano, as was our bed. He had swiped the oregano spice jar from the kitchen when I wasn't looking. I'm not sure if he wasn't responding to his name because he knew he did something wrong or because he was so completely under the covers that he was confused. Either way, I was overly joyed to find him!We of course discussed how he shouldn't hide from mommy and completely ignored the oregano issue. Then Travis had the best time "helping" me change the sheets. In fact, with his help, it took about 20 minutes to change the sheets.
We went to a sign language class this week and learned some new signs for nursery rhymes. The best part was after the class when we listened to the nursery rhyme cd we got from class. Travis was is the back seat movin' and grovin'. Before heading home, we stopped at a candy supply store and bought some fun shaped cookie cutters. Again, what could have been like a 5 minute stop turned into a 30 minute one. We took our time walking around the store looking at everything. Travis carried around 4 rolling pins pretty much the whole time and had his eye on decorating markers that you could write on cakes with. I had to give the rolling pins to the sales person as we checked out and had to explain to her that it just was easier to give them to her since he did not want me to put them back! He wanted to take all of them home with us. Our morning was topped off with an ice cream cone on the way home. (Don't tell Dad! :) )

Owies..it hurts

Yesterday the whole family went on a walk, with Travis in and out of the wagon pulled by Dad and Jessica sound asleep in her stroller. While out kicking a ball with Dad, Travis skinned his knee pretty bad. We attended to it and then he was fine, but still very conscious of it. I'm not sure if it hurt still or he was just fascinated by it. So we sat in the driveway where it happened, which is on the other side of the neighborhood. We poured water on it to make it feel better and the homeowners (coincidentally our friends) brought out a band-aid. This seemed to all take quite a while. Then, we're off on our walk again and it was the very next driveway where he skidded sideways and ripped the band-aid in two and lightly skinned the other knee! Poor kid. He's got energy for sure.
Then this morning he bonked his head on something in the house. I was just a few steps away, so instead of crying or anything (he is actually pretty tough), he walked over to me, pointed to the spot on his head that got bumped, then pointed to my lips (almost put his finger on my lips actually), then back to his head again. He was telling me to kiss it and make it better!
What a cutie, and so trusting that Mom can make it all better.

Travis & the Lawn Mower

After much time in the woods today, Ms. Krystal was walking with Travis around the block. They came upon a large trailer unloading four lawn mowers to mow a neighbor's lawn. After studing the situation, Travis motioned for Ms. Krystal to go back home with him to the garage. He had a plan to get his play lawn mower and help out. Unfortunately though by the time they came back, the crew and lawn mowers was gone. Travis looked at Ms. Krystal with his usual shrug of the shoulders, up-turned hands, as if asking "where did they go?"

Haircut & sleep

Aunt KiKi giving kisses.











Travis gets his 2nd haircut the weekend of his first birthday.




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Getting a bath to wash off the hair!









These photo's were taken 2 weekends ago when Uncle Mark & Aunt KiKi visited. It was a great weekend. Already looking forward to planning another during the college's fall break.

Pete just left today - had a good weekend with him too.

Kerry and I went out to a 'date night' tonight. Dinner and a movie. Travis took a almost 2 1/2 hr morning nap, so skipped his afternoon nap. That meant he was soosoosoo tired at 6:20. He fell asleep in Justine's lap! I'm jealous! (She's our new babysitter - working out really well. She has a 2 year old, so she knows some tricks that we haven't learned yet. Like for example tonight she put on a bedtime kiddo show for 5 minutes when he was so tired, that's what he fell asleep on her lap to. He also got to see a minute of Thomas the Train apparently.)