Imaginary Tools

Dean doesn't have imaginary friends, but he does have imaginary tools.  Every single time we read the book Tools (one of his favorite "classics" that we own), Dean has to collect every single tool off of every page. He holds them in his hands until he can figure out where to put them.  Once I had him in night shorts that didn't have pockets, and he asked me to put "not night shorts" on him so he could put his tools away. 

Tonight as we were reading books before bed, he was taking the shapes out of one of his library books, and what did we notice Walter doing? Picking off all the shapes off the pages!  He loves Dean and watches him so much. It was funny to see him taking imaginary tools and shapes just like Dean.

My little drunken sailor

I no longer have a baby. Walter is a toddler! And he toddles all over the place like a little drunken sailor. He has been walking exclusively for a couple weeks now, but my computer can't handle the videos from our new video camera, so I haven't posted much about it yet. I'm actually posting this from Matt's computer while he's otherwise engaged.

Walter is opinionated, and knows where he wants to go and what he wants to do, and he does not feel compelled to wait for me. When I'm trying to change his diaper, he wriggles away, gets up, and RUNS with a wicked laugh as far away from me as he can get. When we are at the park, I have to watch him closely because he just wanders wherever he thinks looks interesting. Definitely an independent boy!  When we picked up dad today, Dean said, "Dad, Walt is an escapee boy."  Haha. My biggest concern is that he'll walk into a fire ant hill since they don't take care of them that well at the parks here. 

He loves making noises right now.  He clicks his tongue, makes chomping noises for emphasis while eating, and points and jabbers for whatever he wants (usually anything up high) if he doesn't have a word for it. We've been working on animal sounds and he likes to growl like a bear, roar like a lion, pant like a dog, and "who" like an owl.  His vocabulary now consists of: mom, dad, up, no (probably his second fav., right behind mom), more (sounds like mo), milk (sounds like a drawn out "miii"), on, and night night (usually accompanied by a wave. He uses this for goodbye as well). 


Here's a video of him walking and playing in the mud/rain we had during the tornado rains a couple weeks ago.

And here's another video of him helping me rearrange our bookshelf.

Arg. It won't let me load the one that showcases his walking skills.

Fiffer feffer feff

Yesterday as we got in the car to go to preschool, Dean asked, "Mom, what letter is Dean going to learn about in preschool today?"  I told him it should be the letter F.  He said, "F is for fiddle" and then sang a musical "scale" on "do, do, do", pretending to be the fiddle. (He got that from his vtech abc table he got for Christmas.) I said, "Yes, what else starts with F?"  "Um. Fiffer feffer feff."  Good ol' Dr. Suess. Helping our kids expand their vocabularies. Haha.

Also, when we were at the park a couple days ago, I said, "OK, Dean, choose one or two more things to do and then we're going to go home."  His reply was, "Um. Maybe 23 more things."  Good try buddy. Good try.

Matt got back from a business trip today and had a little treat for Dean.  After he ate his [very messy] push pop, he declared, "Dean likes it when daddy goes away!!"  (Poor kid doesn't get many treats from us "health conscious" parents...) I tried to reason with him that he likes it when daddy comes home, since that's when he brings his treats back, but he just repeated, "No, Dean likes it when daddy goes away."

Here's a video of him "reading" Bears in the Night a couple weeks ago. He does the dramatic voices, so you may not be able to hear him when he whispers certain phrases. This makes me smile every time I see it.

"Dean's going to be baptized when Dean's 3"

Last night we read 2 verses out of 1 Nephi for our family scripture study. They were about Jesus being baptized.  Dean asked what it meant to be baptized. I told him when we're baptized we promise Heavenly Father we'll keep his commandments and try to be like Jesus.  I said that when he's 8 years old, someone with priesthood authority, most likely daddy, will dip him all the way under the water and say a prayer and then he'll come back up again, baptized.  He was very concerned about the going under water bit and quickly said, "Dean don't want to be baptized. Dean don't want to get water in Dean's eyes!" I assured him that if he closed his eyes tight he would be just fine.

This morning on our run, we stopped to say hi to a friend, and immediately Dean told her, "Dean's going to be baptized when Dean's 3!" I had to laugh to myself about his enthusiastic exclamation, especially since she's not LDS and may not know about our baptismal practices and that we don't baptize anyone till age 8. I thought it was adorable, though, that he had apparently been thinking about it since last night. I love that he feels compelled to teach/tell anyone anything that he knows.

I just love that kid.

A moment worth living for

This afternoon after Dean's quiet time and before Walt woke up, Dean and I were in the kitchen with one of my "not quite kid's music that's suitable for kids" mixed CDs on.  We used to dance and dance together before Walt was born, but after my c-section, I couldn't hold Dean for forever and his interest in dancing with me waned after that. But today as we were listening to the music, Dean said, "Mom, please holdge (hold) Dean and dance."  So I picked him up and we danced around in circles until I was literally sick to my stomach.  Then I set him down and we danced some more on our own.  I picked him up again on the song "So glad I'm here". When I started singing to it, to my utter surprise, instead of telling me to stop singing (like he always does), he joined in with me and sang almost every word. I didn't even know he knew the words to that song.

It was the sweetest moment ever to dance with my baby in my arms, singing at the top of his lungs, "I'm so glad I'm here, I'm so glad I'm here, I'm so glad I'm here every day!"

A fortunate visit

My FIL had a job interview here in Dallas this week. He said the job was a long shot, but it was a free flight out here to see us!  He got to come visit us on Thursday night after the interview, stayed Friday, and left just after lunch on Sat.  It was nice timing since I had a dentist appointment on Friday morning. Grandpa was a fabulous babysitter and Matt didn't have to try and work from home while I was gone!

Dean LOVED having grandpa here and made him play World of Goo (a great physics game that is not really a little kids game, but is somewhat kid friendly. It's one of Dean's passions!) with him any spare moment he could.

It was really difficult to get a good picture of everyone looking.

Of course we had to fit in an obligatory game of Settlers of Catan since we never get to play it unless family is in town. (We don't really have any other couples we hang out and play games with...)  I love that game because I often do quite well and I feel like I win as often (or more) than Matt. There are not many games I can say that about!!!  I felt like I was in a total hole the whole game, not getting any resources, not building anything. But finally the last few rounds my 8 on ore and 6 on wheat FINALLY panned out. I won with 3 cities, one settlement, the largest army, and a development card victory point! (I was red.)

These were seriously the only pieces I had on the board!

Boy have I been busy!!

I have been crazy busy lately. Firstly, I've been painting (priming and 2 coats!) and rearranging my living room (and consequently rearranging other rooms since I moved some things out). I have one more wall to go (have to move the piano and hutch first and I need extra men for that one), and I have to do the window sills and some ceiling touch up where we had to fix some bubbles. I'll post before and after pics when I'm done. I like the new layout (thanks to my interior designer friend Erin) a lot, and I like the paint color a lot. Unfortunately we've decided we're too tight on funds right now to get new window treatments, so instead of a cream curtain with a bright blue splash, we'll keep our orange curtains. I hope I can find a way to give them a new look for on the cheap.

In my "spare time" I've been working on getting our preschool started. I've headed up a co-op with some girls in our ward. There are 4 of us, so we're each taking a week and hosting the kids at our house on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We'll have a letter, but after that the teacher is the one to come up with the activities for the day.  This was the first week and I was the teacher. It was a tiring 2 hours each day (SOOOO glad we decided on 2 and not 3!), but I felt good about all we did and the kids seemed to have fun. Dean really struggled the first day since he wasn't used to people sharing his things and his house, but today he did really well. Visit the craft blog for the A day and the B day play-by-play.

Oh, I also went to the RS recipe exchange on Tues. this week and the theme was bread. I had a hard time choosing which of my breads to take, but in the end I brought pitas and homemade roasted red pepper hummus. Here is a post with my favorites from the night. It was fun! October is going to be Halloween treats and November I'll be demonstrating pie crusts/pies.  I feel like I make a pretty darn good crust. I've made a lot of kinds, and feel I have a winner. It seems like crust is something many people are afraid of, so I hope to help on that.

Oh, it rained TONS here this week. We had lots of tornado warnings. Walter and Dean love to play in the rain. Here is the result of one of the days.

Since school started again, I've been running with my friend Kirstin in the mornings. Running is so much more enjoyable with a friend! The weather has been pretty junky. Super hot and humid. But we've had a few days that have given me hope for fall.

Still no new piano students, but at the moment I'm am ok with that! 

A funny prayer

Tonight as Dean was praying, he said, "N. E. P. H. I.  That spells Nephi!"  He was looking at Who's Your Hero Vol. 1. (I TOTALLY recommend this and other books in this series if you have a little one. Dean asks me to read him these all the time. The Author lives in Snowflake I believe. My parents know him.) I was cracking up! I'd never heard him really spell something!!

After prayers he asked me to read Nephi for his first book and Abinidi for his second book.  When we read Abinadi he said, "A. B. I. N. A. D. I.  That spells Abindi!"

I know parents often have an inflated idea of their child's abilities, but sometimes I think I have a little genius on my hands!  I just bought "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 easy Lessons" off Amazon. I was going to wait until Christmas(ish) to start with him, but maybe I'll start sooner!

A glimpse at what's to come

Tonight we were playing wii sports for our home evening activity.  Dean had edited Matt's mii and Matt wanted to change it back.  The only problem was, we couldn't figure out how to get it to the editing place.  Matt tried it. I tried it. And I said, "Dean, can you get daddy's mii to the editing screen?"  He took the control, grabbed the mii, and plopped it into the editing screen! HAHAHAHA. It was the first time that he had to show us how to do something.  He's only two! Just imagine, in 15 years what it'll be like (especially since we don't even own, say, a real cell phone yet...)

"Mom, you have a testimony you need to..."

After the first person bore their testimony in church today, Dean turned to me and said, "Mom, you have a testimony you need to..."  He couldn't figure out what verb he needed to end with, so I supplied him with one. The rest of the meeting he kept telling me I needed to bear my testimony.

There was a steady stream of people, and I never found a suitble break to go up. So with a few minutes left of the meeting, Dean and I walked up ("Dean want to go with you mom."), and waited at the pew closest to the pulpit till we could jump in.  He stood in the "reverent child" spot, folding his arms while I bore my testimony. When I was done, he said, "Mom, you want to holdge (hold) Dean." I picked him up and turned to go, and he said, "No, Dean want to talk!" 

So I went back to the pulpit and he got up close to the mic. He repeated after me, "My name is Dean. I love Jesus, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen." He said it all and closed with a rousing AMEN!  The congregation had a good chuckle. It was very cute. I'm wondering if he's one of the youngest children to bear his first testimony at 2 years old...  I was proud of him.

Out of the mouth of Dean

Dean has been narrating our lives recently. He'll say a sentence then tack, "says mom" or "says Walt" at the end of it. "Mom you like to turn the light on, says mom." It has been cracking me up.

He's also been into the book "Are you my mother" and will often say, "Mom, you ARE my mother!" out of the blue and run and give me a hug. Or, "You are HERE for me mom. You ARE here for me!"

His word for binoculars is "nocalators".  He says "it's guy-jantic!" for gigantic. (Yes, a common linguistic occurrence for newbies.) In context: "That was a guy-gantic poopy diaper."

Today as we were washing our car Dean said, "Dean want to water that lovely plant." (Yes, he always refers to himself in 3rd person.) As I was filling up the watering can he said, "Not too much! That quite enough."  Then a couple min. after we came in, he found his tag blanket (which doesn't have hardly any tags left since he's chewed most of them off) and said, "This is Dean's lovely blanket." haha. Not sure where he picked up lovely.

He's really been into "reading" books to himself that he's already memorized. I'll hear him tell the story out loud while he's lying in bed, flipping through the pages. Just barely I heard, "Whooooo. Aaaaaaahhh!!!" and knew he was reading the Bears at Night book. It makes me smile.

He's super good at the wii sports (for a 2 yo). Baseball and tennis are a little rough, but he's quite good at bowling, golf, and boxing.  He almost always gets a KO when he plays against the computer.  The other day at the beach, he came close to my friend Erin and started punching the air in front of her. He stopped and said, "Oh, Dean need a nun chuck!"

Occasionally he'll say something like, "There's quite enough light in here. We can't turn the light on because it costs money."  (Hmmmm...wonder if he's heard that one a time or two. He always wants his light on during nap time, and I make him just open the window shades instead since "we're just wasting energy by turning on lights when we have enough light from the sun".)

"Mom! Stop singing! Please don't sing. Dean can't hear [Dean's game, Dean's show, etc.]." He constantly tells me to stop singing.  He has from the day he could string together the words "no" and "sing." It is starting to get annoying.

If he doesn't want to do something I've asked him to do, he'll usually respond with "no thanks."  "Dean, can you go get some wipes for me?"  "No thanks."

When I ask him why he doesn't like to wear under wear, he says, "Dean don't like to have accidents in Dean's underwear."


"Dean show you!" He is really into showing me how to do (and how not to do) things. It comes in handy when I want him to be reverent during prayers or something.  "Dean, can you show me how we're supposed to act during prayers?"

He is starting to branch out in his prayers at night, and they usually go something like this: "Dear He'nly Father. Gank you for this day, and scriptures, and prayer, and lunch, and books, and brush teeth. In the name..."  It's usually whatever has happened within the last 20 min.

We got a new video camera recently. This is filmed in HD at it's highest resolution and my computer is not quite good enough for it to run smoothly, so I hope it's not too jumpy for your viewing. It's taking forever to load. This is Matt and Dean doing Rockband for our home evening activity.  "Yellow! Dean need yellow!!!" After publishing this, I realized that Blogger compressed it or something because the quality is a lot worse than the original, but it runs smoothly.