To the Left

We're taking the dude back to the old school rap era with a little ditty that he LOVES dancin' to. I found the second video of the little little man learning how to walk and couldn't resist posting it. It melts my momma heart. Enjoy.

Adults Only BBQ Baby!

I've told you before how kid friendly our neighborhood is. Tons of playmates for the dude, parks, sidewalks for attempting, but not quite figuring out how to ride a Big Wheels, the ever present, especially during nap time, ice cream truck etc. etc....we l-o-v-e living here.

In addition to being kiddo friendly, it's also quite adult friendly. There are some super cool peeps for mom and dad to hang with too. For the first time since we moved in, we dumped kids on sitters and some of us adults played for the night. By "played," I mean engorged ourselves on mouth watering eats and drank adult friendly beverages. Quite a bit of the latter. We hosted and shipped the dude off to Maria and Tim's across the street. Splitting a babysitter...genius. We're definitely going to do that again.

We couldn't fit all of the super cool grown ups from the hood at this little shin dig, but we had a rockin' good time with the ones that came. Thanks for hangin, kid free, friends! We really do have the bestest neighbors on the planet.

We chowed on tequila chicken, unbelievably tasty summer salads and grilled some mean fruit skewers with honey lime sauce, served with Kristin's even meaner chocolate, no flour cake below.

These little Pier 1 finds added some "festive" to the night.

My main squeeze, grilling machine.

My Big Dude on the Dude Ranch

While the dude and I partied with Uncle Kyle, Dadio was playing on a dude ranch. His company owns an unbelievably beautiful and oh so cool ranch out in Wyoming-about 5 hours from us. They were opening for the season and Tim is now in charge of managing all things financial for the ranch. SO....he got the "task" of driving out and spending 5 days with the staff, the horses and the endless amounts of mud that resulted from 3 days of consistent rain. Bummer. He did get to take a lovely horse ride, minus his lovely wife, to a meadow where breakfast was served. I still can't get a mental image of my husband on a horse in a meadow, but he swears it did indeed happen. He hiked a bit, ate quite well and slept in peace and utter silence (the part I was most jealous about). The diesel trucks on each side of our house and a three year old needing to use the facilities in the middle of the night don't provide much in the area of utter silence.

Dude and I can't wait to go hang with Dad on the ranch next year. Here are some shots of Dad's 5 days away from house and home.

Views driving to Wyoming.

The 8 mile dirt/mud road leading to the ranch. Good thing Tim was driving. I would have ended up in that there river.

Hundreds of horses call the A-(bar)A Ranch home.

There's normally an island you can hang out on where the statue is. Not so much that weekend.

Tim's hummingbird friend outside his cabin.

Proof that he was on a horse. A white one apparently.

This is the entrance to the cattle ranch, about 20 miles outside the dude ranch. He made a quick stop there too. Lots'a cattle and a boat load of hay.

Ky Time

Hubbie leaves for 6 days on business = crabby wifey. Enter Uncle Kyle. He has saved the day folks! Tim finally got his dream of leaving house and home for business purposes. He hasn't been able to travel thus far in his career, so this was a good thing for my man. He's establishing some roots at his company's dude ranch in Wyoming at the moment. Pretty sweet stuff, or so he says during the 4 minutes I get to talk to him each day.

Uncle Ky decided to fly out to keep us company during this time of no husband and father, so we've been keeping busy and laughing a whole lot. Dude adores his Uncle Kyle and tells everyone he sees that Uncle Kyle is here. We roamed the zoo on Friday, were treated to Applebees Happy Hour by Oma and Opa, went to another successful swimming lesson, toured Coors Brewery (quickly as dude kept asking where the toys were), napped, bummed around the house, went to yet another Happy hour at PF Changs, rented movies, swam at the rec center, visited with Aunt Helene and cousins Megan and Susan from Grand Rapids, etc, etc. We've been keeping plenty busy. Busy enough to keep my mind off being a single mom fo sho!

Uncle Ky is our hero for the week - especially since he's tackling the dude on his own while this Mama goes to work tomorrow. Thanks for keeping us company brother. Especially since it meant leaving your precious love for 4 days! Thanks for sharing Becky:)

If you know Kyle, you know that he couldn't pass up an opportunity to clothe his nephew in Black Hawks gear. They were quite the pair walkin' around the zoo.

Baboons. They're funny, I guess. Not quite sure what I'm laughing at. Dude walked into a glass door, smashed his nose and cried, which was pretty funny, but he doesn't appear upset in this shot.

Seriously, no matter how old you are, this is just amazing.

Dude has a perma-smile on his little face the ENTIRE time we were hangin' at the pool.

Pools, Pigs n Beatles

No rest for the bootie. That summarizes our weekend. It was kicked off Friday night with pool time with the Syers. Just the beginning of summer splashin. I swore my hair wouldn't get wet. Yeah right Gwen.

While we're on the subject of pooling it...after the uphill battle that was organized soccer, we were a bit squeamish about dude's first swim lesson on Saturday morning. So much so that I hid in the locker room to avoid being a clingy distraction. Much to my delight (and dismay), he didn't look for me once. Not even a turn of his little noggin. He jumped in the pool into his teacher's arms, obeyed everything she told him to do and had the time of his life. Tim eventually retrieved me from the locker room and we sat together, watching our little man in action. Learning. Without us. He would occasionally turn around with a mile long grin on his face, making sure we could see the progress he was making. Lucky for him, 2 of the 4 kids in his class refused to put their toes in the pool, so he got a whole lot of 1 on 1. This Mama was just grateful that her child was the one with his toes IN the water.

Directly following swim lessons, we headed over to the awesomest park in the world and celebrated our buddy Jack's 2nd b-day. Jackster is 2. Crazy. His super rad party included train rides, petting/chasing farm animals (under close watch from Mom and Dad), watermelon chow fest and big blue bouncing balls. Super fun times for our 3 year old (and for his parents too).

We rounded out the day (after a 2 hour NAP...yes, we've been napping the past few days friends-just when I think he's moved on) with yet another trip to a pool at our girly buddy Emma's house. Stace and I did manage to stay dry for this excursion. No pics. Sorry.

Sunday we went to church and dude showed more evidence of growing up. Just a little bit. He wasn't the LAST one to leave the front of the church for Tot Church. As soon as our preacher announced it was time to go to class, dude screamed, "Let's gooooooooooooooooo!" in his most highest pitched voice and started running. He called for me, smiled as he passed by and joined the Tot Church ranks. Beautiful.

We played in the sprinkler and organized our toy box outside after church (I know, fun right?). I get an unusual amount of joy out of anything being organized, so this was good. Very good. After another FANtastic nap and a jewelry party at a neighbor's house, we packed our belongings and headed to a Beatles concert at Hudson Gardens. The Foremans joined us, along with their hip parents. We ate, drank illegally smuggled beer and danced the night away (well, until 7:45 when it was time to get hyper dude home to hit the sack). It was a lovely night. A lovely weekend really.

Despite the fact that it was Monday, my bootie was more than happy to be seated at my desk all... day...long.

Seriously, how cool is my son? King of cool.

Dude thinks all his friends want to be hugged. At all times.

We danced. And danced. Dude now loves Beatles cover bands.

My boys. Precious.

The New Face of Nap Time

For the past 3 days, this is what has occurred during what is supposed to be nap time for the dude.

*Little man lays down in the midst of 7 blankets and 18 cherished stuffed animal friends, ensuring me that he will take a very good nap for Momma.

*Door closes and his 3 year old lungs start pumping out a variety of tunes, depending on the day. This lasts for 30 minutes.

*The singing concludes and dialogue with his stuffed animals begins - lasts about 20 minutes.

*Dude starts talking to me, quietly, as if I'm in the room with him. The volume of his need for Momma slowly escalates, resulting in a loud shreek that can be heard down at the local Donut shop.

*All the while, I sit outside plugging my ears, pretending that nap time is still the peaceful, serene, beautiful time it used to be.

*I eventually go in, remove all his blankets and stuffed animals as punishment for screaming at Mom.

*The shreeking turns into sobbing that his favorite friends have been confiscated. The world, in his little brain, just might be ending.

*I go back in, return the animals after a brief conversation about being nice and not screaming.

*He is then quite, making Momma think he is sound asleep.

*Below is what is really occurring during those moments of silence.

*Once Mom is done mourning her 3 hours of quality, quiet, and oh so cherished "me" time, I go in and release the non-napping prisoner.

I guess this is the beginning of "quiet time?" Sigh. Very big, self pittying sigh.

The Troll

I so wish that this was my story to tell. It isn't, but I can not, in sound mind, not pass this along for your reading enjoyment. If you haven't peed lately, go pee before reading on.

A co-worker's friend has a son with Downs Syndrome. He's 30 years old and stays home alone during the days while his parents are at work. One afternoon, the son called his mom at work, explaining that there was a troll walking around the neighborhood. What should he do?

The Mom didn't really know what he was talking about and told him to stay inside with the door closed and he'd be fine. 30 minutes later, son calls Mom again. "Mom, don't worry. I caught the troll and he's in the closet." Mom hears a ruckus in the background, rushes out the door and heads for home to investigate what's happening.

Mom walks into her home and her son unveils the troll that he has been holding hostage. The troll happened to be a "little person" hired to go door to door for the recent census polling. The son figured this short little man was a troll and needed to be captured. And so he did just that.

I don't know if he chased him around the neighborhood or waited until the man knocked on his door, but regardless, there had to have been a struggle. Mom spent quite a bit of time apologizing and making sure that the little person wouldn't press charges against her son. He didn't. But I can imaging this man is still a bit traumatized by the happenings of that neighborhood assignment.

Not funny for the little person, but SO freaking funny all at the same time, right?

A True Memorial Day

I've raved many a time about time spent at our friend's cabin. It's 40 minutes door to door and immediately puts you in a peaceful mountain sanctuary. I've grown up visiting this little piece of heaven. And I love it there. Everyone does.

The cabin was Uncle Ken's place. He kept it organized and made sure it all was running the way it should. He made frequent visits up there with Peg. The cabin knew Ken. He was kinda like the cabin's alpha. And so, going to the cabin on Memorial Day was bittersweet. Maybe a little more bitter than sweet. It was just different. There was a hole in the midst of all the laughing, running, hiking, trailer riding, eating, and hustle and bustle. A sad hole. Uncle Ken and all he was and all he did for everyone was definitely remembered on this Memorial Day. His family didn't want to let Ken down and dismiss our Memorial Day tradition, so they all made their way up and did an amazing job of smiling through the day and making the best of a really sad time. I admire all of their strength. Don't know if I could have done it as gracefully.

We did have a fun day doing all the stuff we normally do. The kids were dirty beyond dirty and tired beyond tired. We ate well (always do), talked, hiked, played mountain boccie, bean bags, shuffle board, wiffle ball, Mouse Trap....you get the idea. We're just so grateful that we get to be a part of it. There are a boat load of photos below. Couldn't choose, so you get um all.

Aren't they just cute as mini sized buttons? They're becoming the best of buds. As they get older, they've decided that they really do like each other.

The boys (girls were certainly not invited) played their annual wiffle ball tourny.

The peanut gallery, cheering on their respective loved ones.

Aunt Peg wore an amazingly strong smile much of the day.

Note...the white object to Bruce's left is the ball he intended to smack out of the park.

Noly Boly.

My dude n me on a mini hike. He loves a good hike. Well, a good shortish hike.

Photo op break on our hike. At this point the big kids carried on and Abby and I took small fries back to the cabin.

This meadow is one of my very favorite places to be. Peaceful. Quiet. Calming. God's creation at its finest.

Baby Heath at his happiest! Could you smile a bit bigger next time buddy?

Uncle Ken gave the best tractor rides this side of the Mississippi. The tradition needed to continue, so Opa and Todd took the kiddos out for joy rides.

Do ya think Dude enjoyed himself. Um, yes. Yes he did. He didn't let go though - not even for a second.

Noly would only go if Dad hopped his adult bootie in the kid-sized tractor. And so, being the rock star dad that he is, he did just that.

Looking down on the picnic table area, where much of our quality cabin time is spent.

Dude.

Shuffle board baby.

We all have one common denominator. Hondas.