Camping

Ok, so its been a while. Sorry, we've all be sick and theres an extra organism growing in me, sucking out all my energy. Anyway, here are the long-awaited pictures from our camping trip. Sit back and enjoy, there's bound to be a bunch.

Our tent: we had quite the comfy set up...air mattress, pack n' play, room to play. It was great.
Various pictures from hikes and ocean outings. It was a beautiful area. It was also SOOOO windy on the beaches. The second beach was not only windy, but freezing.
One hike we went on, took us up the ridge line of one of the hills/mountains bordering the valley we camped in. The drop off was VERY steep and very NOT kid-friendly. Needless to say that with Alec on his back, Chris took a spot as far away from the edge as possible and anchored himself and Alec behind the bench. What cute boys!
On the drive home...completely exhausted.

Garden

Every day, Alec and I will take the five minute walk to water the garden. One day, he surprised me with trying to repeat the word "garden" when I told him where we were going. I even caught it on video yesterday.

Some other words that Alec says are:

• woof = food
• wah wah = water
• ba ba = bike ride
• dee dee = thankyou
• ah da = all done
• wishee = fishie
• wee wee = owie
• ti tah = tick tock
• da da = daddy
• ma ma = mommy
• bah = ball
• wheeeeeeeee = whee
• uh hu = up, please
• eye yah = Oliver
• eh yah = Ella

Oh and here are some other pictures of our garden using my dad's 'covered wagon method.' Alec's favorite part of watering is when he can stick his hand in the water stream. He also loves to turn the water higher and lower. In our garden we currently have planted: broccoli, tomatoes, strawberries, crook neck squash, peas, beans, and watermelon.

Lord of the Dance

So, after dinner tonight, Alec knocked a shoe off while he tried to climb up one of the chairs. He brought it to me to put back on. With both feet appropriately attired, he started dancing. Dad caught the groove too and he and Alec took turns being the Lord of the Dance. These boys of mine are pretty darn cute, if you ask me. But, you don't have to take my word for it, see for yourselves.

grooving the swing

Here are some more of Alec's recent golf swings. He is getting good!

Golfing

We finally made it to the driving range with Alec, so that he could see what to do with the golf clubs we got him. He had a blast playing with all of the golf balls. We think the thing he remembered most about this experience was that after you hit the golf ball your hands and club should end up high in the air. Since then, he does this funny follow through after he hits the ball that you can see in the video. He is growing up so much and being so much fun.

Easter

We had a really fun Easter this year. Alec enjoyed 4 Easter Egg Hunts, and by the last one, he was quite the pro. Church was really nice. We subbed in nursery and it is such a blessing, since Alec is at that hard 15 month-old "super antsy in class but too young for nursery" stage. We colored eggs and had my family's traditional egg roll, which Chris won. I was surprised how quickly Alec caught on and after watching our friend Oliver do it well, it got me excited for next year already! Our Easter dinner was not something to write home about but we were busy getting ready for our camping trip that started the next day...of which I will post about soon.

He got his leg painted at the EV Egg roll on Saturday, he was very wary.

Alec looking inside his eggs for more candy!

Alec "coloring" his eggs. He started off coloring on real hard-boiled eggs and after smashing the first two into the table (which ruins them for the egg roll!) we gave him plastic eggs to work with.

Celebrate

Well we survived the week of finals and babysitting. Chris had some doozies, the worst was a 24 hour "take home" final which took him about 12 hours! He was at the library until 2:00am last night and went in early before turning it in by noon. What a way to finish up a week full of 1 midterm, 1 paper, 2 homeworks and 1 24 hour final. Also this week, I was fortunate to get a few babysitting jobs. For the last two days all day (9:oo-4:30) I've been the "mother" of 4 children, ages 6, 5, 2, 1. The children were actually very good natured and Alec loves to have friends over so it really was a happy home for the most part, thanks to my mediation skills. However, I'm still so totally exhausted and drained that I went to sleep the last two nights at 9:00 and 10:00. Good thing the "celebrate" endorphins are kicking in so Chris and I can watch a movie and enjoy some sorbet or else I would probably bite the dust in the next half hour before Chris comes home from scouts... at least we are both hoping that they kick in soon. :)

Enjoy this random movie of Alec's new / detested skill. (detested by the parents, that is, HE loves it)

fyi - the detested skill is the climbing on chairs/table skill, not the cute way to say "thank you" skill.