Sunday funday

Today we had a fun day at our family friend's house again. It was Nancy's birthday so we went to her house to help her celebrate along with other family and friends. It was a hot, hot, hot day and we didn't even get there until 4:30! After about 20-30 minutes of walking around and playing on their blacktop driveway Donovan (and his supervisors) were so hot! We took Donovan's hat off and his hair was so sweaty it looked like he had just taken a bath. So we had some fun styling his sweaty hair and this was the result...note the red cheeks too!

I love this picture Tom snapped of Donovan. One of my recent favorites.
After playing in the front yard for a little while the big kids (Peyton (7 yo), Logan (6 yo) and Sophia (4yo)) decided to play in the slip'n'slide. We didn't bring any swim diapers or swim trunks so we put Donovan in the little bun huggers we had planned on using as his pjs on the way home. He thought the little "speedo" made him look cool and took the opportunity to flex for us as seen below. (OK really this picture was of Donovan catching himself stumbling but it looks like he is flexing and makes me giggle).
Donovan was not too keen on getting in the water. I think it was too cold for him but I had to dip him to clean him up after he emptied his bladder in his bun huggers. Sorry buddy.
Lisa, another family friend, was squirting a squirt gun and somehow thought it would be a good idea to let Donovan have a drink. He loved it!!!! He kept coming back for more and was drinking it like it was a bottle.


Then Sophia was getting squirted with the water gun and man did Donovan think that was hilarious. I will never get tired of his belly laughs.



On another note, Donovan has been all boy lately. Now that he is walking and running, he is tripping more and more. On Friday he skinned his knee and scrapped his leg outside and never even made a peep. Then today at the get-together he fell over a landscaping rock and cut his other knee, making it bleed, bit his lip later, making it bleed and right when we were winding down our night he tripped and hit his head big time on the driveway. We were standing about 20 feet away and heard the loud thump when he went down. Now those last three injuries he definitely cried through but he has more scrapes, bruises and bumps on his body now then he ever had and I don't even know when he got half of them. So he is definitely is our little man. He is going to have hair on his chest before we know it.

Rude

What evokes a fit like this you might ask? Well, how about the sad little boy's rude mother will not carry him everywhere she goes. And she has the nerve to walk away from him and try to do things, like get his lunch ready, without keeping him in her arms the entire time. Inexcusable.

Other things that might evoke the wrath of Sir Donovan:
1)Anyone leaving the room without permission
2)Someone wiping his face
3)Someone changing his diaper
4)Mommy taking her cell phone out of his mouth or away in general

There are many more but these seem to be the most serious offenses currently, if you ask Donovan that is. He is in a major mommy phase, which is lovely in many ways for me because I get lots of loving and Donovan time. But it also impedes my every day living activities. He literally starts to cry if I walk more than two feet away from him. Then the major tears and crying commences when I get about 3 feet away. So I try to walk very slow but he still isn't just happy to walk next to me, he wants to be carried. That is unless he wants to do something naughty (like eat mulch or walk into the street). Then he is like "See ya suckas!". But bottom line, any large movements without him in your arms have to be his idea. The good news is is that he gets over his fits pretty fast. Yesterday he got up too early for me so I let him play in his room while I laid on the floor and rested my eyes for a few more minutes. I closed his door so that he wouldn't be able to wander around in case I fell asleep. Well that was the WRONG thing to do. He was standing by the door, dropped to his butt and then put his face on his hand on the floor and screamed. So dramatic. 30 seconds later, he was bringing me a book to read, happy as can be, tears still wet on his cheeks. Oh to be a dramatic one year old.

Water table

Today Donovan and I broke out his new water table. I would say it was a moderate hit. He preferred to take the toys out of the water and throw them on the ground to actually splashing in it like I had hoped. There was a little splashing, but much more throwing of the toys and walking around on the driveway. Donovan did look very good in his swim ensemble if I do say so myself. The unfortunate thing about the water table was that I filled it up with a hose that had not been used since last year and apparently the old water was still in the hose a little when I filled up the table so Donovan and I both smelled like smelly hose water the rest of the day.


This is him telling me all about how he wants to hand me this toy. He really scolds you if you do not take in an appropriate time frame for him.


Can you tell this kid gets frustrated easily? This mini fit was the result of a toy being out of reach. He had to walk 6 inches around the table to be able to get it. The nerve of that toy. I'll have to remember to throw that one away.


Donovan is doing a lot of random squatting lately and I think it is adorable. And no, it does not mean that he is "doing a number 2" when he is squatting, he just likes it.

Past weekend

We had a great and busy past weekend. Saturday Donovan's best friend Ian (and his parents) came over to play. The boys played together alright but at this age it is really just an excuse for us parents to get together and hang out. Unfortunately I didn't get the camera out until both Ian and Donovan decided that they wanted to be in Emily's lap at the same time so it is the only picture I have of our get-together.

Then as out friends Tim and Katie who were in from Denver came over for a visit and a slumber party. They have a 10 month old named Kaitlyn but she was at her grandma's so the little boys didn't have her to fight over. So as we were hanging out and visiting the big boys somehow got the idea that they wanted to shave Petey. I never thought they would actually follow through and do it and since he is a dog and dog hair does grow back I agreed. Turns out they were not joking. These are pictures I took of him today. We think he likes it. It's a nice summer cut for him if you will.


Here is a picture of Tom and Tim, dressed alike you might notice. Or if you didn't, now you do. Tom did that on purpose. Silly boy.

Then on Sunday Tim and Katie had some family stuff to do but later they came back over and brought Kaitlyn for a visit. Unfortunately Donovan and I were walking out the door to go to a baby shower so the two didn't really get to hang out for a long time but we did manage to snap a few pictures of the meeting. We already have an arranged marriage for the two so we will be showing these pictures in their wedding slide show (Donovan does have a couple girlfriends right now but we didn't tell Kaitlyn that). As you can see from the pictures, I think they are already pretty smitten with each other.

Exploring St Louis

Since Donovan is getting old enough to enjoy walking around and exploring things we have tried to make it a point to take him to see new things. A couple weekends ago we started with Powder Valley Nature Center. It is a local park that has a great indoor area as well as paved paths you can hike in the woods. Donovan liked the inside area but his absolute favorite part of PVNC was the stick he found outside that we let him hold while we hiked (an man did we hike, at one point I swear the path was 45% angle). Here are some pics from the inside of the nature center.

Donovan crawling out of the hole in the puppet show wall.

Watching the big kids. Taking it all in.

Checking out the birds with Daddy.

Opening and closing Daddy in the "bird house".


A rare glimpse of the reclusive Daddy and Donovan birds in a man made bird house.


Then this past Sunday when there was a break in all the rain I rounded the boys up and we made a quick trip to the zoo. Donovan was a little nervous when we started out at the Penguin house. I thought he would really like it because you get to be so close to them but they were so loud and so different than anything he had ever seen he got scared. He did really like the monkey house. I couldn't tell what he liked more though, the monkeys or the fact that we let him get out of the stroller to walk around. He also seemed to enjoy the elephants, but once again he was also enjoying riding on my shoulders and using my hair as reigns so who knows what really was making him the happiest. Overall though we had a great day at the zoo and we look forward to doing it many more times this summer!

Checking out some monkeys.

Even cooler than the monkeys was the bench!

Hanging with Mommy. Donovan wore his zoo animal onsie so we would have good luck with the animals being out. It worked about 50% of the time.

Hanging with Daddy. We promise he does like us, it is just not reflected in these pictures.

Bath time for Petey

Since Petey has been walking around with dried Donovan food in his hair for the past few days (a hazard of his constant begging at mealtime) we finally broke down and decided it was time for a bath. Donovan thought it was a great time and loved observing. Petey thought it was the worst thing that has ever happened to him like he usually does. Here are some photos we snapped from the event.

Donovan surveying the scene. Petey already shaking and begging to be taken out of the tub.

Donovan loving having Petey so scared he lets Donovan pet him.

There was some pointing and taunting from Donovan's direction aimed at poor Petey.

What a dog minus his dignity looks like.

I don't know how to say this...

Ummmmm, Donovan? You got a little, ah... there's some toilet pap... um, nevermind.

Fun times

Donovan recently has found a special place in his heart for making confetti from toilet paper. And to add to that, since tonight he has also decided to make toilet paper gum for himself, otherwise known as he eats/chews it for fun. Oh to be a little boy. Here are some snaps of him having fun in the mess he made the other day.



Then today we spent another wonderful day with our friends John, Emily and Ian. We hung out at their house and played, took a walk and ate at a deli we love, took naps (well the little boys did) and played in a water table. It was a great day!

Little boys playing inside. They played so well together!



In the afternoon we took the boys outside and let them play in Mr Ian's water table. Donovan wasn't a fan of it at first but Ian got right to splashing. Then Emily got out a bubble machine and Donovan liked that even less. Eventually Donovan warmed up to both the table and the bubbles and had a good time. He also discovered that whirley birds are tasty!