Gearing up for Gatlinburg

 We are in the homestretch of leaving for vacation!  1 1/2 more days of work and we're out of here for two whole weeks.  Josh's drum room is currently full of everything we need to take with us, and the pile just keeps growing.  I thought I should update one last time before we head out, and will of course be updating frequently while we are in Gatlinburg.







 Someone's excited for vacation.  I found this shirt for a dollar the other day-early souvenir! 










 Potty training is still going really well.  Still in diapers at night, but I think we'll keep it that way for a while.  We bought Dave some new Mater Tall Tales underwear-sorry for the weird angle on the picture, it's hard to take one since Dave still rear faces in his car seat.

New underwear must always be tried out as a hat first.

Swimming in grandma and grandpa's pool.  

 

Shooting baskets outside.  By far his favorite activity right now. 











We're trying to figure out if we can fit the goal in our van for vacation.  I think we can manage...just another reason I'm glad we (ok, it was mostly me) got over feeling old for owning a van.

A little help from Dad to hang on the net.

Josh is teaching him to be Michael Jordan.  I'm not sure if this is what he's supposed to look like or not.










Well that's it for now.  Look for a post this weekend-Dad and Kyra are our first visitors...Dave can't wait to see them and everybody else who is making the trip down to hang out with us!

Rainy Day Activities

 Last week we had a couple of rainy days, so we were forced to stay inside with Dave.  Turns out it's a lot more work to keep him entertained inside now that he's had a taste of outside living.

 Of course, we went to the library (which we do almost every day off anyway).






Reading a book.

Working on a puzzle.












While at the library we borrowed a couple of new books for Dave.  

Reading books at night-of course he's naked.  Here's a video of him reading his new favorite book. Reading I Stink

Hanging out in the window while watching it rain on and off.







One of the days we headed to Logansport to visit with Josh's grandparents.

Playing on Grandpa Dave and Grandma Mary's bike.

Working on puzzles with Grandma Bertie.

Playing at the kidzone in the Marion mall.










Thankfully, the weather has greatly improved and we are able to go outside again.  Also, we are in the middle of potty training (day 4) and it's going really well.  It was like he woke up one morning totally ready, which is what everybody told me would happen.  So, we're hoping he keeps up the good work and is fully trained by the time the baby gets here!

200th Post!

In honor of our 200th post, I thought I'd do something different than a regular update.  Dave has been learning different emotions and the facial expressions that go with them.  Here's what he has learned so far.

Angry.  He was mad because I was taking his picture.












I think this one was shy.

Sad Dave.

And last but not least, happy!







I also took a cute video of him shooting hoops on Thursday.  Last week, Josh and I went out to dinner to celebrate my birthday and his parents watched Dave for us.  When we came back, grandpa had taught Dave all sorts of new moves to improve his basketball game.   Hoop Dreams.

Long Lost Pictures of 2011

 I cleaned off the pictures from Josh's phone today and found some pretty good ones that we had forgotten about.  So, here are some highlights of pictures Josh texted out in 2011.









 Cleaning toilets...gotta start young.









 

Pumped to be in Florida.

Guess he was excited to go grocery shopping.

Sliding in Evansville.

At a park somewhere.

Looking awfully chipper in the morning.












Grandma and Grandpa with the kids at Christmas.

Last Weeks of May

 As I have mentioned before, we spend the majority of our time outdoors lately.  Here is what we've been up to the last couple of weeks.

Last Friday we went to Matter Park in Marion with Josh's mom. 

Chilling in his pool.

He decided to read books to the baby one morning, too cute!








Every evening that we have off of work, we take Dave down to the pond on campus to play.  He loves to throw rocks and pick out the scum with a stick and pretend to fish. 

 Cheesing out at the pond.

Josh and Dave checking things out.









We have been working really hard on potty training.  Whenever he is "naked boy" as he puts it, he does a pretty good job.  However, underwear is treated just like a diaper still, so it's definitely a work in progress.  

Naked boy on his trike.










This weekend Josh's friend Dave and his wife Jess came up to visit with us.  We hung out all day on Saturday, spending some of our time at the park in Wabash.

Of course his favorite activity was playing with the drinking fountain.

Josh and the Daves.

Trip to the Zoo

 A couple of weeks ago we headed out to the Fort Wayne Zoo to take advantage of our membership (we'll be going quite a bit).  The weather was gorgeous, and Dave had a blast. 

Ringing the bell on the train.

Check out the orangutan in the window!











Taking a ride on the carousel.

Loves the giraffes, and there are two new ones at the zoo this year.







 His favorite activity by far is the petting zoo.  We visit at the beginning and end of our zoo trip pretty much every time.  You wouldn't know that he loves it based on the pictures I get when he is petting the goats though.  Kind of looks like he's being tortured.

Typical shot.  Cowering away from the goats. 









 He usually runs up to take one swipe at them with the brush and then scampers away.

And then he also points them out for us.








Actually, he does this a lot at the zoo in general.  Most of my pictures involve Dave pointing at some animal or another.






More pointing.  This one is even sitting down, looks pretty docile to me! 







I am pretty sure I asked Dave to say cheese for this picture, you can see how well that worked.

Dave Learned to Jump!

 Here are some pictures from our week-we've been working, so it's been pretty uneventful.  Thankfully, the weather has been gorgeous, so we've been hanging out with Dave outside.





He's gotten really good at pretending-he was acting like this stick was a weed-eater.  

Working on his garden.

Watering my hostas.  We have had to start telling Dave that the hose needs charged so we can turn it off for a while.  Poor kid.

Love this face.












Well, he finally did it.  The boy can now officially jump.   We have been wondering when he would figure it out-he just has his own agenda I guess.

He is very proud of his new skill!

 Posing for the camera.

Making sure that I follow through on my promise to play in his toy room if he jumped for the camera.  In one post I admit to lying about the hose and bribing him...mom of the year!