My Cute Kid

I finally updated about our vacation. Here's a few fun Aidan things that have happened since then:

Anyone with kids who isn't already familiar with the book Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton ought to go get it from your local library. Anyway, the whole point is that there is a turkey who keeps wearing his clothing (socks, shirts, pants, etc.) on the wrong part of his body, and the text under the turkey always reads, "Oops!" The turkey finally gets it all right only to jump fully clothed into a swimming pool. It's a cute book. Anyway, Aidan wants to dress himself now, and one morning he came out in this outfit yelling, "Oops!" (That's his shorts on his head.)

Another event: our city hosts a track meet for anyone who wants to come run. They let the kids run by age group. The first week we went, we just missed the 2-year-olds, so we let Aidan run with the 3-year-olds. Unfortunately, poor Aidan accidentally got knocked down by one of the parents running with her child and did a HUGE face plant, and he has been terrified of the track ever since. We kept taking him back hoping he would get over that fear, but (as you can see in the video), it hasn't worked. Aidan and Mike show up after the guy in blue plaid shorts goes by - you can see Aidan holding his bright red Elmo doll.

The next race, I decided to hold Elmo on the sidelines so we could both cheer for Aidan... and you can see how well that (didn't!) work!

Oh, well. Aidan loves to run when it's NOT on that track, so hopefully by next summer he'll have forgotten about the face plant and will be ready to try again!

And last cute-ism from my kid: one morning, completely unprompted, he pulled out his cooking set and his Elmo and did this:

I choose to believe that my child will become a surgeon rather than a psychopath! :)

Vacation - the Leftovers

And now the last of it - stuff that didn't fit in the previous posts.

The three youngest grandkids, Sarah, Aidan, and Luke, all happened to have monkey pajamas. So we got some cute pictures of the kids in their matching jammies.

The reunion officially ended on Saturday night, although all of us ended up going to my mom's ward the next day. Since that day was Father's Day, some of us went to visit my dad's grave that evening.

And the next day, many families left, but we had one more day to spend in Utah. We ended up running errands with my mom, including a store where Aidan found this lovely ensemble all on his own!

We also met up with Mike's brother Tyler for a game of mini-golf and some dinner. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera... oops.

Oh, and one last shot: this one's for my dad!

That was all for our vacation, including the (again, thankfully) uneventful flights home. I'm so grateful for all the time that was put into organizing our reunion, my mom for letting us stay at her home, and that we were able to go. I love my family and enjoyed spending time with all of them!

Vacation - Blake Reunion

Well, I surely don't remember what happened each day. But the festivities included these things:

My sister Heidi (who is leaving on Oct. 19 for her mission to Phillipines) went through the temple for the first time. There was, of course, a wonderful spirit there, and it was the first time that my mom (and dad in spirit!) has been in the temple with all eight of her children (and some spouses). What a neat evening!

We spent some time getting family pictures done. Unfortunately they aren't finished yet, so I can't show you any of the results. But I will say that I'm glad it wasn't MY job to try and get all 7 grandkids smiling and looking in the same direction at once! :)

We did some service projects for humanitarian aid. Here's my mom and my sister Lisa in the middle of their projects.

We rode TRAX up to Salt Lake.

This is Aidan's cousin Luke, who we finally got to meet for the first time on this trip.

Once there, we toured the Conference center.

We also went to the planetarium. The movie was a great chance for Aidan and I to catch a nap! (haha) We also enjoyed the moon-scape and the falling balls exhibits. (The moonscape is my sister Emily, her husband Jon, and their son Luke.)

My mom and sister Rebecca were pretty tired on the way home!

We went to the Pleasant Grove Strawberry Days parade. Aidan had never seen a parade before (and didn't understand about trying to get candy), but he LOVED watching it. He even asked for "parade! pretty girls! horses! fire trucks!" for several weeks after we got home.

We let the men go shoot guns while the ladies played games with the kids.

The adults went out for a nice dinner together.

A different night, we had a big potluck dinner with all of my mom's extended family. It was great to see them again, especially my grandmother and aunt, who are both in precarious health right now.

Quick story about the salt and pepper shakers: my aunt has collect them for years. She decided to let each of her nieces and nephews choose a pair. The pair we choose is in front of us, and it is significant because they are made with ashes from the Mt. St. Helen's eruption, which Mike lived near when it happened. So these shakers now have 2 pieces of history for us!

I think that was all of the official activities, and this post is already long, so I will do another one with the last pictures that didn't fit in. More to come!

Vacation - Day 2 and 3

Day 2 started VERY early with a 7 am plane ride. To our delight, Aidan did very well. Much better than when I took him to Washington a year ago! It also helped that he has recently formed a very loving relationship with Elmo and we brought a DVD player with an Elmo movie. The only mishap was that we forgot our stroller, but my brother and his family had an extra one that they let us borrow (along with their car!) while we were there. We met up with them, got the car and stroller, had lunch, and got our first look at my mom's new house in Utah.

Since our official Blake reunion wasn't scheduled to start yet, day 2 of vacation was kind of on our own. However, we ended up having similar plans as the Merkleys (my sister and her family), so we ended up being with them a lot. We visited my grandfather, who is in a care facility now as he recovers from knee replacement surgery.

I think it was the next day (that's what I get for waiting so long to blog about this!) that we all went to BYU. We looked around at different places like the Cougareat, the Bookstore, the Museum of Art, etc. And, of course, we spent quite a bit of time at the Bean Museum.

Aidan was shy around his cousins and uncle at first, but quickly got over his fear.

All of them enjoyed the chance to pet a snake!

We also enjoyed ice cream at the Creamery while meeting with various siblings as they came into town/became available to play. It was so fun to be there with everyone!

Vacation -Day 1

Um, I realized that I haven't updated anything in the entire month of July. Oops. I figured I better put up some vacation pictures (from JUNE!) before it's August.

We started out by spending one day in Minneapolis (we didn't want to wake up super early to catch our 7 am flight). They have an awesome place, Como Park Zoo, that is completely free (only free-will donations) and very family-friendly. We let Aidan take his first carousel ride (which he LOVED),

looked at lots of animals,

and spent nearly an hour in the toddler water room. Aidan LOVED playing with all the toys in the "stream," plus he could turn a wheel to make it "rain." Needless to say, we left there with one very wet little boy!

They also had 3 beautiful botanical gardens that Mike and I enjoyed touring while the other one stayed with kiddo. It was a great start to vacation!

Updates!

I finally found the time (at night when Aidan is asleep), energy (from who knows where?!) and motivation (needing room on my memory card for vacation) to take about 3 months of pictures off of my camera and update the blog. Read below for LOTS of new posts!

Birthday Boy!

Somebody turned 2! We didn't have a party with friends or anything (although several of my piano students wanted us to because they wanted to come play with him!), but we did celebrate at home.

Aidan LOVED blowing out his candles! He actually asked us to re-light them about 4 times.

This is my favorite video - you can see how proficient he is at tearing open the wrapping paper. I also love the excited shriek when he realized it was a stuffed dog. ("Dog! My dog!")

And this one is kind of long, but it's especially for Grandma and Grandpa Steele.

For the sake of posterity, Aidan right at 2 years old:

• has NOT hit the terrible twos yet. He is still fairly compliant and sweet.
• DOES have a sense of humor. Loves to figure out how to tease Mom and Dad, and sometimes pushes the boundaries to see if we think it's funny or not.
• is talking a LOT! Three- and even four-word sentences seemed to come up out of nowhere about a month before he turned 2. He also loves to label things and will point to new things to ask their name all the time.
• is not even close to potty training yet (although he does occasionally ask to wipe himself at diaper changes).
• is still enamored with all dogs. He cannot see one without asking "ped da gog, ped da gog!" (pet the dog).
• loves hiding games, and is finally getting the hang of "shhhh."
• regularly asks to visit the library, the play place, and the fish store.
• Is a decent eater (although veggies are still a struggle). Favorite foods include string cheese, pretzels, and goldfish crackers.
• loves to read. (Hmmm, where did he get that from?!)
• constantly copies both mom (cooking, vacuuming, cleaning) and dad (sanding, mowing, scraping).
• loves playgrounds, climbing, and sliding. He even mastered ladders last week!
• loves to play with balls (putting them in nets, hitting them with a bat, playing catch) - must be a little boy!

Happy birthday to my sweet little boy. I'm so glad to be your mother!