2 funny stories

I have two funny stories that I wanted to share so that I wouldn't forget them.

In our house it is common to have the kids shower with one of us instead of giving them a bath. They love it and it is faster and easier than a bath. Last night, Landen was already in the shower with Elliot and I was standing in the bathroom with Adellyn waiting to hand her in to him. For the fun of it, I set her down on the little potty chair next to the bathtub. At first I left her diaper on, then I thought that I might as well take her diaper off since she was sitting on the potty chair so Elliot wouldn't have to wait for me to take it off when he was ready for her. She sat there and played with the shower curtain for a while and then I noticed that she was actually going potty in the chair! This was so funny to us because Landen has never actually gone potty in it or any toilet! I wouldn't be surprised if I end up potty training them at the same time...Landen just is not that interested and won't sit still long enough when I can convince him to sit on the toilet or potty chair. I keep hoping that one day he will make the connection of what he needs to do when on the toilet.

The other funny story happened today at lunch.
Landen and Adellyn were eating Lil' Crunchies after they had finished the main portion of their lunch and this is a conversation between Landen and I when he wanted more.
Landen: more some
Me: What do you say?
Landen: Say!
Me: No, what do you say when you want something?
Landen: sumpin'
Me: *while laughing, I slapped my leg*
Landen: *dramatically copies me*
-repeat the last four lines with us laughing even harder-
During this conversation with Landen, he nods his head using his full body to really make his point! (if that makes sense)

Sorry so long!

Where did the summer go? We have been pretty busy these last couple of months. July was pretty stressful for my family. Since the summer started out so cool and wet, the wheat was a little slow to turn and then the rain kept my dad out of the field and harvest ran until the middle of July. Landen and I got to ride in the combine with my cousin Jerome and also ride in the semi with my Dad to take a load of wheat to the elevator. Landen was pretty fascinated with the combine. He really liked watching the wheat come out of the auger and unload into the grain cart. He also liked watching the bin empty while unloading into the grain cart and fill up while harvesting. This was just another time that made me think that he will be an engineer someday because I’m sure he was trying to figure out how it all worked! My family is also very involved with the Furnas County fair, which was a little earlier this year than in the past, and wheat harvest ended just barely in time for fair week. I help out with entering exhibits in the open class, so I spent Wednesday in Beaver City. It was really nice since it wasn’t extremely hot this year! That night was family night for the midway, so the kids got to ride a lot of rides. Unfortunately, they were not feeling very well, so I don’t think they had as much fun as I had hoped. I was sick the week before fair with a sore throat and a sinus infection and Elliot and the kids got it the week of fair. They all went to the doctor on that Thursday and both kids had ear infections and Elliot had a sinus infection. I should have kept the kids home, but I look forward to fair week every year, so I drug them to the fair every night. Landen LOVED going down the Super Slide and he also enjoyed some of the kiddie rides. Adellyn also enjoyed the slide and the airplane swing ride. Saturday night of the fair is the demolition derby. We didn’t watch the whole thing, but Landen enjoyed watching the end of it! We took it easy for a few days, then Wednesday we left for a long drive to Ohio for a Nelson family reunion. We took 3 days to get there, spent a day there and took 2 days to get home. I wish we could have stayed longer, but Elliot wasn’t able to take another day off work. On the way there, we stayed in Lawrence, KS with my aunt and uncle, and then stopped again in St. Luis. We stayed in a hotel within walking distance from the arch. We went to the top and the view was awesome at night. We could even see the stadium where the Cardinals were playing (see the pictures). We didn’t really do any sight seeing on the way home, we were just ready to get home and out of the van. We were so glad to have the van with a DVD player! I don’t know if we would have been able to make the trip without it…at least not with our sanity! The kids were really good until we got close to home and they were getting antsy (so were Elliot and I for that matter). Even though it was a long trip, I was so glad to get to see family that I haven’t seen in many years and some that I had never even met before! After that long six days, we stayed home for a while. August 17th we picked our first row of grapes to be turned into wine. Landen helped pick and with every grape he picked he said, “I pick it.” Larry and Elliot would give him a cluster and he would proceed to pull off the grapes one at a time. He had a lot of fun helping. A few days later, the kids and I spent all day at Harlan County camp ground with my Mom, my brother and his wife. Elliot joined that evening for supper along with a lot of friends. It was a great way to end the summer, as it was our last opportunity to go to the lake for the year. I’m hoping that next year we get to spend more time on the lake since the kids will be older and I won’t be nursing. The last weekend of August Elliot and some guys he works with entered a meat smoking/bar-b-q competition in Norton called Smokin’ in the Barn. They smoked brisket, pork ribs, pork butt and whole chicken (Elliot did the brisket in his homemade smoker). They didn’t win anything, but they had fun. This was the first year for the competition and they had 23 teams. I think they are planning to enter it again next year and are already making plans to improve! Elliot found out that of the 19 briskets submitted for judging the top one beat the bottom one by only 9 points (I think there were 100pts possible), so that just shows how close it was…they had no way of finding out where he placed in that, but he wasn’t one of the top 3.

Landen has learned so much this summer. He can now recognize every letter in the alphabet! We are still working on getting them in order, but he doesn’t like it when we sing the alphabet. I guess I will keep trying! He also knows all of his numbers through 9…he can say them in order (with a little help) and recognize them. He is still obsessed with clocks and now every clock is a coo coo clock! He is putting sentences together now. Some of the sentences he has been saying are: “It makes noise!” (every word enunciated perfectly!) “I close the door.” “I fix it.”

A funny conversation we had a couple weeks ago went like this:
Landen (pulling on my hand) in a whiny voice: tress tress (trying to say trains)
Me: say it correctly (he had been saying it right)
Landen (let go, stood up straight and nodded his head while saying): correc-y
I about rolled on the floor laughing!
He has really gotten into Thomas the Tank Engine lately and wanted to watch one of his DVDs. He also has a few books of Thomas and that is all he wants to read now also!

Landen also got his toddler bed this summer. The first couple of nights in it were kind of rough, but he is sleeping in it really well now. Elliot built it and it is only about 8 inches off the floor, so there is no rail and Landen has never fallen out. I did find him with his legs hanging over the edge one night! He likes to jump in it, and had gotten several spankings for jumping. Now, Adellyn likes to climb in it and play up there…I think she feels like a big girl because she just grins when she gets up there. Landen doesn’t seem to mind, in fact, he gets up there with her and starts jumping to make her bounce…they are quite a pair!

Adellyn is also growing so fast. At her 9 month check up she weighed 18lbs 4oz (50th percentile), was 27.25 in long (60th percentile) and her head measured 18in (90th percentile). The doctor said that a big head is a good thing! She is crawling everywhere now and follows Landen all around the house. She is also pulling herself up to standing on anything that she can reach. She is just starting to discover “cruising” (walking along the furniture…a crucial step for learning to walk). I have even seen her let go and stand for a few seconds before falling or holding on again. She is not far behind where Landen was at that age, and she is still ahead of the curve! She loves to play the songs on the LeapFrog fridge farm and then she watches and waits for me to clap the beat and then she claps along with me! She also found a new game to play in the highchair; she will throw Cheerios on the floor one at a time, look over the edge for it and say, “uh oooh” and repeat. I just watch and laugh! One time when she was doing that and Landen was in his chair at the table he started saying “oh shit” every time she said “uh oh.” I was glad I was in the other room so he didn’t see me laughing…I hadn’t heard him say that in a long time and I haven’t heard it since. Adellyn is quite the copycat now. She copies faces (I stick out my tongue and she copies) and sounds (she copies Landen coughing and saying “coo coo” among other sounds). The other day we were eating lunch at the Dairy Queen with Elliot and she pointed to his cup and made a sound that sounded like “cuh.” I looked at her and said, “That’s right, that is a cup!” She looked at me and grinned and started bounced herself in the highchair as if she were proud of herself. She is a really good eater! She loves tomatoes! About the only thing I can’t get her to eat is baby food…go figure! She will eat some baby food still, but she would rather have whatever we are eating. Her favorite food is probably yogurt. She gets pretty excited when she sees the yogurt container. I give her lots of finger foods, so she gets pretty messy at meals, but she can feed herself. Today, I went to give her a lick of my popsicle and she took it from me. It wasn’t worth making her scream to get it away from her, so I let her have it. The funny thing is that she was less messy than Landen!

Well, I can see that this is getting very long. Sorry for taking so long between posts…no guarantees, but I will try to be a little better this fall and winter.