Busy, Busy Day

We have been lucky to have long, long days with James. He has been starting these long, wonderful days at 5:15 a.m. some days! We wish he would sleep in just a little longer :)

On one such early morning we went to our favorite breakfast spot on Saturday and then headed to the Mill City Farmer's Market. (Jim had rhubarb on his mind.) We didn't stay long at the farmer's market, it was pretty crowded for such an early season, but we found the rhubarb and admired some other things there (pancake balls- $5 for 3! outrageous!, herbs, grass fed meats, homemade/organic bakery items, etc.)

We left the farmer's market to look for a bathroom. I was concerned that James hadn't used it for such a long time, and so we went inside the new Guthrie, hoping they wouldn't mind that we were just going in for the facilities. I did explain to the information desk guy that we are newly potty training, and he seemed to understand. We found the upstairs bathrooms and a cool observation deck/bridge kind of area. It was such a great view of the river and then the farmer's market below.






This is one of my favorite pictures lately! James even looks like he's happy/smiling :) And he's holding his beloved Lego "spaceship".



Bird's eye view of the farmer's market

This little girl set up her own little spot outside the Guthrie to play her violin. We gave her a dollar and paused to listen. We thought it was very cool that she played the violin!

Our busy day continued at the playground. We stopped at Caribou for some refreshing drinks (iced mocha for Jim, NL coffee cooler for me, and a chocolate milk for James) and then played. James is very expert at climbing.

We all "ran" back to the car.

While we made lunch James watched his favorite show- The Golf Fix.

I think we only got James down for a nap because of the promise of playing in the pool afterwards. It was a hot day and the water was nice! This is the pool that Tia Kiki gave James. James has popped the inflatable slide but we improvised with his plastic slide. It worked well and James loved it!

James was a little scared of the sprinkler but he became brave enough to throw one of his water toys in that direction and then would sneak up on the water to retrieve it. He's a funny kid.

We put our feet in the water too. I can imagine myself doing this all summer :)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

May Art

James has brought home the most adorable artwork lately.











Jim brought James some SW magnets from his last business trip. They are helping to hold up the art! Smart Daddy :)

Feed My Starving Children

My school took a bunch of students to an organization called Feed My Starving Children for a community service project. It was a great day for the students (and me) as we packaged food for needy kids around the world. We ended up packing 30,672 meals which means that 84 kids will be able to eat 3 meals a day for a year. I just can't imagine my James not being able to eat, so it was a pretty significant stat for me to hear.

On a lighter note, I made pineapple sorbet for my family (and school friends) to enjoy. We are very lucky.

Do you ever wonder...?

What they serve for school lunches? When I forget my lunch or just don't have time to pack a lunch I rely on my school lunch account. I have money in my account just for these days. I don't enjoy the school lunches but I do know that some days are better than some. I've really taken an interest in school lunch blogs, articles, and Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign. I pay attention so that I know what's what when James will be in school.

I do wonder about his daycare lunches, but so far he doesn't have too many bad habits. He just doesn't eat much yet. He's never been a kid who eats just junk but he is picky. We're still relying on a few staples- mac n cheese, chicken, peas, milk, carrots, pb&j, etc.

Well, here's my school lunch from Monday: Mini corn dogs, potato wedges, wheat roll, broccoli & carrots with ranch dip, skim milk, and an orange.



I doubt very much that the kids choose to eat the vegetables. There was a cooked vegetable that I refused- really, really overcooked peas. There were other fruit options- canned fruit cocktail, which is better than nothing but probably very sugary. And then there's the milk. There was also chocolate skim milk but I've looked at the sugar content and it's horrible. I'm sure the kids don't think anything of it.

I never eat lunch when it involves ground beef. Or pasta. They tend to overcook that too.

Red Room

James officially moved into the Red Room on Monday! Yay!!! I love the teacher. Ms. Kathy is the best. She is slightly older than me (I think), a Mom herself, and she just LOVES James. I mean, she worked one on one with him the week or so before the big move so that he would move into the Red Room with her. I think we owe this woman a lot. She is not discouraged at all if James has an accident, I think she even hid that information from the daycare directors so that they wouldn't hold him back in the Orange Room.

So he's had quite a few accidents at daycare, mostly poop. He seems to hold his pee well enough and will go on his own to the bathroom mostly. I still ask him constantly if he wants to pee, and he gets a little annoyed :) The poops are our next hurdle. He just doesn't seem to want to ask to poop on the potty. We'll discover the poop in his Star Wars undies and yuck.

But no more pull-ups! We use an overnight diaper still but that's our summer project to get him trained overnight. Since he's started the hard-core training just recently his overnight diapers are lighter, he must be holding it more then too. Such a smart boy :)

Well, that's enough poop and potty talk. Really, we get enough of it at home. Just today we dealt with one major pee accident. Poor Jim looked traumatized!

Random

Tia Kiki gave us these cool bento/Japanese food art thingies. Here is the Mickey Mouse cutter that James loves. It makes a cool PB&J!



Best lunch ever! PB&J, pudding, pineapple, mini cookies, and milk.



I call this next picture the unraveling of Blankie. James hasn't noticed that one side has completely come off of Blankie. I have secured the piece in his wood chest for now.

Nasty, huh?

Tio Donkey (Rich)

Happy Birthday to Rich! It was his birthday last weekend and we wished him a Happy Birthday then and we even attended his 40th birthday blow-out. What a party :)

I baked some cupcakes for the party- I thought I'd share them here too for those who weren't at the party. Ana and my M-O-M went all out with the food too!

Oreo cupcakes! I need to make more of these, I found out that Rich didn't even get to try one.

Double Chocolate Cupcakes- devil's food cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Yum.

I love my new cupcake carrier! Thanks to Ana I now own two of these- they each carry 3 dozen cupcakes!

Classic white cake cupcakes with butter frosting. Sprinkles make them festive :)



This is what 8 dozen cupcakes look like in my refrigerator. There was little room for anything else!

At the party- I didn't think to take pictures of the deliciousness until I was halfway through my plate.

We put out the cupcakes after people overdosed on the great food :)

My sister rocks. She could go into professional party planning any day!

May 19

Bedtime refusal at the top of the stairs. He cried for me, which was unusual, but then happily went with Daddy- his "best friend".

May 18

First decent corn of the season! US grown but definitely not MN sweet corn. James loves corn on the cob!

Golf

James is back in action! He has been golfing and golfing some more. He has a show that he watches on TV and he calls it his "golf teacher". It is a golf instruction-like show, and the host takes calls and videos from viewers with golf questions. I submitted a question just today, with a link to one of his videos. I hope they call or write us wanting to feature James :) It's a long shot but James would be so thrilled to see himself on TV! :)

Here he is watching his show-

Grandpa Roger

On Sunday (5/16) we headed over to Stillwater to visit Grandpa Roger and Linda.

I don't know why but when we go somewhere, even with familiar people, James has a meltdown. He cried for damn near 35 minutes once we arrived at Grandpa Roger's house.



Jim tried to talk him through it, but nothing worked. Finally James started to wander around the house and realized we're staying so he calmed down.


We headed to the Teddy Bear Park. What a great park! Lots of equipment and play structures to climb on!



I found James sitting in a tunnel with this young girl. Hmmm.

Ahhhhh! Water break on a hot day.

James loved playing and running on this "river" on the playground surface.

What a cool spider web!

I couldn't get James to sit on the teddy bear's lap. Yet.

Back at Grandpa's...

Grandpa Roger and James played with bubbles!

Grandpa had some chocolate milk! How refreshing! (I don't buy it at home, it has a lot of sugar for everyday consumption.)

Grandpa put James to work! Just kidding. James had a great time pretending to mow the lawn.

Another treat! It was a good time to give James his new baseball glove! He loved it! I caught a few pictures of James and his Daddy throwing the ball around, but no one captured me later playing a great game of catch with James when all the other grown-ups were talking in the house. James has quite a throwing arm!! Really!

This was one of our first weekends of full-on potty training. James went the entire day in big boy underwear and did very well! I was afraid he'd have an accident in the car (nope!) and then afraid of being in public and having an accident (nope!) We found a bathroom at the TB park and James was great about telling me when he had to go. Also, he used the bathroom at Grandpa's house with no problem :)

I'll say more about our more recent potty training adventures in my next few posts :)