Fun in the Sun/Son

Today was a gorgeous, sunny day that we enjoyed right in our own neighborhood. Each year the neighborhood community association hosts a picnic to come meet your neighbors, nibble on a hot dog, play with the bubbles and other kids toys, and meet the local police and fire department. Colin enjoyed checking out the fire truck and even got his very own fire chief hat. Pretty cool!

We then headed over to Bellevue Waterfront Day at the Bay, a celebration on the waterfront where the city also shared more about plans to expand the public waterfront based upon some recent acquisitions. Colin enjoyed dipping his toes in the lake and playing with some of the big kid's activities.

We capped off the day by going to our first ever Saturday night church service. Colin did really well (he's an early-to-bed sort of guy), and now we can sleep in tomorrow and read the Sunday paper. It was so easy getting out the door for evening service -- because, afterall, we've been dressed and ready for the day for well over 10 hours.

Jammie Drama

With the upcoming arrival of fall, I decided it was time to get some jammies that fit our lil' man -- his t-rex and shark jammies were just stretched to their limits. Freddies was having a half price sale, so I decided to stock-up. As you can see, we're now on to more "fun" designs, such as Lightnin' McQueen from the movie "Cars."

So I'm at this Labor Day party later in the afternoon, and all the moms are talking about the toxic fire retardant chemicals in pjs and how they only buy all-cotton, which then has that huge yellow tag hanging from it saying something about not wearing loose clothing to sleep in. They go on to talk about how these chemicals in polyester jammies are so toxic that traces have been found in breast milk, etc.

And then I'm thinking, "Did I purchase the 'right' kind of jammies this morning?" It's never crossed my mind until now. And then I decide that some people find too much to worry about. Such jammie drama!

If This Yard Could Talk...

This evening I started the process of whacking away the tulip bulbs from our backyard. We inherited a large area of tulip and iris plants that are just not blooming like they should. Could be that I don't really know how to care for them year after year (most likely.) But I had such pleasure in taking a big garden hoe and removing insect-hollowed bulbs from our yard.

If anyone knows the garden fairy (similar to the cleaning fairy I mentioned a while back), please let me know. I have a yard that needs some inspiration!

Matt also started ripping out the thorny ground growth (can you say "not Colin-friendly?") in the back right corner of the yard (including the thorny blackberry bush.) Our yard has hidden dirty little secrets -- several old tree stumps hide among this growth. hmmm., I guess every yard has its secrets!

Mommy's Little Helper

Today was cat food sack day. An exciting time for our 6 year old cat, Elliot. You see, we pre-measure 3/4 cup of his super ultra reduced diet Hills Science Diet cat food into daily rations in a snack-sized ziploc baggie. On cat food sack day, Elliot always gets "cat bonus" (aka extra food that doesn't make it into his daily ration sacks.) Ahhh, the dieting joys of being a big-boned Indiana farm kitty!

Today, Colin helped. This was a stressful day for Elliot, as Colin would taunt the cat by holding a full baggie right in front of his nose. He took the baggies and made a basket with them in the basketball hoop. He carried them over to the food container and back. He had so much fun picking up stray pieces of food, as well.

The cat just wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet of "cat food bonus day," and Colin just wanted to shuffle around the catfood sacks so that Elliot could see how helpful he was. Mommy's little helper, alright! Helping keep our cat under 15 lbs : )

Elliot has requested we wait until the "baby is asleep" the next time we do catfood sacks!

Delightful Surprise

This past week we got such a nice surprise in the mail. Don't you just love getting an unexpected package? This one was from Colin's Great Grandpa Sturm. He lives all the way across the country, so we haven't seen him since Colin was 8 weeks old. We keep in touch with him with calls and pictures.

When Grandpa sends packages, they generally come disguised in some box that we wonder how he managed to keep for all of these years -- this one was a box that at one time contained 1000 buttermints. I wonder what he ever did with 1000 buttermints?!

Much to our delight, Great Grandpa got all dressed up and went to Olan Mills and got a picture taken to send to us. It is mounted on canvas and is in an oval cherry frame -- how beautiful! And such a treasure! Now Colin can see his 93 1/2 year young Great Grandpa each day!

It's very touching the thought that went into this on his part -- I can just hear him telling the sales person at Olan Mills, "Oh it doesn't matter what kind of frame. Just something nice. If you think cherry is nice we'll go with that one."

We know you'll never read this online, great Grandpa, but, "Thank you so very much! Your thoughtfulness means more than words can say!"

Tomatoes, Beets, & Napa Cabbage, oh my!

This afternoon we went to a local farm and did "U Pick" produce. I had never dug up beets before... Colin had fun picking the tomatoes. And no, he didn't call each of them "Bob" (he loves Bob and Larry from Veggie Tales). We also came home with a cucumber, butter lettuce, napa cabbage (we thought it was romaine -- oops!), and some apples.

Colin Hard at Play

Colin was hard at play last night at our local children's museum. He just loved the small kids area with all of the fun toys. This was a fun way to kick off our Labor Day weekend.