18 month check-up

Tristan had his 18 month well baby check today!  He did pretty good.  He was kind of scared of Elizabeth the nurse and Jessie the NP, which surprised me as he is usually pretty outgoing.  He hadn't been to the doctor's office since his 12 month checkup (which is a good thing) so it must have been the strange environment.  He's doing very well with all of his milestones.  Just in the past few weeks his language has blossomed!  He is saying many words like...go, bye, up, potty (although he doesn't know what this is), Daddy, Mommy, eat, kitty, Bill (Grandma and Papa's dog), open, and there's a few more that I can't remember right now.  He only had to get one immunization today, he cried but it was pretty short lived.  He had to get a DTap, which ironically is what I had to get yesterday at work.  I'll be complaining of a sore arm and he will have a sore leg.  As for his stats....he weighed in at 25.4 pounds and measured 32 inches.  These are both right in between 25th and 50th percentile.  In comparison, Jackson at 18 months weighed 23 pounds and was 34 inches which was 15th percentile for weight and 90th for height.  After Tristan's appointment he and Jackson both got a sticker and a sucker.  Here's some pics of the T-Man after we got home:

All in all, he's a healthy happy boy!

Preschool

Jackson started 3-year old preschool today!  He will go Monday and Wednesday mornings from 8:30-11:15.  His classroom is right across the hall from his daycare room at Little Bulldog.  We went to a "Meet & Greet" with his teachers Mrs. Meyer and Mrs. Olson last Thursday.  He has a fairly large class and many of his classmates are friends from daycare.  He even shares his "locker" with his best buddy Wes!  I had to work today so I wasn't around when he left for school.  Karsten did his best getting pictures, but as usual Jackson was not real cooperative.

Getting into the car to leave for preschool

He did allow a picture in front of his classroom, only this was at the end of the day when Karsten picked him up from daycare.  We take what we can get!

Big shoes

As they say..."He's got some big shoes to fill!"

Vegetables

 It was time to harvest some veggies today!  We've already picked a lot of beans, broccoli, a few green peppers and tomatoes.  Today we dug up all of the potatoes and onions, picked more tomatoes, and just a few more beans.

See the onions!

Tristan pulling up an onion

 Nice looking tomatoes

Tristan basically picked whatever he could get his hands on

 About halfway thru picking vegetables we found a caterpillar....and then another....Jackson was quite distracted by this point

He just loved letting the caterpillars crawl all over him

 Look at all them taters!

This was pretty much our first year for a garden.  It was pretty tiny but you have to start somewhere!  Maybe next year we'll do a little more.  We did manage to have a few meals of broccoli and green beans from our garden and I froze a few bags of green beans as well.  Jackson has been working on the grape tomatoes, he's the only one who really eats them in our house.  We've used the larger tomatoes for BLTs.  Yum!

T-Man

Just a quick post with a few pictures of Tristan!  He turned 18 months old this past Monday!  Can't believe my baby is already a year and a half old!

 We were playing around and I put a ball in his shirt.  He thought it was hilarious and walked around with the ball there. 

I think he was trying to figure out where the ball was

Fell asleep while eating!  I had stepped away for just a moment to check on Jackson and this is what I found when I came back.  Such a sweetie!

Dentist

Today was Jackson's first trip to the dentist.  He and I spent the whole day together while Daddy was at work and Tristan at daycare.  It's been a long time since he and I got to spend so much time together just us. We've been talking about this appointment for quite some time just getting ready for it.  We also have a Berenstein Bears book about going to the dentist and we would read it occasionally.  I also had an appointment so I went first and Jackson watched.  When it was his turn he jumped up into the chair like a big boy.  Problem was, Kelly (the hygienist) was busy getting her things ready and while she was doing that he lost all nerve.  He looked at me and said "I don't want a new toothbrush" (we had already talked about getting a cool spinbrush if he did well at the dentist) followed by "I don't want to do this".  This is, of course, what I had been dreading.  Luckily, he agreed to cooperate if he could sit on my lap.  He did GREAT!  He opened his mouth big and wide just like he'd been practicing and he did everything Kelly and Dr. Hanson asked of him.  I was so proud of him!  At the dentist office he got a new Diego toothbrush, toothpaste, Toy Story flossers, stickers, and got to pick something out of the treasure box.  Kelly also took a picture of him (if I knew how to scan I'd try to put it on here).  He wouldn't let me take a picture in the room and then it was too difficult with him sitting on me.  He did however let me take his picture outside:

Showing how he can open his mouth big and wide!

When we were done at the dentist we stopped at the store to get that cool new spinbrush I'd promised him.  He was so proud that he got it!  We had lunch at McDonalds then stopped to get a few groceries.

Lunch at "Old" McDonalds!

After dropping off the groceries at home we made the trip to Lansing Furniture and picked out a new "big boy" bed and dresser for Jackson!  We had great timing because they were having an awesome mattress sale.  On the way home we picked up Tristan from daycare.  Jackson went to bed pretty early, he was tuckered out from our busy day!

Fair Time!

I was scheduled to work the weekend of the fair and also picked up the first half of the shift today.  The boys went to Grandma and Papa's while I was working.  I picked them up when I was done and we headed over to the fair.  Grandma came with us too, Papa was already there and met up with us later.  We ran into our good friends The Corlett's and spent most of our time there with them.  Our first stop was the rabbits and chickens.

We then of course had to play on the tractors and other machinery.

 Tristan and his best buddy Ella

Wes and Jackson

No trip to the fair is complete without ice cream from the Dairy Bar.  Mom and I got chocolate shakes and shared with the boys.  We also walked thru the commercial exhibit hall and picked up the free pencils, paper, candy, etc.  Jackson got a balloon turtle from the Alpine booth.  We checked out the flowers and other open class exhibits.  Then we played in the park for a while.

Wes and Jackson decided to bury Tristan in the sandbox.  He thought it was hilarious!  He had sand all over him, later at bath time I discovered even more.

The rides were starting soon and Jackson really wanted to ride them.  It was getting close to supper time and Tristan was getting pretty tired so we agreed on one ride.  They chose the train ride (big surprise).

After the ride and one other game we decided it was time to go home.  We got some cotton candy on the way out, what's a fair without cotton candy!  Tristan LOVED it!  All in all the boys had a great time at the fair.  Hopefully next year we can go more and have even more fun!

Sweet Corn

There's just something about sweet corn around here.  Karsten and I enjoy it and the boys discovered that they too enjoy it.  We were able to get quite a few ears from some people my parents know.  We took some to St. Louis, froze some and of course ate some right away. 

Yummy!

"This is the best day ever!"

Last weekend we made our annual trip south to St. Louis to visit friends.  I always look forward to this trip because I get to spend a weekend with one of my best friends and her family.  We took off Thursday afternoon after Karsten got done with work.  It is roughly a 6 hour drive which we thought was nothing since we had recently got back from our Colorado vacation.  We put the DVD player in with movies, some books and of course some snacks and drinks and took off around 12:50pm.  We made a few stops including supper in Hannibal and made it to The Wyse's around 7pm.  The boys started playing immediately.  Logan is 4 and he and Jackson get along SO WELL!!  I always think it's almost creepy how well they play together.  Layla and Tristan got reacquainted and we just relaxed for a bit before bedtime. 

Friday Justin had to work so we decided to head to a nearby park to play in the morning.  Laurel Park is not too far away from the Wyse's and it had lots to do.

 The kids started with the swings, always a fun time.

Then we walked along some trails.

 We then found that one area of the playground had water spouts that would spray out onto the equipment.  We spent the rest of our time at the park here.  They didn't wear swimsuits but it didn't matter.  The boys just took off their shirts and got drenched!

 Tristan even got in on the water fun!

We went back home to eat some lunch and put the children down for naps.  Somehow, Angie and I managed to get all four kids sleeping AT THE SAME TIME!!  We were feeling pretty good about this so we decided to leave Karsten home with the sleeping kids and go get ourselves a pedicure!  Good decision.

The Thompson's also live in the St. Louis area so they came over for supper that night.  We had brought Edgewood Locker brats (yummy) and homegrown sweet corn (even yummier) with us for supper that night.  The kids played outside in the pool and slip in slide while the food was being prepared.  The title of this post refers to Jackson.  He and Logan were playing outside running around from toy to toy and pool to slide, etc.  At one point Jackson climbed up the slide to go into the pool and yelled at the top of his lungs "THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER"!!  By the way, the pool had a leak and managed to only keep in about 2-3 inches of water.  But they didn't mind. 

 Tristan was very proud with himself for climbing onto the trike.  He really couldn't do anything but sit on it as his legs were way to short to reach the pedals.

 Angie decided to try out the slip in slide...

 The boys made a car wash!

Jackson being thrown down the slip in slide

We enjoyed a delicious supper with the Thompson's and got a really nice visit.  We even got to meet Ellis, Jeremy and Trista's little guy who is almost 11 months old.  I'm pretty sure Ellis out-ate all the other kids! 

He's such a little Jeremy look-a-like!!

Saturday we planned on going in the city to check out City Gardens.  This is a newer area filled with water features.  It was awesome and the kids really enjoyed it.  

 Tristan took a little bit to warm up to all the water, but then he had a blast!

 Jackson and Logan

 I love this picture of Logan!  You can tell from his face how much he is enjoying himself!

 The boys thought it was fun to sit on the shoots of water

Caught Jackson in mid jump!

We got to play for quite a while but then it started to rain and everybody had to get out of the water.  We thought at first that it would stop raining soon so we waited it out for a bit.  When it became obvious that it was not going to stop and we were already getting soaked we decided to walk in the rain to the cars.  We also did some puddle jumping on the way back to the cars.  By the time we got to the cars WE WERE DRENCHED!!  But no one cared, it was actually pretty fun.  We got dried off and changed and headed home for a late lunch.  The afternoon and evening were pretty relaxed, just lounging around the house.  Saturday was also Justin and Angie's 6th wedding anniversary.  After the children went to bed we got out some wine and celebrated by reminiscing of that great day 6 years ago.

Sunday morning we packed up and left for home around 10am.  We had a great time in STL as usual.  The Wyse's are the best hosts!  Until next year....