At the Zoo

This weekend I took Samuel to the Fort Wayne Zoo. Everyone we meet here asks us if we have been to the zoo yet. Now we can tell them yes. It was a nice zoo, and Samuel enjoyed (in this order) eating snacks on a park bench, riding the little train, banging a toy drum, and looking at the animals. Here are some pictures:

Banging a drum in the African animals exhibit:



Giraffes:



Which came first? The chicken or the kid?



Playing with a model of the train:



Riding on the train, or as Samuel said over and over "I ride choo-choo!"



And here's a picture of him hanging out with Ernie at home. Samuel likes to take that blanket and say "it's MY blanket" in a teasing kind of voice, so that you will then say "No, it's MY blanket." This is his new favorite game. He can only go back and forth so many times, though, before he starts looking concerned that maybe the blanket isn't his after all. Then we have to stop and tell him it's his blanket. He also thinks it's hysterical if you ask him to share the blanket, he says no, and you pretend to cry.

Old MacNorwood Had a Farm

This weekend I took Samuel to a free Fall Festival at a local farm. There were all kinds of fun farm activities to do: tractors for the kids to sit on, a petting zoo, hay rides, butter making, etc... Samuel was a little young for some of the activities, but he did like the petting zoo, and sitting on the tractors. Here are some pictures:

Barn:



Sitting on an old tractor:



Checking out the sheep:



Petting a baby pig:



I tried to get him to sit in front of these pretty fall flowers so I could take his picture. He looks totally confused as to why I wanted him to do this. It was hard enough to get him to sit for 5 seconds; I think asking for a still kid and a smile would have been too much:



In other news, it will be Samuel's birthday next week. I'm not sure he totally understands what that means, but he does really like balloons, so he will be excited to have some of those. We're going to bring snack in that day to his daycare. Since he is really liking animals lately, I experimented with making some animal shaped snacks:




I think we're going to go with the monkey. He's going to be a monkey for Halloween, if he has decided he doesn't hate his costume by then. When I tried it on him a few weeks ago, he screamed his head off. The costume is a little big, so I guess if he still hates it at Halloween, we can try to have him be a monkey next year. And if that doesn't work, he can always be the kid with the crazy hair:

Fun at the Playground

Yesterday we went to a new playground. It was really cool - there were all these slides and towers and bridges. This picture is just part of it - the whole playgroud is about 3 times this size:




Samuel had a blast. His favorite thing there was a bridge (that I didn't manage to get a picture of) that sort of sloped down when you walked down on it, and then sloped up when you walked up it. Every time he climbed up the steps and saw the bridge, he'd say "I found it!" in an excited voice, and then walk back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

His second favorite thing was the water fountain:



He also liked these cool pipes that made music:



And of course he loved to drive the truck:



He happily ran around this playground for almost an hour and half. All that playing worked up quite an appetite, so he decided to whip up some alphabet soup when we got home (using the magnetic letters that go on the fridge):

Odds and Ends

This past weekend our freezer decided it, too, had a right to to celebrate Labor Day. Apparently keeping food cold was simply optional now, and the freezer opted not to (even though it was only 6 years old!). Since we have one of those side-by-side freezer/refrigerators, we were kind of in a bind. Thankfully Lowes came through for us, and delivered a new one Tuesday morning.

Maybe someday if I am designing a kitchen from scratch, I'll pick something like this:



However, that model costs $2,500, and matches nothing else in our kitchen. (Who spends that on a refrigerator?) We needed something in-stock so our food wouldn't spoil, so we chose this one:



So far it's great! Food is actually cold again.

Here's a picture of a pretty messy Samuel at dinner last night. We were trying to explain to him that you just eat the orange part of the melon, since he wanted to just take a bite out of the rind.



He has become quite the parrot lately, repeating everything we say. When he's not making sure we know everything in the house belongs to HIM, he's a lot of fun to be around. One of his newest things is to look around a room and say " I spy...a car!" or "I spy...a book!" I put the exclamation points in there because that's exactly how he says it. And he's completely obsessed with a show on The Disney Channel called The Little Einsteins. He's always asking us for "more steins?" Ernie and I call it baby crack, and try to limit how much it's on each day because he likes it a little too much. He'd sit in front of the TV for hours if we let him.

Mine, Mine, Mine

Lately the favorite words around our house are "my" and "mine", as in "my cup" "my car" or "my milk". Samuel seems to view Bella as the most likely threat to his things. We have no idea why. Poor Bella just gets told many times a day by Samuel "No Bella, it's MY toy" or "No Bella, it's MY grape". Even things Bella clearly could care less about. Or even if we're driving in the car and Bella is at home he'll still say "No Bella, it's MINE."

Apparently this is a one-sided deal. Poor Bella does not get to call dibs on her own things:



I ran across these toddler sharing rules:

1. If I like it, it's mine.
2. If it's in my hand, it's mine.
3. If I can take it from you, it's mine.
4. If I had it a while ago, it's still mine.
5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
6. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.
7. If if looks like mine, it is mine.
8. If I see it first, it's mine.
9. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine.
10. If it's broken, it's yours.

Pretty accurate around our house these days!

Visit with the Jackson girls

This past weekend my mom and 6 of my sisters came to visit. They were able to stay a little longer than the boys did the previous weekend, but some of that was due to the rain and flooding which made driving difficult. Here are some pictures from their visit.

Brigid, Josie, and Jean helping making cinnamon rolls:



Samuel playing with Gran:





Fiona:



Having a picnic:



We went up to Meg's for Lilly's birthday party on Saturday. For some reason I have zero pictures of the birthday girl, but here are some from the party:







Samuel THOROUGHLY enjoyed his cupcake at the party. He had chocolate frosting all over the place. I don't seem to have a picture of that, but Meg, I think you do. If you send it to me, I will post it on here.

Visit with the Jackson boys

This weekend my dad and 6 of my brothers came to visit. It was a fast and furious trip, but we still managed to fit in a BBQ, swimming at the pool, and lots of playing with Samuel. Here are some pictures from their visit.

Samuel with his Papa Michael:







All of the boys eating dinner:



Colin and Rory with Monty: