sometimes words are more than i can handle

i've been working on a post about some exciting news, but finding the words is more than i can seem to handle right now. so i'm posting some photos of what we've been up to lately (and some captions, because i guess i have enough words for that). 

 about a week and a half ago lucy started walking for real. she still seems to prefer crawling most of the time because she's still unsteady on her feet (and her crawl is a lot faster), but she definitely can go around on her own two feet without assistance. 

 sam has been working on his list of sight words, and has them pretty firmly under his belt (though he occasionally has trouble with short a and short i words, like "it" and "at" or "in" and "an"). since he was able to do most of the words on his flashcards, i started to string them together into short sentences for him to read. these are a few he was able to do. i'm hoping he'll realize that reading isn't too far from his grasp, though i'm not sure that he's all that interested in reading on his own. perhaps we need different reading materials.

air-popped popcorn is tasty AND entertaining,

 and great for sharing.

 road trip view

and a few of niagara falls through a fence.

 a ride around the state park is a good time to relax.

but sometimes it's better get out and walk.

 perfect weather really makes everything feel grand.

 but the water had places to go and things to do.

 and we got a hitchhiker.

 but then it was over.

 and we drove back home.

 to find that the halloween mask had arrived! brilliant!

 there was a lot of picking up sam from school. and girly time with me and my little moviestar.

who was infatuated with daddy's stack of novels.

visiting tower city

we also took cousins on our traditional trip to tower city to see the decorations. i'm not sure they found it all that impressive, but we had fun eating out at the winking lizard and making wishes in the fountain.

hiking with cousins

one of the things that we did during the cousin visit in november was go to the park and feed the birds at the overlook. in reality there wasn't much bird feeding because three enthusiastic little people and birds don't exactly mix. we did have a good time (despite the fact that i lost my sunglasses), and afterward we spent some quality time on the swings (always a winning activity for sam). we also paid a visit to menchie's (another winning activity), and followed up with some chipotle for dinner (awesome).

buckeye bucket list

in less than two weeks the henderson-jones clan will be arriving for a one week visit, and this time we'll be lucky enough to be hosting! there are so many things we'd like to do with these special relatives that we don't get to see nearly as often as we'd like, so inspired by missy, i thought sam and i should make a "buckeye bucket list" of things to do in our corner of ohio. this is what we've come up with thus far:

• lightsaber battles (i think sam intended this for oscar and himself, though others might be welcome to join in)
• go for a hike to the overlook and feed the birds (i'll have to go get some sunflower seeds for this)
• ride the train to tower city and see the christmas decorations (i hope they'll be up in time, as they usually are)
• make buckeyes (or find a place to buy them) to take back to mississippi
• go to the playground
• go to the indoor pool
• take lucy for a walk (at shaker lakes)
• play legos
• read something (preferably about star wars)
• share halloween candy (for dessert)
• have thanksgiving dinner
• have a fire in the fireplace, roast marshmallows, have s'mores

i'm sure we'll come up with more and there will be lots of things we won't end up having time for, but it's fun to think about enjoyable things to do (much more fun than the list of all that needs to get done before the visit. bathroom scrubbing anyone?)

image via pinterest

unpacking

we're home from oglebay with lots of unpacking to do. there are two very full laundry bags sitting downstairs waiting for my attention, and a sleepy girl is cooperating just enough to let me get this quick post up before i head down to take care of it.
lucy during a few of her (many) sleeping/feeding/burping episodes • sam goes mini-golfing with daddy and cousins • the good zoo train ride is a MUST • lucy and me on our final night in our cabin (fun fact: lucy has spent more nights in the cabin at oglebay than she has at home!)

another instagram update

monkeying around at the zoo • enjoying the playground • tired boy • a trip to the ice cream shop (a blue tongue is a major bonus!) • sister's carseat gets installed, which means a new "ship" has arrived—right now it's all packed up for a trip to "africa" • video games on PBSkids website are hypnotizing • more watermelon? YES, PLEASE!

a day out with thomas OR how to make your kid so tired he ends up face down in the gravel

to be honest, i never really thought much about these kiddie events, but we thought it would be a fun way to spend a morning with sam. so last friday mike took the day off, we packed up some provisions, and we set out to the "a day out with thomas" event at the cuyahoga valley scenic railroad.
despite the fact that sam's got trains at home he had a great time driving around on the train tables once he could finally find an abandoned engine (and this took a while, let me tell you. he was EXTREMELY patient, and i was mighty proud of my sam standing there watching carefully for his turn and not having a tantrum because there weren't any engines free for him to play with. sometimes it's just as well to have a somewhat reserved three year old.)
there was a forklift and a few other small vehicles that they were letting kids get into and pretend to drive (also a hit). and after we ate a bit of lunch (so glad we packed something healthy rather than relying on what i can only assume was highly overpriced junkfood), we finally boarded thomas for our ride.
the trains were nice (as in air conditioned and quiet), and the ride was just long enough so that sam saved his fidgety sillies for the last five minutes. i can only say that this part was definitely geared to the 2–6 year old thomas fanboys (sam knows about thomas and enjoys watching the show occasionally, but he's FAR from fanboy status.) still, he liked the ride and had a good time. 
afterward we walked around and saw the miniature train displays, rang a big train bell, perused the bouncy houses (sam refused to go in alone), and sam got his temporary tattoo. 
at this point we were all feeling a bit hot and tired, but sam was keen on revisiting the forklift and buggy, so we went back over and sam played around a while longer. we probably should've tried to make a graceful exit at this point, but instead we pushed our luck and sam ended up face down in the gravel with another bonk on the head (a small cut on his left eyebrow—that left side of his head really takes a beating) and a scraped up knee. he was clearly way past "done". we found the first aid tent where they cleaned and bandaged up our boy (and where i proceeded to get entirely too dizzy to stand), and then quickly made our way to one last stop at the porta-potties and then home.
sam was out like a light within minutes of getting back in the car, and he didn't protest leaving until he woke up at home a couple of hours later.

some more photos from the day:

though i'm not sure we'll do the thomas event again, we did have a good time. we'd actually like to try going on one of the non-thomas rides sometime in the near future.

sam goes to the movies

(sam modeling his 3-D glasses,

which we let him keep rather than recycle as a souvenir of the day)

i'm a little slow on posting this, but last sunday sam saw his first movie in the theatre. he got some movie money from aunt missy, uncle jeremy, oscar and alice to go see "the lorax", so we fortified ourselves for the adventure (who knows what you'll get when you put sam in a large, dark, previously unknown space and try to get him to sit still for two hours) and embarked shortly after naptime.

sam was pretty excited to be going to the theatre (i admit, we hyped it up a little—but even for us going to the movies at the theatre is a rare treat), and even more excited about a box of popcorn bigger than his head (i think it was a medium) and a very large box of mike & ikes (both of which he shared with daddy).

everything went surprisingly well. sam happily munched away for most of the movie and had zero potty accidents (that was my greatest fear). i was a little worried that we wouldn't be able to convince him to keep the 3-D glasses on (i didn't realize we were seeing it in 3-D when we bought the tickets), but he seemed to get the idea and warm up to them eventually (also, did you know that they make them kid-size? i totally didn't. i don't know why i didn't think of that, but i was so surprised and glad that they do). the only fidgeting happened near the end of the story (after the popcorn and candy were gone), and i'll admit even i was getting a bit antsy by then (it's hard to sit still and be quiet for that long! but i'm mostly attributing it to worries that sam's wiggliness was about the errupt into full-on attempts to run through the aisles). of course, when it was time to leave sam was not to be budged. we stayed until the credits were over, and even then he was not convinced that we should be going home.

my favorite part of the experience: watching sam groove to the musical scenes (i REALLY wish i had video of that! it was adorable on top of cute, with a side of awesome).

it will probably be a while before we have another movie-in-the-theatre excursion with the boy, but it was really fun (thanks henderson-joneses!). in case you're wondering, i think sam enjoyed the movie, but his most enthusiastic comment was "more theatre popcorn".

photo highlights - november 2011

from our trip to mississippi—meeting newest niece alice

from our trip to mississippi—visiting with oscar

the annual trip downtown on the train to see the christmas decorations.

camping! — hocking hills

last weekend we went camping with my older brother and his family. they're experienced campers and were so organized (and also had great equipment), so it was really great for us (the semi-newbies) to tag along. angie organized the food and chris organized the hiking, and all we had to do was join in the fun. it was AWESEOME. plus, sam was overjoyed to get the chance to hang out with his cousin abby—as much as he enjoyed sleeping in the tent, eating marshmallows, throwing rocks in the water, and sitting in chris and angie's van, i think his favorite part was by FAR hanging out with cousins. (and by the way, i think he's adopted dylan, gavin's friend, as one of the cousins.)

we did get a bit of rain (basically anything that was in the tent was somewhere between damp and soaked), but i was feeling so relaxed and good when we got home that the fact that i had about four loads of laundry to do didn't bother me a smidge.

i definitely think that camping in a gang is absolutely the way to go, and now i can't wait to go camping again!

zoo trip

one of our christmas gifts from grandma elaine and grandpa john was a year family pass to the zoo, so yesterday afternoon when mike got home early from work (and sam was all napped and perky) i thought it would be fun to head over there for an hour or so. afterall, beyond the gas it takes to get there, it was free entertainment. so off we went.

sam was quick to locate his favorite animal—the north american cherry-picker. i was glad it was caged, because i'm almost certain sam would have tried to pet it.

after that, we hopped onto the tram and rode up to the fish/primate/cat building, where sam was most excited to see all the fish.

then we had a little fishy-snack (goldfish crackers) while we rode back down.

it was a short visit, but it was a good outing for an afternoon, and we're certainly hoping to go back again soon.