Southern Exposure

This is the story of Austin's first trip to LA to see Grandpa and Mere...


We stayed in a fancy hotel. Actually, the elevators at the hotel may have been his favorite part of the trip. I would have gotten a picture of him enjoying the koi pond too, but keeping him out of the pond took both hands.
















We got to sit in a big boy chair because everyone with toddlers hits the buffet at the same time.

















Here we are visiting the Farmer's Market. Everyone eagerly anticipated Austin's first pony ride...


















Except Austin. Here we see some intense negotiations...
















And here we see Austin leaving the pony rides...












We rode Dad instead.


















We'll have more on the bubble gun later. It merits a post all by itself. Let's just say that the guy parked between the market and the park selling those suckers was a genius.















And travel is just exhausting! Thank goodness we have people to drive us home and put us to bed :)

Rainy Leap Day

Thank you for the lovely slicker, Grandpa and Mere!

How To Make Valentines With A 1.5 Year Old

First, meticulously prepare everything. I drew a bunch of hearts all over these two sheets of paper. There were finger paints, roller paints, crayons and cubes of frozen water with food coloring. We even went out and got stickers from the drugstore down the street that morning!







Step 2, deploy the toddler. Watch him destroy it all get creative. True to form, he wanted to eat the finger paint and the rollers. The ice was left to melt in random places, including but not limited to the doorway and Mom's shoe.



















Try to tempt him with the stickers you just got.



















"No thanks."




















The aftermath:














The finished project:













And some perfect photos:

Happy New Year!

*Looks at calendar.

*Curses.

Uh, Happy Valentine's Day? At least it's still 2012, right?

Right?

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Because we don't. That's why Mommy has to drive us.




She knows where all the coolest things are... like the sculpture in front of the Tech Museum with all the balls and tubes and delightful things.























And she knows that lunch is extra delicious when you can watch the people walking underneath you from the Fairmont's walkway.



And she knows Austin must be extra awesome, because all the Fairmont employees commented on how cute he was, instead of kicking us out :)

Science!

We have been having so. Much. Fun. But "sensory bin" is kind of clinical and unwieldy, so Mom's renaming it. This is the Babylab. We'll probably call it something else before that gets embarrassing, but that's totally what it is right now. It's where we do our science:















Besides the bin, we have an assortment of tools for conducting our experiments. Mom thought she'd take a picture so we can see how it changes as Babyman grows. Here's the current binventory:













But she also knows that no one besides her really wants to see pictures of that, so onto the experiments...

Wood Shop!






We are not doing the wood shavings again. They were everywhere.











Captain Rainbeard





This was really great for fingerpainting!














Or, it will be, when we start using the paints instead of eating them.






























Rice, Rice, Baby





So much fun!









Indoor Rainbow

The Horror, The Horror...

So. This Christmas, we decided that we really, really liked candy canes:


And Mom found a promising recipe for brownies with candy canes crumbled into them. And this seemed like a fun, post-Christmas tradition... take down the tree, smash candy canes, eat brownies. What could be better? Since we'd taken so happily to the sensory bin, I thought it might be fun to let him try smashing the candy canes. I put them in a ziplock bag and sat with him on the floor with a small pot and a frisbee. And I hit the bag a few times to demonstrate, and then I handed everything over to him.

He looked at the bag and he looked at me. And then he handed the bag back to me expectantly, as if to say, "Alright Mom, stop playing around and give me one of these."

And I took another couple of whacks at the candy canes. And he cried.

But we thought the brownies were delicious. Even if Mom is a candy cane murderer.