On Tuesday after finishing our last time doing Levi's paper routes for him, Shad and I stopped by Larry and Treva Patterson's house to visit Treva. Treva is a less active member of the church and Larry is Shad's former boss and employer. They live just two blocks from us and we knew that Treva had participated in last Sunday's disc golf tournament, but we saw on the front page of the newspaper that she had taken 2nd place out of 22 participants. There was also a good sized picture of her on the cover, so we stopped by to make sure she had a copy since we had some extra papers. Larry ended up coming home as we were there, and I struck up a business proposition with him. His wife and daughter ate all the 4 dozen chocolate chip cookies he bought from me last week...that were intended for his employees. So I told Larry that if he looked at my dishwasher to figure out why it doesn't produce clean dishes for me (with already having tried switching detergents AND using a rinse aid), that I'd pay him in another batch of cookies. I know how Larry works with his business...he gets to a job when he gets to it, not necessarily when he says he will. So I was surprised when they rang my doorbell Wednesday morning at 9:30. Guess the guys really wanted their cookies:)
So I spent the day in the kitchen. I was already going to be baking 4 loaves of zucchini bread, so why not add in 4 dozen chocolate chip cookies? I was in the kitchen from 11-4 baking and cleaning. I also had to keep up with my laundry, Tommy and a "pregnant" Shad. (He gets all the sick, fatigued, etc pregnancy symptoms that I don't have this time:) I took a break to deliver the cookies, then get back to make dinner and finish setting my kitchen up for the Young Women to come over for our cake decorating activity. I had the intention to also clean my bathrooms and do yoga to ease my lower back pain, but my pregnant body told me that I'm not currently in the physical condition that would allow me to work a 15 hour bakery shift without stopping (something that I HAVE done before). I saved the bathrooms for another day, got a back rub and did do a couple minutes of yoga, which helped immensely. At the end of the day, I was beyond exhausted...and I stayed entirely out of the kitchen on Thursday.
Tommy, as before stated, has been quite the entertainer lately. Our new technique for eating and cleaning is to just not wear clothes and then sit in the sink to get washed off. Tommy thinks this is great, and even offers to clean the sink for me. (note the yellow scrub brush in his right hand)
He did such a good job, he thought he deserved ice cream. He's even in the process of saying "Mmmmmm!" in this picture!
We walked to the park for our evening walk on Thursday and stopped to sit on this wooden walkway (it had a bench). Shad and I had just put up a bathroom shelving unit in his parents' upstairs bathroom to surprise them a few minutes before they arrived home from Utah, and so there was a stud finder in the basket of Tommy's stroller. He helped himself to it, and almost seemed to know what he was doing as he used it. If you look closely in this picture, he does have the red light lit up.
But then confusion hit. He'd test out the tool in his hand, clicking the button a couple times to make sure it worked and was "on." Then he'd set it down on the wood and move it around, but not click the button. He'd get confused about why it wasn't working, and pick it up again to click the button once more. We laughed at him as he went through this pattern for several minutes. Here's a video to enjoy.
Friday morning, I was working in Tommy's room to get things a bit more organized with all the masses of toys and clothes we've inherited. By the way, anyone wanting to give Tommy anything for Christmas/birthday, I'm outlawing toys. Between two cousins, we've inherited plenty to keep us busy for quite a while at many different development stages. Talk to me first and I'll give you suggestions of what else might be acceptable...and not make me have to donate all the surplus to the thrift store. ANYWHO, as I was organizing, Tommy found the foam puzzle that Uncle Jimmy gave him for Christmas. We opened it and he just sat there holding the pieces and laughing at it. Here's a little bit of that:
In the afternoon, we found it necessary to entertain Tommy with his favorite thing to watch on youtube. Here's the Tommy video:
And here's the youtube video if anyone wants to see what he's rockin out to:
Electronic Music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHnd23xhBWE
In the evening, Tommy was driving himself...and us...nuts. We decided we needed to go visit his grandparents to save everybody's sanity. A block and a half en route, we passed a house that always has a momma cat and her 5 kittens hanging out in the yard. The kittens are probably between 8 and 10 weeks old now. The kittens decided it would be a great idea to follow us as we walked by their house. Not so much. Four of them followed us 3 blocks passed their house. Besides this being inconvenient in our attempt to get to Shad's parents' house (they're allergic), the kittens weren't just following us. They were scampering all over the road and ahead of us. I had to rescue one kitten from the road as a car (luckily) had seen it and was slowing to wait for it to move out of the way. Another kitten ran a block ahead of us to greet a riding lawn mower. Two others ran up to cut off a couple kids on their bikes and then try to climb a tree. In good conscience, I couldn't just let these kittens run around and get themselves killed because they followed me on my walk. Their mom did follow behind them, but there's nothing she can do to stop a car or lawnmower. I took me some effort, but I collected all four kittens in my arms and was determined to return them to their yard. Two jumped out right before Shad could snap this picture. They're playing under the Subaru and in the flowers behind me. I returned the two and their mom back to their house and the other two ended up finding their way home, too. I'm glad to know that they know where their home is, but I still couldn't let them just run amok like that on my conscience. Didn't wanna see dead kittens in the road on my next evening walk.
Saturday morning, Tommy patiently entertained himself in our bathroom while waiting for his turn to use the bathtub. It was sooooooooooo nice to open the shower curtain and see this. Why thank you, son, you're right-- I DID need to sweep and mop this floor.
And the happy little bug right after his bath:) You can actually see his bottom teeth in this picture! He does officially have four now, by the way.
We went to the Norton County Museum Saturday afternoon and Tommy wore his hat that our friend/neighbor Joe gave him.
We had the missionaries over for dinner Saturday night. Tommy was asleep when they arrived, but he's always sooooooooooo excited to come downstairs from a nap and see his friends at our house. On Saturday night, though, he just had a REALLY WEIRD way of showing it. This picture pretty much explains it all. He actually held this pose and face for me when he saw me pull out the camera for a picture. What a kid!
After dinner, we went to our new friends, Scott and Beverly's house for games. They have 3 young daughters--Madison, 5; MacKenzie, 2 1/2; Noelle, 14 months; and a son due Sept. 31. These girls ADORE Tommy. We've seen them twice and Tommy is still trying to figure out what to do with all this attention from little people. He did pretty well playing with them, coloring and eating chocolate animal crackers. He definitely let us know when it was time to go home for bed though.
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