30 Days Down, 30 To Go

Half way! We've made it half way! This is me doing a little dance:

Cause well, you know, I actually kind of dance like that.

Here's what we've been up to the past 10 days.

DAY 21: Blanket Fort

Blanket forts are always fun. I built it up while James ran around/under it. 

Then we had an evening of  watching Dinosaur Train in our blanket fort.

DAY 22: Side Walk Chalk

Our previous drawings still hadn't been washed away, but they had faded enough to have new ones on top.

All James wants me to draw is roads so he can drive his cars on them.  

DAY 23: Splash Pad

I feel like we spend a lot of time here. Maybe because we do (at least 2 times a week). I took a video for a change. James had a lot of fun till he decided to stand on top of the rock (located on the bottom right of the video). I told him to get down, but really I should have helped him down. He fell right on his forehead. It sounded horrible. An off duty police officer was sitting near by and came over after I picked James up to check on him. Such a nice thing for a stranger to do. James miraculously came away without even a bruise. 

This was taken before he played at the splash pad.
I thought it made a great picture.

DAY 24: Movie Night on the Patio

Pulled out a sleeping bag and some blankets and some snacks. James picked "Follow That Bird". It was so much fun hanging outside while watching a movie. Definitely will have to become a regular thing.

DAY 25: Bubbles

He's so proud of his bubble blowing skill. I'm not even allowed to blow any. The bubbles lasted about 10 min. when they ended up getting knocked over.

We also had a nice rain storm early that day, so James had some puddles to splash in after the bubble accident. 

DAY 26: Make Cards

With our anniversary coming up, I thought it would be fun to make some cards for Tracy. We'll send them to him and he can open them on our anniversary.

James wanted to play with toys while making cards, so our table looks a little overwhelming. 

DAY 27: Movie at the Theaters (also, my birthday)

This day was my birthday. I planned to make ice cream, but decided to make our morning outing the activity for the day. Which was good because I was too tired to do anything the rest of the day.  Our day started off by taking the bus to University Village. There we saw "Turbo". James's first movie theater experience. (Well, 2nd if you count the time I took him when he was 3 months old.) Then we had lunch at Rubios. We had a fun, exhausting day. 

Here he is playing in the play area at the bank. Yes, my bank has a play area. I love my bank.
I had deposited a check before we went to the movie.
 I tried to get a picture in the theater, but it didn't turn out too well.

DAY 28: Movie Night

It seems we have a lot of movie watching going on. Guess I should have purchased the stuff for ice cream and made it this day. Oh, well. We had another fun night of watching a movie. James insisted on watching "Follow That Bird" again.

DAY 29: Make Bread

In honor of pioneer day, I planned this activity to be to make bread. James loves helping cook. He loves to stir and really loves it when flour on the counter is involved. He bring over his toys and has some fun. (Don't worry, the toys are clean before they get mixed in with the flour my dough is one.) 

 DAY 30: Swimming

We love playing in the pool. I love that James is getting more and more confident in the water. He would lay on his stomach on the step and practice kicking. He'd also put his face in the water. Hopefully he'll be a better swimmer than me. 

Well, there's what we've been doing. Stay tuned for our next 10 days post. So happy our days left are now going to be less than the days Tracy has been gone.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Today has been a fun, low key and kind of sad/lonely day. James and I had a fun outing this morning where we both rode a Riverside Transit Authority bus for the first time, James experienced his first movie in a movie theater and we had a delicious lunch (too bad we both filled up on popcorn and couldn't eat all our food). We saw Turbo, in case anyone is curious. It is a really cute movie, perfect for my little snail loving (seriously he loves to watch the snail), car loving boy.

Then we came home. I tried to get my little tired boy to take a nap, so I could rest too. But he wouldn't stay in his room longer than 10 mins. So after trying about 3 times I gave into his refusal.

The rest of the evening went just as usual. I really did consider going out to dinner, but my poor legs/feet were tired from all the walking we did this morning. I decided to just stick with what we had here.

The sad part of today is I'm missing my best friend. I wish his work was over so he could come home, but we haven't even made it to half way yet (we will in a couple of days though). It isn't the first time he's been gone for my birthday. He missed last year too. I know it won't be the last either. The curse of a summer birthday and being married to a Paleontologist. However, it doesn't bother me much that he is gone. I just miss him terribly.

So that is how my birthday has been. Looking forward to what year 29 has in store for me.

20 Days Down, 40 To Go

Phew, we've made it a 1/3 of the way.

I'll start off with a little bit about what Tracy has been up to. The first day of his trip he spent in St. George. Met with the St. George Paleontologist, Andrew Milner and did some work with Milner for a paper Tracy is going to write. I don't remember if it is also correlates with his thesis. He then spent 4 days in Wyoming looking at swim track locations in the Red Peak Formation (same time period as the Moenkopi Formation his thesis work is about.) This was more of a just wanted to see for himself what was there. He'll be able to reference it in his thesis, but his main focus is the Moenkopi Formation.  He then spent the 4th of July and several days afterwards at his parents house. Finishing up last minute paper work for permits, buying supplies. On the tenth he with his cousin as an assistant headed to the San Rafael Swell where he'll get down and dirty working on collecting data and specimens for his thesis. He finished with is work at the Swell today, a couple of days earlier than planned. It was nice talk to him this evening. He had a good time and got a lot of work done, as well as a nice sunburn.

Now what James and I have been up to the past 10 days. You can see what we did the last 10 days on my previous post.

DAY 11: Movie Night
I gathered up some movie snack. James picked out the movie (The Fox and the Hound).
And we had a great time.

 DAY 12: Skype with a Family Member
I arranged for James to talk to his cousin Abby.  Abby is exactly 2 month older than him.
They are always so cute when together, even miles apart talking on the computer.

Here they are both playing with their toy cameras. (They have the exact same one.)

DAY 13: Dance Party
This was wishful thinking on my part. There's no way I can get this kid to dance and he always tell me "no" when I dance. Instead we listened to music and chased each other around,
until I stubbed my little toe on the couch and could barely walk after that.

 DAY 14: Paint with Watercolors
This kid loves to paint with watercolors.
You just have to keep him from drinking the water.

 DAY 15: Make Rice-Krispie Treats
He didn't really help me make them, but he had no problem cleaning the bowl afterwards.
Then wanted more and didn't care that they were set up yet, so I just stuck some in the bowl and gave him a spoon. 

DAY 16: Swimming

His stick had to go swimming too.

DAY 17: Picnic at Playground

On this particular day James hadn't been eating his meals too well, 

so I decided the playground would have been too distracting. 

We ate on our patio then went and played at the playground.

 

DAY 18: Story Time at Cellar Books

James slept in this morning, so we didn't make out of the house in time to get to story time. Not that I can ever get him to go into the book store. I don't blame him sometimes who would want to go into a store when there is a stream with fish to watch. 

Instead I bought him ice cream.

DAY 19: X-Box Game Night

It seems we missed doing a lot of our activities this weekend. This day we ended getting an invite to dinner and didn't get home in time to do our game night. We did however take time the next day to play a little X-Box. 

 

DAY 20: Make M & M Cookies

He loves helping make things and this wasn't any different, until I put the M & M in the dough. He got really mad and said, "No, those are for my potty." He gets M & M's when he uses the potty. Guess I won't be making these again soon. 

I forgot to get a picture when we were making them, but here I have a batch in the oven
 and you can see just how unhappy he is with me.

Stay tuned for our next 10 days of fun.

Reading with James and Potty Training

I've been doing reading time with James before his nap time, well quiet time now (no longer sleeps), and before bed. The end of last week he made the connection that there are letters on the page. His favorite letter to find is "x". There's not very many x's to be found, except in The Lorax. He also discovered the question mark. He had asked me what it was and has been finding all the question marks as well. He's also been learning the exclamation point. So now for him to find any letter or punctuation he wants to has made our reading time last a little longer. But it is fun to see him make the connections. Only a matter of time before he is reading on his own.

Also, anytime he find words in italics. He says the letters are falling down. I guess it looks like they are falling. What do you think? Yesterday, he was really, really concerned about an "x" that was falling down. I told him it was O.K. the "x" isn't going to get hurt and some how got him to move on from it. This evening we were reading the same book and came across the same "x" and he patted me on the back and said, "It's O.K. mom. "X" won't get hurt." I had to take a moment to compose myself after that. Sometimes he says the funniest things, like saying "Yes, sir" anytime he answers yes to a yes or no question.

I've also taken the potty training plunge, for like the 100th time. I quit pushing him a several months ago after no success in training. Every once in awhile I could get him to go potty. There was several times I could get him to go at least once a day for several days, but then refuse if I tried to push him for more. There were times he'd wake up in the morning and ask to "go potty like mommy and daddy". I decided to give it another try since it is just me and him and we really don't have anywhere to go. I was also so very tired of buying diapers. Yesterday was horrible. I almost threw in the towel, but today it went better. I struggle being stuck inside all day for more than a day. But after a little swimming today, I've been recharged with vitamin D or maybe not since it was cloudy. It was just nice to not have to worry about a mess. So far James has had about 2 successes a day and about 2-3 misses. The biggest success is he actually is letting me put underwear on him. Hopefully I don't have to buy another diaper for him. (Just wish I had a washer and dryer in my apartment.)

Between going potty we've had some silly/fun moments:
Like some how getting stuck behind the chair.

Or laying on the back of the couch hiding.

Watching the sunset. (The first two I took of the sunset tonight. The rest James took.)

He is becoming quite the photographer

10 Days Down, 50 To Go

We've gone through 10 days of our 60 days of summer fun. Which means, we have also survived 10 days with out Tracy. Only 50 more days. Haha, only? Trying to make it sound not so bad.

Here are pictures of the fun we've been having.

DAY 1: Sidewalk Chalk

DAY 2:  Picnic in the Park

I planned this activity early in hopes to beat the summer heat. Well this day ended up being over 100 degrees, so we only made it as far as the shopping center where the splash pad is located. Then we came home and had a picnic lunch on our patio.

DAY 3: Swimming 

DAY 4: Story time at Cellar Door Books

James refused to go into the bookstore for story time, 

so he played outside the store for awhile then we did our grocery shopping.

DAY 5: Game Night 

It has been so hot James has started refusing to wear any clothes at home.

DAY 6: Make Play dough 

The recipe I had didn't turn out. We'll have to try another one some other time.

DAY 7: Splash Pad

He was a little nervous cause there were a bunch of other kids playing rough.
Once he got over being scared, one of them almost knocked him over. :(

DAY 8: Bubbles 

DAY 9: Fireworks

Note he has our tablet. He had Talking Tom the Cat App running and kept showing Tom the fireworks.

It was great being able to watch the city firework show from our patio. There were a few trees in the way of the view, but we could still see most of them. Plus, they broadcast music to be in sync with the show over a radio station. My city is awesome. James had a blast. He kept saying yelling things like "That's Awesome", "A Big One", "Cool", "Wow", and "Mommy, you see that." 

DAY 10: Pizza Party

We made little personal pizzas using English Muffins as the crust. James had fun helping make them and eating all the toppings in the process. We also were joined by Tracy via Skype and he made some with us too. Such a fun pizza party. 

Stay tuned for the next 10 days of fun.

Silly, silly kid.

As I was putting James to bed, tonight.

James: Mommy turn air on. (He likes to stand on the vent when the a/c is running.)
Me: When I go back down stairs, I will.
Few minutes later James picks up his ball, walks out of his room and then comes right back.
James: Mommy, help me.
Me: What do you need?
James: Ball fell down the stairs. Go get it please and turn the air on.

Did I just get out smarted by my 3 year old?

Family History

Family History - I am doing it, my family history.
And the love I feel when I'm doing it is very sweet to me.
I learn stories of my progenitors; I write their history.
I keep records of my loved one on my own family tree.

If you're familiar with that song, you probably will have it stuck in your head for the rest of the day. :)

My oldest sister is really good at genealogy, so good she got a bachelor's degree in it. Sometimes she shares her finds with Facebook or when I'm feeling into searching for ancestors I ask her what she's working one. Last week was one of the weeks where both things happen to a line. I hadn't asked her yet, but she ended up posting about finding a picture of our Great-Great-Great-Great Grandpa, John Lowe. Our Great-Great-Great Grandpa, George Alma Lowe never knew his father. My sister came across an old newspaper article talking about him meeting his sister for the first time at the age of 61. The article said his sister immediately knew who was because he looked just like her dad. So my sister wanted to find a picture of John Lowe. She knew some other things about John Lowe (I will get into that in a bit) but the chances of actually finding a picture were kind of slim. However she found it. And where did she find it? On familysearch.org. There is now a new feature where you can add pictures and stories of your ancestors. Someone not only had added a picture, but a small life history of John Lowe. Stories we would never know because our direct relatives didn't know anything about him. (Hope I haven't confused anyone.)

If your curious you can see his picture and read about his life: John Lowe.

He was one of the early pioneer settlers in Pasadena, CA. So my sister was going to ask me to take a trip there and explore the historical museum and the library there to see if I could find anything about John Lowe. But the new feature on familysearch.org made it possible for someone else to share what they had already found. I will still go to Pasadena someday and see what is there about my relative.

I've personally been drown toward working on a certain line of my family. It gets a little tricky since there isn't a lot known and there was a time where they lived in Russia. Do you know how many records are available from Russia? Not very many.

My sister also told me about this wonderful thing called digital newspapers. Did you know many old newspapers have been scanned and can be searchable online? I didn't till last week. I have found some fun articles about my family. One about my gr.-gr.-gr. grandpa, Conrad Stuckert, being arrested for making moonshine in his home.

It is so fun to learn about family, that I wouldn't know other wise. Hopefully someday I can find the missing relatives.

Are you doing your family history? What things have you discovered about your family?