Our weekend to see the Rocket - Part 1

For General Conference weekend, we decided to get out of town...sort of. We set the TV to DVR conference so we could watch it when we got home and we headed out, to the far off land of Seattle. We thought it would be fun to get away from home for a couple of days, and spend time playing as a family. Saturday, we headed to the Seattle Center - hoping to go to the top of the "rocket" (I guess I should fill you in on the rocket - one day, Adam and I were driving down I-5 through Seattle, and suddenly I hear him gasp! I asked him what was wrong, and he said "Look mom - A Rocket!!" His voice was so filled with awe! I later figured out that he was talking about the space needle.)
Once we got there and Adam saw how really big the rocket is, he decided it was too big to go to the top. We tried to persuad him many times, but he always said no - so instead, we hung out at Fun Forest and Adam rode several rides. I think this one was his favorite - it was the only one he wanted to ride twice.
After Scott and I had our fill of watching Adam ride the rides, we decided to go into the Seattle Children's Museum. I've only been there once with a good friend and her boys, but it had been quite awhile. Scott had never been. This is my favorite picture from the Museum. Adam thought this contraption was so cool, he spent a lot of time putting the ping ping balls thru it. We had to really coax Adam to leave this area!!

We also had a lot of fun at the building area. Adam designed this lovely house and Scott went around behind him stabilizing the structure so it wouldn't fall over. It was quite the building when it was all done!

After the Children's Museum, we headed to our hotel. We actually stayed downtown for the night - which was really fun. We had taken Adam to the Ocean for his last birthday, and ever since then, he's been asking when he can go stay at a hotel again. We thought this would be a fun opportunity. We spent a little bit of time in the pool (well, Scott and Adam did - I'm not sure if the pool was heated - but it wasn't heated enough for my taste - so I just watched and cheered when Adam jumped and swam). After swimming, we ordered room service and celebrated my birthday with yummy cake (Adam had been waiting all day to sing "Happy Birthday to mommy" and then we went to bed - it was a busy day!!

Grandma Wallis comes to Visit

We had such a fun time with Grandma Wallis at the end of March. Adam and I went to the airport to pick her up. I was a little concerned that Adam wouldn't recognize her, since he hadn't seen her since July. So we had been looking at pictures and talking about her for about a week before she came, and it worked!! Adam saw her before I did and had a big smile on his face while she rode up the escalator.
From the airport, we headed to Scott's restaurant. He changed jobs since the last time she had been up here, so we wanted to be sure she got to see where he is working now. We had a great dinner with Uncle Brian and Grandma, and then Scott dropped Grandma off so she could spend a couple days with Uncle Brian.
Grandma came back to stay with us on Wednesday. We headed off to Toddler Group, where Grandma and Adam built lots of towers - each of which was quickly knocked down by Adam. I think they had a lot of fun!

Grandma joined us for Adam's last swimming lesson. He was pretty excited when he got his little report card. Grandma took lots of pictures - you can see them all on our picassa site.
On Thursday, Grandma wanted to buy Adam a special present, so we went bike shopping!

This isn't the bike we ended up buying - I'll have to post pictures of that bike later. Adam had some fun riding around the store - although, he was easily distracted by all the toys in the area!

We also bought this amazing bubble machine. It puts out huge bubbles - and tons of them. Adam had a lot of fun running around the back yard chasing them.

On Friday - both Scott and I headed to work, so Adam spent the day playing with Grandma. I think they had a good time together. Adam was disappointed on Saturday when we took Grandma back to the airport. He asked where she was for a few days afterwards. We hope she can come to visit again soon!

We did have dinner with my mom while Scott's mom was here. I thought this was a cute picture of Adam with both of his Grandma's.

A picture worth a thousand words...

We've made the annoucement to our family and most of our local friends have been told as well. I thought maybe it was time to make an official annoucement on our blog.

Yes - we are going to have another baby! Adam is convinced he is going to have a little sister, and we are going to name her Wyatt (we'll work on that). We think he's pretty excited to be a big brother. The baby will be coming in September. There is some debate about the due date, but it will be some time between September 7th and September 22nd. We have an ultrasound scheduled for April 22nd to find out the sex, and for another measurement to perhaps get a better due date.

We are so excited to be able to welcome another sweet spirit into our family! We feel very blessed!

Isn't he a little young to start that?

Friday night, Scott and I went to the temple for a sealing assignment. We had a great evening in the temple, and even stopped for ice cream at the DQ with some friends. We got home around 10:30 only to find Adam still wide awake with the babysitter. Now, this is our favorite babysitter, and Adam absolutely loves her. Every time she's watched Adam, we come home to a cleaned up house and a boy fast asleep in his bed - so we were a little surprised! Apparently, after eating a few chicken nuggets for dinner, he started complaining. "My tummy feels sick", and he said it over and over until the babysitter was convinced that Adam was sick. When she suggested it was time for him to go to bed, he said he couldn't because "my tummy feels sick". He convinced her he needed to stay up until mommy and daddy got home, because "my tummy feels sick". As soon as I walked in the door and the sitter was telling me what was going on, Adam walked up and said "my tummy feels better now". I think our 16 year old babysitter got played by a 3 year old....
I wonder what we have to look forward too as he gets older... should I be scared?

Budding Architect?

Santa brought Adam tinker toys for Christmas. Adam has recently discovered how much fun they can be! He is usually building rockets ships that fly around the house blasting the "bad pirates" from the sky, and protecting our house when we go somewhere. (the ships lay be the door, so no one can come in!!) But, the other night, he decided to build a "building". He actually ended up using every tinker toy in the box. Scott had to help a little bit because it kept trying to fall over, but once it was all balanced, it stood all night. Adam was most proud because it ended up being taller than he is. He kept going over and standing by it to measure, so we had to get the camera out for some pictures! Not sure he'd make a good engineer (can't get the balance thing down), but we may have a little architect in the family!!


Not sure why he decided to pick up the tinker toy box. Maybe to make himself taller?

Train day!

Last year Adam and I joined a class at Woodinville Toddler Group. It's a co-op toddler group affiliated with Lake Washington Technical College. We had so much fun, we decided to go for one more year! Last week, it was train week at school! Adam has really been into trains, so he had a great day at school! The above picture is of him playing with a train at the sensory table. This week it was full of oatmeal!

There's always an art project to do! Painting is always a big hit!

There was a great train set. I think this is the longest we've ever built it. At one point there were 4 or 5 kids running a train along this track.

Snack time was spent in the train cars the kids decorated. We usually have snack time at a table, so this was a fun and different way to have snacks.

We always end the day with circle time. We sang lots of train songs on this day, and spent time walking around the "railroad tracks". The sanding blocks were a big hit as they sound a lot like trains!

We've had such a great time with Woodinville Toddler Group the past year and a half. It makes me sad to think that this is the last year we'll be able to participate. If you have a 1, 2 or 3 year old and live in the area - we highly recommend it to everyone! You can go to their website to find out more about it!

http://www.woodinvilletoddlergroup.com/

Swimming lessons

Adam started swimming lessons at the Mount Lake Terrace pool twice a week. The lessons are only half an hour long, and he goes into the pool all by himself. It's fun to watch him interact with other adults, without mom or dad involved. He's still pretty hesitant to put his mouth in the water to blow bubbles (although he doesn't have a problem doing that at home in the bath tub!) He's quite a bit younger than the other kids in his class, but I'm pretty proud of him as he does a good job of listening to the teachers and trying to do what they ask.