25 Random things about my Bear Cub...

Here are just some random things about life with Bear Cub!  I don't have a "definite" post for the day, so I thought I'd share these little tid-bits.  Enjoy!

1.  BC loves to hear stories about himself when he was a baby in Russia.  He likes to retell them to us and we always ooh-and-ahh over them.  

2.  Trains are his latest love.  He is especially into Thomas the Tank Engine.  Oh boy!  We have to check out a new DVD of it every week at the library...

3. BC can not say the sounds for these letters:  G, K, F and sometimes L.  If you know what is his first name is, then you know that he can not totally say his name correctly!  Yet...we're working on it!

4.  He now asks for "one more tiss and one more hug" as we are saying good night and leaving his room at night.  I'm always happy to give him another hug and kiss!  :)

5.  He needs to be the spokes-toddler for "Baby Vicks Vapor Rub" cream.  I bought this for him a long time ago when he was really congested.  He now asks for "cream on chest" every night.  No worries...he only gets the tiniest of smudges, but it makes him happy!

6.  He loves babies.  Funny, because when we first brought him home, he could not stand to see younger babies.  But now, he loves to talk to them and touch them oh-so-gently.  He is very sweet!

7.  He had to be fed first in Russia (so we were told) because he could not stand to see the others get fed before him.  I can believe this.  When the boy wants something, he wants it NOW.

8.  He thinks certain words are hysterical.  The latest is the word, "Poof!"

9.  He can sing songs and carry the real tune.  It is so adorable!  He is a bit shy about it, but he will quietly sing and look for applause when he's done.  He gets it, that's for sure!  Tonight at the table, his song was "Where is Thumbkin?"  He did great!

10.  He has the sweetest, saddest face when he starts to cry.  It's hard to describe, but his little face just crumbles and it is heartbreaking.

11.  He consistently says, "No, thank you," when he does not want something.  We are working hard on the "Please" part of his good manners.

12.  He has been on a waiting list for our local church preschool since last May.  Registration is next month and I've been told he has a great chance of getting into the the 3-year-old program!

13.  BC listens and pays CLOSE attention to stories and books.  We check out all kinds of genres, which all seem to hold his interest!  

14.  He is easily frustrated when it comes to putting things together or getting things to work.  Kind of like the food thing I talked about before...he wants things NOW.  We're working on patience.  :)

15.  He has the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen.  In Russia, his eyes were so sad.   Looking back at photos, it's hard to recognize those eyes because he looks out of them in such a different way now.  

16.  He likes to brush his teeth while I sing different variations of the "ABC song."  It keeps him going!

17.  He is a creative thinker and has an imagination like no other!  He can make ANYTHING into a vehicle...complete with sound effects and all!

18.  He runs VERY FAST.  So much so that it can be hard to catch up with him!

19.  He loves fruit snacks of any kind.  He also loves cheese.  I try to cut him off at 2 cheese sticks a day.  He seriously would eat the whole bag in a day if I'd let him!

20.  He happily takes his liquid vitamins each morning.  These drops smell like the health store, GNC, in a bottle.  Nasty!  But when it comes to taking yummy-flavored Motrin or Tylenol...you'd think I was poisoning him!  So strange!

21.  He loves his Daddy and will out of the blue say things like, "Daddy went to work.  Want Daddy!" with that sad look of his.  They are buddies.

22.  BC loves all of his grandparents and the rest of our family, too.  He can identify his cousins, aunts/uncles, and grandparents in pictures.  I know for sure he loves to be loved and he KNOWS that these people love him dearly.  

23.  He loves Disney and all the rides we go on!  I once had a student in my second grade class that only talked about roller coasters and the rides at the theme parks.  Every Monday morning, I had to gear myself up to hear about it because I knew he would have gone to some theme park over the weekend.  So now... my own son is becoming this boy!!  :)  I hope his future teachers will listen happily to his roller coaster stories as I did for that little guy in my class.  

24.  When you ask BC what he wants to be when he grows up, he'll either say "Fire chief" or "astronaut."  Either would be fantastic!

25.  He is an animal lover.  He loves going to the zoo and always seemed to focus in one type of animal on each visit.  He then proceeds to pretend to be that animal for weeks and even months following the trip.  The most recent...Meerkats.  I still have to call out sometimes, "Come in, Meerkat!" to get him inside.  He also was looking for Meerkat tunnels in the sand trap out on the golf course this evening.  Do you think he found any??  :)

Have a fantastic weekend!  We are off to visit our good friends and Little Miss tomorrow and then possibly, heading to Epcot on Sunday.  We'll see about that.  More monorail stories coming soon!  :)  

Book Tag

Ok...I have been tagged by fellow adoption friend, Kathy,  in a book tag. Here are the rules:
The rules:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 2 to 5 sentences, along with these rules.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual book. Pick the CLOSEST!
6. Tag five (or more) other people to do the same!

My book that I grabbed is: Patty Jane's House of Curl, by Lorna Landvik.  This is a great book, by the way...very easy to read, feel good, dramatic, romantic, everything you could want...all under one cover!

Here's my passage:

Leaning on the table for support, he stood up.

"Excuse me, gennelmen," he said, "but if I don't get to the latrine in a hurry, we'll all be hosed down."

Hank clamped a hand down on Thor's shoulder and pushed him down.  "So you're selling your scrawny body now, Faylene?? Hank's fingers drummed the pool cue.

(Oooooh....are you hooked?  Do you want to read more??  Strange to just read such a random blurb from a book...but really, this is a good one!)

So now I'm supposed to tag 5 people to do this too, but I don't really "know" 5 other bloggers, so I'll skip that part.  But if you read my blog and want to do this on your own...GO FOR IT!!  Have a great weekend ahead!  :)

Some love for Zoe...

Oooohhh...he was very interested in her ears!

Kisses and more kisses!

Full-body hug or trying to ride her?  You pick.  

He loves his pup!

Poor Zoe was a little under the weather last night. Just not her usual spunky self.  We took her out for a walk after dinner, and she just sat down, obviously not feeling well.  So, we picked her up, asked Bear Cub if he would hold her in his stroller...and he said a very definite, "YES!"  We walked all the way down our street, strolling both of our "babies."  BC loved it!  He kept petting her so gently and she sat so still, seeming to enjoy the break.  It was very unusual...but so cute, too.  Despite all the barking and carrying on that goes on between the two of them, they really do love each other!  And I have to give it to Zoe...she is a wonder dog full of patience!  :)  

P.S.  Zoe seems much better today!  She probably found and ate some kind of goody that was left behind from you-know-who....

Busy, busy!

Taken this morning at Hollywood Studios.  He loved the old cars that are on display there!

Snuggling and reading a good book with Mimi!

On the run (as always!) at the park...

Searching for crabs and other interesting creatures along the shore

Hello everyone!  Well, we are back to our warm weather here in Florida, and you'll see from the photos that we have definitely been out and have taken advantage of it!  Bear Cub and I are finally on the mend from our colds that we had last week, so I think we were both anxious to get out and get on the move again! 

This past weekend, we made a spur-of-the-moment kind of trip over to visit my mom.  It was one of those times that I was really wanting to see my own Mama Bear, and luckily, it was a good weekend for us to make the trip.  We spent a fun Saturday afternoon at a beautiful park...Bear Cub playing, exploring the beach area, and touring the area that my Mama grew up in.  It really was fun.  Bear Cub LOVED the park we went to...he had so much fun flipping over rocks along the water's edge, searching for fiddler crabs.  You'll see in the picture above that my boys did indeed find one!  

As for this week, we're back to our usual schedule.  Today BC and I made a trip down to Disney and tried out Hollywood Studios.  It was actually my first trip there too.  It is an interesting park, but not really designed for kids as young as Bear Cub.  Although we did see a couple of really cute shows... "Playhouse Disney," and "The Muppets in 3-D."  I WISH I had been able to videotape BC during the 3-D movie.  It was too funny!  He was actually wearing the glasses, but then Fozzie blew a party horn at the audience and BC jumped and quickly took his glasses off!  It totally surprised him.  He kept his glasses off until the end of the show, when he would put the glasses up to his eyes, get shocked again by what he saw, and then quickly take them away.  He kept on doing this...over and over!  Kind of like it scared him...but not enough to totally look away!  It was a good day, but we'll probably stick to the Magic Kingdom mostly and the other parks, too.  He was very disappointed that there was no monorail that we had to ride in...you know, that is his very favorite!  :)

Have a great rest of the week and I'll be sure to post again soon!!  :)

VERY literal...

Just a quick, funny story from yesterday afternoon's walk outside:

BC: (pointing to a woman getting into her van on a neighbor's driveway)  Mommy going bye-bye!

Me:  No, I'm not going bye-bye...I'm right here with you!  That lady is not your mommy...she's just A MOMMY.

BC:  (waving and relieved) Bye-bye, A MOMMY!!!  :)

A great site I wanted to share!

For those of you with children, you must check out a great learning site.

It is www.starfall.com

I used to use this site with my struggling second graders and happened to stumble across it again a few days ago.  I have been doing some letter and number activities with Bear Cub and thought this site was great (and very interactive!) because of its use of uppercase AND lowercase letters.  Check it out!  BC has been excited each day to sit on my lap and go through a few letters at a time.  And I can already tell he's learning the lowercase letters because of it.  Watching your child learn and develop is TRULY AMAZING!!!  :)  

Pretend play!

These pictures were taken earlier in the week...Monday, I believe.  We've had some SERIOUSLY cold weather for Florida.  I know, the Northerners will scoff at this, but our temperatures have barely gotten into the 50s for the highs and we've had several nights of upper 20s!   Brrrrr-ski!  

So before our cold snap came, we were able to get outside for some play time.  A few weeks ago, BC and I had to go to Tire Kingdom to get a patch in one of my tires.  Since then, he has been VERY interested in tires, lifts that put cars up in the air (we were able to see my truck up on the lift that one day) and how to fix flat tires.  

So now we play "Tire Kingdom" quite a bit!!  On this particular day, he got out 2 buckets to create a lift for his garage vehicles. He also found his plastic screwdriver and a few other "tools" in the garage so he could work on his fire truck here.  Great news!  The fire truck has 4 perfectly healthy tires and the horn continues to honk.  Way to go, Bear Cub!  :)  Our little mechanic...

** I have an adorable video from this same pretend adventure, but Blogger is telling me I can't upload it. It's only about 2 1/2 minutes long... any advice from other Bloggers on what I may be doing wrong??  I'd love for you guys to be able to see and hear Bear Cub in action!  Thanks! **

President...or present??

I will tell you upfront that I am not a political person.  But I figured that Bear Cub and I would watch a little of the Inauguration today, to watch a new President be sworn in and in a way, to watch history happen.  He was a bit miffed that when I turned on the TV at 11:00 that I didn't immediately put it on his PBS shows.  He told me so...saying something like, "Want to watch PBS!"  But I told him that we were going to watch our new President on TV and he got quiet as if he were thinking.  

Back pedaling a bit here...we had to hang around this morning because we were waiting for a FedEx delivery.  I told him what we were waiting for and about 30 minutes before the TV was turned on, the FedEx man rang our bell.  So, here we are...with a new box in the house and the "President" being talked about between the lil' man and me.  Back to the story...

Once his little quiet spell was over, he immediately linked the word "President" to the box in the house.  So he was dying to open the box, thinking FedEx had delivered the president ... or in his words at first... "A present for me!"  Oh boy.  Hard to explain the difference between the President and a present to a little boy who absolutely ADORES opening gifts and thinks he deserves them on a daily basis.  ;)   

But he finally got it and eventually had fun playing with the now-empty FedEx box...loading his little cars into it and happily saying, "FedEx gave ME new cars!"  as I watched the happenings on TV.  I kept telling him to look at ALL the people that were there in Washington, saying how crowded it was.  From this, he lined up his cars on his railroad track, promptly told me, "There a lot of traffic!" and kept lining them up.  So I asked him, "Where are all those cars going??" 

His answer:  "To see the new President!!"  

Aha!  Perhaps he did understand the difference --- not a present, but a PRESIDENT.  

THE END

Lucky me...

Yesterday afternoon Bear Cub and I baked a cake together while Daddy worked out in the garage.  Towards the end of the baking experience, BC had wandered off to play with his cars and I decided to call my own Mama Bear.  A few minutes later, BC went to find Daddy in the garage and then they proceeded to play outside together for half an hour or so.  I enjoyed talking to my mom in some relative peace and quiet for once.  Mid-way through our conversation, Zoe went CRAZY barking at the front door.  My mom, knowing Zoe (and Bear Cub!) said something to the effect of, "What is she barking at now?!?"  I told her that BC was on the other side of our glass front door, basically tormenting Zoe and loving every second of her wild barking.  She kept on barking and you could also hear his squeals of delight from the other side of the door.  Usually, this situation drives me insane.  Zoe's bark echoes across our tile floors and Bear Cub is non-stop when he gets a reaction like this out of her.  BUT then, my dear Mama said with a laugh, "You are SO lucky to have all that commotion in your house!"  With that simple statement, it was like the world stopped for a second and I realized how right she was.  Where would I be without that maniac dog of ours?  What fun would life be without a happy, mischievous 2 1/2 year old in our house?  This house would not be a HOME.  Sure, you come into our home and there are toys everywhere.  Look in my spice caddy and you'll see spice bottles turned over and upside down because they are just too irresistible for little hands.  I've got toddler potty seats on both of our toilets, permanent crust of some kind glued to the kitchen table, and continual spots on the floor that need mopping and de-gooing.  But you know what?  Life is good.  And I love every noise and spot that comes from that little boy who has made our lives so much more exciting, challenging, and invigorating.  I just wouldn't change it for the world.

So, in closing, I want to thank my Mama Bear for that statement that she made in passing.  You are right...I am so incredibly lucky.  Thanks for shedding some positive light on that loud and wild situation yesterday.  :)  Life is good!

The Greatest Show on Earth!

Watching the circus performers intently...he couldn't wait to see the acrobats!  And yes, he even used that word!  I told ya...we'd been studying up on the circus all week!

The face after eating some cotton candy...did the cotton candy cause this face or its $12 cost??

Going in for a bite of cotton candy...

Mommy & Bear Cub...heading in for the show!

Yesterday was our big outing to the circus!  We had a really great time and Bear Cub was so excited to see the acrobats and the animals.  We were able to see the elephants outside as we were walking in to the arena, so that was also a treat!  Once inside, we let BC walk around and check out all the goodies before heading in to find our seats.  Our seats were terrific!  We had a great view of the entire show.  He was pretty enthralled with the lights, music, dancing, and performing of the show.  He did get a bit squirmy towards the end, but luckily the shift between clown acts and animal acts helped keep his attention.  He told us afterwards that his favorite part was the dog act.  It was pretty funny!  They had lots of little dogs do all kinds of tricks - jumping rope, walking on their hind legs, doing flips, you name it, they did it!  He got a real kick out of this!  We did buy some cotton candy -- I had to have some! -- and I pretty much ate the whole bag by myself.  My boys just don't dig the cotton candy like I do!  Oh well...they gave it a try and I finished it off.   You gotta do what you gotta do...  ;)

Have a great week ahead!  I'm hoping to have a relaxing, low-key week at home.  Bear Cub has a pretty goopy head cold now and I have a sore throat, so I think we need a little down time.  We'll be back to our busy, bouncing selves soon enough, I'm sure!  :)  

It's Friday!

Bear Cub says, "Hi, blog readers!"  :)

We have had an extremely busy week!  Between going to the zoo on Monday, a play date mid-week, the Magic Kingdom yesterday, and this morning...story time at the library!  Phew!  It's been a good one though and we are now enjoying a little blast of winter here in sunny Florida.  Yesterday's and today's highs are only in the 50s and very low 60s.  I know, I know....for those of you up North, this would be a dream come true, but for us, it's winter.  ;)  Enjoy the few pictures from this week.  You can see that not only have we been busy OUT of the house, but here at home, too.  Have a wonderful weekend and be sure to look out for our CIRCUS post later in the weekend!  We are excited!  :)

The artist...hard at work...not painting at the moment, but strategically lining up his brushes.  It's a ritual that only true artists can understand...  ;)

We had a teddy bear picnic earlier in the week!  We sing the song, "Teddy Bear's Picnic" enough that I thought we ought to give it a try.  It was a success!  

I swear I won't take these underwear shots when he gets older!  These are some of his new "Thomas the Tank Engine" big boy underpants that HE got to choose.  He continues to do well with the potty!  (So far we've only worn these when we're at home)

He was so excited to put on his big boy pants!  

Just a couple of pics...

After his bath, he climbed up into the desk chair and started clicking like a mad man on the mouse, happily saying, "I working hard!"  Oh yes, he was!

Bear Cub likes to look at our eyes and tell us what color we all have.  He knows that he has blue, but the other night after dinner, Daddy asked him, "Can you see what color your eyes are?"  So BC proceeded to stick his fingers into his closed eyes, trying to "see" what color they really were.  This is when we brought the mirror out and BC had a blast looking at his "flection" as he called it and trying to find the rest of the family in the mirror.  Too cute!

Fun weekend and a trip to the zoo!

Eye to eye with a penguin...BC said, "Dat penguin like me!"

Ok...he's officially a goat lover now!

The main attraction at the zoo is a boat ride that BC is happy to just WATCH.  He talks about this boat ride all the time at home!  He loves to watch the logs go up the hill and then come down for the big "Zzash!" as he calls the splash.  Seriously...we could have stood here all day and he would have been perfectly content!  :)

He liked looking at the birds, but stayed really close to Mimi!  The birds were really active yesterday and buzzing around.  He'd immediately back up, and put his shoulders up, trying to hunker down, I guess!  

Future bird whisperer??

Hello everyone!!  Well, as you can see from the photos, we made another trip to the zoo!  Thanks to Aunt J, for the gift that kept on givin' this past year!  We really enjoyed our zoo passes!  Yesterday we met up with Mimi for the day and really had a great time.  Bear Cub was really into the meerkats during this trip.  So much so, he is now calling himself a meerkat and I am the mommy meerkat!   Now to get his attention to come with me, I have to say something like, "Come on, meerkat!  Time to go in!"  Then, and only then, will he come a-runnin!  He has a wild imagination, I'm telling you!  

We also had a terrific weekend -- really busy, but fun.  On Saturday, we ran all kinds of errands and made it to Stride Rite to get this young man some new sneakers!  You know how I seem to do it...waiting until he's clomping around, toes all curled up in the toe box, before we finally get to the shoe store!  Poor guy!  It's like his feet grow all of a sudden and just one day I'll notice it and decide, "Hey, he needs new shoes!!"  So we did that, washed our cars, and even made it up to our neighborhood tennis courts to hit some balls!  It was great!  This is something that we really used to enjoy before BC came into our lives, and for some reason, we hadn't thought about it in a long time.  But BC did great up there!  There are only 2 courts, and I think we're the only people that EVER play, so BC ran and played on the one court while we played a little tennis.  Even today, Bear Cub said he wanted to go back to the tennis courts.   We definitely will.  It felt great to get back to something that we really do enjoy!

On Sunday, we had a nice visit from Grandma and Grandpa!  They came over once we were home from church (yes, the resolution continues....)  and stayed all afternoon.  BC was on his very best behavior and did so well when we went out to eat and had lots of fun playing with his Grandpa & Grandma.  He also had a chance to show off his ABC skills...to his teacher Grandma!  Yes, BC is seriously surrounded by teachers in this family.  :)  It was a great afternoon!

Here we are and it's Tuesday already!  We have our usual weekly activities that we attend and then the big event on Saturday afternoon is the CIRCUS!!!   Good 'ol Aunt J....she gave us circus tickets for Christmas this year!  Bear Cub and I have been talking about the circus some and we even checked out some library books to get him ready for the fun.   I'll be sure to take lots of pictures that day, too!  Have a great rest of the week!  :)

2 1/2...TODAY!

Well, I don't have any new pictures to post (gasp!), but maybe I'll get some taken this afternoon.  But I did have to do a quick post to say that today Bear Cub is officially 2 1/2 years old!  Wow!  We went to the library this morning and I mentioned that to a friend of mine.  She said, "Geez, it seems like we were just at your house celebrating his birthday!"  Well, isn't that the truth.  It is so amazing to me how quickly time flies.  So, in honor of this half-birthday, here are a few new things that Bear Cub says and does these days:

• He now calls Zoe by her full name!  "Zah" is a thing of the past.  His language and speech have jumped dramatically lately, where he is closing most all of his words and really putting his thoughts into almost-complete sentences.  
• He likes to identify boy vs. girl "stuff."  We'll be out and he'll point to something pink or purple, and say in an "Ewwww!" kind of voice, "Dat is dirl (girl) stuff!"  Isn't that funny?  He'll also say things like, "Want to look at boy stuff!" so he definitely knows the difference!
• He wants to do all kinds of things by himself!  We've been having him try to put on his own shoes and to pull up his pants after he goes potty.  These things are coming along!
• This boy knows his letters!!  Woo-hoo!  This teacher Mama is very proud.  :)  We've been telling him words and asking what letter the words starts with and MOST of the time, he says the correct letter.  He can also identify capital letters, so now I have to start practicing the lower case ones with him.  
• His social skills are blooming!  I've really noticed in the couple of weeks him trying to socialize some with other kids.  He still doesn't really converse with them, but he will follow along and copy what they are doing.  I see this the most at the park.  He will now run away from me to play and follow other kids up the rock wall or down the slides.  I'm really proud of this, too!
• BC is also participating more and more in our weekly story time!  At today's library visit, he was so cute during the singing of "The Wheels on the Bus."  He did all the hand motions on his own and was really intent.  He's getting to be a better listener in that "teacher-student" type situation.
• He's finally starting to correct some of his misuse of the words "you" and "your," when trying to reference himself.  Wow, this has been a challenge for him!  But we are hearing him say "I" and "my" more often, although the others still slip in.  He's getting it!
• There is not a diaper to be found in this house! He is strictly wearing Pull-Ups and big kid underpants.  The last few days have been great with potty training.  Still no luck with the pooping, but I am happy to say that he has even told me a few times when he has to go and it seems like he is going quicker once he's in the bathroom.  Yippee!  

So, there are just a few new accomplishments that we are all proud of.  He says or does something cute, funny, and new just about everyday, but we quickly lose track of them.  I know I should be writing them down, but it's even hard to find time to do that sometimes!  Now that I finished his "First Year at Home" baby book, I'm really slacking on updating on all of his new skills and funny things he says.   I'll try to get better.  I guess I want to enjoy the moment, so I hate to rush away to write it down.  Anyway, he's doing wonderful and is turning into such a big boy.  

That 9 1/2 month old baby that we first met way back when is just a happy, distant memory now as we look at this smart, opinionated, and talkative boy of ours!  Before we know it, I'll be reporting on his third birthday!  Oh my....

Have a great weekend and I must say.....

IT'S GREAT TO BE A FLORIDA GATOR!!  ;)  (Had to throw that one in....)

What a helper & more!

Get off the road when you see this guy coming!

All smiles after his race around the track

Here they come!  Yes, BC is behind the wheel...talk about a driver needing a booster! 

A little cheese for the pizza, and a lot for ME!

Bear Cub LOVES to help around the house.  He's always interested in the dishwasher, wanting to unload it every time we open it, regardless if the dishes are clean or not.  He also likes to help us do things like plug in the DVD player (we do that, but he hangs on to our shirt and always "helps" us back onto our feet from behind the tv), and lately, he has wanted to help me cook!  The other night I was making little pizzas, so I pulled a chair up to the counter and let him go at it!  He loves cheese, of any kind, so he had a ball putting the mozzarella on the pizzas.  He would put a handful on the pizza, and then quickly grab a different handful and shovel in to his mouth!  It was pretty funny.  But as always, he was so proud of himself and that night at dinner, he kept exclaiming, "Helped Mommy make pizzas!"  

Yesterday we enjoyed another day at Disney.  Do you think we'll get good use out of our passes? ;)  We went to Magic Kingdom and BC was so excited to ride the monorail again.   The park was less crowded, so we were able to get on about 6 rides, spending most of our time in "Tomorrow Land."  He loved driving the real race cars with Daddy and especially loved the easy-paced "people mover" that he thought was just a small monorail.  Once again, we had a fun, fun time!

Today has been a stay-at-home kind of day.  It's been rainy and cloudy, so BC played some in his sand table and then it was time to come in so I could do some cleaning.  He's napping now and I SHOULD be cleaning, but here I am, typing away....  

Have a great day and enjoy the photos!  In 2 days, our lil' man will be 2 1/2...wow!

January fun in the sun!

• Bear Cub loves his new sand table and asks to play in it every day!  After church yesterday (yes, I'm sticking with my New Year's resolution and really enjoying it.  BC continues to do great in his nursery room, too!) he played for a long time in the sand.  I decided to get brave and try the water part of the table.  He did great and loved cruising his boats along the "river" as he called it.  What a great toy!  It's really cute to watch him play because he squats down low next to it and whispers whatever he's playing and pretending.  He's off in his own sand table world out there!
  

• Here we are at Animal Kingdom on Saturday!  My awesome Mama gave us passes to the Disney parks...wow, talk about the gift that keeps on giving!  :)  So we got our passes activated and enjoyed the day out at the park.  It was pretty crowded, but it was so nice to know that we didn't have to do and see it all while we were there.  We'll just go back another time!!  I know that we'll get great use out of the passes - we're only about 40 minutes away and Bear Cub has so far loved the theme parks.  Thanks again, Mimi Bear!

• Potty Training 101 & the multi-tasking Mama!  Here you can catch a glimpse of what a good chunk of my day looks like!  Bear Cub is doing pretty well with his potty training and I've actually discovered that he does better when we are out in public!  That was the one thing I was SO worried about and here it is, turning out to be the easy part!  Yesterday at Target, he told me had to go, so of course, we rushed into the bathroom.  Now that he's standing up some and going, I don't have that "Ewww!!  Sitting on the public potty" fear so much, so it's all good!  We're really working on it and I'm proud of how far he has come along.  It's a big task, this potty training job!

• Here he is, caught in motion!  He is usually zipping and zooming somewhere around the house at all times!  He has so much energy and he is non-stop.  The quietest and most still times we have with him are at night when he will sit with us to listen to his books and drink his milk.  I guess he realizes that he has to slow down eventually!  I wish I had that much energy!

• The life of one Miss Zoe Belle:  Here she is, completely comfortable after her little brother finally went to bed the other night.  She is wiped out after a day of running, chasing, and barking!  BC and Zoe have really been playing hard together after his bath.  He likes to play the "pulling game" with her.  He'll grab one of her toys and get her to grab hold of it too.  Then they pull back and forth and run up and down our entryway.  It's no wonder she konks out like this at night!!

• BC at Animal Kingdom - we had just done a walking tour and he saw a woman stand between these bamboo shoots to get her photo taken.  As soon as she and her friend were gone, he ran up there and said, "Want do dat too!"  So here is the result - Bear Cub with bamboo!

• Animal Kingdom has an awesome petting area where the goats and sheep just sort of mill about.  Bear Cub loved petting the goats and was so gentle!  I was just happy that there was a nice big hand-washing station available on our way out!

• Oh my!  He's good-looking AND he cooks!  Where did I find this man?!?!?  :)  Here he is, trying out one of his new Christmas gifts...an Ebelskiver pan from William Sonoma.  These tasty breakfast treats were sort of like a donut and filled with strawberry jam.  They were delicious!  And perfectly cooked, considering this was his first attempt!

Happy Blog Anniversary!

Well, I have officially been a blogger for a year now!  Happy Anniversary to Bear Cub's blog!

To honor the New Year and our little blog anniversary, I decided to change the look of things and experiment with some different backgrounds.  If you like what you see, and want to update your own blog, click on the little link in the upper left corner of my blog and you too can get a blog makeover!

So, here's to many more posts in 2009!

Pictures

We went to a local state park with my cousins Amy and Mike on New Year's Eve day.  Bear Cub did great walking along the trail and exploring.  Here he told me that he was "looking for animals" in the dirt.  

Ooooh!  Lookie!  He found an "animal!"  Some interesting insect...

BC liked looking at it, but wanted Mike to be the one to hold it.

Enjoying our beautiful, warm weather!

A quick shot of his new haircut.  Daddy used clippers on it and buzzed up the back.  I almost cried when I saw those blond locks fall to the porch floor, so we decided to leave it a bit longer on top.  He was squirmy, so it's an OK haircut for the first "at home" attempt.  A little bit like a skater dude, if you ask me...