apple picking 2007

Drew continues to love playing in the bathtub. He's pouring water from one cup to another in this photo. We've finally managed to keep him from drinking his bathwater, so his cups are back in the bath toy rotation! Drew gets quite excited about his bath as part of his nightly routine. He gets a bath, pajamas, a snack, a cup of milk, and then goes to bed. He's got the routine down cold and looks forward to each part. The other night Drew found a phone that I was moving from one part of the house to another and decided to use the opportunity to make some calls. As he held the phone up he asked, "Grandpa?," "Grandma?," "Todd?," "Tina?" It was so cute!!

Drew knew how to use the buttons on the phone to dial a number. I thought this was such a cute picture until Jana pointed out to me that if he can reach the phone in the future when it is plugged in, he might dial numbers for real. Oh yeah, good point Jana! We don't need him dialing random people with the phone. No more real phones for Drew!

Last weekend we went apple picking with our friends Jeremy and Kristin. On the way into the orchard we purchased some fish food to feed the fish in the orchard pond. Jana and I had never done that before and we thought Drew might like it. I'll be honest, we also thought that I might like it! It was both entertaining and disgusting to see the HUGE catfish that emerged to eat the food Drew threw in the water. The catfish were about two feet long and they aren't the most attractive fish in the world. Drew loved it though!

Drew learned the joy of apple picking . . . eating an apple fresh off the tree!

Jeremy and Kristin claim they always eat apples this way at home. For some reason, I'm not quite sure if I believe them.

Our morning for apple picking was gorgeous. The temperature was in the 60s and it was sunny. Jana and I have never picked apples before in such nice weather!

I had to include this photo because it gives a plug for the orchard we visited. The Country Mill is a great place to pick apples! Drew loved this train (that's his blonde head in the middle) and liked it when Jeremy came over to see what he was doing.

Drew will definitely continue to make calls on his "cell phone." We don't leave our cell phones around the house, so he can dial numbers and make calls all day long on this old one!

Drew still loves wearing my hats. He often goes to another room, finds one, and then brings it to me saying "hat!" He's got a great look going here with the white t-shirt, long shorts, socks and the sideways hat.

This is one of our favorite current pictures of Drew. Drew and I were playing catch with a wash cloth (you can see it in his hands), and he couldn't stop grinning because he was having so much fun. The wash cloth fans out nicely as you throw it, so Drew was able to catch it. He's not very good at catching a ball yet, but he catches the wash cloth quite well.

Drew was having so much fun climbing up on the laundry basket that I had to take a picture of it. We love playing with Drew and laughing with him!

firetruck noises

Drew has been eating A LOT lately, so I shot a short video to show his eating speed. The other night for dinner he ate one and a half hot dogs, most of a bun, a cup or more of yogurt, a handful of grapes, and downed his 8 ounce milk. That boy can eat! We think he must be going through a growth spurt because he's a good eater, but he's usually not amazing.

Drew noticed that I had the camera out and started doing some smiles and blinking for me, which I wasn't able to capture, but you can still see him hamming it up a bit for the camera. It's so much fun to see his personality emerging! You would think he'd be accustomed to the camera by now, but he still makes faces and acts differently sometimes when we pull it out.

Drew's latest favorite book is filled with cars and trucks. There are different vehicles for each letter in the alphabet and when I get to firetruck (we read the book several times each night) Drew makes his firetruck noise. It's so cute! Here's a sample:

I don't think I've put video of this on here before, but if I did it's still amusing anyway. When Drew needs help with something we've taught him to say "help, please." In this video he shows off his skills at fastening the seatbelt on his high chair. The only problem is that once it is fastened, he can't undo it, so it is "stuck." (you'll hear him say "stuck") I prompt him by asking him what to say, and then you'll hear him respond with a "help, please" and a little dance as I undo the belt for him.

apple

Drew recently got another haircut! His hair has been growing out quite nicely and he now has a full head of hair (finally!!). It was getting pretty long and unruly on the top, and Jana let me cut it again. I like shorter hair, so Jana lets me know when it is all right to cut Drew's hair again. Otherwise, I'd be cutting it all the time! Drew does a great job of sitting still while I'm cutting his hair. He loves the sound of the clippers and I think he actually likes feeling the vibration of them and having my hands holding his head. Either way, he hardly moves while I'm working!

The finished product! Drew always looks a little older right after his haircut.

Drew started with eating corn from the cob and now he eats bananas and apples that aren't cut up as well. Here he is working on an apple and giving me a silly grin.

This video shows Drew at work on his apple. He doesn't eat that much of the apple and he sometimes sucks on pieces of apple and then spits them out, but he's getting there. Some of his foods are more novel than nutritional!
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Drew still uses this cart to transport things around the house! In this picture he's moving some of his Duplos around. It amuses us to see him with this cart because it was what he used when he was first learning to walk. Now it is just fun to push around.

Drew is reading here with Jana. He brings books to us all the time to read. Especially if we are trying to read something on our own, Drew comes up with one of his books and wants to join in the fun!

We've worked with Drew so that once we read to him for a bit, he'll also read on his own. Now the cart is being used as a chair! It's so cute it's distracting when Drew "reads" out loud to himself :)

Drew is a great help around the house. After finishing his meal the other day he walked over to the sink, found a dishcloth to clean with, and started to wipe off his chair and tray. He did a pretty good job!

Here's a video of Drew showing off his cleaning skills:

Drew found this crate the other day and hopped into it. Watching him playing in it I decided to have some fun and we walked around the house with him in the crate. He got heavy though after a little while!

This last video shows Drew doing some silent reading. Notice that as he turns the page he pauses to check out what's behind the panel on each page!

Drew figured out how to get INTO his toy chest the other day. He climbs up on the box for his Duplos and then clambers in. He can get out of the chest on his own, but usually he's content to just sit in here for a while playing with all his toys. We love it because it doesn't scatter toys all over the room. He keeps them right there in the toy chest with him!

silverware

Drew has been picking stuff up and cleaning for a while, as I'm sure you can tell by all my stories. The other night he surprised us with a new one: he walked up to the dishwasher, pulled out the clean silverware, and started to put it away in the silverware drawer! He can't see in the drawer, so he doesn't get it into the right spots, but we love that he's helping out. You can see at the end of the video that he's quite pleased with himself!

woods walk

On Friday night Jana, Drew, and I went for a walk in a local nature center. Jana and I have been trying to figure out how we can get on the trails again because our main way of transporting Drew on walks is by stroller, which doesn't work as well on trails. We started with this path that is paved to see how Drew would do with walking on his own. We made two loops totaling close to one mile and Drew walked the whole thing! (with lots of breaks) Here is Drew in action. I had trouble capturing photos that weren't blurry because he literally was either stopped or going at a full run. I couldn't stay still and take his picture, so the combination of my movement plus Drew's created some blurry photos!

Drew loved walking! He was smiling away as he walked and he pointed out birds and trees and even a plane that flew overhead while we were walking.

I am excited about this photo because I caught Drew in action AND he looked up at me and smiled while walking. Usually he keeps his head down while walking, which is good because the ground is surprisingly uneven when you have tiny feet and a low center of gravity.

By the time we made our second loop Drew was getting much more distracted and it was harder to keep him heading down the path with us. One of the things that distracted him was "cleaning up," which involved grabbing leaves and taking them off the path. His cleaning up leaves reminded me of the other night when Drew helped me in the yard. We've got big brown paper bags that are used to collect yard waste. I was removing dead flowers from our lilac bush and as I cut each one off I was setting it on the grass. I was surprised when I looked down and Drew was picking up a handful of the dead flowers. He proceeded to carry the dead flowers over to the brown bag and put them in it! He did a great job and even started walking around the grass picking up any stray leaves that had fallen on the grass from the trees!

This video will give you an idea of our experience walking with Drew. He wanted to make sure we were all together, so he turns around in the video to make sure that I'm coming!

We stopped halfway around the loop of our walk to go onto a deck overlooking a pond. The pond was filled with goldfish that immediately gathered below us. I held Drew out over the railing to show him the fish, then I had the idea of spitting down into the water to attract the attention of the fish. It worked really well! As soon as my spit hit the water the fish roiled the surface of the water as they pounced on it. Drew's eyes got wide and a smile lit up his face as he watched the action of the fish on the surface. I decided to do it again, and again upon my spit hitting the water the fish were immediately at the surface. At that point Drew completely surprised us by clearing his throat and letting his own spit hit the water!! In this video you can see me spit followed by Drew spitting too (the video is sideways, so you might have to turn your head). Needless to say, we've had to do a little work with Drew to teach him that spitting is not appropriate in places like . . . the car, his bed, inside the house, etc. Nice going Mark!!

As we went around for our second loop it got a little cooler out as the sun was going down. We put a zippered hooded sweatshirt on Drew and he did not like it! Watch in this video as he works on getting it off. He doesn't get it here (there's only so much zipper undoing you can watch), but he got it shortly afterward.