Windmills

Back in May, when we installed our window fans, Jack began his extreme fascination with all things that have paddles and go around in a circle.  Whenever we get to the page in his alphabet book that has a picture of a windmill for W, he gets so excited and says over and over again, on, on, on.  Meaning I want you to turn in on so I can see it go round and round. He even says fan in the cutest little way. He doesn't really have the "f" sound down yet, so it comes out as haaan, haaan.  If we remind him, he'll try to get the f sound too.  It's sort of sounds like ffffff.....aaaan.  In two, very long, syllables.

Well, we just happened to come across a real windmill on the way back from Newport on Sunday, and Jack could barely contain himself.  As luck would have it, it was open, so we could actually go inside the 200 year old building.  It's amazing that this giant structure was used for grinding corn back in the day.  

Here is Jack in motion, approaching the windmill...He actually says "windmill" at the end of the video.

Builder Jack

Jack was very busy today working in the backyard.  

He helped Rob with the deck...

 All of this work really made him thirsty...so he asked us to keep his sippy cup within reach at all times.

Once he was done with the deck for the day, he worked on the lawn.

He had really worked up an appetite by the end of the day....

And by the end of the day, he was also sick of the paparazzi... 

The beach in 13 steps

1.  Pack water, snack, towel, hat, toys, blanket, umbrella, sunscreen, swim diaper, bathing suit, extra clothes into the car. (I don't bother with my chair or reading material anymore since I know that I won't be doing any sitting.)

2.  Change Jack and lather him up with sunscreen...oh wait, I already put it in the car.

3.  Go out to the car to get the sunscreen.

4.  Wrangle Jack up and hold him down to put sunscreen on him.

5.  Strap Jack into his carseat and open all the windows and sunroof.

6.  Drive to the beach while singing Brandi Carlile songs at the top of my lungs.  Jack drums along in the back seat.

7.  Get to the beach.  Unpack blanket, umbrella, toys, bags and set everything up.

8.  Put Jack's hat on and let him go to town digging in the sand.

9.  After 5 minutes, he gets bored, so we walk down to the water and put our feet in.  I ask if he wants to go swimming, he says, "Nooo," very matter-of-factly.

10.  Jack has a snack.  Goldfish.  Then he puts a fistful of sand into his snack trap...that's the end of the snack.

11. Jack digs some more and we argue about keeping his hat on.  He finally leaves it on his head.

12. We do a little more walking and Jack flirts with a little girl.  He waves and says "Hiieee," with a big smile on his face.  It was cute.

13.  We are both hungry and I didn't pack lunch, so we pack up and head home.

It was a very nice 40 minutes at the beach!  :)

Mila's Daydreams

I came across this really sweet blog the other day...

It's snapshots of baby Mila's dreams, as imagined by her Mama.

Go have a look, it will make you smile.  

Ice cream

Once we got home from our road trip on Sunday, we went out for ice cream.  If we didn't take it away, I think Jack would have completely downed Rob's chocolate malt.

Road trip to the Poconos

We took a road trip to the Poconos for Aunt Clair's surprise 70th birthday party last weekend and yes, she was surprised!  She really, really deserved a day that we could all celebrate her and I think it was a day that we'll all remember.

Surprise!

Here she is opening her gift...It was a bracelet with a stone representing each her five children and five grandchildren with room for more grandkids!  (That's her youngest son, Tommy, on the left, and her oldest grandson, Liam, on the right.)

Jack and Maia were such troopers!  It was a looong day in the car and they were both up until about 10!  Jack hardly napped all day.  In fact, he only fell asleep in the car as we were exiting from the highway! Go figure. They didn't complain though and had fun running (yes, running!) around the pond with Rob and Sam.

The only thing that Jack would eat at the party were crackers...

See the crumbs?

If we tried to feed him something else, he made this face:

 It was late by the time we got to the hotel. We set up Jack's pack and play and put him in...He always cries when we put him to bed in a place other than his own room.  So we've learned to just put the TV on in order to keep him from waking up everyone in the hotel.  He stood up watching with his head resting on his hands on the rail of the pack and play.  Within two minutes he was down and OUT!  Rob and I were able to continue watching the movie (Shrek the 2nd) without a peep from our Jack.  He's a good little traveler.

Friday cuteness

Last Sunday we went out for dinner in honor of Rob's last day of vacation...Jack was quite a ham and very adorable, I might add.  A complete stranger even came up to us to let us know that he's the most beautiful baby she's ever seen!  I am not making that up...

Here's a short video of Jack hamming it up!

Happy Friday!