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On the Road to Recovery and some CRAZY Weather

This week has been better health-wise (Joseph was better and started eating stuff other than goldfish crackers and milk, my allergies have been kind of crazy due to the large amount of mountain cedar pollen, but I’m slowly getting better from the massive allergy attack that hit mid-week), but the weather has been a bit…bi-polar. It doesn’t seem to know if it’s spring or winter. The beginning of the week was in the high 70s. Paul had Monday off, so we went up to Austin and ate at In n’ Out and played at a cool park (Zilker Park) that had this really cool train that took you on a 20-25 minute ride around the park (the park is HUGE). Joseph had a blast riding that train! Mid week was slightly cooler, and then we had another (what the weather guy calls an) “arctic plunge”. This is where the temperature plummets more than 20 degrees overnight. In this case, it was in the 60s on Wednesday and in the 30s on Thursday. Friday, it didn’t get above freezing until the late afternoon. We also had an ice storm on Thursday night which made the roads rather dangerous. Paul got a call that he was supposed to come in two hours later than normal for work (in order for conditions to improve a bit), but because one of the highways was closed due to ice, it still took him almost two hours to get to work. Saturday was back in the upper 50s/low 60s, so we decided to go to the zoo. I love that we got passes. Now we don’t feel like we have to rush to see enough to get our money’s worth each time.

Funny/Cute Stories for the Week:

Joseph on occasion will fake a burp just so he can say, “Excuse me!”

He will often say, “Bless you!” right after he sneezes.

At Target, we were going past the aisle where the kids’ toothbrushes and toothpaste are and he said, “Over there, me teeth!’

He loves to wear my red slip-on shoes around the house. One day, after letting him wear them, I couldn’t find them. After looking almost everywhere, I decided to look in the bench that’s close to our entry-way (it opens up for storage). Sure, enough, there they were! He probably thought he had picked a good hiding spot. 🙂

The other day, he asked for some yogurt, so I put some in a bowl for him. He decided that he was going to dip his mac n’ cheese in the yogurt (key lime pie flavored). I try to let him experiment and not discourage trying new things, so I just…observed. Apparently he found it quite tasty…weird kid. 😉

I try to make it a point when reading to Joseph to also ready who the author and illustrator of the book are. We read a lot of Dr. Seuss, so now he seems to think that all books are written by Dr. Seuss. The other day, I was letting him look at his Book of Mormon. He looked at the cover and said, “Book of Mormon, by Dr. Seuss!” He’s done that with several other books that aren’t by Dr. Seuss, either. 🙂 This usually leads to a brief discussion about who the authors actually are.

One day, when I was just finishing blowing my nose, I looked down to see Joseph staring at me rather intently. He then said, “Good job, Mommy!” I should feel so honored!

Sometimes when I tell him to put a toy or other object away and he doesn’t want to, he’ll hide it behind his back so that I can’t “see” it. Nice try, kid!

We have to be careful when we ask Joseph if he wants to take a bath. Why, you might ask? Well, it’s because he likes his baths so much, that he’ll get super excited, say, “Okay!”, and start trying to take off his clothes. Wherever he is. Even if we’re nowhere near the bathroom. So, yeah…

This week in Pictures (beware: there are quite a few because of the Austin trip and the trip to the zoo):

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Cool animal at Zilker Park (Austin). I think we determined that it was a dolphin…maybe. It reminded me of the park close to the house that I grew up in. 🙂
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If there’s a wheel, he’ll find it!
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There was this cool old fire truck that they put in the park for kids to climb around on (either that or it was just made to look like an old fire truck).
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Joseph loved the giant steering wheel…
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Waiting for the train…
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He loves taking pictures of himself!
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He was super-duper excited to get onto the train, though.
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Gotta throw in a picture of myself, every once in a while, I suppose.
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Waiting for the train ride to start.
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Paul sat next to Joseph and I sat behind. I love my men!
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We decided to enjoy the warm weather during the middle of the week, so we played outside for a bit…wait it was more like two hours. Joseph was in Heaven!
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He likes to count the steps going up to the slide and then say, “3, 2, 1, Blastoff!” before going down. 🙂
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Playing in the sand (and minimizing the mess by sitting on the cover).
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He kept saying, “Scoooop” each time he put sand in the top.
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If the sand got stuck, he’d use his finger to push it through the funnel.
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Loading up the dump truck. He would make it beep as he drove it along. He could have done this all the rest of the time that we were out there, but I eventually had to go in and make dinner.
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Climbing on the hippo sculpture
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We decided to use Joseph’s leash…er, I mean backpack…this time, instead of the stroller. It worked out great!
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Climbing onto the bronze elephant
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The ears are nice to hold on to
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Checking out the miniature mongoose. Joseph really liked these guys. Paul got a great video which is posted after all the pictures. Joseph says something really cute in the video. 🙂
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Climbing on the lions. The lions are usually really crowded, but the zoo was overall a bit less crowded, so we were able to let him crawl on them this time.
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Heaven for a little boy who loves to climb!
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Trying to get him to sit still…
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…so we could take a picture!
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It didn’t last long, as you can see. 🙂
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“Playing” tic-tac-toe while waiting for dinner to arrive.
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Fun Sunday activity: Play-Doh time!
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Paul was making some stuff and showed Joseph a “pizza”. Joseph thought it was real, so he started to put it in his mouth, but Paul stopped him in time. Then we both realized we would have to stress that the stuff was pretend. 🙂

Bonus! Two Videos! One is of Joseph checking out the monkeys and the other is him seeing (and introducing himself to) the mongoose: