Mickey Mouse

Wally still loves Mickey Mouse. He loves to watch the Mickey Mouse Club House tv show. We enjoy watching him watch it. He sings the songs, answers the questions, copies what the characters are doing, etc. I thought that the PBS shows would be better for Wally to watch, but I've decided that the Disney channel cartoons are actually much better, in general. They really engage the kids. Wally all of a sudden could count to 20. We think he must have learned that from Mickey Mouse. Yesterday, Wally and I were listening to some classical music and playing the air piano and air violin. I think he must have learned some of that from Little Einsteins.

Gramma Kathy sent Wally Joel's old Mickey Mouse doll. Wally thinks that is pretty cool! Recently, Great Aunt Tammy sent Wally a Mickey Mouse bank. He has put so much money in that thing (too bad it is the same money each time - we'ld be rich if it wasn't!). He is into grouping things these days. Here he put his Mickey Mouses together and was "posing" with them.

Tonight is Family Fun night at the mall. Wally is excited to ride the "roundy roundy." Joel is excited to catch part of a Hawkeye baseball game before hand. It is in the low 40s or even the 30s...Wally and I aren't going to the game. I figure there will be many more warmer games to catch. I'm missing the warm weather. It is supposed to snow tomorrow! I guess it is maybe time for us to get our share of snow.

Farming Iowa Style

We had a great weekend full of farming fun. First, a local bank had baby animals to pet for Ag days. Wally got to hold baby chickens. He likes to tell the story of how the baby chick pooped in his hands and he dropped the chick and the poopoo into Mommy's hands. I think he could have watched the chicks for hours. He also got to pet a yellow duckling while it swam in a tank of water. Amazingly, they even had a lamb and a calf in the basement of the bank! All in all, it was a very fun time that Wally will surely remember for some time to come.He does love animals!Though he is petting the duck here, he mostly enjoyed splashing in the totally disgusting water!

That afternoon Joel and I went to work on our garden. It was such a beautiful day that we were both wearing shorts and T-shirts. As you can see, we need to get Wally some shorts too. The garden is going to be a lot of work to put in since there is a lot of nice grass currently growing there. There are also billions of rabbits, so we need special rabbit-proof fencing.

Can you imagine all the corn, beans, pumpkins, flowers...growing! I can. Hopefully it dries out again soon so we can till up the grass and get to planting!

A man and his dog. Wally's favorite thing in the garden was to chop up the grass clods and put them back in the trenches we had just dug! He was having fun and the grass clods were broken up, so I can't complain too much!

I hope we don't get in trouble for child labor! The kid can still fit in a laundry basket...

and a space heater box!

Jump the Poopoo!

No text needed.

Spring time fun

Iowa doesn't have mountains, but it doesn't have unending winter either. We have thoroughly been enjoying playing outside in the beautiful weather. Wally and I had picnics on the swing set 2 days in a row. I actually have a tan line from my watch! On days when it is sunny, but not very warm, we have enjoyed having meals (even dinner with Daddy) on the porch.I've been playing in the yard a lot. I can't believe how many leaves I still need to rake in the spring even though we raked tons in the fall! Definitely not like Montana. The iris and daffodils are coming up around town. I think I have some iris...I don't really know what I have around the house since we haven't been here in the spring before. I planted some tulips last fall. I hope they come up. Joel and I have been planning our garden. Sadly, the best place for the garden is in the part of our yard that has the best grass. We laid boards and leaves all over it in hopes of killing the grass before we till it all up. I'm guessing I will just have a messy garden for a while.

Since it is spring break this week, the Coop is closed, but some of us have gotten together anyway. Wally has a great time with his friend Sander. They play really well together, despite them both having 2-year old moments. I brought out the tee-ball set from Great Grandma Minnie for the boys. They like hitting the ball with the bat off the tee, but don't get the running the bases thing yet. Never to young to learn! Luckily, Sander's parents like baseball too!

Now, I will finish off with some random pictures...

We were webcaming with Reder and the other Montana Daughenbaugh's when Wally showed them his bath toy. Reder, genius that he is, yelled "stegasaurus!" Yeah, the kid is a genius! I think Wally is pretty cute though!

Not the best bath tub picture. We cut his hair the next day.

Look what I can do Papa Randy!

He was picking at the crumbs of chocolate cake (yes, Papa, chocolate) left on his plate, when I said, "Papa would lick his plate, Wally." Need I say more? Anything Papa does is cool! I probably won't be able to get him to stop now.

Wally thinks that his flowers "waking up" is really fun. We check them everyday. At school today, we planted sunflowers with all of his friends. They all thought it was pretty neat to put the seeds in bed, tuck them in, and take them home to let them wake up.

Wally likes to check Mommy's flowers too. He counts them each time. He suddenly can count up to 20 with only missing a few random numbers (the missed ones are different each time). Neither of us are sure where he learned that. We think possibly Mickey Mouse taught him. He watches Mickey each morning while we get ready for school.

Breathing Machine

When Wally came down with pneumonia a week and a half ago, it took 3 of us to just kinda give him a nebulizer treatment. Now, I just have to tell him that it is time for his Breathing Machine and he will help me get it ready, sit in his chair and hold it on his face for the whole treatment. I find this incredibly amazing since each treatment take 15-20 minutes. When it is getting near the end, he asks, "Done?" When I say OK, he turns it off and helps me put it away. I think it must make him feel better, and he must realize, otherwise I can't see why a 2 year old would sit still and hold a thing (granted it is a fish face) on his face blowing stinky mist at him for 15-20 minutes. He is doing much better, but I can tell he still gets tired easier than he used to and sometimes I can still hear his lungs rattle. What a little trooper.

As a side note, we are learning what rain is. Wow! Did it rain this weekend!! There are actually lots of places flooded already from the rain. Hopefully it isn't as bad as last year! There was plenty of standing water in our front and back yards yesterday. Poor Moose. It seems as though rain comes with thunder and rain comes a lot here. The dog gets so scared, I think it is just time before it induces a seizure for him. Sadly for us, thunder comes around 3:00 in the morning here. That means that we then have a shaking, shedding, drooling 85 lb dog in our bed the rest of the night. Tonight is supposed to be another one of those nights. I'ld take a crying kid at night over poor Moose. I keep telling him that it will only last another 8 months or so.

Raising a Scientist

Wally is fascinated by all things new. Here he is discovering our humidifier. He has since learned that if you turn the fan on full speed, a balloon will hover above it. I love watching his mind grow and figure stuff out!

It's been a while

It has been a while since my last blog. A lot has happened since then. Wally and I took a plane ride to Colorado to visit my friend Shaundra. While there, Wally came down with pneumonia. I got a job. Spring has arrived in Iowa (at least temporarily). I'll try to keep this short and sweet, and mostly full of pictures.

Almost a month later, we are still enjoying these balloons! A good investment from the dollar store.

"(Blue) Daisy" likes to help carry the balloons with Wally.

Wally was showing me his puppy dog ears in this photo. Later that day I wanted him to put his coat on with his hood up. He didn't want his hood, so I said, "But your puppy dog ears will get cold." He promptly assumed the position of puppy dog ears with his hands on his head, trying very hard to keep them under his hood. I guess his hood was on then.

Moose is a cute dog and is very photogenic.
Wally has to imitate everything he sees. Here he was laying like "this" like Moose. They are good friends.

We've learned that with a 2 year old, almost anything makes a great toy and hours of entertainment.

Not too old to still kiss Daddy.Thought I'ld throw a picture of myself in, just for grins.

Wally and I flew to Colorado to visit my friend Shaundra and help her with wedding plans (the big day is May 15th). Wally was very excited about the plane ride (even though he was running a slight fever and threw up in the car - mostly due to a "My Daddy" tempertantrum when he realized that Daddy wasn't coming on the plane with us.). Wally did a great job traveling. We read a book about airports about a billion times before we left, so he knew exactly what to do at the "beepbeep doors" (security) and how to walk down the tunnels to get on the plane, etc. He knew exactly what it was going to be like when we took off and landed (he showed me by leaning way back for take off or forward for landing). I can't say enough about how well he traveled.

Wally was thrilled to take Sadie (Shaundra's little dog) on a walk. He could hold the leash all by himself! He was so proud and had so much fun.

That was about the end of our fun for the week though. Wally got really sick. Luckily I didn't realize how sick he was while it was all going on. Turns out he had pneumonia and should have been hospitalized. We spent nearly all day on Thursday at Urgent Care. The doctor felt comfortable with how Shaundra and I were able to care for Wally, so let us take him home and get him checked again the next day. Poor kid got so many shots in his butt that he couldn't sit down. We also had to give him nebulizer treatments every 4 hours, day and night. I don't know what I would have done without Shaundra. She is amazing. I wish that everyone could have a friend like her. Here I was supposed to help her with wedding plans, and she spent the whole week helping me care for Wally. Amazing! Wally is doing better, but still has breathing issues, so we do the nebulizer 3-4 times a day still. Though it was great to see Shaundra and Rob, it is great to be home!We did make it up to Longmont (my home town) to see Shaundra's parents and our great friend Jacquelynn. We literally only had minutes to see Jacq, but managed to get a picture. Jacq is on the left, and Shaundra on the right.

What we do when Joel is busy at work in the spring:We all love the porch on sunny days!

I started my garden...I hear in Iowa that you don't really need to start you seeds in doors. I like to anyway. I can't wait to have tomatoes, peppers, beans, carrots, cantalope, etc!

Wally also planted some sunflower seeds. Right now all of his flowers are
Nigh Nigh." We check them each day to see if they "Wake up."

We had a couple beautiful days last week. So nice that Joel and Wally could play outside after Joel got home from work. When Wally asked Joel what the hole on the football was, Joel told him it was to blow it up. Wally has been walking around with his mouth on the football trying to blow it up ever since. Yummy!

Yesterday we picked Joel up for a picnic lunch. We went to a new (to us) park in Iowa City. Wally loves cantalope and actually took a couple bites of a PB&J sandwich.Teeter Tottering was fun for all of us!Wally and I played outside at home after the picnic before nap time. He had so much fun with his swing set, sticks, mud...here he is hiding and counting (he can count to 12 all of a sudden - sometimes a few numbers are missing) by our pear tree.

I mentioned at the beginning that I got a job. I will be editing part time for an online scientific editing company (BioScience Writers). I'm excited to use that part of my brain again, and face it, the income won't hurt either.

I'll leave you with that. I'll try to have another entry sooner.