Thinking

Many people stick out their tongues when they think. Wally is no exception...

neither is his Daddy!

Wally has also picked up habits from Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse. He puts his finger on his chin or taps his temple and says, "Think think think!"

Easter

Easter was a wonderful day from start to finish. First, the Easter Bunny stopped by and left an Easter basket for Wally to wake up to. The Easter Bunny gave Wally a froggy magnifying glass (mirror). He still loves it. On the way to church, he had to stop and look at every single flower with it. There were a lot of flowers too!

We went to a United Methodist church for Easter service. I wanted old-school hymns to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior. They failed to sing Morning Has Broken, but they had all of the other great Easter songs. Luckily, I have a Steve Hall CD of Morning Has Broken that I played the entire day. Shortly after church, the Easter Bunny stopped by again and hid Easter eggs outside and inside our house. Wally had a great time finding eggs, but without Reder for competition, the search just wasn't the same.

Last year, Wally ran like crazy finding eggs before Reder did (Reder was too into figuring out what was in each egg). This year, without competition, we had to keep reminding Wally that there were more eggs hidden. Once he discovered there was candy hidden in the plastic eggs in the house, he got even slower as he had to eat all the candy as he found it.How to hold 2 Easter baskets 101... Insert one basket into mouth.
Or, better yet, insert head through one and into the other!

What Easter is complete without eating one of those hard-boiled eggs the Easter Bunny left? Wally tried his first egg...

He still loves Daddy though!

This was the first Easter, or really any holiday, that Joel and I haven't been with some family. I decided that I would make an Easter "feast" anyway, for just the 3 of us. I have never made a "fancy" meal by myself, so I figured now would be a good time to try. I made green bean casserole, scalloped potatoes, cantalope (not so hard!) and a ham. For dessert, I made a fresh apple pie. I was quite proud of myself because I managed to get everything done at about the same time, and with enough time to eat before the baseball game started again. I called Joel and Wally to the table. Wally looked at the table, yelled, "No thank you, Mommy," and threw his milk on the floor. "Nigh, Nigh!" Well, I put Wally to bed and Joel and I enjoyed a not-quite-hot anymore Easter feast by ourselves. It was actually kinda nice to have it just be the two of us...I could gorge myself uninterrupted!

When Wally woke up, he feasted on chicken dippers and off we went to join Daddy at the baseball game. It was a good day.

Preparing for Easter

We colored Easter eggs with Wally for the first time this year. He thought it was great fun. He didn't really comprehend that you must be gentle with the eggs (or he was just too excited to care).

Though Wally does have a lot of words he uses, when he is excited he still reverts to his use of "this" for everything.

Wally is definitely a boy (he can burp on command for crying out loud!), but his favorite color might result in some teasing later on in life if it doesn't change.

We finished dying the Easter eggs with a bang as the yellow dye was dumped all over. Turns out that the dye is washable...good thing too because everything on or around Mom and Wally was bright yellow!

After Easter eggs, we worked outside some. Joel mowed some grass to lay clippings on the new grass I planted. As always, Wally had to help Daddy.

Wally sure loves his Daddy (and I think Daddy loves Wally too!)!

My Cowboy... Go Hawkeyes!

I really do think Wally was born to wear a cowboy hat. I'm not sure what it is about him, but he just looks right in a cowboy hat. Moose must agree...or he just wants Rice Krispie Treats.

Joel was given a Hawkeyes hat many years ago from a co-worker at MSU. We found it recently, and Wally thinks it is great. Wally also thinks playing in "the loop" is great. Everytime we get Joel from the school bus in the evening, we have to play in the loop for a while. Soon, we will likely be doing this everyday as the weather just keeps getting nicer and nicer.

Big Boy, Little Tree

Little Boy, Big Tree

Moose and Daisy join us in the loop when they are lucky.

Joel's cousin Drew plays baseball for Indiana who happened to be playing the Hawkeyes during Easter. Joel made it to all 3 games, and Wally and I made it to 3 innings of all 3 games. We didn't get to see Drew play because he is a relief pitcher, and apparently Indiana pitchers don't need relief (at least when playing Iowa). It was a nice way to spend the Easter weekend though (especially on Saturday when the weather was beautiful).

Go Hawkeyes!!Playing a matching game with Hawkeye trading cards keeps Wally busy for an inning or two.

We even made it onto TV quite often. Joel's relative's managed to get a shot of us. Let's hope I didn't pick my nose...I imagine Wally did though!

Monsters with Fat Lips

Wally has quite the collection of monsters. This performance was enhanced by his fat lip. He was playing on his swing set and just kinda rolled over and some how ended up with quite the fat lip.

Wally Tells A Joke

Wally came up with his first joke! I'm sure there will be many more to come!

Singing, Baking, Opera and Baseball...

Wally is really getting into singing songs. His pronunciation and word memorization isn't top notch, yet, and his tune maybe takes after his mom, but he is pretty cute! He has the facial expressions down!

The many faces of the ABC song.

Happy Birthday...The Wally Edition.

Wally still helps me cook whenever he has the chance. I think he mostly does it to eat the chocolate chips and sprinkles.

Wally and I spent quite a bit of time outside to let Daddy work on his grant. We have a great time in "The Loop" (the middle of the cul-de-sac). He loves trees. Hugging trees...singing opera for the trees...climbing the trees.

A recent favorite game of Wally's is Alligator. You run around and try to chop people. He plays this at school often.

We've been working on playing teeball/baseball with Wally. He did an amazing hit from one of my pitches. Then we went for the camera and he hasn't made contact since.