It's fun to stay at the....YMCA

If only I could have gotten him to do the hand motions. I had to take pictures of Ayden in just his Handy Manny underwear "fixing" his dance cam. It was out of batteries, so it didn't work. He said "OK, I fix it" and ran to get his tools and tool belt. I didn't make the village people connection until Ken saw the pictures and pointed it out. If only he would have kept his yellow hard hat on for a picture!

A few from the last couple weeks

We've been super busy around here lately, with not very many pictures to show for it. Here are a few.

We were lucky enough to have the Cardenas' come to visit. But with as many kids as adults, I didn't get very many pictures - none of the cutest twin baby girls ever! Noah and Ayden had lots of fun playing together, here they are when we walked to the park and around our neighborhood lake.

This is what we found when we went to check on Ayden the other night - think he was hot? Even funnier was the next morning when Ken went in to get him up and he had his PJ's almost off and was going to "change" his own diaper - which was full of poop, of course. Glad we made it in time!

Here is a video of Ayden singing a couple of his favorite songs. The first is "ABC"s, and he knows more than this, but of course wouldn't "perform" for the camera. The second is "Jesus loves the litle children" even though I asked him to sing "Jesus loves me." He's just getting to be such a big boy!!

Tagged

Sarah tagged to post the 6th photo in the 6th album on the computer, so here it is:

from last June - Ayden in only a diaper. I think this was one of the many times he was jumping from the ottoman to the couch. He's got quite the dorky look on his face!!

OK, I tag Shannon!

Holiday Weekend!

Since Ayden & I have both Friday & Monday off for President's Day, Ken took Friday off and we had planned on going camping with Ken's mom (in her 5th wheel). With the bad weather, when we got to my mother-in-law's on Thursday night, we all decided we'd better not risk the winter storm warnings and opted to skip the camping trip. So, we took advantage of the weekend with nothing to do and hung out around there.

On Friday, we went to the Fresno zoo and got lucky with a break in the rain! We didn't have the stroller with us, so Ayden had to hoof it around the zoo for the first time. Because it had been rainy, we pretty much had the zoo to ourselves, which was great!

This has to be one of the best zoos we've been to for little kids. There were spots for Ayden to see at his level at all of the exhibits, we didn't hardly have to pick him up at all.

Not having a nap caught up to him as we were leaving...we enjoy these cuddly moments because they don't happen too often.

I'm going to try to get a video of Ayden talking about what he saw at the zoo. It's hilarious what he remembers about it!

On Saturday, we headed the other direction and drove to San Jose to visit the Children's Discovery Museum. It was so fun - I wish we had a place like this closer to us! There were areas for pretend play, things to climb on - even a real fire truck & ambulance, a "pizzeria" to make your own pizzas, and much more! I took a ton of pictures and it was hard to narrow them down....unfortunately the lighting wasn't very good so the pictures didn't turn out that great, but you can see how much fun we had.

Ayden & Grandma sharing a picnic lunch in the park.

Mirrors!

Getting ready to make his pizza

The bubbles were a big hit!

The water area...

...and changing his shirt after he got soaked in the water play area!

Ayden was excited to open his Valentine's Day present from Grandma Newton. We enjoyed our present from her too....she babysat so we could go out to a movie and dessert!

A Sunday in the Park

Today, Ken wanted to go have lunch at a little deli in Fair Oaks that is owned by someone that he works with. We went and found that the park across the street was full of free-roaming chickens. Ayden had fun playing in the little park and feeding the chickens with some bread from the deli.

He hasn't really played on swings since the fall. I guess he's grown a lot because he looked like he was way too big for the toddler swing, but he's only 2 - not ready for the big swings yet. Yet another perk of having a 2 year old that is the size of a 4 year old :)

The things we saw that I didn't take a picture of: The wierd "bird lady" who seemed to know the personalities of each bird. I think she probably had names for them all too. Of course, as friendly as Ayden is, he went right over to talk to her and get bread from her. Which forces me to try to be polite as I get him as far away from the crazy lady as possible. We also saw a small group old men doing tai chi in the park. I don't think I've ever seen people doing tai chi in person - only in the movies!

Valentine's Day prep

So, I have found that my "working mom guilt" gets into high gear when holidays roll around. I saw this great idea for valentines in a magazine and, since Ayden is too young to get a say, I went for it. It probably was not the best use of my time and I probably should have just let him pick out the little cards that don't involve any work on my part, but that's where the working mom guilt comes in. I feel like I should be able to do all those cute crafty things that I would have time for if I didn't work. Oh well, who needs sleep, right? So, they turned out really cute and I even let Ayden help a little bit even though he probably ate as many as he put in the bags. :)

The tag says "Bear Hugs from Ayden" and there are teddy grahams and gummy bears in the bag

What Ayden is up to these days

Since I've been slacking on the blogging lately, I thought I'd just go through a quick run-down of the things Ayden is doing lately. I know there's no way I'll get pictures and video of all of them, so I need to get them down before he moves on to new things and I forget all about the cute things he's doing now. I'm hoping to get some video this weekend. We'll see if he cooperates! So, our little guy...

• Needs to have the light on when he goes to bed so he can "read"
• Sings songs: "ABCs" "Jesus Loves Me" (with the hand motions!)
• Likes to have group hugs and calls them "Ayden sandwich"
• Counts "2,9,9,2"
• Plays this new game where we have to sit on the stairs and he brings his shopping cart over that's full of food. He calls it "choo choo train" We have no idea what it's about or where it came from, but it's cute.
• Loves to play in the sink and "washa dishes" or "washa hands"
• Spins around and sings "ring round ring round"
• Loves his new school and teachers, he is always learning something new and has made many new friends
• Yells "so excited" when he pees on the toilet