Book Browsing Baby Busted

There's a certain quietness that I think all parents recognize as the sound of a kid up to no good. I was folding some laundry and Conan (I thought) was playing in his room, when I noticed it was quiet - too quiet. When I went to check I found he was in fact in the spare bedroom, happily browsing through the books, pulling them off the shelves into a pile all around him. Naturally, the first thing I did was go for the camera.

Whatcha reading there, little C? Marxist theory? Well of course. Gotta start young!

This toothy smile gets me every time.

But still, these aren't books for playing with. So we picked them up and made sure the door to the spare room was really shut this time, and went downstairs and read all of Conan's books together. They're a little more accessible (and have WAY better pictures) than those books on Marxism.

Highland Games

It stopped raining for a day so we headed over to Ferndale for the Scottish Highland Games on Saturday. Conan was pretty excited about all the people and especially the drums and pipes. We got there just in time for the massing of the pipes, which is a pretty impressive spectacle regardless of your age:

Conan got an assist from Papa to see over the crowd and watch as hundreds of bagpipers and drummers marched down the field, playing at deafening volume.

We ate a couple of meat pies and browsed around the merchant booths, watched some of the dancing competition, listened to the always fun Wicked Tinkers, and checked out various exhibits of Scottish stuff. We tried to watch the athletic competitions, but the "fence" to keep spectators back was just a rope strung up a little higher than Conan's head, so he kept trying to run out onto the field. No toddlers allowed in the caber toss! We moved on, to what was probably Conan's favorite part of the day: looking at the turkeys, chickens, ducks and geese that live at Hovander.

It was a lot of fun. Conan was exhausted, and he took a long nap after we got home. That was ideal, as it allowed us to get out and actually mow our entire lawn, for the first time since the beginning of this extra-rainy May. Whew!

Memorial Weekend

We were lucky enough this Memorial weekend to host two of our favorite out-of-town families for a couple fun days of catching up and watching the kids play. It was quite a full house, with 6 adults, 4 kids, 4 cats and 2 dogs all sleeping under one roof. And then on top of that we had two more families over for dinner on Saturday, including two very fresh little babies, Bellatrix (2 weeks) and her cousin Riker (7 weeks). I somehow didn't get any pictures of baby Riker, but we did manage to get the other 5 kids all on the couch at one time, not crying, and facing the camera!
Despite the continual rain, we had a great time. The kids entertained one another and mostly got along and shared their toys very well. Kiah and Conan are interested in the same things, and they were really cute playing together. We did manage to get outside a couple of times when the rain broke, but it was super wet so it was never long before we had to go back inside to dry off and warm up, and of course eat some more. I think we must have eaten about 14 (delicious!) meals in three days. Good times. :)

Goin' Birdwatching

Let Conan be your guide for a trek through the woods in search of those most wily and mysterious of creatures... birds!

Precious little free time these days, it seems! I've been meaning to edit this down to a manageable length and post it for a while now. Because unbearably cute tho he is, I realize no-one wants to watch 4 minutes of the back of a little blonde boy walk down a path through tall grass in the spring sunshine. I certainly wouldn't have watched it as often as I have if he was someone else's kid. Now when he points to the bird and squeals in delight, though... well, that's another story. Everyone wants to see that!

Worm!

Conan found a worm in the garden. He was so proud of it, we had to take it into the house to show Papa. Then we released it back into the wild.

The worm got a little bit squished in one spot, but I think it'll recover. It certainly wasn't hurt any worse than the ones I cut in half with the shovel every time I dig.

We also saw a Pileated woodpecker in the yard. Conan was absolutely entranced.
Outside is so much fun to explore. Watching Conan discover everything from slugs to spiders to leaves, flowers, rocks and sticks is just amazing.

It's Trishmas!

Today is the day, we're throwing a gigantic 35th birthday party for Patricia. Pictures and story later, this is just a placeholder post!

Tooth #6

Tooth #6 made its appearance last night, and it was a doozy. How people got through teething before there was baby ibuprofen is beyond me. I guess they had brandy and opium, right? Whew. I hope now that this tooth is through we'll have a little rest before any more come in, so we can get back to eating and sleeping normally for a while.

Little C's smile is going to look kind of funny for a while though, because this new tooth is on the upper right. He's already got three on the bottom, the two center ones and the one to the left of them. Right now this new one is just a sharp little edge, but when it grows out he's going to have three teeth on both the top and bottom, and they aren't going to line up. I guess symmetry is overrated.