Visit from Leann, Sarah and Lily!

My sisters (older sis Leann and younger sis Sarah) and my niece (Leann's baby Lily) decided to come down to visit us on Thursday, November 20th. They left too soon on Saturday. :( Poor gals were pooped from all the traveling. But, boy, did we feel their pain after having visited them in July. Fresno is only 4.5-5 hours away (if the traffic's good), but somehow it seems a lot farther when you're traveling with a child.

We threw out several ideas of fun things to do on Friday- go to a petting zoo, go to a baby beach, go to MV mall and cruise around- and we ended up doing... NONE of them! Lily needed her nap when they got here Friday morning, and soon after she woke up, Parker needed his nap. Then before Parker even woke up, it was time for Lily to take another nap. Parker woke up really cranky (not uncommon) and soon all of us (OK, mostly me) were cranky and ready to zonk out! Fortunately, we sisters had a small window of time when the naps were overlapping that we could just sit and talk and laugh. And really, it's not about where the time is spent together, but that it's spent that's important.

Here are a bunch of pictures and videos of the visit for your viewing pleasure!

Uncle Jake and Lily

Giving kisses

Kicking back

Auntie Erin (hey, that's me! I'm an auntie!) and Lily

Parker and his Aunties

Parker reading Big Fish Little Fish (thanks for the book Auntie Sarah!) with his Aunties

Playing Piano

Leann and Lily

Leann's "D" Song for Lily
("H," "G" and "O" were funny, too, but I limited myself to posting only one):

More of the kids!

Water Colors

So we've moved on to yet another art medium, thanks to my big Sis, Leann, who asked us to have Parker paint his cousin Lily a picture for her room for Christmas. He's been practicing with his new watercolors for about a week now. All his paintings so far have ended up with holes from getting rubbed too hard with water, but that just let me know that I'm going to need to get some thicker paper! I just had to take pictures of his first time water coloring. Our neighbor Carly helped show him how to do it.

Ni-Night!

Just another quick blurb 'cause I couldn't help myself! Tonight was the first time after doing our routine and putting Parker to bed and we started to walk out the door that Parker said, "Ni-night, Dada. Ni-Night, Mama!" It was so sweet! Our little boy is growing up!

Modeling

Here's Parker modeling a hat and a sweater Grandma Munns knitted for him before he was born! We're so happy they finally fit and it's getting cold enough for him to wear them. He has another sweater that goes with the green hat, but he wouldn't let me put it on for the picture.

Here he is in some jean overall shorts from the Narines
(my Aunt Barbi, Uncle Wayne and cousin Viktoria) :

Two minutes later: "Off, please! Off!"
Oh well, at least they were on him long enough for a picture!

Visiting Family

Jake's uncle Jim came to the area for a short visit so we spent a couple hours just visiting and catching up (Jim had never met Parker before). Here are some fun pics from that visit!

Jim, Betty and Connie

Grandpa Chet and Grandma Betty

Connie (Grandma Munns), Parker, Jake, Erin & Dan (Grandpa Munns)

Funny Boy!

No more worries about Parker's lack of speech! It went from us trying to coerce him to use his words to us saying "OK, you can be quiet any time now!" He's still a pretty serious kid, but he has a quirky sense of humor starting to blossom that we're enjoying discovering.

Parker loves him some pizza!

Here he is hamming it up and singing along to a song playing overhead at Quizno's. The paper microphone came with his kid's meal.


Parker has started to string two or more words together, and sometimes will use simple sentences such as, "Mama, down please," "Mama, up please" and "Elmo Cheese Crackers, please." I put a bowl of yogurt in front of him a few days ago and he looked up at me and rambled off a bunch of things, most of which was not real clear English, but I understood him to be saying something to the effect of, "But I don't want yogurt, I want applesauce!" Needless to say, after some grumbling he ate the yogurt and then I gave him some applesauce, too.

But he's not quite ready to grow up yet. Our neighbor Carly is always asking him if he's a big boy or a baby and he still always replies, "baby." The other day he was whining quite a bit so I started to tease him and asked him if he was a big boy or a big baby. He gave me a very concerned look, and replied, "no, LITTLE baby." I so wish I had that on video. I was laughing so hard!

One of Parker's and Grandma Munns' new favorite games came from Parker's sense of humor. She and I were sitting in the back of the car with Parker one day on our way somewhere and I gave him a cracker, but he didn't start eating it right away, just looked down at it for awhile. Grandma teased him and asked, "so are you going to eat that cracker or just look at it?" He gave her a sly look and then put the cracker right in front of his eyes and just stared at it. Of course we laughed so now they love to play that game whenever the opportunity arises. This video below shows how much he loves his Grandma Munns! She has a Dr. Seuss book she reads to him when he visits her and one of their favorite parts of the story is when she reads "goo-goo goggles."

This next video is me just trying to get him to say some things on camera:

Parker has also discovered the vast usefulness of the word "no."

BOO!

For Halloween, Parker got a fun package in the mail from Auntie Sarah, Auntie Leann, Uncle Greg and Lily with Halloween stickers, a card, and the picture to the right that Parker had a grand time coloring.

The day before Halloween was lots of preparation fun. Mama and Parker decorated, made a ton of cupcakes with homemade chocolate frosting for neighbors and Dada's coworkers, and that night Parker got to participate in Dada's pumpkin carving.

As you can see below, Parker ended up just having a monkey theme for his costume. Originally we had bought a cape and he was going to be Super Parker, but he hated the cape and wouldn't keep it on, so we had to be creative at the last minute. We had bought a monkey backpack leash recently to help Mama's back since she injured it and Parker's getting heavier and heavier! It's easier for quick trips in stores than carrying him or hauling him up into a cart. We thought maybe we could find a green shirt and brown pants and he could be a tree with a monkey on it, but with a lack of a weather-friendly green shirt, he ended up with a monkey shirt instead.


On the plus side, Parker LOVED trick-or-treating with Dada. At one point they came home and Parker threw a huge fit wanting to go back out. After we got him to calm down and ask nicely, we let him go back out and the boys had a grand time frolicking out in the dark. Mama elected to stay home to roast pumpkin seeds and answer the door for trick-or-treaters, but hardly anyone showed up! But it was good for Parker to get some special Dada time in anyway! Parker was apparently the first trick-or-treater at several of the houses they went to. No one complained about his costume. :) Yesterday we were at Target and Mama couldn't resist picking up a cowboy costume at 1/2 price for next year. Let's see if he'll wear this one next year! If not, maybe we can coerce him back into being Super Parker so ya'll can actually see the outfit. :)