In Honor of Grandpa Dick

My grandfather died peacefully last week from kidney failure after fighting a long battle with PKD (polycystic kidney disease). He is now buried on top of my grandmother in a military cemetery in San Antonio. I wanted to post some pictures in memory of him (thank you to my sis Sarah for providing a lot of these). His new wife, Grandma Timi, has been a constant companion to him after my Grandma Shirley died and she took care of him so well until the very end. It brought me a lot of peace knowing he had found more love in his life and he didn't die alone. I love you and miss you, Grandpa (and Grandma Shirley, too)!

Walking Aunt Barbi down the aisle

Dancing with Aunt Karen

Grandpa, Dad and Brother Richie


Grandma Shirley and brother Richie


Grandma Shirley and Me

RV traveling days

Grandpa, catching some much needed z's

(after my Grandma Shirley's passing)

Aunt Karen, Aunt Barbi, Dad and Grandpa

Grandpa's three monsters

My dad, being silly as usual
(where'd you think I got it?)

Grandpa meets Parker, May 2007

Grandma Timi and Parker

Military Honors at Grandpa's funeral

Grandma's gravestone

This Week's Adventures: Part II

So, on with the rest of this past week's adventures as promised...

We've been hanging out a lot with our neighbors this past week. Our little friend Carly (10 going on 11 soon) is a burst of sunshine energy on even our most mundane days. Sometimes serious Parker doesn't quite get this giggly high-strung girl, but he tolerates her on his grumpy days and has a blast with her on his own high-energy days.






Parker LOVES going to Carly's soccer games. He's been to two so far (last Saturday and yesterday). He watches the girls play and imitates the coach and yells nonsense at them very sternly. There's also a park with sand attached to the soccer field, so Parker is all about that.



Parker also sometimes plays with his other neighbor, Liam. They are funny together because they're both kind of serious guys. Although he doesn't look like it, Liam is almost 5 months younger than Parker. I think Parker realizes it because he tries to show Liam how to do things (his way). And he tries to bribe Liam with his toys so he can get a hold of Liam's toys.


Parker also had fun visiting his friend Ethan's house for the first time this week. Parker was in awe of all the fun toys Ethan had. It was almost like being in Toys R Us! (Just teasing, Morgan, but I thought Parker had a lot of toys until I saw Ethan's stash)!

Parker is a lucky dude and got a new addition to his "toy" collection this week. We had ordered some potty training items online and the company accidentally sent us these really nice alphabet foam blocks (TWO sets of them). After inquiring with the company, they said we could keep them (a $60 value) for free! Parker loves them and has been impressing us this week with his knowledge of the alphabet (you can see bits of them in the pics above playing with Carly). He has quite a few alphabet books, but these have seemed to make a bigger impression on him. He knows almost all the names of the letters now!

We also took a short trip to the beach this week since it was really hot most days and Parker enjoyed feeding the seagulls. The last time we did this at this beach we got chewed out by a few locals, but this time the beach was practically empty so we escaped hearing any nasty comments. That's the OC for ya, I suppose. We left sooner than expected because Parker rubbed sand in his eyes and decided he'd had enough of the beach, thank you very much!




The last thing to note is that Parker has been singing a lot lately, and he always has to have a "microphone."

Rocking Out to U2

This Week's Adventures: Part 1

We've been keeping busy this week, starting it off with Parker's appointment with the Urologist on Monday. Fortunately, it looks like unless Parker starts having bladder infections, we won't have to do any further testing. The doc said that the next time Parker has an unexplained fever or a suspected ear infection, to make sure his doctor gets a urine sample as well, just to rule it out. Otherwise, the swelling is in an area that doesn't concern the doctor too much and if all goes well we'll just get another ultrasound in about a year to follow up.

Parker has been teething really badly this week (his 2 year molars are coming in already), and it's been affecting his naps, but we decided to try Ibuprofen again (it used to really upset his tummy) and it's been helping A LOT! So has Orajel and, strangely enough, one of his old toothbrushes. Most teethers can't reach in the back so I decided one day to give him an old toothbrush that is more rubbery than hard and it does bring him some relief. We just decided to buy The Teethifier, and we're hoping he'll like that, too. He hasn't used pacifiers in a long time, so it's hard to say for sure.

Parker's newest words: taco, black, purple, green, yellow, orange, apple, uh-oh, crackers, ball, chocolate, water, yummy, loco, wow (he's already been saying ow for a long time, so this wasn't a real stretch), bum-bum (our word for his butt). Speaking of bum-bum, there are some words that I completely forgot that he's been saying for a long time: Ears, eyes, nose, toes, and penis (sorry, but it's true). He's also been learning his alphabet and these are the letters he remembers the most and will point to and say without coaxing: "D," "N" (this is his favorite lately), "M", "O", "X", and "Z." In any case, Parker's language is really blossoming and we don't feel like he should need speech therapy. Whew! One less thing to have to schedule and worry about.

Anyone who has visited our place knows that Parker loves to color (he's working on filling up all our empty wall space with his pictures), but this week he has been hard core about it since I bought him washable markers. He thinks they are WAY cooler than crayons. Here are just a couple of his masterpieces from this week:

This one is crayon - done solo

This one is (obviously) marker
(a group effort from Parker, Mama and Dada)

This week's adventures part II to follow soon (once we get pics/videos uploaded from our camera) :)

Founder's Day Fair - Aliso Viejo

On Saturday, Sept. 27, Parker attended his first fair celebrating the founding of Aliso Viejo. It was such an awesome event! Everything was free unless you wanted to buy food, which was vended by local restaurants.

In the petting zoo area, Parker got to see chickens, bunnies, goats, a black pig, a huge sheep, and a very funny duck. He wasn't too thrilled about being amongst all those animals at once, so we scooted out without too many pictures.

One of the bunnies

We were a little bit afraid that he wouldn't like the ponies, but the waiting in line to get on was the hardest part.


All the time spent on the carousel with Grandma and Grandpa must have paid off because he acted like it was no big deal and had some huge grins for mama while she walked beside him.



He wanted to go again, but the line was even longer the second time around so we distracted him with all the other fun things to see.

Cowboys

Huge Tractor Wheel

HUGE Tractor Scooper

Cool Police Car

Going Into a Fire Truck

Doesn't Like the Hat so Much

Ambulance!

Parker and Dada in Jail!

Parker and Mama in Jail!

"Throwing" the ball into the holes:

All in all, it was worth the hour and a half we spent in the heat!

Having fun with the Fireman hat after the fair:

Changing, Growing and Other Fun Stuff

Parker is growing more and more into a little boy and is less and less like a baby every day. He is becoming more independent and is so proud of his accomplishments. He has been letting us know more often when he has to use the potty and has had five poo-poos on the potty so far. We haven't done anything special to coerce him into wanting to use it - he just thinks it's awesome because Mama and Dada do it and now he can too! He gets lots of praise when he tinkles or poops and we think that's another incentive because almost more than anything else he loves to please us. The only bummer about this whole potty thing is that it is a huge time-buster because I have to sit in the bathroom with him while he goes and he will sit there reading or drawing for a half hour sometimes if he has to poop. It's nice when it happens to coincide with me getting ready for the day because I can brush my teeth and do my hair and make-up while he's otherwise occupied.

Parker has developed another security blanket (or sheet, actually). Parker always wants to sleep with something covering him, but it's been too warm for a blanket and since they don't sell crib sized top sheets anywhere that we've been able to find, I took an old twin-sized top sheet, cut it in half, sewed the cut area and now he has two identical sheets. Thank goodness he has two because now he has decided that he doesn't just want to carry his blanket around, but he also wants to carry around his sheet too, so it needs to be washed often, just like his blanket.


Parker has also been finding new ways to entertain himself and has been so much better about playing by himself so I can get things done. He loves to make ramps for his cars to go down, or just push them off an upside down box. He found my hot rollers and has fun taking them out and putting them back in the container. It's like a puzzle for him since there are different sized rollers and he has to figure out which holes they go into.


Just this week he has decided to talk a lot and has been trying to repeat a ton of words we say. I've mentioned in a Myspace and Facebook blog that he is learning his colors and his favorite one is blue (he says brew). He has also been using all the following words in addition to his usuals (not very clearly, but he tries): Drew (this is the name for his uncle Andy whose full name is Andrew) sorry, down, red, yellow, brown, green, peas, please (yeah, these words sound exactly the same) juice, beans, truck, pee-pee, poo-poo (those he just used today for the first time), and probably more that I'm not thinking of.

Parker also loves to help me with everything (this only becomes a problem when I'm washing dishes or cooking) so it's been a lot easier to clean when he's awake now and not have to wait for everything for the weekend when Jake is home to help watch him and/or help clean. Today Parker helped me clean the bathroom, sweep and clean the floors, do a ton of laundry, and vacuum. He loves to push the vacuum cleaner so we each take turns and I count backwards from 10 to 1 so he knows when it is his turn or my turn (we do this with his toothbrush, too). We have found a timer to be a very useful tool, not just for time-outs but also for giving him a specific time frame to finish what he's doing before he has to move on to something he doesn't really want to do. It really helps to curb tantrums.

I'll finish this up with a couple of fun videos. Yes, the Helen Keller dance is completely non-PC, but here is a good analysis that my Dad wrote of the song from which the Helen Keller reference originates.

She bought some broccoli She brought it home. She's chopping broccoli ... She's chopping broccoli She's chop.. ooh! She's chopping broccola-ah-ie!

Parker is usually very good about eating his vegetables, but even we were amazed this night and had to get it on video: