One very active boy!

We love our little boy! The little Sam-Man is very active. He is loving his ability to run around and play and get into everything. I just wanted to share a couple of his favorite activities. Some of these movies are a bit long, but oh well.

1 -- The Stair Toss or Gravity Game.

What an incredible idea, create a large pit and then surround the top with turrets so that one can bomb the pit! Also, the magic of this game is that when most the toys have been thrown down the stairs, Mom or Dad will go and pick them all back up and we can start the game again!!

I went down a couple stairs to get him in the middle of the action. I love that his good friend Simba is always curious about his games and wants to play along and watch.

Here is the result of the toy toss on a typical day:

#2 -- Bouncing on the Bed!

In the morning Sammy usually wakes up earlier than we do, so we bring him in our room and he loves to play on the bed with us. Bouncing is super fun and a new thing is to dance or stomp around on the bed. He also does this on the couch and anywhere else that is nice and soft.

#3 -- Playing catch.

Sam's favorite things all start with B's. His Ball, his blanket, and his binky. Sometimes these change order of preference depending on how tired or active he is. Tonight on our car ride home we just had to laugh at how content he was in his car seat: He had his passifier in his mouth, his blanket on his one side and his ball under his other hand, and Mom and Dad were close by. His happy little world was complete! Well he loves to play catch and keep away and fetch and all things related to playing with his two little basketballs. Today we had him in his chair and got a kick out of him playing catch with me. It was a cute little progression of me throwing the ball at his belly with little or no response, to him playing catch, to him getting bored!

My favorite part is when I say, "Ready?" and he throws his hands up in the air.

I often pause and marvell at how fast he is growing up. My dad commented, "just wait till they are 6' 7" and have kids of their own!" Hopefully that doesn't happen too soon, but when it does, I hope he remembers fondly the times of playing with Mom and Dad.

Rise and Shout

Ok seriously, this is my last post today. I guess you aren't annoyed yet because this is the first post you see. Anyway, you should try and be more interested in the first couple posts and then check this one if you haven't already had enough of me (Dave).

I just wanted to Rise and Shout out a big congrats to our cougars. 59-0! That was a magical game. The crazy thing is that at the stadium, we didn't even get bored, it was just so crazy to be a part of a good old fashioned BCS bashing.

We got tickets with Greg and Wendy, and sort of with Landon and Natalie (yeah the ticket office kind of screwed up all the student seats so people aren't really with their groupts); and the Johnsons (Greg's friend Dave and his dad). It's been a fun family tradition to spend these afternoons with 64,000 crazy fans cheering on our favorite team.

I would have started to feel bad for the opposing team, except that it was an "elite" BCS team from an "elite" conference; so it was nice to see a can pulled out on those guys.

Anyway, I suppose it was a great week to be a Cougar or a Ute since I guess I'm a hybrid. Well Aggies. there's always basketball to look forward to... :-)

Happy AnniversarWii

So Michelle and I celebrated our 6th Anniversary this last week. The crazy thing is that it doesn't seem more than 5 years and 9 1/2 months!

We decided that this year we would try and get a Wii for our anniversary. Since you can't exactly go to a store and get a Wii, we decided that over the next few months we would just keep our eyes open and look for some good deals. We were a little egged on by Byron and Elizabeth who just got one and brought it over to our place a week ago when we had a get together with all the family and had a great time. They exhorted us with all diligence to seek out a Wii. We also have played with the Baum's a couple times -- they have the steering wheel for the mario kart, which was a lot of fun.

Well, Michelle being the deal seeker she is, kept an eye on ksl. On Tuesday morning when she looked, a guy had just barely posted a pretty loaded one. He hardly used it and so wanted to get some cash on it. We figured it was a good deal and a couple hours later had a Wii.

I got a little emotional, when I considered replacing our old friend the Super NES. It had been a nice reliable addition to our family. There were many a nights when our marriage nearly ended because of Dr. Mario; Michelle never did attemp to play me in College Football; and we had 10 categories memorized on the jeopardy game -- I think we won the computer once. We'll have to figure out how to download Dr. Mario and College Football onto the Wii. We already have street fighter and a couple others that the guy downloaded so I'm sure we can find those too.

Why is it that everytime we set up something new, I can't get the TV to turn on?!! Anyone know an engineer that could help me out? After a number of near curses (or did Michelle hear me?) we were in business...
Finally wired and ready to go. We even figured out how to turn on everything else as well. I have to say "we" because I was so ticked at the setup that I took a break for dinner. After the steam had settled, Michelle and I together walked through each component making sure all the cables were intact. Sure enough, while moving the TV around, I had popped out one cable that made the satellite not work.
We haven't got a whole lot of sleep this past week, but I did bowl a 173, beat Izod (where do they come up with those names) in tennis, played Zelda for like 9 straight hours one day, and saved one super star on mario universe or whatever it's called. Michelle won't box me yet, but she did kick my trash in bowling. What a great Anniversary. It has been so nice, I think we should celebrate again in a couple months!

Quick Zoo trip

This week Michelle's work did a zoo trip for all the home schooled families in the program. Michelle didn't really go in, but met all the families as they were coming in and made sure they got their tickets and all that jazz. Then all the teachers wanted to go out to lunch. Since I was in between class (I have a 3 1/2 hour break) I came and got Sam. It turned out that they had leftover tickets, so Sammy and I got to take a quick zoo trip while the girls did their thing. It was such a nice day (Thursday) that all the animals were out. My favorite was the mountain lion (go cougars!! great game by the way, but I digress..). When we came up to their cage, one cougar was standing on a log right up next to the fence as if he was staring everyone down. By the time I got my camera out, he had left, but the other one was perched on the ledge just surveying the crowd. It was very nice of it to pose for us:

The warthogs were also out having fun and were very close.
One of my favorites were the cute little penguins. The manager was cleaning out their pool so she locked them into a little shed-like place. Anyway, one snuck out and was playing around in the dirt and apparantly that didn't go over well with all the rest so finally they all sprung the cage, here they are storming up the rocks! What fun little guys! The manager just shook her head and laughed, I bet they give her grief all the time.
One of Sammy's favorite zoo attractions is the small animals exibit. When we went during the summer with Tanna and Megan's families he loved it too. He really likes being able to walk right up to the cage and see the animals up close. A lot of times they will approach him as well, which just makes him all smiles. The Lemurs in the primate house were great too, they came right up to the windows to check out all the kids.

"Hey Dad, let's play a game. I'll pretend I'm interested and watching an animal and then right before you take the picture, I'll look away.

Ha! Too slow! Man you're getting old! Is that all you got, I was barely in the picture!!

Argghh! You caught me!

Wow, caught me on the first try this time, maybe you aren't such a waste...

And what was Sammy's favorite part about the zoo? Why the grates of course! Nice little metal objects in the middle of the floor. Perfect for touching and if I had a toy I could push it through. How do people come up with these things to entertain. Brilliant!!

Well, we had a great albeit brief time. To be honest, it was my type of zoo trip. We just cruised through and saw most of the animals and then shared a snow cone and a sprite, and the weather was so perfect, I think it was only high 70's that day. Couldn't have worked out nicer!

Pet Peeve

Okay MALE population, listen up.

I'm usually not one to share my pet peeves, especially on this "public" of a venu. But this one absolutely requires it, because without this knowledge...you are NOT invited to my house!!!

What could drive me so batty that I would ban all my favorite people??? (Not a joke.)

The toilet.

Image courtesy of Flickr

It's a safety issue....mostly.

I have a toddler who is enthralled with the bathroom.

He loves to toddle in there and turn on the tub and watch the water trickle all over his recently-thrown-in-toys.

It happens daily.

So imagine my non-surprise the other day, after having some fine visitors over, I walk into the bathroom and find toys in the toilet! AARGG!!! Who in their right mind leaves the toilet seat up with a toddler in the house!!!!!

I can see my little ones facination. Children are irresistibly attracted to water. It's sparkly. Things float in it. And it makes a great sound when you smack it. (or when your toys "plop" in it)

Children can DROWN in as little as 1 inch of water, and last time I checked, there's a whole lot of water in the toilet. Not to even mention the sanitary issues!

But it is also a highly avoidable tragedy!

Wouldn't you LOVE to be the cause of my next blog post "Toddler drowns in toilet!" I've tried to ask nicely, but nice just isn't cutting it.

So, I plead with you for the life of my son! If you are male and you want to visit my house you had better put the damn seat down!