visit to Rochester

Last weekend we drove to Rochester to celebrate Grandpa S.'s birthday. We kicked off the weekend with a surprise birthday dinner.


Grandpa got a Thomas birthday balloon, which he was happy to lend to Sean. Sean also found a bunch of unused silverware on the table after dinner and entertained himself with it (mostly by using them as drumsticks or seeing how many he could hold in his hands).

But also by using spoons as extra ears.

Ok, I'll admit, I put him up to these. But usually I can't get a genuine smile out of him, so he might as well be goofy!

Mesmerized by the candles.

We stayed to visit for a few days and mostly just played at the house. Sean loves flashlights. This one was especially cool because he could wear it too!

Grandpa S. has some ham radio equipment set up in the basement.

Someone found an old Matchbox car race track in the basement, so that was a lot of fun too.

Grandma provided some arts and crafts time. Sean made this lovely hat.

We did a lot more but I am just terrible with the camera! I have gotten out of the habit of taking lots of pictures of what we do. I will have to try to start taking more again....

Snow!

So, I know many people out there have been getting a lot of snow. We are no exception. Cincinnati has already set the record for February snowfall, and we are supposed to get even more this weekend! So it's a good thing Sean loves to shovel. We have gone outside at least once a day to shovel, re-shovel, and shovel again.

(And yes, that is duct tape holding his gloves and coat together. It sure does come in handy! Without it, Sean's gloves fall off, hands get full of snow and cold, and crying and screaming follow. Now going outside is a much more pleasant experience!)

The lawnmower is also fun to push around the tracks made with the shovel. We left it out one day after using it so that the snow stuck on it wouldn't melt and get the garage all wet. Oops! Now the lawnmower is unusable indefinitely. Must be global warming.

We are trying to stay warm and cheery under the permacloud.... hopefully spring will come soon!

A quick dance

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Ok, so it's February, and I am just now going through our photos from Christmas. Well at least I am finally getting to them, right?

Power tools! YES!

We went to Uncle Fred's for Christmas Eve. Sean loves it there. He also provides entertainment for everyone else there!

Saying hi to Piper, the new pup.

Sean received two battery-powered trains for Christmas. These go lots of places with us.

Here I am receiving the evil eye for giving Jeff a manual coffee grinder for Christmas. Just call me old-fashioned (not cheap!). :)

More power tools. You'd think he has too many, but no, he does find a different use for all of them.

I'd say we got enough new toys to last us at least another year! Thank you everyone!

*****

Here are some post-Christmas tidbits....



"The Look"

Here is Sean watching Oliver eat his dinner. Oliver, being the scaredy cat that he is, could only tolerate a few bites before he ran away, even though Sean wasn't doing anything. Well I guess to Oliver he was - anyone getting within 5 feet of Oliver scares him!

I guess you could say that Sean's first "chore" is feeding the cats. He generally enjoys doing it, so I try to always ask him if he wants to before I do it myself. He's a good helper for being 2, I think. Here he's getting serious with his "smokin' pipe," an old Mr. Potato Head pipe we found at Grandma H.'s house.

Playing with the Legos from Christmas. And, of course, a cd in hand. Sean loves to play music all day on the cd player.

I have no idea how I got him to sit still for this one. So cheesy. So cute.

Sean often helps me cook when I am making dinner. Here he announced that he made a sculpture - his fist one ever! So of course I had to take a picture of it.