Meijer Garden

Uncle Ben made a detour from a wedding in Chicago to spend a week in GR. We only found out a few days before his arrival and it was an awesome surprise. It happened to fall into the week that I had taken off from work (to remodel the kitchen) so everything worked out perfectly.

He and I took The Bean to Fredrick Meijer Botanical Garden on Friday, and the kid had a blast. He got to stretch his legs, mess with the plants (and pull the heads off of a few of them). He also got completely soaked playing in the many fountains that they have setup throughout the beautiful campus.

Inside the hedge maze

AWESOME!!

Running through the tree house in the children's area.

More water

We've renewed our membership, and expect that we'll be back (with a change of clothes) very soon!

Curiousity

He's a curious little bugger.

As he walks around he points at things, lots of things. We initially thought it was because he wanted those things, but we're starting to think he just wants to know what they are. He's processing it all. He has a few words down, not just words that parents can understand, but actual words;

• up
• cookie
  
• baby
• uh boom
• ucky
• yes (yeah, yeah, yeah)
  

He mimics us when he finds words he likes. We can't get him to say them again but it's fun. I have come to the conclusion I must start watching my "colorful" language from now on, or I foresee many trips to the principal's office in his future.
He's trying so hard to talk. We have many little conversations with him now. His end consists almost entirely of jibberish, but you can tell he thinks he having a full dialog with us.
He likes responding to questions with a nod of the head (usually "yes"). He sings a lot. In the car, along with his toys. He sings with that sweet little kid voice. It's cute.

His personality is growing more every day. He's a wild kid. He doesn't get into as much as he used to, but there's a whole new world that he's just about able to reach awaiting him. A whole new set of challenges await!

Brown Bear

Bobbie Jo just called to let me know that Max just pulled down his "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see" book off of the shelf and said something that could be interpreted (by a parent) as "Brown Bear" (it was two words that started with 'B')!

He wants to talk so badly, and is getting so close.

He's weird

Happy Mother's Day

To all of the Mothers out there, we couldn't do it without you. Your love and care means more to us than we can express.

Thank you. We love you so much.

Photo Update

Walking. On the driveway.

With all of this beautiful weather, and Max showing a serious need to "stretch his legs" we've been spending a lot of time outside. He has trouble with the lawn (it's either too tall, or too lumpy) but he's a champ on the driveway.

March for Babies 2009

It was 70 degrees for this year's March of Dimes - "March for Babies", a huge change from last years freezing mess.
There was quite a bit of wind, and it started to rain a bit at the very end of the walk, but we all really enjoyed ourselves.

Thanks to everyone who sponsored us. Thanks to your support we were able to raise almost $650 for the March of Dimes! We really appreciate your help!

First Haircut (sorta)

Max had his first haircut yesterday at an actual haircut place (we had a friend come over and cut it a few months back). The place was a little silly, but they were able to handle him pretty well, so I guess it was worth the $20.

Spring Cleaning

It's been getting harder and harder to find time to make these posts. I'm going to try to get us up to date with this post.

Max is walking, fully walking. He walks wherever he wants to go, and wants to go a lot of places that he shouldn't. He went from standing to walking pretty quickly, and it took us by surprise. We still can't believe that anything that small should be walking around the room. Every once in awhile, Bobbie Jo will catch him walking by out of the corner of her eye, and it'll startle her. We've had him outside some of the last few nice days, and he's doing pretty well on the driveway. He has a bit of trouble in his shoes, but he's getting used to them.

A few weeks back, I was upstairs making him some lunch, he was at the bottom of the stairs crying (we have a baby gate there to keep him from navigating the stairs on his own). I heard a bit of a thump, and when I looked down to investigate, he had scaled the gate, and was making his way up the stairs. We now put the baby gate in backwards and it has worked so far. Next step will be either electrifying it, or adding barbed wire.

We've been trying to move him off of baby food, but haven't been having much luck. He doesn't like a lot of the new textures. He's good with smooshed up bananas, yogurt, and pizza. Other than that, he hasn't really liked much. We continue to try lots of new things, including most everything we are eating, but he's just not into it yet. If every meal consisted of Ritz crackers, cookies (chocolate chip), puffs, and animal crackers we'd be all set.

He's learning a lot, and very quickly. He's learned to clap. He can point at his "feets", as well as "mommy's feets", his belly (sometimes), and his head (once in a great while). He's working on his "roll it" (pattycake), we're amazed how it just clicked one day.

It's getting more exciting by the week!