I help you.

We have the MOST helpful 2 year old on our hands.   He's a pretty good kid, but I don't really need help doing EVERYTHING.   "Mommy, Mommy, I eed you help" is the phrase of the day!  or he'll find me and say "I help you". 

He helped daddy open his birthday presents.   A new fire pit for the backyard.  We celebrated all weekend.  Friday was with his parents for Grandpa's soup, per Fred's request.  Saturday, we went bowling with some friends from Fred's work. Sunday, we enjoyed dinner and spice cake with my family.   Finally, we celebrated with our little family on Monday.   We ended up trying a new Mexican restaurant (excellent chips!) and the dollar theatre for "Johnny English Reborn" (fun movie, and clean!).

Tad has been helping around the house.  He washed his truck windows.  :}   

 Helped mommy fold socks.   Whenever I fold laundry he takes the socks and folds one on the top of each of the piles I have on the couch. 

 Then when I do actually fold the socks we use his dump truck to put them away.  I load up one person's socks at a time and he takes them to the correct room and dumps them in front of the dresser.  

 After putting up lights outside and having Tad be ENTIRELY too helpful as we were sorting lights, I wondered about having him at home to put up our tree.   First we picked out our tree.  This is the first time we've gone during the day.  It was warm enough we made it all the way to the back of the lot and found the perfect tree for a good price. 

 Tad ran to help dad carry the tree to the truck. 

 While I put the lights on, Tad was surprisingly good.  He would hand me lights and I'd let him plug in the next set.  A couple of times he'd take a strand of lights and stand on the step stool and call for daddy.  "Daddy, I eed you help with Christmas lights".  (He is talking in pretty clear sentences and we love it!)
Ornaments..... if we would have left them up to Tad would have been tucked away in the inside of the tree. 

I have to say I'm a genius.   We have bell ornaments that I usually only put one or two on.   As I was vacuuming our mess, I bumped one and thought that would be a perfect way to "booby-trap" the tree.   We put the whole set around the bottom branches and about as tall as Tad is so that when he touches the tree, I'll hear the bells.   :}
Unfortunately, I don't trust Tad enough to put presents under the tree, even though we had a talk about if he touches presents "I get in trouble, go time out."   Sad that I love to hear him say this.  :} 

November 2011

For Thanksgiving this year, Fred decided to go play football in the morning.  It was freezing!   Tad and I went to watch for a little while.   Unfortunately, the rest of the day he had a headache, and for the rest of the week he hobbled.  No broken bones..... just an old man!

Tad helped Aunt Lauralee make rolls for Thanksgiving dinner.   "Roll, roll, roll."  He actually did pretty good when he wasn't eating the dough.

 We enjoyed dinner with my family.  After Grandpa and Tad took a nap, the girls had ordered things online to avoid Black Friday, we were ready to stop at Fred's family for a 2nd helping.   Tad loved playing with his cousins and we finally got to meet 8 month old Marcus (Sunny's little boy, they live in VA). 
We also took family pictures while they were in town.  I'll post some soon. 

We went to the Festival of trees. 

What happened to all of the stories that are usually posted?  That's what keeps me in there for a long time.  We were in and out in less than 2 hours.   But I did see a couple of cute quilts.  (I just started a farm yard one, so it'll be awhile before I can look into how to do them.) 

 It has been a crazy couple of weeks.   I have more pictures to post of the beginning of December.... if the computer will cooperate. 

Watch what's on TV!

  What do these pictures have to do with Tad? 
Saturday night at Nannies house, Tad convinced Nannie to let him paint.   Nothing new, he HAD to paint earlier this week when I was painting a craft.   This time though, he lifted his shirt and painted his belly, then his forehead and cheek.  :}   Nannie rushed to put his clothes in the wash after a slight scolding.  Fred's dad laughed pretty hard because he saw fans on tv with painted bellies.
That is the ONLY place we can think of where he would have learned about painted bellies!   I couldn't help laughing when he told me that night "Tad paint belly".   My 2 year old is too smart!   Surprising that he could already figure things out like that.   We are in for some big trouble if he keeps this up!  And we definitely have to start watching what we have on the TV and what we say (no more roadrage..... Tad says "Come on cars" everytime we get in the car now).  :{ 
He's using a lot of sentences.  Our favorite from the weekend was when Fred was teasing him, he said "Don't eat me daddy."  :}   And later when he was hiding, "Where's Tad daddy?"

What to do WITH daddy!

Tad is getting really, really tall, and smart!   And..... helpful.  

 He helped carry the pumpkins inside the house and up the stairs (one day after grocery shopping he carried a gallon of milk from the car to the steps.  Awesome!) 

I asked if he wanted to help draw faces on the pumpkins.   He took it literally and found a pen to start drawing.  :} 

Daddy cut them open and we helped scoop.  Tad helped for about 2 handfuls and a couple of pictures, then he was done. 

He continued to "draw faces" on the pumpkins even after Fred and I had started carving them. 

 Of course he wanted to blow out the candles.  After a few times telling him "no" he's been good about leaving them alone. 

 Then we made carmel apples!   I THINK Fred likes them......   He couldn't let a single bit of carmel stay in the bowl.  :}  

Monday, for Halloween, I ran errands, stopped by a trunk or treat, then went to my parents' house for make-your-own-pizzas.   Tad loves to ring their doorbell before he goes in.  

After pizza, we went to their ward Trunk Or Treat and visited a friend.  Instead of candy, my parents gave him a pig book and some cars that shoot off when you push a button.  Probably the hilight of his Halloween.  The only candy he really likes is M&M's and now pop rocks.  :}  He was NOT a fan of a Hot Tamale we tricked him into eating.   

When Daddy got home (He switched jobs within his company--- FINALLY! and started training on Halloween, which meant he was home earlier!) we took Tad around part of our neighborhood.  He loved it.  I'm not sure if it was because he got to ring doorbells, or because they gave him attention.   He'd set his bucket down to ring the doorbell, we had to remind him to pick it up, then he was good about saying "Trick or treat" and "Thank you" (unless there was a dog, then that's where all his attention was).  He'd turn to where I was at the end of the driveway and yell "Mom, I got trick or treat!"  :}  

He got more candy than any 2 year old should have!   Luckily, he doesn't like the same kinds that Fred & I like! 

What to do without Daddy

Fred had to fly out of town for the weekend.  It was a busy week before he left and seemed even busier with him gone.  But we made the most of it.   I raked the leaves for Tad to play in.  I found out I'm too compulsive to do this without Fred.   I made a big pile and all Tad wanted to do was walk through them, dragging the leaves out of the pile.  (see the 3 lines to the left)  When Fred helps us play I don't feel as much of a need to keep raking them up!   While we were outside I had told Tad that daddy was on an airplane.   When a plane went over he looked up and yelled "Daddy, can you hear me?!"  :}    

I made a dinosaur costume for him this year.  He did much better at keeping the hat on.  

Friday, we went to visit Aunt Crystal at work for her Halloween party.  

Friday night I had a Mommy/Daughter Activity Days Party.  We had soup and bread bowls.   I was a little stressed, but it turned out great.   We even had 16 girls show up!!!  

The next morning we got up early, picked up Aunt Lauralee & Crystal and headed to the zoo to trick or treat.   The place was packed!   We skipped a lot of the lines that just had candy since Tad's not old enough to care.   Would I do it again?   Probably not- it was too crowded and the lines were long.   

The train came while I was trying to take this picture of Tad. :}  

"Proof" we were there on probably the craziest day at the zoo. 

Finally, we headed to the airport to pick up Daddy!    Tad was a little hyper and ran around in circles while we waited.  He loved watching the bag carousels.   And spotted Daddy right away!