Sunday, May 15, 2011

"perry" dogs & more

Several weeks ago, John David was watching yet another episode of Diego.  Diego introduced his friend, Panchita the Prairie Dog.

John David turned to me, "We have a Perry dog!  Dolly!"

Then he said, "Mommy Perry.  Daddy Perry.  John David Perry.  Rex Perry.  And Dolly Perry!"

So, there you have it folks, we are the Perry Dog Family.

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He has become quite the little talker.  While driving around town, I can hear him behind me talking to himself.

"Mommy's a girl.  Daddy's a guy.  I'm a boy.  Rex is a baby.  Dolly is a Perry dog."

Then, "Mommy has princess parts.  Daddy has a penis.  I have a penis.  Rex has a penis.  Dolly's a dog."

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John David still mispronounces his name occasionally.  He loves to ask strangers, "Hi, what's your name?  I'm Gone David."  [John David].

He still says "gabana" instead of banana.

He sometimes drops the "s" sound at the end of Rex's name, which I guess demonstrates that he understands that typically the "s" sound at the end of a name denotes plurals or possessives.  So he says, "Wreck."  Which makes me laugh.

Hmmm, they are a few other words but I can't think of them right now.

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Rex can wave "hello" and "goodbye."  He smiles so big and proud too.

He has started giving high fives.

He says "Mama" and "Dada" purposefully and to get our attention.

He has been cruising along the couch and other furniture and will occasionally take a step or two between pieces of furniture.

He just cut his upper right tooth last weekend and the left one will erupt any day.

If he wants to know what an object is called, he'll hold it in the air and grunt until we say what he's holding.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

trip to Hershey




 On Rex's birthday weekend we went to Hershey, PA for a little family vacation.  It's about 4 hours away.  Right after we checked into the hotel, we were making our way towards our room, wheeling our luggage, when John David spotted the indoor swimming pool.  He immediately stripped down naked and said, "We're at the beach!  I see the ocean!  Let's go!!!"  So, naturally, I whipped out my cell phone and took a picture.  Then he got dressed (screaming and crying) and we went upstairs to change into swimming trunks.  He loved go swimming with Daddy.  




Rex, on the other hand, did not love swimming, as you can see.  But after a few minutes in the water he calmed down and seemed to enjoy himself a little.

The next day in Hershey we went to Dutch Wonderland.  It's an amusement park filled with nothing but kiddie rides.  John David, at the age of 3, was tall enough to go on almost every single ride.  The bumper cars were one of his favorites.  Rex loved the tall slide.  David and I took turns carrying him up several flights of stairs and then sliding down on an old potato sack.  Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures or video, but Rex would giggle the entire way down.  We both got a huge kick out of his sweet little laughs.  


 

Another highlight of Dutch Wonderland was seeing Thomas the Tank Engine.  They sang some train song to the tune of "Wheels on the Bus," such as "The wheels on the train go clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack," and "The conductor on the train yells 'All aboard'...."  He has been singing that song ever since. 


Here they are riding the jeeps.  


Children's Festival

A few days ago, we went to the Pittsburgh Children's Festival.  We started off the morning by seeing a children's musical, Knuffle Bunny, based on the children's book by Mo Willems.  Then we headed over to see Amococo, a traveling exhibit that has toured all over the country.  John David managed to get "lost" a few times.  He took advantage when I was snapping pictures and darted off.  Thank goodness some volunteers grabbed him until we caught up.




Rex & Daddy made a crown out of pipe cleaners.

John David got a dolphin painted on his face.  All of this stuff was free!  (Except Knuffle Bunny & Amococo).
This was the best picture of the dolphin that I managed to get.


And we went on the carousel.  He was desperate to get the giraffe (specifically!) so thank goodness it was available.  

First haircut

A few days after his first birthday, I took Rex to Great Clips for a date with the scissors.  Here is his "before" picture.  Sorry, I didn't get any pics during the haircut, as I was holding him in my lap.  He did great---no fussing and kept his head fairly still while I held a toy for him to play with.  There was an elderly gentleman that finished getting his hair trimmed while Rex and I were getting the capes put around our necks.  He heard me say it was his first haircut and Rex was being sweet and giggly so the old guy stood around and watched.  The man really really enjoyed watching him.  He kept telling Rex how handsome he was and kept remarking about how calm of a baby he was.




Easter

Time just passes too quickly these days.  I can't believe I haven't been able to update this blog for an entire month.  The boys just keep me so busy.  We've been having a lot of fun with this non-winter weather.  Spring brings lots of rain but we have taken advantage of every single moment of sunshine.  Here are some pictures from the past month. 


For Easter, John David got to participate in two different egg hunts.  The first one was at church.  And the second one was in our backyard with all of our neighbors & friends.  He has finally caught on that you need to rush around and pick up eggs.  Still, however, he got distracted at both egg hunts when he realized there were treats and goodies inside the eggs.  SO, after picking up a dozen eggs or so, he was happy to sit down and check out his loot.  


Here are all the kids--Camryn, John David, Carson, Giovanni, Enrico, and Max.  Oh and Cooper the dog!


This is a picture of Rex enjoying a piece of his chocolate bunny on Easter Morning.  Yes, he is wearing Halloween pajamas, ha!  The Easter Bunny brought John David some Play-doh and Bertie (the double decker bus from Thomas the Tank Engine).  And Rex got Bulgy the bus (in his hand).

John David LOVES Play-doh.  He frequently asks about it as soon as he wakes up in the morning.  Doing puzzles with Mommy is another thing he has gotten into lately.  He got a Thomas the Train puzzle for his birthday from his friend Henry and now he just loves puzzles.

Rex's Rainbow Cupcakes


For Rex's first birthday we had a casual affair in the backyard with our friends and neighbors.  David grilled hot dogs and we served cupcakes for dessert.  John David enjoyed baking them with me.  He helped mix the colored batters and went crazy shaking sprinkles all over them.

The above picture is what inspired my rainbow cupcakes.  I saw a picture of this cake on a friend's Facebook page.  I loved it!  But I wasn't brave enough or confident enough to attempt a six-layer cake.  All I could imagine was the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  So I took the easy way out----all six colors of the rainbow, with zero skill necessary.

If you're curious about making them, all I used was a white cake mix.  I followed the directions, then separated the batter into six bags.  I used food coloring to dye the batter while in the bags.  John David, Daddy, and I smooshed the bags until there were mixed up.  After that, I cut the corner off of the ziploc bags and squeezed the batter---color by color in the order of the rainbow---into the cupcake cups.  



This is the only batch I photographed before putting them in the oven---but it was not the best batch.  I tried it with two different mixes.  One batch was Pillsbury and the other was Betty Crocker.  I don't remember which brand worked better, but it was the one that used more water---1 & 1/4 C vs only 1C water.  The thinner batter worked better for rainbows.  The above batch is the thicker batter and that gave them a more tie-dyed appearance.  After pouring the thicker batter, I could tell they would not look like rainbows, so I took a toothpick and swirled the batter around, which gave it a tie-dye appearance.  The thinner batter formed a true layered rainbow--see below.  I just squeezed about 2t of each color into the cups and it naturally baked up like this.



 To do the frosting, I used the premade vanilla frosting in a can.  First spooning it into a ziploc, then cutting the corner off the bag and squeezing it out in a spiral.  Each can made 12-14 cupcakes.  For 36 cupcakes I used two boxed cake mixes and 3 cans of frosting.  Sugar sugar sugar!!!  And I ran out of frosting, which left about 6-8 cupcakes without frosting.  John David happily ate them anyhow.


Rex had fun feeding himself.