The Adventures of Parker's Turkey

Parker made a potato turkey at school for Thanksgiving and when we went to visit Nana and Papa he took it to them as a present! After we went back home, Parker's potato turkey had all kinds of fun adventures on his own. Here are some samples.

Potato turkey, guarding the door.

 Resting in the tree.  Potato turkey's natural habitat?

Wishing there were more peanuts in this feeder.

 Om nom nom nom....

Sucking Her Thumb And Finger

We think one of the reasons Lauren is a really good sleeper is because she can self-soothe by sucking on her finger and/or thumb.  Hopefully she outgrows it, but for now it's pretty awesome.

A Conversation While Driving In The Car

Parker: Hey Daddy... (he starts most sentences with, "Hey Daddy...")
Me: Yeah?
P: I think there's construction up ahead!
M: I think so, too!
P: Maybe there's a man with a slow sign? That means sloooow down.
M: I don't think there's a man with a sign right now. It's pretty late!
P: Do you think he has the day out?
M: [chuckling] Yeah, I think he probably has the day out.
[long pause]
P: Day out isn't right, Daddy.
M: No, day out isn't right. Did you mean day off?
P: Yes! I think he probably has the day off.
M: Or he's at home eating dinner already!
P: Oooooor that.

Parker and Lauren Hanging Out

First Time Rolling Over

Last night when April went to get Lauren after her nap she rolled over for the first time! She was still in her crib on her tummy, and she did a big stretch and ended up flipping over. It was mostly an accident, but still pretty cool. Hooray! And here's a video of her going from angry to happy. Bi-polar baby!

21 Questions To Ask Your Child

This was posted on a message board a while back but Parker was too young to actually answer the questions.  You're supposed to go back every now and then and ask the questions again to compare answers.  So here's Parker's first round of 21 questions at 3.5 years old.

21 Questions to ask your child: 

1. What is something mommy always says to you?  "No no no!"

2. What makes you happy?  "Water."

3. What makes you sad?  "This makes me sad [clapping his hands]"

4. What makes you laugh?  "Ha ha ha ha!  [fake laughter]"

5. How old are you? "3."

6. How old is Mommy?  "3!"

7. How old is Daddy?  "3!"

8. What is your favorite thing to do?  "I love to play!"

9. Who is your best friend?  "Baby."

10. What do you want to be when you grow up?  "I want to be a grown up."

11. What are you really good at?  "I'm really good at eating chocolates!"

12. What are you not very good at?  "I'm not very good at drinking juice."

13. What did you do today?  "I went to school today."

14. What is your favorite food?  "Noodles."

15. What is your favorite song?  "If You're Happy And You Know It."

16. What do you want for (holiday or birthday) this year?  "An orange and Rolos for Christmas!"

17. What is your favorite animal?  "My favourite animal is Parker.  I'm Parker."

18. What is love?  "Looooove!  [gives himself a big hug]"

19. What does mommy/daddy do for work?  "Daddy takes pictures and Mommy works at school."

20. Where do you live?  "I live at [says our address]."

21. Where is your favorite place to go?  "I love to go to the park!"

Reading Machine

Here are two videos of Parker reading a bunch of random words April typed into note pad!  I think he knows about 10 million billion words now!  Hooray!

His New Favourite Thing

Also, I should probably mention that Parker's new favourite thing is to play school (hi Miss Janet and Miss Caroline!).  He goes through all the actions and sequences that he does at school and always makes sure that we participate.  Especially when he does his little pre-meal prayer.  He says, "Put your fingers by your eyes, everyone!  Everyone ready?" and then he does his thing.  It goes like this:

(pointing to eyes) I have two eyes to see my food
(pointing to nose) I have one nose to smell my food
(pointing to mouth) I have one mouth to eat my food
(folding hands) Thank you, God, for the food
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-men!

Sometimes he'll randomly say, "Remember my calendar?" and he'll pull out his number chart and start counting to 30.  Or he'll break into a rousing rendition of the cleanup song (which is never a bad thing) and tidy up.  Then he likes everyone to sit in a circle while he sings ABCs and If You're Happy And You Know It, and then he says, "Okay everybody, I'm just going to check if the moms and dads are here!" and he goes to the door.  I think he likes school!

Achoo! Achoo!

BABY LAUREN DISAPPROVES

Whatever it is you're doing right now, baby Lauren does not like it.

She's watching you.

Meeting Great Nana and Great Pampa

Here are some photos from Lauren's first visit with Great Nana and Great Pampa!

Is it wrong that I think my daughter kind of looks like Nien Nunb from Return of the Jedi in this photo?  He was a respected co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon, responsible for the destruction of the second Death Star, I'll have you know.

Being Goofy

The other day when I came home from a photo shoot, April and Parker were waiting on the front step to greet me!  Parker was being goofy, and since I had my camera anyways I took a few photos.  Here he is, happy to see me.

 And here he is, in the middle of doing a weird dance that involved a lot of spinning in circles.

 Ever since I started working out, April has been telling Parker that I go exercising.  And when he asked what that was, she said that I do some running, some jumping, and some lifting heavy things.  So now Parker has a whole "exercising" sequence that he goes through and acts out.  Here he is doing the running....

 And the jumping....

 And the lifting heavy things....

And he likes to follow up his exercising with a delicious drink of "red juice", also known as Powerade.

Mmmm.... Popcorn....

Patterns

The other day at school they were working on patterns. Here's a video of Parker sorting his cookies into "cookies" and "sprinkles" and making a repeating pattern.

And the other night while we were reading some books before bed, Parker broke out some spontaneous math!  He was staring at his fingers, and he said, "2 + 3 = 5...  1 + 1 = 2...  4 + 1 = 5...."  I think he's already better at math than I am.

Baby Lauren In Your Face

Here's Lauren having some tummy time (although since she sleeps on her tummy, she already gets a lot of it).  Her hair is more brown than it used to be!

 She likes to suck on her fingers a lot.

 When she has a big smile she gets a big dimple/line-thing on her right cheek just under her eye!

She's cute and we love her!

RIBBIT RIBBIT RIBBIT

Here's Parker ribbiting and hopping like a frog around the basement floor for some reason.

Edited to add:  I guess this wasn't working properly earlier, but I think I fixed it so it's viewable now!

Pre-Hallowe'en Photos I Forgot About

Here are some pre-Hallowe'en photos that I forgot to post last time!  Here's Parker in his Spider-Man costume that was really cool but he didn't like.  I probably wouldn't have liked wearing the mask either, but he could have gotten away with just the body suit.  Doesn't he look thrilled?

 And here he is, a little tiny bit happier to be wearing the Woody costume.

Wearing his hat sideways. 

 Eating Mini-Eggs and being happy.

 Trying to figure out this weird, floppy hat.