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While April was still at work, Parker thought he'd be helpful and water her flowers. He loves playing with the hose and recently figured out that, not only can he spray the plants, but he can spray us as well and it totally cracks him up.

A funny video of Parker picking up the camera and going, "Caaaamaaaa... Caaamaaaaa..." like a little zombie.

Running down the hallway, one of his favourite past times.

The infamous dinosaur puzzle! When ever he finishes putting all the pieces in, he gives himself a little round of applause and then starts all over again. He's pretty much mastered this one but he's still not ready for the unicorn and fairy puzzle I bought at Chapters a while back. It's pretty tough, despite its benign imagery.

Giant toddler face!

He also really loves the swing outside. He likes it when we count to 3 and pull him higher and higher on each count. And sometimes he likes it when we sit on the other swing while he swings. He also likes to stay on the look-out for airplanes.

Playing with his sand table, making the boats jump around a bit.

For his birthday he got this really cool musical mat from Scott, Gemma, Milo, and Uly! It plays various Yo Gabba Gabba sounds.

More of the Yo Gabba Gabba dancey dance mat!

Parker's Current Favourite Thing Ever

A while back while I was visiting my parents in Dresden with Parker, we stopped at a store in Chatham and I bought him a dinosaur puzzle. He thought it was pretty cool at the time, but lately he's been REALLY into it. He'll sit down and put his puzzle together quietly (well, with the occasional, "DINOSAURS!!!!!") for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. He's getting really good at it, too! He can put the entire thing together by himself, even though some of the pieces are kind of tricky. I bought him a more difficult puzzle the other day but we're waiting until he's really tired of the dinosaur puzzle before we break it out.

And here he is making a wacky face in the car at something. He may have seen an airplane, which he can spot from miles away. It's like he has a Spider-Sense, but with airplanes.

I should also note that his other current favourite thing ever are the Spider-Man jammies he got for his birthday. He insisted on wearing them the other day, which is why he's in the car with his Spider-Man jammies on. We went to a playgroup to show them off and I'm pretty sure the other kids were jealous because they all had to wear REAL clothes.

New Toy: Beads + String = Good Times

Hi Vanessa! :)

Here's Parker in our garage (uhhh, think it's time to take out the recycling?) waiting for a wagon ride. One of our projects this summer is to have shelves built in the garage so we can actually put away all of our junk that has accumulated over the last few years! And now that we have a little boy we've added a big wagon, a plastic car, that purple rocking horse thing in the background, and a few other things that always just seem to be floating around in the garage.

April picked up a bunch of new things for Parker to experiment with the other day, and one of them is a bucket of beads with some string! So far he seems to think they're pretty cool.

His enunciation is also slowly getting better. When he says the words that he knows he says them really clearly and distinctly, and he's really good at repeating words even if he doesn't know what they are. In Dr. Seuss' "There's A Wocket In My Pocket" there's a Bofa on the sofa who doesn't seem to care (which seems to be, "I wish he wasn't there" in the video link , strangely enough). But after reading that page I always say, "He's ALOOF!" and Parker giggles and repeats, "He's awoof!", which is pretty funny to hear a 2-year old say.

Nana Visits!

My mom came up for a few days this week and got to have some Nana and Parker time (including a whole day while I went to Toronto for an engagement shoot)! Here are a few photos:

Parker on the move (while giggling)!

Examining Nana's GPS.

Parker has determined that the GPS needs to be updated to the 2010 maps available from Garmin.com.

Nana also brought the cool truck Parker has clutched in a death grip! It was a set of three, and when you push them across the floor they keep going for a bit and the cement mixer spins (and the other ones do stuff, too). Parker likes revving them up and pushing them off the edge of the coffee table.

Thanks for the visit, Nana! :)

Parker Loves The Slide

Well, it doesn't look like he loves it so much in this photo. I'm not sure what he's looking at but he doesn't look very impressed.

"HI SLIDE!!!!!!!"

"Oooooooo!"

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Does this photo remind you of anything....?

Awesome New Shirt!

April has been really into Etsy lately, a website where people make and sell little crafts and toys and clothes and all kinds of crazy stuff.  The other day she picked up this awesome shirt for Parker:

This was our downtown photoshoot today.  People probably thought we were crazy.  I'd put Parker on the sidewalk and say, "Stay right there!  Doooon't moooove!  Waaaaait...  waaaaaait...  Stay there, please!" and he'd just look around while I took a few photos, but then he'd come running over to see them on the back of the camera.  I should have never showed him that.

Looking for bugs.

And here he is hanging out in the car and reading some books while we were driving doooowntoooown (that's how we say it when we go downtown).

Peanut Butter Bread

I spent the weekend photographing kids and families in Ottawa, so when I came home I thought I should probably take some photos of our OWN kid!  I didn't put a lot of effort into it, as you can tell.  :D  Parker is like, "Whaaa?  I'm not ready!  Don't take my photo yet!"

We've noticed that he's starting to get pickier, especially at dinner time for some reason.  Tonight was the second night in a row that he didn't really want to eat the food we had for him (either he legitimately wasn't hungry or he wanted something else).  Last night he went to bed on what we thought was a fairly empty stomach but he slept through the night without any issues.  So hopefully the same happens tonight, because he didn't eat very much again for dinner.  We debated on whether or not we should cater to his whims and stuff his face full of raspberries and strawberries and corn but we decided we'll hold out and hope he learns that he needs to eat what we're having (which isn't ever anything very suspicious).  

What else is new?  Um, we go swimming every Monday, to a playgroup every Wednesday, and fill up the other days with stores, parks, reading, chasing each other around, singing songs, and colouring.  Right now he's really into the song "Sleeping Bunnies", which sounds kind of like the Itsy Bitsy Spider, but involves pretend sleeping and then lots of hopping.  He likes to pretend-sleep on my back while I lay on the floor, and then we jump around and try to spin as much as possible before we stop.  Good times.  He's also really into the Alphabet Song (which he calls "ABD's").  His version sounds kind of like this:

A B D D E EH G...  H I J K EH EH EH EH P...  Q R S E U V...  W X Y C...  now I kna ma A B D's...  neh neh won me me wid meeeeeee!

Captain Underpants

Even though we haven't been really consistent with potty training, April has been putting Parker on the potty every night at bath time and he's starting to kind of get the hang of it.  Our goal is to have him potty trained this summer when we're both home and can chase him around the house cleaning up after him if necessary, but while we were at the mall the other day we thought it would be funny to get him some little underpants.  We went for a swim in the afternoon after his nap and when we came home I asked him if he wanted underpants on and he said, "Ohhh-kaaaay!"  Since there was only a short amount of time between wearing underpants, eating dinner, and then taking a bath I figured why not!  So here he is eating dinner in his underpants (which you can't really see):

And here he is brandishing his fancy new red underpants.

Woo hoo!

Here he is the next morning playing with an awesome puzzle that he got for his birthday from Scott, Gemma, Milo, and Uly!  He sometimes likes to put the car pieces on the wrong car and then go, "Nooooooooo!" and switch them around.

And here he is taking photos of himself.  I quite like his use of the rule of thirds.

New Table!

Parker got a new play table for his birthday from Nana and Papa!  It's really cool -- it has a spot for sand, and another spot for water (although they don't stay separate for very long) and it also has a removable top so you can put a normal table-top on it and have lunch or colour or play or whatever.  Here's Parker enjoying the table for the first time the other day!  He sat there for about 25 minutes scooping stuff and pouring it and moving his little cars around.  And every time he'd dump mud into the other side he'd say, "Oh maaaaaaan!" for some reason.  I'm still not entirely sure why, but it's kind of funny.  

"Scoop scoop scoop!"

"Oh maaaaaaan!"

Happy Birthday!

zomg Parker is two years old already!  

Parker officially turned two on Saturday the 16th!  We spent the day getting ready for a small party on Sunday, and we picked up some sweet window decals for Parker to play with.  Here he is putting his Dora and Diego stickers up, and he also has a set up Spider-Man decals that he has on another window.  

Here are Parker and Mommy opening a present!  I'm pretty sure he's smiling at the Elmo and Ernie stickers on a card that Nana and Papa got him.

And here he is smiling once he realized that his cake had Thomas the Tank Engine on it.  April said, "Who's that?" and Parker replied, "Cake!" but after a second he realized who it was and was super happy.

Here I am, feeding Parker some ice cream and taking a photo at the same time.  He loooooved the ice cream!  I think it's probably the first time he's had some!

And here's a slideshow of more photos from his party!  Thanks again to everyone who could make it and for all the awesome gifts!

http://www.garrettelliott.com/parker_second_birthday