Getting Ready for Next Winter!

Tonight we thought we would get a head start on training Jonah to clear snow next winter. This should work pretty well if the snow doesn't get *too* high... :)



Now we just need to figure out a good way for Jonah to handle the cracks in the driveway and sidewalk.

Jonah Turns One!

It is hard to believe that Jonah is now a 1-year old.  Time certainly did fly by! Parenthood has been an amazing experience and we can no longer imagine life without this sweet, happy, wonderful little boy.  As his birthday was on a Tuesday, we held his party last Saturday to allow more out-of-town family members to join in the festivities.

We decided to go for a whale-theme as neither of us had any fabulous ideas and we figured he won't choose a whale theme on his own as he gets older.  Ben and I made the invitations with our Silhouette, which proved to take a bit of patience as we learned to use the machine and to work with paper crafts in general.  In the end, we were pretty pleased with how they turned out:

We also got ambitious and made a banner to go across the garage:

Grandma and Grandpa Gregg arrived on Wednesday night, Grammy Sweetser arrived on Friday morning, and the entourage of aunts, uncles, and cousins arrived on Friday night.  It was a full house and Jonah seemed to do well with the commotion that comes with a lot of people in the house and party preparations going on around him.

What are you doing with all of my toys?

Alex, Jonah, and Grant at the front door.

Grandpa and Alex have some fun with party hats.

We opened presents fairly early on, in the hopes that Jonah would still be in a good mood.  He was less interested in the wrapping paper than he had been at Christmas, but we assume that's because he really wants to be on the go at all times.  He did conveniently pose himself in front of the stack of gifts just as we were getting ready for the opening:

All of this is for me?  Oh boy!!!

After presents came time for cake and ice cream. Rather than making our own cake this year, we opted to purchase one from Le Cakery, using a Groupon I purchased earlier this year.  Here's the cake:

Jonah's first birthday cake (though he got his own cupcake).

Jonah wasn't quite sure what to do with his cupcake and ice cream, but in the end, he seemed to enjoy playing with his food.  Look at that gleam in his eye and that smile: he enjoys making messes!

For those of you who were unable to make the trip (including, unfortunately, Grandpa Sweetser, Russ, and Shannon), and those who are interested, check out the following video of Jonah with his cake (we apologize that it's a bit on the long side).

What an afternoon!  Jonah definitely slept well that night!  Many more pictures are available on our photo site. And one final photo to leave you with, from our session earlier in June with Amy McManigal:

We love you, Jonah! To many, many more happy birthdays!

Raising the Water Table

Jonah enjoyed his first birthday weekend with lots of family visiting. We will probably make several posts about the weekend over the next few days, but I wanted to share a little play time from one of his presents that was enjoyed by Jonah, his cousins, and one of my cousins.

Jonah loves bath time and generally anything having to do with water. The one exception being getting his hands and face cleaned after a meal. When this present, a play table with a water wheel, arrived from Uncle Russ and Auntie Shannon, we were looking forward to seeing his reaction. We weren't disappointed.

Playing with the water wheel

Jonah had a good time with Wyatt Souza

Here is some video of Jonah having fun.

Unfortunately, it wasn't all good times in the water. It was a nice day, so we decided to fill up one of Jonah's new pools (also from Uncle Russ and Aunt Shannon). Despite the warm weather though, the water from the hose was very cold. Jonah, Alex, and Grant all got dressed to swim, but we wanted to let Jonah get in the pool first.

"Oooh! Water!"

Testing the waters...

"Get me out of here!!"

You can see more of the pictures from Jonah's birthday on our photo site.

Jonah was not permanently scarred by his pool experience, though. We went to a neighborhood wading pool at the local park today, and he had some fun there. We'll post more on that later.

Sippin'

Jonah is moving! I'm not just talking about moving around, which he does very well, provided he has something (anything!) to push. He is moving from using a bottle to a sippy cup. He is so cute when we put it down in front of him while he is eating. He picks it up and takes a long pull from it. Unfortunately, he then proceeds to throw it on the floor. We need to figure out how to stop that behavior...

We don't have video of him grabbing and sipping the cup yet, but I did catch him crawling around with the cup hanging out of his mouth. I guess it is easier than trying to carry it in a hand while crawling.

Trip to Madison

On Father's Day weekend, we took the opportunity to go to Madison with Kristin and Ryan Nord.  We'd talked for some time about heading over there for the Farmer's Market and I'd also wanted to visit the retail store for Title Nine (I randomly received their catalog at some point over the winter and loved a lot of the things I saw). We decided to make a day of it, hitting the market in the morning (snagging some asparagus, sugar snap peas, strawberries, baked goods, and a Siberian iris), enjoying ourselves at the Madison Children's Museum in the afternoon, and hitting Title Nine and a few of the children's outlets in Johnson Creek on the way home (scored some great deals at the Gymboree outlet!).

It was beautiful weather and the first time that either of us had actually taken a moment to walk inside the Capitol.  When Jonah is bigger, we'll go back to take a real tour of the impressive building. 

Just three feet shorter than the U.S. Capitol, the Wisconsin capitol building is quite impressive as well.

Mural inside the capitol

We've never been to the Children's Museum here in Milwaukee, but we enjoyed the one in Madison.  We weren't sure how much would be appropriate for Jonah, but it turned out that he found plenty to enjoy (and we adults did too).  My personal favorite was the Rube Goldberg-style fountain with water and balls; Jonah enjoyed pretty much everything he tried (though he certainly will grow into much of it). Kudos to the museum for the great set-up for nursing mothers, with a beautiful and comfortable room specifically designated for it.  The only negative experience was an overzealous girl of about 8 years of age who really wanted to hold and care for Jonah and kept bothering us (no accompanying adults were ever seen).

Ryan entertains Jonah with a stuffed frog.

Living on the edge as he leans over the edge of this pod-shaped chair.

Jonah plays with the cars, roads, and other objects.

I enjoyed building with the blocks.

Kristin takes Jonah down the slide.

All in all, it was an excellent day.  We'll have to plan another trip in the not-too-distant future.  Other pictures from the trip are available on our photo site.

Cup 'O Cheer(ios)

On Thursday, we started seeing how Jonah would do feeding himself Cheerios (or puffs) from a little cup that allows him to pull the Cheerios out on his own. He took to it better than expected. While he does like to shake it around and inevitably gets some on the floor, in his high chair, and in his lap, he really seemed to enjoy getting them from the cup rather than just picking them up off his high chair tray. The added benefit here is that it also takes him a little longer to get to the Cheerios, so he doesn't inhale them so quickly.

Yesterday, before we left for a day trip to Madison, Jonah saw cup sitting on the table with a few Cheerios in it and expressed some interest in it. If you call practically diving out of my arms to get the cup "interest." There were only a few Cheerios left, but he was very content to sit on the table and pull out what was in there. I was able to snap a few (Hipstamatic) pics.

"Let's check out my haul here... 1... 2... "

"I like overalls with my Cheerios."

"This is so much fun!"

Shake, shake... "It is empty, Daddy. Can you refill it?"

Such a happy baby!

Drooler on the Roof

Some people may argue otherwise, but Jonah is still a little too young to start playing violin. So while he can't be a Fiddler on the Roof, he is still happy to be a Drooler on the Roof.

"mmmmm.... roof..."

There is probably an easier way to clean the roof.

 Jonah's third tooth (one of the front top teeth) has cut through and it looks like the three teeth around it aren't far behind. Is he going to have a mouthful for his birthday?

Enderis Park: Concerts in the Park

Our neighborhood park association puts on four "Concerts in the Park" each summer. It is a pretty good time, hanging out with neighbors and listening to the music. We went to a couple last summer when Jonah was too little to get around on his own. Last Thursday, we went to the first one where he was (relatively) mobile, and we brought along a toy that he likes to push around the house.

Well, he was all about pushing that truck around the park, both on the sidewalk and on the grass. He seems to really like checking out people and seeing everything going on around him. I also think he likes the freedom of moving about on his own.

Here are a few pics of him with his method of getting around:

"Hmmm... stay on the sidewalk or drive on the grass?"

"Geez, this is hard work!"

Just toolin'!

Fortunately, he didn't run anyone over, but he did have a few narrow misses. He is pretty good about turning things now. He even made a pass in front of the stage when One Drum was playing. He seemed very interested in the speakers, but thankfully didn't get too close.

Little Climber

We already knew Jonah is a climber; he loves climbing up the stairs. So it should have come as no surprise that a toy we picked up at a yard sale last week would be used as a step stool rather than its intended purpose as a chair.

"Hey, I can see the top of the table better if I climb up here!"

Our little daredevil is braver standing on the chair when he is just on the ground.

10 point landing! (Ok, he didn't really jump off the chair, but it kind of looks like it here...)

I think this is the *only* time he actually used the chair just for sitting...

Jonah never lets the chair play a full song. He just likes to hit the light over and over again to see the different colored lights come on.

Climbing the chair was not a "one-off" activity. It has become more of a favorite pastime.

Easy access to all the goodies on the coffee table!

"What do you mean I'm not supposed to be up here?"

Jonah and the Cork Drop

Jonah pretty much only uses a pacifier when he is sleeping. Even then, he doesn't always use it, and we don't like to keep it in, especially when he is smiling and happy because a pacifier (or cork, as we like to call it) hides his wonderful smile!

If he doesn't fall asleep with it at night, he sometimes finds it in his crib. If he doesn't, he might sit up and cry a little, and we can "re-cork" him and he lies right down and goes back to sleep.

When we get him out of his crib in the mornings, we would pull the cork out and drop it back into his crib. Recently, he surprised us and started doing this himself! He pulls it out, waves it around a little, and drops it in his crib. Some days this is clearly more difficult for him than others. In fact, one day he reinserted the cork instead of dropping it. It is just so cute when he makes the drop. He will often gaze longingly at is as it rolls to a stop on his mattress.

Grammy Sweetser visits

Wow! It has been a long time since we've made any posts! We completely missed the month of May! Well, let's see if I can make up for that a little.

Grandma Sweetser came out to visit Jonah at the end of April/early May. We had a great week and though he missed the week with his friends at day care, Jonah had a lot of fun hanging out with Grammy for the week. The day after Grammy arrived, we went to the Boerner Botanical Gardens. Because of the cool weather this spring, we weren't expecting there to be too many flowers out, but there was a craft fair going on, too, so we headed over.

Though the temperatures were reasonable, it was *super* windy! We felt pretty badly for the craft fair vendors who were outside. We did get some pictures, though!

We also stopped for some Kopp's frozen custard after the botanical garden!

At the end of the week, we went to the aquarium at Discovery World. Jonah seemed to enjoy seeing the fish, though he was just as interested in the glass and metal of the aquarium tanks.

 Jonah made some pretty funny faces... perhaps he was trying to mimic the fish?

 Grandma Sweetser met Bing Crosby in the Les Paul exhibit.

Jonah took a little nap.

 But woke up energized before Discovery World closed at 4 pm.

See more pictures from our visit to Discovery World on our photo site.

The next day, we hit the zoo. It was the first time Michelle and I had been to the Milwaukee Zoo since the first year we moved here. We picked up a Zoo Pass - it only takes two visits to make up the cost, and we certainly figured that would not be a problem.

 We started in the primate house. Jonah loved playing with the apes!

  Especially this statue of a baby ape!

"Wat-chew lookin' at?"

 Jonah ate and took a nap not long after we saw the primates, but he woke up in time to see the penguins.

 There are TONS of peacocks at the zoo. They hang out with all the different animals and don't seem to have a place of their own.

 Jonah enjoyed watching the seals swim around. He got pretty excited.

 Later, we went to see the sea lion show.

All in all, it was a great day. You can see more zoo pics on our photo site.

We finished it off with some Red Robin for dinner and some awesome carrot cake from Mitchell's Fish Market.

Grandma Sweetser flew home the next day (the day before Mother's Day), but it was a fun visit!