Hooray for Harry Potter!

I took Fisher to the water park the other day and he fell asleep in the car on the way home. This is a miracle due to the fact that he NEVER falls asleep in any vehicle/airplane/ stroller...never has. He is strictly a "sleep in the crib" kind of guy. So by the time we made it home he had a power nap fit for any 19 month old and refused to take his nap. I was very upset by this considering it was my first opportunity to read Harry Potter (since I am such a nice wife and let Todd have first dibs on it over the weekend) and was DEPENDING on his nap to give me the chance to read it. Anyway, that night Todd came home with a little war wound on his head where some guy had kicked a locker and Todd just happened to be leaning in to his locker to grab some books...wrong place at the wrong time. That is what the ice is for. The two boys fell asleep together and I was able to fit time in to read the book.


In this picture Fisher was running circles around the car. He is really into running and dancing these days.

We have another neighbor with yet another little dog for Fisher to play with. I swear that almost every single person on the block has one. It works out well for us since Fisher goes crazy with excitement over every little dog he comes into contact with.

The latest task for our sweat shop is learning how to vacuum.

Fisher dancing. We can't decide if he has rhythm or not...sometimes he appears to be as uncoordinated at Steve Martin on The Jerk...His dancing seems to be a mixture of Native American, line dancing, marching band, dirty dancing influence. It makes for good entertainment.

The bruises on his forehead are slowly disappearing. I am hoping we can go a few days without him bumping into anything again. Maybe I should be hoping for a few hours. That seems a little more realistic.

It is a good thing this was the last installment of Harry Potter...I don't think my house would be able to survive another one. I got around to doing the laundry...folding it is a whole different story. Maybe that will be next on my list of things to teach Fisher to do.

Then and Now

After browsing through old pictures of Fisher I couldn't resist putting up some pictures of him one year ago...

One year later:

To beat the heat & humidity this summer, Fisher and I have spent time at the water park and at friend's houses playing on slip n' slides and in baby pools. It is the only way I can tolerate taking Fisher outside.

He loves water spraying in his face. Funny boy. The other boys are his little friends he has started playing with. They are a little older than him but he enjoys being around other kids and trying to keep up with the "big boys" unless he is playing in the water... then he is kind of in his own little world.

I like the water droplets in this picture. Despite the fact that Fisher often looks miserable in the water pictures he can't seem to get enough of it. He is normally squealing with delight and not screaming as it may appear.

Unless we are at the water park we will put the boys in their normal diapers. This is a picture of Mason demonstrating how full the diapers will get after playing in the water...it was hilarious in person seeing him waddle around like a grandma running at lightning speed with a diaper that was literally starting to fall apart it was so full.

Magoo has continued on with his shoe fetish...

I recently started swapping kids with another girl in my ward one day a week. Fisher loves playing with them and it is even teaching him to start sharing his beloved key board and mouse. I am not so sure he has progressed enough to be willing to share his computer but this is one small step for man kind!

Although not quite as trained as Micaela, he is starting to smile more for the camera :)

With all of the new adventures Fisher has embarked on, he has had a lot more "boo boos" added to his list. He climbs onto everything and recently hit his forehead on my night stand and then fell down some stairs at our friend's house...while I was sitting right there. Sometimes he can back down stairs just fine on his own but on this occasion he got really excited and turned and toppled down a few stairs rubbing the left side of his nose raw and the middle of his face red. Poor little guy.

And then to top it off we treat him like Cinderella and make him clean the house...

Sheesh! What kind of parents are we?

The bedroom

Sorry to those of you who don't care about pictures of the house. A couple of you have asked for pictures so I am putting them up as we finish rooms. Here is the bedroom.

The day we moved in.

After.

I am still looking for little things around the room but for now it is pretty much finished.

So many things...

So the day has finally arrived. Todd is officially a dental student! It took a little while to get here...After a BS in History, an MS in Sport Administration, the birth of Fisher and then back to school for science pre-reqs, Todd and I finally found a career path that we feel fits what we want for our family. Todd is just excited to have a degree he can actually do something with :) (His words, not mine.) I am so proud of him and his perseverance. I love you, Todd! Only four more years to go...but at least we know we have a plan :)

Todd after his second day of school.

Our table is finally finished! We got all the way to the clear coat last time before we had to start over but this time it turned out great...not perfect, but it was our first time (well, sort of the second time) and we are happy with it.

Fisher has a new toy to play with. The table chairs. Hopefully this is not a vision I will have of Fisher anytime in the future.


On the Fourth of July Todd and I BBQ'd and watched the firework show our neighbors put on. We felt like we were in a war zone. When I remember how to put videos on here I will post one from that night.

Fisher's look when he is pleased/surprised with himself.

Recently he has started to play with his stacking blocks. Most of the time he is happy when playing with them...Most of the time. When he is tired or hungry it is not the best toy. More on that later.

I have not been able to convince Fisher to eat veggies for a little while now. I started buying the baby food jars again and he will now eat them as long as he can feed himself.

Back to the stacking blocks...he caught on really fast once we pulled them out and let him play with them. (After months of him being completely un-interested in them.)

This is why we don't let Fisher play with them unless he is happy, fed & well rested. Many tears have been shed over not being able to put the block exactly where he wants it to go.

Fisher really does have blue eyes...Although 99 out of 100 pictures show him with red eyes we are occasionally lucky enough to take one showing his true color.

When Todd was mowing the lawn he kept rescuing little frogs and bringing them in the house to show Fisher.

Todd's family came down for the day on Saturday and they brought a little surprise for Fisher. Fisher now owns his own Radio Flyer, complete with two seats and cup holders :) Thanks!

Fisher had fun taking rides with Grandpa around the neighborhood.

Fisher loves playing in the water. We pulled out the hose so the family could see how excited he gets when we let him play in it.

Freezing cold but happy as can be.

Now that our table is finished we have the perfect place to play games. For those of you in Louisville, we love games!! (But I have to warn you we are sometimes a little competitive.)

Todd's family with Fisher right before they left and right before he went to bed.

Fisher's Phases

Here are some Fisher pics for the grandparents:

Fisher loves to sit on boxes...

And to climb on boxes...(while wearing headbands...more on that later.)

And to climb on couches...

And to climb on beds....He pretty much loves climbing onto anything he possibly can. The problem he encounters is that he is still working on the whole getting back down to the ground thing in a safe manner. He hasn't quite learned that dive bombing off the side of the couch, while fast & efficient, might not be the way to go.

He copies everything we do. This picture was taken while Todd was putting the doors back on the armour. Fisher took the screwdriver, found the screws and imitated Todd perfectly. Lately, during bath time, he will take an empty bottle of baby wash and will pretend to pour some on his skin and will then proceed to rub it on his body. It is pretty funny and has made us more aware of our actions. (Such as biting our nails...he imitated that for the first time about a week ago...between me & Todd the kid doesn't stand a chance of having a full set of nails!)

Fisher likes to put on clothes that happen to be lying around...

And is becoming really handy with silverware. He really likes using the big boy utensils instead of his baby ones.

And as much as I hate to admit it, Fisher loves headbands...yes, it is true. I tend to wear one when I am painting or washing my face and need my hair out of the way. With all of the house projects we have been working on I have been using one more often than normal and I seemed to have awakened some headband loving tendency inside our child...

He spends a few hours a day working in our sweat shop....

Occasionally he will sit down and read a book. (Pictured with Grandma Church while she & Jedd came down for a quick visit on Thursday and Friday this past week.)

And have we mentioned that the kid loves computers??? While other parents can sit their kids down to watch the Backyardigans or Cars or Sesame Street or Veggie Tales Silly Songs when they need 15 minutes to get something done (they don't keep Fisher's attention for longer than 5 seconds)...we plop our kid in the computer seat in front of a blank Word document with Windings on font size 48...then we just pray that he doesn't crash our computer since he is very handy & accurate with the mouse. I swear, if another kid were to see a little mouse squeak by and then pointed it out to Fisher, Fisher would scoff and say "that is not a mouse...where is the scroll button and the left & right click button...and where is the red light underneath...most importantly where is the monitor that is hooked up to the mouse???" For those of you who have seen the Family Guy we sometimes feel like we have a little Stewie on our hands :)

When the computer is locked up he will sit in front of the windows on his box and play with his keyboard & mouse.

Along with wearing Dad's clothes he also has finally discovered BIG shoes. It took him a while but now he is constantly wanting to put on our shoes.

Fisher's skills are really advancing. It is so fun watching him grow up. His favorite puzzle these days is a magnetic fishing one with a little fishing pole. He does very well with picking up the pieces.

And last of all he is finally becoming fairly efficient with the spoon. He's been poking things with a fork for a while now but he couldn't seem to figure out the spoon. The past few days he has been eating cereal & applesauce without spilling that much and actually getting the food into his mouth!