Fun times at Grandma and Hop-Pop's!

JP got to spend the last 2 days and 1 night at Grandma and Hop-Pop's house while I played golf. I'm pretty sure he wore out Grandma.... yesterday they went to the pool for some swimming and played outside most of the day. He was ready for bed at 6:30 last night! Then today he got to go horseback riding for the very first time! I guess he did great... Mom led him around on Renegade and JP loved riding in the saddle all by himself. Mom said his favorite part was riding in the indoor arena so he could look at himself as he went by a large mirror. LOL! He does like to admire himself and he rarely misses a mirror. Mom then took him to his My Gym class and then went back home for more outside play until I picked him up at 4pm.

Mom was so shocked last night when she was in the bathroom with JP during his shower and he got out and got his pj's on and she was asking me where his pull-up was. Uhhh... Mom? He hasn't worn them since.... Dec? Jan? Something like that. She was all nervous that he would have an accident in her bed downstairs but I convinced her he would do great and not have one. Sure enough he woke up at 2:30 to go... in the toilet! Hee hee... I got to have an "I told you so" moment. ;)

Grandma gets the last day of the tournament off since Jim is off tomorrow. I think the boys are heading over to Hillsdale Lake early in the AM for some fishing/camping and I will meet them there when my tournament is over. Jim is going out there right now to secure a camping spot with our camper. JP is so excited to camp he's not asleep. Yet.

How's this for a funny visual... tonight JP was playing and swimming in his little baby pool and we broke out the super soaker squirt gun. I finally got my hands on it and was chasing him so he ran and jumped on his bigwheel (barefoot and in his swimming trunks) and took off as I chased him and he even put his swim goggles on. It was pretty funny! Goggles? On a big wheel? Why not?

Good news on the golfing... my team is in 2nd place! Tomorrow is the last day so hopefully we will play as well tomorrow as we did today!

Fun times ahead... next week is JP's sports mania camp at my gym! Hope he likes it!

NO!

OK.. is it the terrible 3's? I'm thinking we are past that but the last few days have been filled with alot of NO's. Not cool. I'm attributing it to JP being out of school and not having any kind of schedule at the moment. Thank goodness summer camp at school starts soon as well as a mini sports camp next week at my gym.

*sigh* Sometimes I feel like all I do is yell or reprimand the poor kid but if I don't nip it in the bud now... where will we be later? Of course Jim comes home in the evening and it starts with him as well so he thinks I let JP get away with it all day. ***Double Sigh*** I don't think so!

Golf tomorrow through Saturday... maybe JP just needs a break from me!

Lucky for Me...

Lucky for me I am married to a guy who can fix anything or build anything. The current project is a major renovation of our master bathroom. He's getting close to being finished but it really amazes me how many things you really need to do behind the sheetrock! LOL

One of Jim's winter projects was building a new barbeque smoker. Yes... he built one from scratch. He didn't want to spend over $1000 for a decent one so he decided to make one and he did a great job! He actually smoked 15 slabs of babyback ribs in it a couple of weekends ago... so it's big. This weekend he decided to smoke some babybacks and a beef brisket. My mouth is watering just typing about it! LOL He does a wonderful job and everything always comes out perfect. (I think so!)

Last night we were enjoying some of the beef brisket for dinner. We asked JP how he liked it. His response:

"My compliments to the chef!"

Good answer, JP! Mmmmm....

Ice Cream

Funny how ice cream brings out the best in us! Nothing like enjoying an ice cream bar on a comfortable May evening....

Mr. Muscles!

















Notice the "evidence" on his face?

Rock Out!

JP loves to rock. He really loves to rock... especially to ZZ Top. Here is a toned down version of him rockin'.... I think I need to put some ZZ Top on my iPod! LOL He doesn't hold back when Dad is around. :)

I bet he'll be a David Cook fan like his Mom! Bring on the CD!

Spelling Bee

OK.. my kid really blows me away sometimes. I mean really... should my 3 year old be able to spell? Alot? We were at Quiznos enjoying our lunch and he started his mini spelling bee.... It went something like this:

"Mom! How do I spell.... Cat?" And I say... "I don't know... can YOU spell it?"

JP: "OK!" Ummm... and he sounds out each letter before spelling. He does this each time with each word. Then: C - A - T ! Cat!

And he keeps going... How do I spell.... Mad? M - A - D

Big? B-I-G
Up? U-P
Sad? S-A-D
Hop? H-O-P
Cup? C-U-P

Seriously... with no prompting. I'll sometimes help him sound out the letter if he's stumped but he went on and on and then said:

How about..... NAPKIN? So I broke it up in 2 words for him: Nap and Kin so he ALMOST got it. He said N-A-P-C-I-N The k's and c's throw him off.

So the grand finale was UMBRELLA. (Where does he come up with this stuff?) He did it until we got to the LL and he said W. MOG. The boy loves his letters!!!!!!

My little smarty pants.

Letters and more

JP has these colorful foam letters that he loves to play with in the shower. Recently he's been sorting them by color and makes words with them and spells them out to me. Of course he can't get out of the shower unless they are organized and neatly lined up... LOL Tonight he was playing with the purple letters and one of them is the letter L. He said, "look! It's an L... but turn it upside-up (upside -down) and it's a 7! Yes. It's a number 7 now." Then he found the Z and turned it sideways and said it was the letter N. The boy likes having options! :)

OH... his new favorite treat? Blue Bell Great Divide Ice Cream Bars. Mmmmm GOOD!





And yes... a funny from his playdate today. After lunch the kids were playing and all of a sudden Reagan said, " MOMMMM! Someone tooted! MOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!" and JP was playing nearby so I went up to him and asked him and he announced, " I farted. EXCUSE ME!" It was a stinker! He must take after his dad.

They eat what?

Do YOU know what Bed Bugs eat???? According to JP they eat: Corn, Fish and Pizza. BUT.... they DON'T EAT JP!!! LOL

Mmm! Lunch!

We went to the pet store today to pick up a few essentials. Zip needed a new bowl since she always knocks hers over and spills the food in her cage so we got a new heavy duty bowl. Problem solved! George needed some crickets to eat so we got a dozen of those as well. JP loves to watch George eat them... here is his play by play:

" Here you go, George! Have some yummy crickets! Where is he mom? There he is! Go for it, George! Go for it! Look!!! He's eating them! Look, Mom! He's eating his crickets!"

I love the excitement. :)

JP's Favorites

Hey JP! What is your favorite...................

1. Color? Red
2. Food? Ice Cream
3. Toy? Firetruck
4. Movie? Tom and Jerry
5. Thing to drink? Chocolate Milk
6. Sport? Baseball
7. Place to visit? Disney World (with the Shamu Roller Coaster!!! and Jelly fish ride... and teacups where I spin round and around and around...)
8. Teacher? Miss Michelle
9. Friend? Zachary
10. Place to go with Mommy? Grocery Store
11. Animal? Shark
12. Shirt? Chiefs Jersey
13. Pajamas? Monster Truck Pj's
14. Underwear? Police Cars
15. Thing to do outside? Ride my bike!

"That's it."

Those are the favorites... for today!

Can a 3 year old drive?

Technically, no. But my 3 year old thinks he can.

We spent the night out in the Flint Hills of Kansas and today we drove across the pasture to hit the ponds for some fishing. JP wanted to drive so he sat on daddy's lap to steer. He was more concerned with what direction we were going. "We're going West! I want to go South!" as he cranks the steering wheel hard to the left. "Let's go North now!" cranks it back to the right.... You get the idea. He is obsessed with navigational direction at the moment but he couldn't keep the tires on the tracks in the pasture UNTIL..... we compared them to a racetrack. That is all it took so then he was concentrating on staying on the "racetrack" and he took us to where we wanted to go.

Good thing Jim was on the pedals.

We are all looking forward to sleeping in our beds tonight. We will be WARM and comfy! It was COLD last night!

Just J.P.

We like to rhyme in our house. Usually the rhyming is done in the kitchen around mealtime. For example:

Me: How's that lunch, munch?
JP: Just right, might!

Me: What do you want for dinner, winner?
JP: Chicken, wicken!

Today as I was getting his breakfast ready...

Me: Here you go, Joe!
JP: I'm not Joe... I'm JP!
Me: Well ok.... Here's your cereal, JP.... Wee Wee!
JP: NO! Not WEE WEE. I'm JUST JP!!!!!

No rhyming today.

The Boys

Oh those silly boys!!!

Enjoying a warm spring day...



Oh how fun it is to observe JP playing with his buddy, Clayton! We picked up Clayton on the way to the end of year picnic since his mom had field day for her other son. The boys had so much fun at school playing in the moon walk and on the playground. Then we came back to our house for some bike riding, stomp rocket play, slip n sliding, playground time and squirt guns! It's so fun to watch these 2 interact and it's so sweet how they've become such good buddies! They are only 3 days apart in age and they will get to go to school together for many years to come. The things they say are priceless and I'm very impressed with how well they share.

Mr. Brown

Just in case you wanted to see that mean 'ol brown.... excuse the fish slime on the camera! LOL!

Did you know..........

Did you know that Brown Trout have really sharp teeth? I mean... super sharp. Waaaayyyyy sharper than Rainbow Trout. It really sucks when you have to remove the jig hook from their mouth sharp. My left index finger was actually sliced open from one of these aforementioned trout. It still hurts and STILL isn't closed up! My right index finger is slightly cut up but not like the left.

Yikes. Thought you'd all want to know in case you ever go trout fishing. BEWARE OF THE BROWN TROUT!

Tuesday's Funny Quote

We were on the back patio and JP had just finished playing on his slip n slide and I was blowing up a giant beach ball sprinkler for him. He was behind me talking about the flowers in the pots. One of the pots is a turtle. I turn around and see him holding the flowers that he had just pulled OUT of the turtle.

Me: JP! What are you doing?
JP: I pulled the flowers out of the turtle!!!
ME: Why?
JP: Because he was going to eat them!!!!!

BWAAA HAAA HAAAAAAAAAA~

The flowers are tucked safely back into the turtle pot.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

I was up WAY too late creating this blog and doing my Facebook! After a long weekend away too... why do I do these things to myself? Now I have to get up the energy to hit the gym for an 11am training session. UGH. Maybe she'll go easy on me? YEAH, RIGHT!!!!

At least JP is rested, right? He just polished off his favorite breakfast... a mega bowl of Frosted Flakes!

Fishing Weekend!

OK.. so we just got back from Southern Missouri after another fun weekend of trout fishing. Yes, we caught lots of fish. Yes, we caught some big ones. Yes, we had fun! JP adores fishing and it's so funny to watch him reel in those trout. The big ones really give him a challenge and we have to be careful in the boat so they don't try to pull him overboard! He still loves to finish each catch with a big 'ol kiss for his fish. Silly boy!

The highlight? or excitement of the trip was the storm system that moved through on Saturday. We dodged some tornadoes that were in our vicinity so that added some real excitement to our day! We had gone into town for dinner since it was storming and we watched some of the rotating clouds very closely so we would know which way to drive if/when we saw an actual twister. Luckily that didn't happen where WE were!

Let's see... how is this for funny? Have you ever thought about what you would do if you are out in a lake far away from your boat dock and your 3 year old decides that they have to poop???? Yes, this happened to us on Sunday evening. We were fishing in an outlet surrounded by only trees and water when JP announced it was time to "take a dump". Ohhhhh.... now what? OK.. how about just dropping his drawers and letting him poop in the lake? No harm in that, right? So he did. Plop! We really didn't see any harm in it and what else were we supposed to do? Let him go in the livewell with the trout? This lake is about 20 miles long and it has had record flooding this spring so I'm sure there have been worse things in it recently. It is also about 40 degrees so it's not like people swim in it, either. So JP went back to his fishing and announced that he had to go again so it was back to it! I held onto his lifejacket while he leaned out the back of the boat to finish his business. It was pretty funny!!!!

That's it for me. I really need to get to bed since it is almost 1am! I'm wiped!