Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Terre Haute Children's Museum

While in Indiana to celebrate Christmas with our families, we were also able to squeeze in some time with friends--we so dearly miss the friends we left behind in Indiana and our visits never seem long enough to get adequate time with all of those that we love in the state.
One joy on our last visit though was getting to hit the brand new Terre Haute Children's Museum with the McGranahan's. It's such a fabulous new place--North loved getting to explore the space and also get some time with his pal Lincoln.

Giant bubbles that you can stand in! Lincoln and Sam demonstrate.

North following Linc through the honeycomb

Farmers

Alan liked the air-zooka
Racing cars
And of course the water table. Always a favorite.

the ghost of christmas past

I have finally managed to download the few photos that we snapped from our trip back to Indiana for Christmas. North loved Christmas this year and was a really big fan of celebrating it multiple times. He, in fact, continues to ask when we will next be celebrating it.
At home we celebrated prior to our departure. Santa appeased us by making a stop over at our house while we were away at work and daycare on his "practice run" for the big night. He brought North a Buzz Lightyear (which North had been asking for for months). Buzz was a big hit for a few weeks and then one morning North woke up insisting that Buzz had growled at him during the night--suspicious given that evening North was sleeping with a dino shaped flashlight that actually DOES growl when turned on--but North insists no, it was not the flashlight, it was Buzz--their relationship has never been the same since. He also got lots of Star Wars guys and a couple of spaceships from Alan and me.
Then we headed to grandma and grandpa's for Christmas day. Santa brought North an Alphie while there and he also got a junior tag reader with books, which he uses all of the time, and a sounds and lights firetruck.
Despite the appearance of his "smile", he REALLY did enjoy opening presents
Buzz Lightyear gloves and hat (North loves these)
Putting in some puppy time with his favorite dogs

After that we celebrated at grandma Milner's where North got a favorite book and Anakin's lightsaber--which he used to battle everyone else in attendance.
Finally, we headed to Nana and Grandad's where North got to spend time with cousins. He got a Playmobil RV which he has really enjoyed.

Madi was so sweet to let North play with her and her princess castle playmobil set

Connor showing North his new DS
Playing with Nana's nativity set

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Hibernation

In these winter months it would seem the Milners have been in a state of hibernation--at least my blog posting has been in suspended animation for bit. But I'll try harder--or at least try to try harder-- to update the post as North is changing so much each and every day and I hate the thought of having none of it documented.
Before I dive into downloading and compressing and then uploading to the blog all of the photos from the past couple months scattered across our cameras and phones, I wanted to at least make one quick effort to have a short post about North and all his current quirks and cuteness of the moment.
His current OBSESSIONS are Tron and Star Wars. And I do mean obsessions. We have a lot of North initiated conversations these days about Sam and Kevin Flynn, Tron, Clu, Quorra, Anakin and Luke Skywalker, Count Dooku, Mace Windu, Yoda, and even Ki-Adi Mundi or Kit Fisto (North loves even the minor characters--sometimes I think more than the stars). He sometimes randomly yells little nerdy Tron things like "I'm not a program, I'm a user!" which is quite hilarious.
He can count to 15 and recite the alphabet and begins to be able to recognize letters.
He sleeps by himself all night long and has become great about going to sleep at a reasonable weeknight bedtime in his toddler bed. He loves to stay up late and sleep in late just like mommy and daddy, which is handy on the weekends.
He uses the potty often (multiple times daily) but cannot be counted on to not go in his pull-up (or underwear) if anything even remotely more interesting than sitting stationary on a potty is going on.
He's chatty and funny and willful and stubborn. He's also pretty shy and gets embarrassed easily. He likes to jump off anything and everything and is utterly fearless about it--seriously he will jump off ANYTHING--if any sort of elevated heights are available, you've got to watch him like a hawk. We've already had a few bloody noses thanks to the arms of the couch and their inexplicable draw as a diving board for North.
He says most things quite well, with proper word choice and adherence to syntax rules, but when unable to do something he says "I cannot how to!," which is really cute because it's one of the only things he says incorrectly. I don't think either Alan or me have the heart to correct him out of fear he will start saying "I don't know how to" appropriately and we'll lose his cute little expression forever.
He has a great memory for the most random of things (did i mention obscure star wars characters?!) which is handy because he often remembers the names of people or things that Alan and I forget.
He likes for all of his pants to have pockets so that he always has somewhere to put his makeshift lightsaber of the moment. there are A LOT of makeshift lightsabers in our daily lives. and he really likes to wear light-up shoes. for the longest time he didn't have a pair that fit and he had major shoe envy at daycare. we eventually bought him a new pair of his own and life is easier.
He loves pizza (really just the crust), peas, corn, rice, Chipotle quesadillas, ice-cream, cookies, and every type of fruit. Because of this the above list is pretty much all we eat anymore.
He really enjoys kicking snow piles. He could spend hours just kicking snow I think. Our snow is mostly melted so this is becoming a more difficult hobby to sustain.
His current best pal is Zoe, a little girl who goes to the same daycare as him. She's also 2 and a total princess, which he likes.
He currently has an unfortunate haircut which is entirely my fault (I'm an awful barber).
Darth Vader!