Backyard Playtime!

We have had so much fun playing outside and letting Matt take advantage of all of his "outside toys". Here are a few pictures we took while playing outside the other night.

Matt got out all of his baseball gear and got to work rounding up someone to play against.

Learning how to wear the helmet, while bending over has been a challenge, but Matt has finally mastered it and can now pick up the baseball without tipping over!

Matt told Nick to "go in my jungle, Daddy" and then he ran over to the camera to take a picture.

If you look closely, you can see Matt deep in his jungle playing and showing his daddy around back there.

Jonathan is awake more and more and is able to hang out with us in the evenings. This evening he got to hang out in his pack 'n play.

Here's a close up of our blue-eyed baby!

Matt peeks out of the roof of his "house". I think he was coming out as a tiger and growling in this picture.

Here's a picture of the boys. It's rare that I can get everyone looking the same direction. this one was close.

Matt just had to take a picture of me taking a picture! I finally had everyone looking and he put the camera in front of his face.

FINALLY!!!

Jonathan wanted his own picture, I guess!

Then it was my turn. Everyone's in the picture, but Matt kept refusing to sit with me and Jonathan.

I tried to corral him and it turned out the tickle bug showed up!

He looks shocked in this one!

Go Fly a Kite!

The boys and I went to find some kites earlier this week and have been saving them for when Nick got home. Little did I know, I should have put together the kites at home before we took a family outing! We went to a grassy open area near our house and once we finally got the kites together, the boys played and flew their kites while Jonathan and I watched and took pictures!

Here's Matt running after Nick as he is trying to get the Elmo kite aloft.

Matt took over the reigns and flew the kite "by self".

Although he sat on his bike on the way to fly kites, he still has not shown an interest in pedaling consistently. He was happy to go for the ride though.

We had trouble convincing Matt to stay in the open area away from trees so Elmo didn't get tangled up. He only needed the string to be rescued once. Not too bad.

We go one picture of Matt with his kite. I couldn't believe how long he held onto the string.

I am no expert of buying kites and chose a 3D airplane kite along with Elmo. It wasn't quite windy enough today to keep the kite up, but the boys tried their best!

If you look closely in this picture you can see the moon. Matt kept saying that Elmo was flying to the moon!

Still holding on to the string, and running in this picture!

I think Matt was getting tired in this picture, but didn't lose hold of the string.

Matt had so much fun running around and talking about Elmo flying in the sky.

Once again, standing near a tree with his kite. I was so amazed at how well he did, as long as we occasionally directed him to move to keep the kite up in the air.

Photography with Matt

I got out the camera the other night while we were playing on the floor. Matt is so interested in taking pictures now that I gave him my old film camera and put batteries in it. Occasionally he gets the flash to go off and he loves the sound it makes when he pushes the button. It keeps him from reaching out for the camera when I am taking pictures! I was trying to get shots of Jonathan and Matt didn't have his camera nearby. Uh oh!

Here's our little one lifting his head and discovering all there is to look at while on his belly. It looks a lot different when everything isn't hovering over you!

I don't know if there are some teeth coming in our what, but there's sure a lot of drool these days!

This is just the perfect picture of Matt! He looks like he needs to be rocking out at a concert or something! I love the look too. Notice his shirt: "Can u dig it?" coupled with "Move it". The look on his face cracks us up too. He's on the verge of laughter in this picture, while telling me it's his turn to use the camera and take pictures of Jonathan. That's when I reminded him he had a camera of his own he could use.

Another shot of Jonathan while Matt ran to get his camera. Jonathan recently started hanging onto toys and bringing them to his mouth along with shaking them and staring in amazement at what he can do with his hands!

Matt returned with his camera and promptly told me to stand "over there" to take pictures. Apparently I wasn't in the right place. Jonathan just stares at his brother with the most starry eyed looks. It's awesome!

Matt takes a picture this time. He hasn't quite learned about aiming, but rather just puts it up to his face and pushes the button. Good thing there's no film in there!

Messy playtime!

It just hit me this weekend that I am going back to work next week! YIKES! I have been off since December 6th and my mind has been really off since Jonathan was born. Apparently I suffer from "momnesia". I think the work routine will be good for all of us! I found a clinic with a daycare on site, and they also have a preschool where Matt will go every morning. He'll join Jonathan around lunchtime and for nap. I am excited to get started and see how Matt does in his new environment.

Since I'll be back at work, I figured we'd better do some special things this week while we have the time. Jonathan was napping this morning, so Matt & I took advantage of the rare one on one playtime and went out back. I introduced him to one of my favorite activities - play with cornstarch and water! He dove in and loved it!

Here we are, starting out. Matt had no idea what I had in store for him.

One of his favorite sayings these days is "I do myself, Mommy", so he was overjoyed when I let him pour the cornstarch into the pan.

Enter the water, and the game was on!

Midway through, he had to make sure I was getting messy too, so he asked me to join in with both hands as well as pouring some of the mixture onto my hands. I looked at him to tell him how much I enjoyed playing with him. Tears came to my eyes when his reply was "me too, Mommy!" I just love motherhood!

I started showing him how the mixture "melts" and he just wanted more.

It was time to clean up, and I intended to have Matt scrape the patio with me to start the cleaning process, but he had different plans and just added the scraper to the mixture.

He was finally done and decided to help with the clean up!

Jonathan woke up from his nap and was happy to see us!

The Big A!

We took a trip up to Anaheim to see the Angels' stadium. Nick and Jonathan shopped a bit while Matt & I ran around out front. He had a blast! The front of the stadium has a baseball diamond within the bricks. Matt was fascinated by the pitcher's mound, but did not really understand the rest of the diamond. He also found the "big hats" fascinating and wanted to run under them repeatedly.

There were big cement baseballs out front and Matt ran up to them and told me he wanted to push them over.

Here he is trying to push one of the balls. He cracked me up with this!

This picture sets the scene for the rest of our visit. He was off and running, EVERYWHERE!

Once Nick was done shopping, he & Jonathan joined us out front and Matt broke in his new Angels' baseball. Notice he's on the pitcher's mound.

He's still trying to figure out if he's a lefty or not when he throws. This day he decided he'd be more of a righty.

More running!

Here's a picture of the front of the stadium with Matt & Nick playing baseball out front.

Here's a shot of the "big hats".

More throwing from the pitcher's mound.

Jonathan's such a trooper on our morning trips these days. He's quite the sleeper when his brother is not being too loud! Matt & I were on our way back from the big hat in this picture.

He just didn't stop running!

He stopped running long enough to play a little catch with me.

We had to chase him down to get him to want to leave!

He's still running!