Tuesday, August 25, 2009

I Don't Want to go on the Titanic

The other morning, Josh woke up and came out to the family room rubbing his eyes. He looked at Tim and said, "I really don't want to go on the fire boat." Tim asked, "What fire boat?" Josh responded, "You know, the fire boat that goes in the water." Tim asked again, "What fire boat?" Josh said, "The Titanic, dad. I don't want to go on the Titanic." Tim asked him why and Josh answered, "Because it's going to crash and go into the water with all the people." Tim was perplexed. Here our four-year old was having nightmares about the Titanic. What four-year old knows about the Titanic? Had he seen the movie somehow and we didn't know it? We don't own the movie and we've never even watched it at our house. Maybe he watched it over at someone else's house while they were watching him. Tim decided the best way to get to the bottom of this was to just ask Josh. The question was posed, "Josh, where did you learn about the Titanic?" The answer: "I saw it on Reading Rainbow." Thanks Reading Rainbow for giving my son nightmares. 'Preciate ya.

Monday, August 24, 2009

It's All About Who You Play the Game With

A long while back, Tim and I played a game with some of his friends called Munchkin. I was assured that it was a fun game and that I should play. Not so. That game was the most unfun game of my life. I had never played before, so the rules had to be explained to me as I went along. In this game you have to battle monsters. If you are unable to defeat the monster by yourself, you can ask someone for help. Sounds easy enough. I'm pretty easy going when it comes to rules in games;expect for Parcheesi - don't try to cross me in that game. Anyway, I came to the point in the game when I couldn't defeat the monster by myself so I was told I could ask for help. I said, "Okay, I'll do that." The guy explaining the rule said, "No...you have to say, 'Ramon, will you help me.'" Really? I looked at him with the crustiest East Coast look I could muster and said, "Ramon, will you help me?"

Since that day, I have refused to play that game. Tim has tried to convince me to play it and even buy it. No way. But, this past weekend we went up to Bear Lake with some friends. They were talking about the games they brought up. Munchkin was among them. Oh no. Was I really going to have to play this game I swore I would never play again. The nice side of my East Coast me won out and I decided to play. But, I thought I'd better tell my little story from above so they wouldn't try to pull any of that lame, "Ramon, will you help me" crap. My story was told, the game was played and now Munchkin is on the list for the next game we will buy! So, thanks Brian for a fun weekend at Bear Lake and for helping me see that Munchkin really is a fun game. While some may say, "It's all about how you play the game," I beg to differ. It's all about who you play the game with.

ps - some names have been changed to protect the guilty

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Trains, Trains and More Trains. By the way, did I mention trains?

Josh is a train freak. It started innocently enough with Thomas the Tank Engine. Our neighbor downstairs liked Thomas so I recorded a few episodes for when we watched him at our house. Well, Josh was hooked. We watched tons of Thomas after that. He then moved on to the train table. His doctor's office had a train table and Josh loved to go to the doctor just to get a chance to play on it. I had to plan an extra hour each visit. We decided to get Josh his own train table at home and it has been the best purchase ever. Josh plays with his trains at least an hour each day. But it's usually more like two or three hours a day. It's even better now that he can build his own tracks - I don't have to come up with new and exciting tracks everyday! He can also point out any train in any book or show, even if it's hidden in some obscure place. And he'll remember when it's coming up in a movie. He'll say, "A train's coming" and sure enough, a train will appear somewhere in the movie. Just like I said, he's a train freak. Here's a picture/video trip down memory lane featuring Josh and his trains.

Josh on Christmas morning playing with his train.

Trying out new train track designs.

Josh found a train at a park in New Mexico.


Josh riding the Front Runner, a commuter train in Salt Lake, holding a picture of said train.

Josh is getting better at setting up his own tracks.Here's a video of Josh when he got his train on Christmas morning. This is before he was a total train freak. He's pretty excited at first and then just wants a snack.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Christmas in August?

Last December, I bought about 4 bags of gingerbread cookie mix for school and for cookies for neighbor gifts. I only used one for school and was cookied out by the time it was time for the gingerbread. Well, Josh found the cookie mix a couple of months ago and started bugging me about making the cookies. But who wants gingerbread in May? I kept it hidden for a while, but while rearranging our pantry, to make room for food storage - we've been stocking up this summer - Josh found the cookie mix again. So this morning, we made gingerbread. Complete with stars, hearts, pumpkins and trees!And after all the effort, this is all he ate - one little part of a heart cookie. Oh well, we had fun.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Better Late Than Never

With a new baby here and a summer off of work, I thought it was time to do a little scrapbooking. I was really excited to do a book for Benjamin. But then I thought, Josh is old enough that he'll ask where his is. The answer to that is "non-existent". I figured I would start there. But I didn't have all the pictures I wanted yet. Most are still on the computer. So I decided to start where I should have started 6 years ago--with a scrapbook of Tim's and my first year of marriage. I found the scrapbookers new best friend. The one-hour album in a box from SEI. It is so reasonably priced at their outlet in Logan, I may never go back to figuring out my own layouts. It has everything you need to do an album - pre-cut paper, ribbons, buttons, tags, letter stickers, etc. You just assemble and add pictures. I put the album together yesterday while Benjamin was napping and added pictures today while he was playing next to me. I'm going to keep the directions with paper dimensions for another album. I'll just switch the order of the layouts and the paper so it looks at least a little different. Here's the finished product (minus some journaling).
Josh's and Benjamin's baby albums are put together. I just need to develop some pictures and then I'll post them!