Words words words words words

In the last week or so, Rand has gone through another word explosion. He's regularly using three, four, and five-word sentences. Yesterday he was eating a banana. I asked him where he got it, and he clearly said, "Daddy shared with me." He still gets his "me's" and "you's" mixed up, and when he doesn't like something he says "like it," but it's still amazing how we can actually have a conversation now.

Rand knows almost all of his letters and likes to sing "Jesus Loves Me" and the "ABCs" at the top of his lungs. He can count to twenty and talks to everybody that we meet. At Costco the other day he told the cashier all about the soap we bought for the washing machine and how we'd put the clothes in and put the soap in and there would be bubbles and it would go round and round and they'd be all clean and then we'd put them in the dryer. She thought he was brilliant.

I read a quote the other day that said gave the definition of a boy: a noise with dirt on it. So true!

Timber!

Rand has always been on the tiny side to begin with. Now that he's wearing underwear more and more, it's hard to find pants to will stay up. I thought I'd found a pair that worked so we could go outside to get the mail.

Rand started running ahead of me. I could see his pants starting to slip down. He stopped quickly and yelled, "Pants fall down!" I caught up with him and said, "Uh-oh! Let me help you." Rand replied, "Timber!"

Phoenix Photos!

If you want to see a slideshow of the Fishers' recent visit to Phoenix, check 'em out here:

http://biola.facebook.com/album.php?aid=19168&l=2bf11&id=602061923


Thanks Dad!

Kisses, Gorillas, and Banging on Walls

Margie has been oh-so-subtlely reminding me that I haven't written about their visit last week. Very true. However, I wanted to include photos, and while we now have an awesome camera (thank you thank you thank mom and dad!), Werner changed something on the computer so all jpgs are all skewed. He says it's an easy fix but we were busy last night so the fixing didn't happen. Anyways! Margie, I promise to write all kinds of wonderful things about your trip. Later.

In the meantime, let me tell you some more cute Rand stories! I whacked my head pretty good the other day and have a couple of neat-o looking cuts on my eyebrow and eyelid. Rand loves kissing it and "make it all better." He's much better at giving kisses now. They're not sloppy at all and he makes a great little kissy noise.

One of Rand's favorite book has consistently been "Goodnight, Gorilla." Right now his goal is to find the banana on every page. He calls them "bananananas" right now. He also likes pointing out the elephant and making an elephant noise, complete with raising his arm to imitate a trunk.

One of the joys of condo living is that occasionally our neighbors can be a leetle noisy. Rand shares a wall with a teenage boy next door who has a penchant for playing music and video games loudly in the middle of the night (okay, like 9pm. We're old and boring now.). When Jose does this, we hit the wall a few times and he turns the volume down. On Tuesday night, while Werner was putting him to bed, Rand asking, "Bang?" and waved his arm like he was banging on the wall. Werner said, "No, not tonight, because it's quiet." Rand understood and went to sleep. Last night Rand asked me the same question, with the same answer. He seemed a little disappointed that there would not be any funny wall-smacking.

I'm wondering if this will be a part of our nightly routine.

It's Fall!

It is officially Fall! We all went to the pumpkin patch last night and had a fabulous time. The place we went is a locally-owned family farm, complete with train rides, corn mazes, and a petting zoo.

Rand got to pet a calf, piglets, ponies, and lots of goats. There were sheep, turkeys, chickens, a cow, and an ostrich to look at, a tractor to climb on, and a little playground. We watched the train rides, but he wasn't sure about actually riding it, so we passed. And there were pumpkins! We didn't take one home, but Rand had a great time just looking at them. There was a straw pit (hmm....not sure quite what to call it) -- lots of straw bales had been set up in a big square. In the middle were lots of opened bales so kids could play in the straw. Rand had fun picking up the straw in big handfuls and letting it fall to the ground.

The hit of the night, though, was definitely the maze. Rand had the best time picking which way to go and leading us around. He was practically giddy as he ran through it. He loved the "tunnel" that the corn made and every time we came to a fork in the road there was a big decision to be made: "this way or that way? this way!"

We finished the night with pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin scones at Starbucks -- it doesn't get more "Fall" than that!

Sleepy time

Rand has been a fairly easy little boy ever since he was born. Except when it comes to sleeping. Even there, I know that we are blessed, but we have consistently had a hard time getting him to go to sleep. Rand keeps going down easier and easier, but over the last few days he has started something new. As he starts to drift off and his eyelids get heavy, he reaches up and PHYSICALLY PULLS HIS EYELIDS OPEN BY HIS EYELASHES. And holds them open. Until his blinking reaction kicks in, his eyes shut, and then he does it again.

Don't you think that would hurt?

Most of the time, though, he is loving his new big boy bed. Grandpa and Grandma got him blue polka-dot sheets for his birthday, and he thinks those are awesome. He loves to touch all the dots as he's drifting away.

Sokay

Whenever Rand gets hurt, is sad, or otherwise emotionally rumped, Werner or I usually soothe him by hugging him and saying, "It's okay."

Now Rand has started telling himself, "Sokay" when something's wrong. Last weekend he got some sort of flu bug on our last night camping. After he threw up, I'd try to comfort him. We'd hug, and while we were hugging, he'd be saying to himself, "Sokay, Rand. Sokay." It was very sweet and a little sad at the same time.

Rand is Two!

Two big events last week:

Rand turned two! His favorite part of his birthday was blowing out the candles. We re-lit them several times so he could blow them out again. He got a Mr. Potato Head (that he calls his mashed potato) and a Fisher-Price popper. We went to the mall to purchase it and Rand wanted to push it all the way back to the car. We got lots of looks as he popped his way through the mall. Melissa and Bella brought Rand a huge cupcake that was decorated to look like a monster. He loved eating the frosting, but wouldn't touch the eyes.

We went to the Grand Canyon and camped last weekend. It was gorgeous but very, very cold. We still had a really good time and Rand had a blast playing in the dirt and hitting things with sticks. He loved riding on the shuttle bus and said, "Grand Canyon! Big hole!" over and over.

Rand didn't appreciate the cold either. Whenever I had to change his clothes or diaper he would say, "Hurt! hurt!" Nope, baby, that's being cold. The lucky little guy has never really been cold for as long as he could remember. When we woke up the first morning, it was a lovely 40 degrees outside. I got Rand dressed and put him down so I could get ready. He immediately ran to the car, pointed at it, and started wailing, "Go home!" We went out for breakfast that morning.

My apologies for the lack of pictures....our camera decided to up and die a couple of weeks ago. Beautiful timing, huh?