Lord of the Flies!

Diaper Diaries

Day # 676

Apparently, this is the summer of flies! It seems like every time we open a door, about 10 flies come into the house! I am so sick of them that we bought a two pack of fly swatters and Quinton has become quite the lean, mean fly exterminating machine! As you can tell by the pictures, he loves to be on the prowl. You might think I'm kidding, but Quinton has actually made a dent in our indoor fly population! Then again, he is the one who keeps leaving the doors open!

Last week, I had a taste of Matt's life! It was my turn to fly to Chicago for business. I flew out Thursday evening and came back Saturday afternoon. Matt took the day off on Friday so he and Quinton could enjoy some male bonding. While I was in a 10-hour client candidate interview session in Springfield, Illinois, Matt and Quinton went to the zoo, took naps, mowed the lawn, played at the park and splash park and played on their merry way! I wish it was that fun for us all everyday!

I did have a good time in Illinois, though. It was a great experience to watch candidates interview for our client. Then I was able to spend the night at our friends, the Sommers. Saturday I went to our old neighborhood in Winnetka. It was nice to wander the streets and shop where we spent almost 4 years of our lives. The weather in Chicago was nice and cool for July. Then, I met up with some other of our friends in Highland Park. After that, I hit the serious landmarks like IKEA, H&M, my favorite scrapbooking store, Archivers and my favorite paper store, PaperSource.

Even doing all of that shopping, I made it to my flight on time. While sitting in the airport I ran into our friend's parents, Paul and Sue Anne. They remind me a lot of Matt's parents and they were our surrogate parents while in Chicago. Their plane was delayed so I was able to spend about 45 minutes visiting with them, which was a real treat! They kept my mind off of missing Quinton.

When I arrived home later that evening, Quinton was happy to see me and I think Matt was even a little happier. They had a great time. Quinton is still what I would call a daddy's boy, but he loves "momma" just as much!

Quinton amazes us everyday. He repeats new words everyday and his cognitive skills are ever-developing. He is able to connect things he's seen or heard before with their meaning. He loves that a bunch of little boys have moved into the neighborhood. He never wants them to leave the park because he never wants to say goodbye to a friend.

It's getting late so I better head to bed...I have lots of playing to do tomorrow!

Weekends like this...

Diaper Diaries

Day #668

I think, since Matt and I were married, I have dreamt of weekends like this. No work, no school, no burdens hanging over us, just good clean family fun!

Saturday, we'd planned to go to Lake Skiatook, about 45 minutes north of Tulsa, with a group Matt calls HTB - Hilti Thunderbirds. There are quite a few people at Hilti who are Thunderbird alumni and Matt and a couple of others planned a fun day at the Lake. Matt, Quinton and I were first to arrive since picnic spaces go quickly. We were very lucky to find a nice shady spot on the water's edge...actually, the water's edge is about 7 feet higher than normal, so the picnic spots that are normally at the water's edge were UNDER water!

Matt and Quinton were able to enjoy a nice bike ride for about an hour while the rest of our group trickled inoto the picnic area. Later in the afternoon, we rented a nice boat from a local marina and were able to enjoy waterskiing and boating. At one point, Matt and his friend Alex swam over to an island with some fun cliffs to jump off of but the Lake Police pulled up along side our boat. Even though we thought everything was okay on our boat, we soon found out that the life jackets on the two of the kids were not the right size and Quinton's swimsuit preserver was not Coast Guard approved. We NARROWLY avoided the officer writing a ticket because he was going back to talk to the guys at the marina who rented us the boat without the proper equipment.

It was a wonderful afternoon in the sun with new friends. Here are some more Lake Skiatook Pcitures. We'd left our house that day at 9am and pulled into our garage shortly after 9pm. Quinton was too tired to even take a bath so I wiped him down with a washcloth and then put him to bed without so much as a peep from him - we definitely wore him out! We can't wait to go back to the Lake. Matt and I think we might try out there campgrounds too in a couple of weeks.

Yesterday, we had a nice, leisurely breakfast on our patio. We don't have any patio furniture yet, so we put Quinton's high chair out there and Matt and I used the camp chairs from Saturday's adventure at the lake. It was a beautiful morning and a lovely way to start out the day.

Big news yesterday, too. Matt's baby brother, Gary and his wife, Erely had their first baby! They had an 8lb 4 ounce little boy, named Gabriel. We are very excited for them to experience the same kind of joy we have since Quinton came into our lives. It is Matt's mom's 27th grandchild! We can't wait to meet Gabriel when we go out to Utah for a visit!

Enjoy the pictures!

Vaminos Quinton!

Diaper Diaries

Day #663

What a day for the record books for Quinton!

We had a great time, today, thanks to our friend Erin who called us a couple of weeks ago to see if we wanted to go see the Go Diego Go! live show with her and her son Andrew (4). I was more than a little skeptical at first...a REAL hour and a half show, not a 30 minute cartoon...was Quinton ready for this step???

Not only was Quinton ready, today, but he had a blast! He was wiggling in his seat to the music and for the first half of the show, his eyes NEVER left the stage. An observer of Quinton and me might say that I was having fun, too, but then, I was just trying to make it a great experience for Quinton. *ahem* What adult would enjoy watching Diego and Dora dancing around on stage talking to animals?

Matt and I have also decided it should be illegal just how cute Quinton is these days! In preparation for Quinton's big show today, I'd bought him a 'Diego' backpack. So when Matt came home from work tonight, Quinton was showing Matt what all was in his backpack from the show. Matt put the backpack on Quinton and Quinton kept trying to see it on his back! He was so funny. Then, when we took it off of him, Quinton kept trying to say backpack and was pretty close to saying the full word!

Quinton is really trying to be a chatterbox these days. Everyday, I'll find in the course of talking, Quinton will pick a word and try to repeat it. Words like tie, potty (which he says pot-pot), cat, car, truck, slide, please, outside and a few others but what is perplexing to Matt and me is that Quinton will let us know when he wants more milk/juice in his sippy by saying "pih-uh"...I know, very odd, but Quinton thinks this is the name for milk/juice just as sure as you and I know it's not!

The sad part about all of this is it means Quinton is growing up. Monday was his 22-month birthday making his 2nd birthday that much closer. Matt and I have both noticed that Quinton is growing up too fast for our comfort, but I know every parent must say the same thing about their kids growing up, too.

We found out tonight, too, that our good friends from Chicago, now living in Utah, Mariah & Evan just had their baby girl! We are very excited for them and hope to see them in Utah in August.

The Tulsa weather has finally calmed down a bit. Today was one of the first days I can remember where we had no rain in our area...that's a big deal since it seems like it's been raining non-stop for two months!

We wish all of you the best!

Diaper Diaries

Day #655 and a half!

If Noah and his ark were here, they would have been able to set sail by now! It continues to rain here in Tulsa. We had two days in a row of sunshine and then wham, this morning it was clouds and rain again. Plus, with so many of the house lots near us already finished, Quinton's supply of mud is quickly diminishing. What's a poor kid to do to drive his mom batty? That's the question I'm sure he asks himself every waking minute of the day!

Fourth of July week was busy but at least Matt was IN town! As I write, he is sleeping soundly in a hotel somewhere in Canada. At least this time he remembered his passport! Matt was supposed to fly out to Canada (I'm not sure exactly which city) on Monday evening but his flight was canceled because of bad weather in Chicago, so he left very early this morning and arrived safely in time for any myriad of meetings talking about tools and blah, blah, blah. It's exciting, I'm sure.

We spent the Fourth of July in the yard - actually Matt and Quinton worked in the yard while I enjoyed my favorite patriotic past time of shopping the holiday sales! Later in the afternoon, we attended a fun BBQ at our friends parent's house. The parents, Mary and George, have a lovely property with a great big pond. They used to have a pet alligator in it but the alligator died - they keep him frozen in the garage deep freezer until the taxidermist is ready for him...fun, huh?

The kids had a great time with the slip N' slide. it was Quinton's first time on one and he was pretty cautious, preferring to watch from the pool part of the slip N' slide. When it came time for fireworks, Quinton was pretty cautious about those, too. He preferred to watch them from the comfort of my lap or Matt's, which was fine with me! We had a great day with friends and watching fireworks!

Saturday, we were all supposed to go to Oklahoma City but Quinton woke up Saturday morning sick - poor kid. So he and I just took it easy at home. When it is not raining outside, it heats up pretty fast. We much prefer the air conditioned confines of the house on a day when Quinton's not feeling well. We played lots of games and watched of few of his favorite movies.

Not too much exciting going on in our neck of the woods. Plus, it's after midnight, so I had better hit the sack!

Animals arriving in Tulsa two by two!

Diaper Diaries
Day #645

Seriously, I think I saw the animals coming in two by two today, about the time it starting pouring on my way to church. It has rained everyday this week! Last night, on my way home with the babysitter, we almost had to use our go-go-gadget-boat-car to wade through a street that was in the process of flooding!

When we came home from church this afternoon, after a couple of hours of rain, the flood plain next to our house was the fullest we've ever seen it! When we were standing in the driveway admiring the plain's beauty as a LAKE, you could hear what sounded like a river. It was the water running off of the flood plain and onto the golf course! Yikes!

Tonight, we had some new friends and old ones come over for dinner, yummy waffles, bacon, sausage and zucchini bread. One of our friends is a Tulsa native and she hasn't recalled a summer wetter than this in a very long time. Indeed, when we were here this time last year, it was so hot, I thought I was still in Phoenix! I have to say the rain isn't too bad, even though it means Quinton and I do a lot of indoor activities...the bad part of all of this rain is the mosquitoes! Every time Quinton goes outside, I find a couple more mosquito bites on him...plus, they are some of the biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen and I'm from Florida!

Well, enough about our rain. Matt did arrive in Tulsa, very early Thursday morning at 6am after a 10-hour drive from Indianapolis with a complete stranger. He spent the rest of the day sleeping and playing with Quinton, a pretty good day, in my book. Thursday evening, we went for a walk down by the Arkansas river. There's a lovely walking bridge over the river and with all of the rain, we were curious to see how full it was. This time last year, you could have walked across the river and probably not even your shoes would have been wet. Now, the river is so full, you wouldn't want to stand too close to the riverbank because all of the rain and water flow are eroding them! On the other side of the bridge is a lovely shopping area and we treated Quinton to some Marble Slab ice cream...it was an enjoyable family evening after Matt being gone for almost two weeks!

Friday evening was nice and low key. Matt even had a chance to mow the backyard before the rain came down again! Plus, we picked some of the zucchini growing in his garden. Matt is so proud of his garden and so are Quinton and I! A lot of people say it's hard to grow stuff in the soil around here because it's made up of a lot of clay. Matt was careful in using a lot of topsoil to build a good foundation. Then he put chicken wire up to keep Quinton and the rabbits out of it and voila! We have squash and zucchini ready to pick! Today, before church, I made some yummy chocolate chip orange zucchini bread (click for recipe) and it turned out super yummy! I have a feeling all of our local friends will be receiving several loaves of zucchini bread from us this summer with how big they are turning out! We cooked up the squash for dinner on Friday night and it was delish!

A funny story: a couple of months ago, when Matt was out of town, I could NOT find my cell phone anywhere. I looked all over the house and cars and then I finally used the home phone to dial my cell. Guess where it was? In our subwoofer speaker! That little turkey, Quinton, stuck my phone in the subwoofer and there is no way to take the back of the speaker off without damaging the entire contraption. Good thing my mom thought MacGuyver was good looking back in the day because I was able to fashion a ruler and some sticky tape together and after cursing the subwoofer and admonishing Quinton, I was able to fish out my cell phone.

Fast forward to about a month ago when we found a dozen or so plastic Easter eggs in the subwoofer and then to Friday night, we found an array of other toys in the subwoofer, again! So you'll see pictures somewhere in this blog with Quinton's hand in the subwoofer trying to fish his toys out of it. What a funny little boy!

We hope you are all doing well. If you read all of these, I hope they are amusing enough to come back every now and again. I actually print these off and put them in Quinton's baby journal.