The nose knows - Sniff at your own risk!

Yikes! Two days to blog about at once!

First, Monday. Day one of "Kid Camp" - my own little invention. Not nearly as involved as it sounds, lol. (Also, please notice that I have avoided the clever "Kid Kamp" - I'm not big on that changing of the spelling thing).

Monday - Music Day

I had big plans for us to make an instrument of some sort out of a paper-towel tube, but didn't get to that. Instead, we just got down Dale's instrument box to play with and listened to music (CD, radio) throughout the day. Even with this minimal plan, Dale was big into the them, and mentioned several times throughout the day that it was 'music day'. This gives me a lot of encouragement that Kid Camp may go longer than one week! :)
How many instruments can you play at once?!?

Our friends came for their visit. Neal is the director of the BCM (Baptist Collegiate Ministry) at Henderson State University, where Greg and I met. The BCM (BSU - Baptist Student Union, in those days) was a very big part of our lives. Neal and Teresa and their family are special friends to us. We hadn't seen them since Alan and their 3rd child, Ethan, were born. Ethan is 2 months older than Alan. (yeah, we noticed.... Ethan Allen! :) )
We enjoyed lunch together, and they were able to stay for a couple of hours, until it got to be the babies' naptimes.

Tuesday = Thomas Tuesday

Dale is a big Thomas the Train fan, so that was today's theme. First thing this morning, while it was still cool, I took the sidewalk chalk and drew a drive-way size train track. Dale has one Thomas that is bigger than the rest, so this was perfect to take outside for jumbo-sized fun. We drew a station, mountains, and lakes.

Here is Dale adding fish to our lake. This goes along perfectly with the book Thomas Goes Fishing.



I spy Thomas, peeking out! - We believe in going all out for our themes! ;)

Alan had fun outside too:

The only problem was, his walker was sitting on top of a big patch of blue sidewalk chalk, so he came away with blue feet! Twice this caused a double-take, once with me, and once with Mimi thinking he was losing circulation!

Talking about Thomas & friends in sidewalk chalk form got us to thinking about some of the Thomas stories we've read at the library. I was already thinking about it, when Dale said out loud, "let's go to the library!"

So we loaded into the van and away we went. We checked out two Thomas books (and some other stuff) and got home just in time to put Alan down for his morning nap. Just before Alan woke up, Dale and I started a batch of cookies. They turned out pretty good, but it took a while to get Alan to cooperate so we could actually make them!

After lunch, Dale was busy playing on his own and Alan and I had a fantastic game of peek-a-boo. :) The game has always amused Alan, but today was the first time he's played back! He was sitting up in his bedroom floor, and I was laying down on his level. He would hold the blanket up all the way over his head and wait for me to say "Wheeere's Alan?" before he would drop it down, with a big grin!! :) Soooo cute... soooo fun!

Greg went to work today, so this evening I got to show him and Dale Alan's 'new' game. Dale loved it! He laughed and laughed!

We were given fresh corn on the cob this afternoon, so I decided to cook some for supper. I can't tell you how good it felt to be shucking this perfect corn. I consider myself a novice foodie anyway, but all of my senses were loving working with this corn. The husks were thick and green, the silks were all shiny, every kernel of corn was in its place, and just the right buttery-yellow color. The whole thing smelled so earthy. I held one up and asked Greg, "Doesn't this look like it came straight from a cornfield?" Greg, clever one that he is, says, "I don't know - I've never been in a cornfield!" By now we had Dale's attention. If you remember, Dale loves corn on the cob, and he wanted in on this process. I showed him how, naming all the parts, and he got to work. He didn't want to stop! And all through the evening he kept saying, "I've never been to a cornfield!"

Supper brought another first for Alan - his first real table food! :) We had some boiled potatoes. I mashed a few spoonfuls up for him, and added a little formula, so it was like mashed potatoes. He was NOT impressed. But - I put a few little soft chunks of potato on his tray to feed himself, and he had a great time. I think he actually managed to eat some too. :)

I was reminded of one of the many roles of mother-hood tonight: Official Laundry Sniffer. I hadn't realized I had this habit until tonight when I was helping Dale get ready for bed. He had a couple of shirts and pairs of shorts laying around his room. I mentioned picking them up and he scooped them all together and brought them to me, saying, "here, you sniff them". LOL!
And...so I did. First a visual inspection, because anything obviously dirty does not need sniffing. Once they pass the visual, bring them up for a cautious whiff, right in the front panel, checking for that tell-tale scent of careless drips or I-almost-waited-too-long-to-get-to-the-pottyness. These of course, go into the hamper. If the whiff comes up with nothing, then it's safe for an all out, bury your nose in and sniff. Everything fresh or neutral goes into the drawer, the rest, Dale takes to the hamper. Apparently, this is more of a nightly ritual than I thought! Kudos to Dale for being observant!