Last Friday was Face Painting Day at daycare. We knew the kids were getting their faces painted and I was looking forward to seeing Kasper all day. When I picked him up at the end of the day, I was sad to see that they had washed all of the face paint off! Well, they sent me a couple pictures from Face Painting Day and I came close to perishing.
Hahahahahaha! I think the kids are supposed to be cats and you'll have to take my word for it but it looks like a group of scary clowns up there. And I love the picture of Kasper playing in the tunnel. That's where the big kids are usually playing and it's where I've been finding K most times. Playing with the big kids. Also funny - that's not the outfit Kasper went to daycare in. He hasn't come home in different clothes since his first day.
I'll tell the story later but we came home with an accident report today. Another kid bit Kasper on the hand! The teachers were so sorry, I felt worse for them than I did my baby! It's ok, they're kids. I'm sure one day Kasper will be the biter. But check out this chomp:
Ouch!
Feel free to scroll back up to laugh at Kasper with his group. Those eyebrows!
Geez! I had to look back at last week's post to refresh myself on what we did last weekend. I seem to have blocked out all those leaves. I'm happy to say that we are not re-covered in leaves.
Kasper faced the week with a nasty, crusty nose and a yawn. I think he has a severe case of the Mondays.
We have been battling that runny nose all week and the poor boy's nose is chapped.
Mondays are "Pajama Day" at daycare so K wore his finest terry sleeper. He boldly paired the sleeper with a raccoon hat. *I DIE*
I bought this hat at Target last weekend and we have been swooning over it all week. Babies in animal hats = the best.
We played outside after work almost every day. It was nice out and Kasper didn't sleep in the car on the way home so he was awake!
Kasper has been taking a greater interest in the dog lately. He likes to climb on her and screech in her ear. She's a great sport and lets him do what he wants until she gets sick of him and walks away. So while he's usually bothersome, he's also going to be a great playmate for Lois soon.
(He was in a box because I was pushing him around the house in it. Fun!)
We keep the pack and play set up in the upper level so we can put him in there while we make dinner or otherwise need to focus on something. He doesn't mind being in there if he can see us and we don't have to be always saving him from pinching his fingers in the drawers. He gets into EVERYTHING. But wait, it looks like it's not Kasper in there after all but a wayward raccoon looking for some garbage to eat!
I love this video for many, many reasons. First, it shows how silly he can be about sucking on things. He loves to suck on zippers. And basically everything else. Second, we see what a good crawler he has become. He's even faster now. Then we see him eating a mum mum with authority followed by falling over. It's a very nice snapshot of Kasper at this age.
We stopped at a coffee shop on Friday morning for breakfast before dropping K off at daycare. The coffee shop had a little kid-sized rocking chair. I put him in just for fun and he LOVED it! This video is from my phone and it was a little dark in there, but you can see that he is just rocking away! All by himself! It was so cute and I wouldn't have guessed that he could do it.
Rob headed over to Eau Claire for a frisbee tournament this weekend so I packed up the baby and the dog and headed up to St. Cloud. We had a nice relaxing weekend up there as usual. Kasper decided this week that he likes to point and make "ooo" sounds with his little mouth shaped like an O. He also looks for Lois when we ask where Sissy is and can maybe mimic us saying Sissy. He clapped a couple times this week but I don't know if it was an accident of if he really meant it. Also, when he is stood up and let go of, he can stand for a couple seconds and is even able to balance himself while standing. Could it be we'll have a walking baby soon?? Now I wonder when those teeth are going to pop through...
What a big boy! I should also note that his birthday is now less than 10 weeks away. Wha??? Impossible.
Actually, the beach is technically Oregon. Details...
So where were we? We've taken K to the mountain, we've met, played with and tormented some cousins. What else did we do?
We started our Friday morning off right with a trip to Stuffy's II. We had actually seen this place on the Food Network a couple months before and knew we had to stop. Their claim to fame is an ENORMOUS cinnamon roll. This thing is seriously large.
(Do you see Kasper getting frustrated in the corner?)
We "shared" the cinnamon roll and also got real breakfast food. We ate about 1/20th of the roll and took the rest to-go. It was delicious and a super fun place to eat at. Rob spent tons of time out in Longview growing up but I guess for some reason they never went to Stuffys! It's going to be a place we visit each time for sure.
We had the whole day ahead of us so we decided to head west towards the Pacific. Of course Kasper was an awesome car companion and we barely heard a peep out of him. It's a landscape unlike anything we have in the Midwest so it was fun to have a look around. We knew we wanted to make it as far as Astoria and once we were there, we went the extra 20-some miles to Seaside, OR.
It was a BEAUTIFUL day. The last couple times I've been there it was cold and/or overcast. On this day, the weather was just about perfect. The town was buzzing, the sun was warm, the water was beautiful. In short, it was a perfect day to introduce Kasper to the ocean.
First time putting his toes in the sand! Loved it!
Into the Pacific they go!
We already know he's a water baby so he was right at home. Not scared of the waves or cold in the water.
A perfect day. Sigh.
(That blue swatch of fabric is the baby desperately trying to get back down to the surf and sand. Amen kiddo.)
I'll be back later to wrap up our Washington trip!
How is it Sunday night again already?? I think we need longer weekends. Or we need to just slow down. I know I'm in the minority here but I can't wait for winter. Where you have nothing better to do than huddle up inside and watch movies. Maybe that's why Minnesota has leaves - when you're done raking them all up, you just wish for snow so you don't have to do yard work anymore. We spent our weekend raking. I'm looking into having our trees cut down. Kidding. Not.
This week flew by with nothing notable going on around these parts. I did capture another Papa/Kasper moment.
Kasper has become a lean, mean hands and knees crawling machine. He also started to have a snack when we get home from work. In an effort to get him to gain weight, he gets a quarter of an avocado for lunch and some string cheese and milk for an afternoon snack when we get home. He still eats a nice dinner where I try to give him some kind of protein. He's not crazy about the texture of meat or fish but if I give small enough pieces, he can usually get them down.
Yesterday, my sister and parents came over to help us out. My sister tended to the lad and dog...
while my Mom, Dad, Rob and I tackled the leaves. Before we started working, we spent some time waving at each other.
So the 4 of us worked hard for about 4 hours and the yard went from this:
To this:
Can you appreciate how many leaves this is?
As of tonight, this is the only little pile left
We have SO.MANY.LEAVES. So many. Rob and I originally planned on having my sister come over for a bit on Saturday so we could quick get the leaves raked up. Isn't that just the cutest? We grossly underestimated the amount of work we had in front of us. My Mom even cut down all of our plants and raked out all of the beds.
Check out this haul:
We have so many leaves we can't park in the garage! We have something like 46 bags of MULCHED leaves. That is in addition to the 11 bags we put out this week. Can you believe it??
We treated ourselves to a leisurely morning of coffee, waffles, the newspaper, big boy toys.
I realized that Kasper's toys weren't holding his attention very long. In a "Duh" moment, I surmised that they were toys for babies, not 9.5 month olds. Steph and I ran out to the store and remedied that.
After K's morning nap, he wiggled away before I could get a diaper on him. Instead of chasing him down, I grabbed my camera.
Seriously?
Kasper has been showing more interest in books this week. At least he'll sit still slightly longer to go through a short one with me.
