Our Backyard

Some Pictures of the House

I'll try to post pictures of house house over the next couple of posts. Here is our back deck.

Here is the mural I painted on the playroom wall during Dean's nap.

Dean loves to touch all of the new paintings. He especially loves the red flower as I painted a smiley face on it.

Playgroup

Look at that face...that's Dean after he's just finished some watermelon looking at his Daddy.

I lost my cell phone and spent the past 4 days trying to find it. I finally gave up today and called and ordered a new phone. I know the phone has to be somewhere b/c it hasn't been used since I lost it and I figured someone would use it if they wanted to keep it. I checked all over the house, under furniture, and even in the garbage. That was fun with all of the dirty diapers in the pail. I've been using Kevin's cell while he was at work. His really nice bike got stolen from the train station so Dean and I have had to go without a car for over a week. Kevin bought another bike, a used one that doesn't look so good that he still needs to put together. I know that this one won't get stolen at least.

One of my new mommy friends invited me over to her house last night as she was having some of the mom's in our playgroup over. Kevin had to leave work early in order to get home in time to watch Dean and so I could use the car. It was nice to finally go out...it's been months. It was easier to socialize with people without Dean around too. I did bring him to the park today as the playgroup was there and they were at a park really close to our house. The playgroup gets together twice a week at a park or someone's house and then there's a craft day for a third day a week. Since Dean can't do crafts we usually skip that. Everyone seems really nice in the playgroup, it's just hard to watch Dean at the same time as meeting a million new moms. There are 41 moms in the playgroup so it is really overwhelming. Usually there's about 15 moms at the park and most have 2 kids. Dean crawled all over the park today without letting his knees touch the ground. I told him that he looked funny, but I guess he doesn't care.

My parents are coming next week to visit. I'm sure that they'll love spending time with Dean. He is so much more fun now that he's older and laughs so much. He loves getting chased and playing hide and seek. Hopefully he'll remember my parents and won't be too shy with them.

It's been in the high 90's all week this week so we did a lot of swimming. Especially since we were without a car. It was nice to swim in the pool b/c it was so warm. Hopefully it will be a hot labor day weekend so we can do a lot of swimming.

The trail behind our house

So since Dean and I have been without the car I decided to take him for a walk on the paved trail behind our house instead of just around the neighborhood like I usually do. I've never been on the trail before for more than a couple of feet. In one direction the trail goes to the train station (which is how Kevin rides his bike to the train) and I had no idea where the other direction would take us so I decided to try it out. I figured I could always turn around if Dean was fussy as it was pretty hot out. I didn't realize what I was missing! Part of the walk was rough as it was all uphill, but what a view! Here are some of the pictures I took.

As you can see Dean liked the walk a lot. You can see the Golden Hills behind him (that is why they call California the Golden State). In the winter they will be green so it will look so nice. We have a view of the hills from our house. The couple we bought the house from did warn us not to take the dogs on the trail after 6pm because there are coyotes so I don't intend to take Dean at that time either. Unfortunately it is cooler at that time and would be a beautiful walk. I saw so many squirrels and rabbits on the trail that I don't think our dog Lexie will be able to come with us because she would be trying to chase all the animals and I wouldn't be able to hold onto her. It's too bad because she needs the exercise. Although lately she has been chasing this one squirrel around the backyard. It stays on top of the fence and goes back and forth from one end of the yard to the other to the tree that it lives in. The squirrel is seriously teasing Lexie. Poor Lexie is dying to catch it or play with it and it's standing on the trunk of the tree just staring at Lexie who is only a few feet away.

I can't let my knees touch the dirty ground!

Here is a picture of the way Dean crawls when he's outside. It's just like how I used to crawl outside when I was a baby.

Dean's room

The past 3 days I've spent most of my spare time turning our 4th bedroom into a playroom for Dean. It took a while as I decided to paint a mural on the walls. I'll post pictures of the room when I can. In the meantime here are some pictures of Dean's bedroom.

Fun in the pool

Here is an old video of Dean and Kevin swimming in the pool. Now that Dean is used to the pool, he actually isn't as enthusiastic about swimming like he is in the video. I'm hoping the occasional dunks isn't the reason. He's more into just playing on the steps of the pool.

Dean's cruising

All Dean does these days is walk around with his walker and his train. As soon as I try to get him to walk on his own he cries. I guess he likes the security of holding onto something. He's basically running at this point with his walker so I figured he'd be able to walk on his own. He has still only taken about 3 steps at a time on his own. He even walks backwards now with his toys. Lately he's been testing my authority. Right before he does something bad he looks me straight in the eye to see what my reaction will be. For instance he knows he's not allowed to throw his food on the floor (which the doggies wait under his high chair for), so he holds the food out above the dogs and just looks for my reaction and when I say "no" he drops it. Today he was pulling out all of the magazines out of the magazine rack and throwing them. He heard me say no so the next time he held it out and stared at me and as soon as I said "no" he threw it.

Sunday morning Dean woke up with a fever and he's had it all this week until today. I'm hoping it's gone for good as he sleeps even worse when he's sick and he's not a good sleeper to begin with. I'm so tired and I know he is too. Plus I don't think either of us want to go back to the doctor as we were there yesterday just to make sure he was ok.

It's almost time for Dean's bath so I have to get going as he is currently occupying himself with the dog toys. I guess he doesn't know the difference between his toys and the dog toys. It's not like the dogs don't play with his toys.

Look Mom, I can feed myself!

Here is a cute video of Dean feeding himself. I usually don't let him feed himself. You will see why when you check out the video.

Gotta Love Target

I was watching the show "Tori and Dean" the other night and saw that Tori Spelling put her toddler in the duck bathtub in the backyard as a little kiddie pool. I thought it was a great idea and since Dean has the same tub from Target I tried it out. Boy, was it a hit! I got to sit down and watch him play for a while which was a nice break. Then, when he was done playing and I realized how it took too much time to clean all the dirt and grass off the tub to have it ready for bathtime (it's real use of course), I knew I'd need to go to Target to get another. So Dean and I headed out on a mission. Once I got there I thought that maybe I should check out the kiddie pools and see if they had a better option than the tub. Of course they did! They had plenty to choose from and they were all on clearance so the one I got was even cheaper than the bathtub. I guess that's a sign that summer is coming to an end : ( I got Dean a pool with a canopy for shade and that squirts water. I blew it up during his nap time and let him play in it in the afternoon. Here is a video of him in it. On a side note, Dean loves it when I say the word "unbelievable" so that is why I kept saying it in the video.

Some recent Pictures

Here are some pictures of Dean swimming with his Daddy. There is also another of Dean clapping while sitting on the grass. He crawls on the grass without putting his knees down. I thought it was so funny and told my mom and she said I did the exact same thing when I was a baby. I also took a picture of a pretty sunset in our backyard.

Dean and Jackson

Here is a picture from yesterday of Dean and his friend Jackson. We had Jackson and his mom Missy over yesterday. I know Missy from our days in Boston when our husbands were at Harvard Business school together. Missy and her husband also went to Notre Dame with Kevin. Now they live in San Francisco. This is the only picture I could get of the two boys looking at the camera at the same time. Most likely they will be going to college together which would be so fun. Jackson can walk so he ran around the yard and the house while they were visiting. I got to see what I'll be doing in probably a couple of weeks time when I'm chasing Dean around when he's walking. He's taken his first steps, but only a couple at a time. For now he's just walking around with his train and walker. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before he's walking on his own. Dean was really shy with Missy all day yesterday until she had to leave and then he gave her a sweet hug good-bye. It was so cute! I think she won him over when she chased him around the kitchen and he was giggling. Dean was fast asleep once they left as he never took a morning nap so he was so exhausted. I've just started playing with Dean in the backyard as it is a little cooler out and we have the pool fence up so it is safe. He crawls real slow on the grass as I don't think he likes the feel of it. I wish we had a swing set for him as he loves the swings so much and it's kind of annoying to have to drive to the park to get him on the swings for 10 minutes. We went to a playgroup on Monday and it was so overwhelming...there must have been 40 people there (mom's and kids). Dean couldn't do much as we were all on the cement and sandbox area. All of the toddlers were playing in the sand. I think Dean was a bit bored. I didn't want him eating sand so I kept him out of it. The playgroup meets 2-3 times per week so we'll see which one we can go to next.