Summer ideas

Okay, so here it goes....my attempt at keeping John stimulated this summer....(note: these are outside of our everyday playing and things around the house, just some things to make each day "special", even if only for half an hour)

Places we can go:
- Zoo (we have a membership, so this is free (excluding gas for the car)
- Neighborhood pool (yes we have one, but it is fun to change it up)
- Indoor Safari park; i.e. play area with trains and animals (I have a coupon to go twice to this place)
- Friends houses (now accepting invitations)
- A Park tour (trying out a new park each week around the area)

Things to do:
- Arts and Crafts (I have these little decks of cards with ideas on them that are coming in handy)
- movie days (saved maybe for rainy days)
- Swim in our pool (could be tricky with Matthew)
- Alphabet days. Each day will be a different letter of the alphabet and will have a theme/activity that will start with that letter. I will try to incorporate colors and food and other things that start with that letter as well. Here is where I am soliciting specific help. As you can see, some ideas are lame and I am missing some letters... any ideas on ANY letters would be appreciated

A - Art
B - Books or Board games
C - Camera or computer
D - Drawing or Dancing
E - Eating
F -
G - Games
H -
I - Insects
J - Jungle
K - Kitchen
L - Love
M - Music
N - Nature or Numbers
O - Outside
P - Plants or pictures
Q -
R - Reading
S - Swimming
T - T-ball
U -
V- video
W - water
X
Y - Yellow
Z - Zoo

Last day of MDO for 2010-2011

Here is a picture on his last day of MDO:

Followed by a picture on his first day of MDO:

Notice he is wearing the same shorts. When I realized this, I almost changed him for pictures, but decided that I would leave him because it is such a telling story of how much he has NOT grown in his waist this year.

I am pretty nervous about summer. Entertaining a 3 year old all day long is A LOT of work.... then multiply that times 7 days a week for 3 months....PLUS an infant to care for....EEK! I have decided that we are going to have to have something
to do or focus on everyday to keep me sane and keep him interested. Even if that something is running errands. I have some ideas up my sleeves...will do a separate post on that soon, I will also be soliciting feedback and ideas at that time. :)

G.W. Exotic Animal Park

We vistied the G.W. Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma. John loved it, it was right up his alley. They have countless tigers that they have rescued, but they also have bears and lions and monkeys and pretty much everything. The stories are sad, but they are at this park and being taken care of which, although may not be ideal (totally runs off donations), is much better than the alternative.

We got to play with a 10 week old baby tiger cub. His name was Orlando. I did not filter the pictures, so stay tuned for the tiger cub ones at the end.

Happy 2 Month Birthday Matthew!

In some ways, these past two months have flown by... in others... they have crawled. This age is so easy and so hard all at the same time. You really do not realize it until it is your second.

His 2 month well check up was good. Doc wants him out of the swaddle and swing. I started with the swing and the intention of dropping the swaddle tonight, but he got a 100.1 fever from the vaccinies, so I could not let him cry like that. He is up there swaddled and sleeping soundly.:)

So....he has a third nipple...yep...in the EXACT same place that his Daddy does (ooohhh I am in trouble for publishing that information). :) Pretty common apparently, I did not even notice it until he pointed it out to me. Changes from when John was 2 months old, they no longer give Tylonel with the vaccines. There was a study done that basically said that more vaccines were absorbed when no tylenol was given. BUT...he got a fever, so we gave him some tonight.

Nurse said that his eyes will not be brown, that they will be "colored"... I guess she has seen a lot of babies, but MAN do they look brown right now. We shall see.

He will smile and coo at us pretty good, but he is not grasping things all that well. Other than that, no major developments this month. I am going to do a seperate post on the sleeping later this week. That is really the biggest thing with him right now.

Here are his stats:
Weight: 12.3 (62%)
Height: 23 1/4 (61%)
Head: 15 3/4 (51%)

Compared to John at 2 months he is almost exactly the same. Matthew seems a lot chunkier to me, but maybe they carry it differently. I am projecting that John has more of Carl's body type while Matthew will have more of mine (poor kid).

Here are a few pics: