Learning to Count

Moses loves buttons and begs to push them wherever they might be. One set of buttons he loves is on our microwave. One positive outcome of this microwave obsession is that he learned to count...But he learned to count backwards...and ending in 'beep, beep, beep.'

Old MacDonald

And on his farm he had a...

Knitwit

I am a novice when it comes to knitting. The last thing I knit was a purse for my Mom five years ago but Moses recently gave me new inspiration to dust off my knitting needles. A hat! I was going to knit him a little toque! Well, to make a long story short, I got the gauge ('measurements' to those of you unfamiliar with the knitting world) wrong on it and made it too big.

WAY too big.
Ridiculously large.

The pictures don't do the monstrosity justice as it hangs on Jeremy's head, too. If the brim weren't rolled up in that last picture you wouldn't be able to see Moses' face. However, I must point out that though exorbitantly large, its proportions are perfect. If only I knew a giant to give it to. Any ideas on how I could actually use it? A tea cosy has crossed my mind but I'm not really a tea cosy kind of girl. Points to anyone who suggests a winning idea!

Seven Years and Counting

This past Monday Jeremy and I celebrated seven years of marriage. We put Moses to bed and hit the town leaving him with the first trusted babysitters other than family. We had a GREAT time just the two of us and look forward to many more dates--and years--together!*

*Note: pictures taken from the only other date out we've ever had since Moses' arrival. We were too busy having fun on our latest date and I forgot to take pictures.

Family Feud

My Dad and brother are Dallas Cowboys fans.
My Father-in-Law is a Green Bay Packers fan.
This could start something.

Speak softly and carry a big...?

Monkey see...

Monkey do. Someone's been watching me do laundry complete with the chin-tuck-fold maneuver.

In other news, Moses has picked up a few more words in the last day or so. 1.) He added the ever important second syllable to the word "button", which I find much more appropriate, 2.) Thumb, 3.) Mountain (complete with the ASL sign), 4.) "W",
aaaaand 5.) he said, "MOSES"! :)

Bananas don't need stickers. Apparently.

One of our more recent self-imposed activities was this:
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter (feet running towards me). "Thankyouwelcome," says Moses as he thrusts a sticker from a banana in my hand. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter (feet running away from me). Rip. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter (feet running towards me). "Thankyouwelcome," he says again and hands me another banana sticker. For all of the bananas in the bunch we did this.

First Snow

Today marked Moses' first snow. It has snowed since he was born but this was the first time he could take a romp in it. He didn't exactly jump at the chance. In fact, I think it took us longer to get bundled up than we actually spent in the snow.

I actually have Moses to thank for the look of these photos. He's been playing with the camera a lot lately and those little fingers messed with the settings. The jacket he's wearing is actually bright blue, as seen in the photos below, but here it's grey. ? Oh well. It works for these pictures but I wish I could figure out how to change it back!

After he tried to make snowballs with his bare hands he willingly wore gloves for the first time.

The best part of our half-block outing was this: A young woman was walking toward us and kindly stepped off of the sidewalk to let us pass. When I thanked her she replied brightly, "no problem!" Moses repeated this phrase over and over for the rest of the day. I've coaxed him here and you can also witness Moses waving to a neighbour that entertained him by rolling her trash can and recycling bin back in to the garage. Who knew that could be so captivating?

Yup. Noooo problem.

Inexpressive

Our child is stoic. Deadpan, really.







And his Mom is sarcastic.

The real story: When Grandma and Grandpa were in town they took us to the Vancouver Aquarium. Needless to say, Moses enjoyed this very much. He couldn't decide what to call the otter: a whale or a dog. I suppose that's a pretty good assessment of the creature. Thanks for the aquarium outing, guys!

Stashes, Fences and Eyelashes

Here's a trio of unrelated photos for you.

1.) Stashes.
Grapes, animal magnets and legos make up this particular oven drawer stash. This one is fortunate because Moses visits it often making the mold quotient minimal. However, the half-eaten banana stash beneath the bathroom sink in the cupboard, not so minimal.

2.) Fences.
Not much you can say about this one.
It makes great wallpaper for your computer screen? :)

3.) Eyelashes.

Ladies, watch out 'cause he's got those eyelashes from his Daddy. Gorgeous, aren't they?
Eyelash-Boy is enjoying a mango lassi at our favourite Pakistani restaurant. Pretending we didn't have a toddler's schedule to mind we made a spontaneous jaunt to Vancouver to enjoy the sumptuous fare.

C is for Cookie

He doesn't get them very often but when he does, our little boy loves cookies. He, however, unlike his mother, shows a measure of restraint and can leave a cookie unfinished. I think the hardest part for Moses is waiting for those cookies to bake!

If you can get past the fact that the video is sideways you can hear Moses' version of the word 'cookie' (and see a very watered down version of the sign for 'cookie' as well).

Frying Pan Moses

Moses begged for something rather repeatedly today while I was trying to do the dishes. Finally, I figured out that he wanted to hold our small frying pan (about the size to fry an egg or two). Grateful that I'd found the source of his persistence, I handed it to him and he received it almost reverently.

He played with that thing all day long.

He walked around our apartment clutching his frying pan to his little body. It threw his balance off quite a bit because it usually took two hands to carry it but he was undaunted. So undaunted, in fact, that he took that frying pan to bed with him when he napped. Crazy kid. Gotta love him.

Sorry about the blurry photo. It was the only one that sort-of turned out.

Shoes!!!

Many of you know we are teaching sign language to Moses so that we can better understand him in his pre-verbal stage. Thanks to our friends, the Aderholdts, we were introduced to a wonderful video series called Signing Time and we love watching an episode a day, if not more...Moses tends to beg for them. If you've been around us at all you know that all three of us enjoy showing off our new-found signing skills (although Jeremy does laugh at me a bit for knowing lots of random signs) to anyone who will give us audience. Well...this day, Moses just plain surprised me with a new sign he had been introduced to just the day before. He'd never practiced it. He just marched (toddled) up to me and, unprompted, knocked his fists together to show the sign for 'shoes'. Clearly, we have a genius on our hands. :)

Noisy Shower Curtain

Before the cuteness commences please permit me a grumble:
Over 3 hours has been subtracted from my life due to this one post. 34 minutes of that 3 hours was spent simply uploading this minute-long video to youtube. Do you have any idea how long 3 hours is in Mommy-world? That's a serious amount of precious evening get-stuff-done time! So to this lengthy process I say, "BAH!!!!!" Grrrrrr. And you wonder why I haven't posted in so long?! I really need to look into a technology upgrade. Heavy sigh. Okay, thank you for the grumble.
Cuteness may now commence.
I think you'll agree that the 3 hours of posting time was worth it. :)

Hilarious Dr. Sears

Trying to stimulate my brain while I fed Moses I decided to read a bit of Dr. Sears' Family Nutrition Book. Here I am reading from the section on iron, why we need it and what to do to avoid anemia. Who knew nutrition could be so funny?

Olympic Fever

Since Jeremy and I don't have cable television we're relatively (ahem...VERY) out of the loop when it comes to the Olympics. And since in large part, my days are spent inside in the laundry room with my only outings to the grocery store or the library, if I didn't know better, I wouldn't know that the Olympics are in town. So, in an effort to get out from under the rock we apparently live under, we decided to get out, breathe the fresh Vancouver air and see what all the Olympic hoopla is about. And it was fun!!!!!!!!!

Welcome world, indeed! It's very normal to hear many different languages while in Vancouver, but these days exponentially so.

I started catching Olympic Fever last night when we were out and about and happened to catch a bit of the ski jump competition on a television we passed. That was the very first bit of coverage that I saw and I was hooked. The competition was taking place on Cypress Mountain and for those of you who have visited us, that's the ski slope you can see from our kitchen and/or bedroom window. Very cool to be so close to the action and to be living in this amazing city! (The photo above is of B.C. Place, a popular Olympic venue.)

Our little family hopped on the recently opened Canada Line and we were impressed. For $2.50 a person (Moses was free) it zipped us (and a whole lot of other people) into the heart of downtown smoothly and quickly. We were lucky enough to be squished next to two Olympic athletes! One was Canadian and one was German (?) and we don't know what their events were but they both smiled at Moses. :) In fact, every one around us smiled and conversed with him, creating a little community during our short ride. In fact, one of Moses' admirers bestowed upon him this little pin that he proudly wore on his hat for the rest of the day.

We got a good look at the Olympic Cauldron. Very cool. And firing on all 5 cylinders.

Besides the Cauldron, the other thing that most dominated Vancouver's landscape was all the red and white. Canada has really come out big to support their country and it's refreshingly fun.

Downtown's major thoroughfares were open only to pedestrians, making the city streets one big party. Robson Square had all sorts of public venues and activities and is pictured above. We noted that hot dog prices decreased as one moved further from the epicenter of the action. We think they should unionize.

With a signed liability waiver and a mere seven hour wait, one could zip line across the urban landscape of Robson Square.

Here's Moses trying out his first snowboard.

Chilling with Dad (sans hat).

Our little Canadian was a trooper during our outing and seemed to enjoy the hours of being toted around in the sling.

When we moved here 4 1/2 years ago the Olympics felt like a long way off. In fact, we thought we'd be somewhere else in the world when they finally arrived in Vancouver. We made it through all the construction, years of preparation and anticipation, and now, here we are with Moses in tow enjoying life together in this fabulous, beautiful place.
And that's the Rioses, reporting to you from the Olympic city!

Destructaboy

And I wonder why I feel like I never get anything done?

Introducing...

Moses has been diligently working on those first teeth. According to my retired dentist father, teething patterns vary from child to child, but typically the bottom two teeth debut first. My Dad thinks it's no suprise that Moses is doing things his own way since he is related to me...but he did speculate that Moses might be "dentally retarded". Small as they are right now, here's a view of Moses showing those pearly whites.

Which when translated means.....?