Oats

For some reason, Jonny loves oats.  And I mean the plain, dry oats.  He will tolerate oatmeal for breakfast or oatmeal cookies, but what he really loves is a few dry oats in a measuring cup to snack on.  I've had to move my container of oats to the very top so he can't get to them or else I can't keep him out of them!


When we go to my grandma's house, she always has a little Ziploc bag of candy for him.  She puts it under the sink for him to take out.  Well, that also happens to be where she keeps her canister of oats.  Without exception, Jonny will take out the bag of candy but then will set it aside and ask for some oats. He'll sit there and eat them dry and it just makes Great-Grandma laugh to watch Jonny eat dry, nasty oats instead of candy!


We recently went to Winco and I filled up a bag with oats from the bulk foods section to replenish my container.  Jonny thought that was the best thing we've ever bought and had to hold that bag of oats all through the store!  Silly kid!

A Visit to Aunt Mel's

 Last week, Jonny and I spent a couple of days at my sister's house in eastern Oregon.  She took us to a little park along the Snake River that had a bunch of old-fashioned equipment.   Jonny liked the teeter-totter but he especially loved the merry-go-round.  I didn't think he was ever going to get off!

 Melanie has a pool in her backyard and Jonny decided that he wanted to go swimming with his cousins.  We got a life-jacket on him but as Melanie was helping him into the pool, he let go of the ladder and fell backwards into the pool.  It scared him and I didn't think we were going to get him back in the pool.  He did though but he would only get in the tiger floatie if you would hold onto him.  He also spent a lot of time standing on the ladder.

 Cousin Kassidy found a little abandoned kitten in the bushes near their house just a couple of days before our visit.  All of the kids loved carrying that little kitty around.

This picture was taken the day after we got back from the trip.  Jonny must have had a lot of fun because he was exhausted!

Happy Fourth!

 Chris, Jonny and I went for a drive and a picnic for the Fourth of July.  We drove down to the Snake River to see the Swan Falls dam.  There is a nice grassy area with trees so we enjoyed the cool breeze while we ate our lunch and then we explored around for a while.  There was a walkway that went completely across the river, so we walked over that, too.  Jonny was kind-of nervous about walking on it the first time so he rode on his daddy's shoulders but he was brave enough to walk on his own two feet on the way back.  To finish up the day, we went over to our cousin's house for fireworks.  Jonny started out watching the fireworks with his hands over his ears so they gave him some earplugs and he wore those until the fireworks were over.  He was even brave enough to hold a sparkler this year!

Family Reunion 2012

My 2012 family reunion was held at Massacre Rock State Park again this year.  It's a nice little campground--especially because it has flushing toilets and showers!  There are all kinds of big rocks around the campground and the little boys loved exploring!

It was a little on the hot side so we were grateful that Aunt Melanie brought her snow cone machine!

Jonny enjoyed eating hot dogs and s'mores cooked over the campfire--especially the marshmallows!

Jonny hasn't slept well in a tent before, but this year he did.  I guess he was exhausted from all the running around and playing with cousins!

This was almost all of the family that came.  One of my cousins got away before we took the family photo.  We even brought our dog this year, since our backup animal feeders were away on a family reunion also.  We had to keep Mac on a leash while we were at the campground.  Jonny loved walking Mac all around and it seems like all of his cousins did, too.

Super Dad

When I picked Jonathan up from nursery on Sunday, he excitedly began telling me that his dad has super powers and that he was a super dad!  I quickly understood what Jonny was talking about when I saw the Father's Day card that he colored in nursery!  He was pretty excited about that card and we even had to hang it up on the fridge when we got home.

Since we're on the subject of super powers, I'm going to tell you a funny story that happened a couple of weeks ago.  We have been building a chicken coop out back with a big run around it.  We had unwrapped a roll of chicken wire to put around the run and found that in addition to the plastic, there was a long, thin wire wrapped around the roll.  We pulled the wire off and set it aside.  It was kind-of in big loops from being wrapped around the roll.  Jonathan found it and started talking about super powers.  He climbed up a dirt pile that was next to the chicken coop, put the wire on his arms and kept chattering about super powers.  Then he jumped from the dirt pile and landed on his bum!  He sat there for a minute, and you could just see him thinking about what had happened.  He finally said, "I don't have super powers," and shook his head.  It was kind-of sad to see the bubble burst on his dreams of having the super power of being able to fly!

Mr. Independent

 While we were outside doing yard work last Monday, Jonny disappeared into the house and reappeared back outside.  That is usually not a good thing (think cat food dumped into the dry beans in the food storage, for example).  After a few minutes, I went to check on what he had been doing.  I discovered the tortilla package taken out of the fridge and sitting on the counter.  I found Jonny sitting in a chair outside, munching on a tortilla.

 It appears that he pulled a chair up the counter, used the kitchen scissors from the knife holder to snip at the package until he could get a tortilla out.  I'm guessing that's what happened because the chair was back at the table and the scissors were back where they belonged, the smart little turkey!  Jonny is definitely becoming Mr. Independent!

Sod!

 This little pile of sod is all that is left of two huge pickup loads of sod we put out in our yard.  We didn't plan on putting out any sod this year but when we got some for free, we couldn't turn it down.  We had to scramble because we did it kind-of backwards:  we got the sod first and then we got the yard ready for the sod.  That's because we got a pickup load free from the sod farm that is right behind our house.  They were cutting sod and Chris asked one of the workers if we could get some of the broken pieces that were left behind and he said we could.  So we jumped right in the pickup and loaded up as much as we could!  We got that put down and then a day or two later, our ward members from down the street asked us if we wanted some sod.  They were cutting out the grass around their pool to put down gravel and had a bunch of rolls.  They brought us a huge pickup load so we spend several more evenings pulling weeds, raking and putting out sod!  It was enough sod to almost fill up the weedy spot at the side of the house.  It is so nice to have grass instead of stickers!