Found it, Read it, Love it!

I found the most awesome website. Since finding it I have read a little bit of it everyday. If you want to read more about it here is the place to go, if you want to see it here is the place to go. I love this website, it has been so helpful and educational. Are you intrigued? Check it out!

Thanksgiving Before & After

We spent Thanksgiving in St. George, UT at my Grandpa Switzer's house. My family and my aunt's family was there at well as my step grandma and most of her kids and their families. It was a pretty full house. Anyway, after making it through the snow storm past Gunnison we made it to sunny, warm, green St. George. David loved being able to play outside and especially loved the trampoline. He definitely perfected his jumping abilities.

I think David spent more time outside than in. If he wasn't jumping he was playing with his new truck (birthday gift from Grandma & Grandpa Benson) or peeling the outer shell off the pecans, straight from the tree. Unfortunately the pecans were bad so they couldn't be eaten, but David loved peeling them all the same. David also learned how to play some games with balls and hitting devices. I think this game was baseball. All in all it was a good trip. I think the best part was that my brother got to spend some time with and play with David, which he hasn't had as many opportunities to do.

While we were gone we didn't realize that it had snowed more in the Valley and unfortunately we drove through snow from Montrose all the way to our parking lot in Alamosa. Apparentely it snowed Thursday night and Friday night. Well Saturday morning maintenance still had not cleared our sidewalk so we borrowed a shovel from our neighbor and did it our selves for our building. David really wanted to play in the snow too, so out came all of his snow gear. This bottom picture is of David on the three wheeler that a neighbor girl gave him (she got a new bike). Anyway, it was stuck in the snow, frozen to the grass, it took a little elbow grease but we were able to unstick it. David however is not a good driver of the three wheeler in the snow, he kept getting stuck and I would have to help him out. During all of this Dustin is shoveling away at the snow. Of course when all was said and done I spent more time getting him ready than he spent outside in the snow. David loved it though. Later on in the day he kept trying to put his snow boots on by himself.

Picture perfect

This is the only picture I have been able to get of David and his birthday presents. Grandma & Grandpa bought a kids digital camera. David loves taking pictures, but we have always been a little apprehensive about him using ours. This is the perfect camera because it is virtually indestructable. David loves this camera. The camera has a little screen to view the picture just like any digital camera but it also had the eye looker things. David can look through the eyes and see what he is takign a picture of or he can watch the screen. The box it was shipped in is a great gift too. The first day we had the camera we went through 2 sets of batteries, good thing they were rechargable! David has taken a million pictures, quite a few of them are of the floor, the ceiling or close ups of articles of clothing. Thank you Grandma & Grandpa for such a great gift. Please look for other pictures of David's birthday presents as they come. David got some really great gifts I just have to catch him on camera with them.

Two, Two Birthday

Yesterday was David's 2nd birthday. He was busy as a bee. We started the day by going to the zoo with one of David's friends. (Dustin had to stay home and go to class). David and Atticus had a great time running around the zoo together! Our first stop was to pet the llamas, one of them gave David a kiss on the top of his head. The electricritters were being set up so they too became zoo attrations for the boys. The boys had a great time feeding the geese and ducks and then the goats. The rabbits were chasing eachother around their habitat and David and Atticus played in the egg sculpture. David got up close and personal with the lion cubs when the llamas were paraded past, those lions wanted to llamas for a tasty snack. The otters were very excited to see people and David kept trying to follow the otters along the glass. The peacocks did not escape the boys, the peacocks wanted us to feed them our lunch. The boys saw this as an opportunity to chase after the peacocks and the boys loved it! Climbing on all the sculptures became the best activity the boys could engage in.
After the zoo we went to Sam's and Target. We had some money from relatives that was meant for gifts so that's what we did. David did such a good job going to the stores and loved being able to pick out his birthday present. Great Grandma Hinton bought David a set of four small dodge balls and a bowling pin set. Great Grandpa Switzer bought David a set of Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs.
The drive home was the perfect opportunity for David to sleep, he was so worn out!
Once we got home Dustin wanted to celebrate by taking David out to dinner. To the brewery we went! David loved to sit in his own seat and ate his dinner so well. (David no longer sits in his booster seat at home or at the restaurant - no high chairs either - just seats like Mommy and Daddy!)
After dinner Thom & Laci came over to help us sing happy birthday to David, eat cake and open presents. I now realize that I forgot to get a picture of the cake....so anyway just know that it was a pumpkin roll cake and very good! David ate all of his cake. Pictures of David playing with his toys will come soon.
After such a busy day went to bed very well and was happy to get up and play with his new toys this morning.

Creativity Abounds

This is life as we know it in the Hinton home. David hadn't played with his tube in a while so we pulled it out (actually he pulled it out from under his bed). He stripped off his clothes and decided to move into the tube. First went the bear and elmo followed by 2 blankets from his bed. He spent a good couple of hours crawling in, out, through and round the tube. He really had a great time and Dustin and I enjoyed watching him have fun. We were also able to get some housework done before David tired of the tube.
I wanted to give everyone an idea of what our house looks like on a regular basis. Dustin has taught David to make forts with the couch cushions and David loves to do it. However, David's version of making a fort is throwing the cushions on the floor, often times he tries to get them to stand up together but to no avail, so....they end up on the floor. As you can see from the picture we have quite a few different projects going on at once. Books have been read, lunch eaten, pictures colored, cookie cutters traced and climbing has occured.
This is just another day in the life of the Hinton home. I hope you enjoyed the little peak.

Time to Potty Train?

We have always had an open door policy about the bathroom with David. Our thought was that he would see us use the bathroom and that eventually it would help him to understand using the toilet instead of a diaper. Well, so far things are starting to work out the way we thought. David has recently started showing an interest in the toilet. It started when he would try flushing the toilet, which he can do now. At night when we let him run around naked we would put him on the toilet for just a minute so that he could try it out. Then I realized that if we only put him on the toilet when he is naked he will think that to go to the bathroom he has to be naked so once or twice a day when I change his diaper I put him on the toilet.

This morning after Dustin left for school I realized that David was poopy and asked him about it. We were sitting on my bed and he pointed to the toilet. We ran to the bathroom. He lifted the lid and let me get him undressed and get cleaned up from his diaper. Then I put him on the toilet and he sat there for a minute and asked for toilet paper. David proceeded to wipe himself with the toilet paper and squirm down. He immediately flushed the toilet and watched the paper go down. When all was finished he stood so proud and clapped his hands and cheered!

This will probably be our practice with David for the next month or two and then I think we will actively start to potty train David. We are so excited for many reasons, but mostly because then we don't have to keep buying diapers! Wish us luck, hopefully this excitement will continue until the potty training is completed!

What Can I Say?

All Aboard....

...the biscuit train. David loves to line things up. I had a pan of bisuits cooling in the kitchen, David pulled his stool up to them and one by one lined them up in front of the TV. We thought is was so funny. All the biscuits were sitting on the entertainment unit when we turned around. We had no idea what he was doing at the time because we were picking out our family photos. It's amazing the things kids think of!

Trick or Treat

Well, despite my better judgement I took David trick or treating last night. Our play group wanted to go all together. I had just planned to take David to 3 houses of people we knew. Neadless to say we went with the group, which ended up consisting of 8 kids (7 of them 2 year olds) and 2 parents per child, except us of course (Dustin still had to go to school).

While the idea of going was fun, and novel I don't know that I will ever take David out in the evening again. Things were fine while it was stil light but after it got dark David became a little hellian! The first few houses is when the kids learned how to trick or treat, David tried joining the families for the evening and I had to grab him from inside a couple of houses. When it got dark David wanted to walk from house to house down the middle of the street and threw tantrums because I wouldn't let him. Every couple of houses he wanted to look at all the candy in his bucket and eat it, I of course would not let him and that would throw us into another tantrum.
Never-the-less I got quite the workout and David got quite a bit of candy, considering the few houses we went to. Once we got to his friend Ben's house David ran right in and down the hall to Ben's room to play with all the trains. Ben's mom had to get David for me since my wings wouldn't allow me to go down the hall like a normal person.
Despite everything that went on I think David had a really good time. I did enjoy myself too, and I learned that kids under the age of 8 will be taken trick or treating in the afternoon (at least the kids in our family).
David got these glasses while trick or treating, our little neighbor baby got some too. David really liked wearing his and kept trying to put them on all by himself. Well, that resulted in the ear pieces being broken off, so these are the little neighbor girl's glasses...don't worry she won't be needing them, she's only 6 months old. Anyway, David really enjoyed showing them off to Dustin and Dustin was able to get a great picture.