Hangin outside and random videos

Lately Bears has been really pumped about exploring outside.  We seem to spend around 2-3 hours a days puttering about the neighborhood and talking about the various discoveries he makes.  It's pretty glorious.  Except on the really cold days.  He's got a giant polartec fleece suit for those occasions but I have yet to find such an item for myself.  Here he is exploring on a balmy 58° day.

He's gotten up to around 150 words now but I think that my favorite thing he says his gibberish.



He's got a love hate relationship with this Twinkle Twinkle video.  As a whole he thinks it's brilliant but at the end, the owl has to say goodbye to the star and it just breaks his heart.  Also, he was going through a phase of gagging himself at the time.  It makes for an interesting juxtaposition.



This one is from a few months back.  He's been really into saying "BOOM!!" and stomping about for quite some time now.  This was the first time that Ryan did his version of it and I think it cemented him firmly in place as Bears' hero.  You can just see the awe in Bears' eyes as he looks up at him.

Bears Love Parks

...and even more specifically, he loves the red ball on the front of the locking mechanism for his stroller.  He'd just taken a big lick of it and was going "MMMmmm!!"  I couldn't resist ordering this bear suit when I saw it was only $12 on ebay.  It even comes complete with a little bear tail:

Here he is foraging for berries that, conveniently enough, just happen to be in a bag

he scored big time by discovering this dreamy dirt pile

..and then finished the rest of his berries

Sick Bears

Anyone who knows Bears knows that he's always been far too busy to cuddle with the exception of when he was a newborn.  Because of that, it wasn't all bad when he came down with a tummy bug that left him throwing up for days and needing tons of snuggles.  I felt really bad for the poor little tyke and did everything I could think of to make him feel better but I can't deny that I was eating the whole experience up...with a few twinges of guilt here and there for loving it so much.  He had tummy troubles for about five days and every one of those days involved hours and hours of cuddling.  Since I've only gotten 1-second hugs out of him for well over a year, this was heaven.  We even cuddled up and watched a movie.  Well...half a movie.  He was still Bears after all and did eventually realize that he had more important things to do.  He was patient enough to let me spoon feed him broth every couple of hours and wanted to give out plenty of kisses.  I still feel a bit guilty thinking about it now but I would say that this easily ranks in my top 5 best Bears memories so far.  It was the first time in a long time that I really felt like a nurturing mommy instead of a slightly frazzled person just trying to keep up with her highly curious, adventurous, and (sometimes) troublesome cub.  Of course, it's nice to have him back to his very busy self.  I think,.  As I'm typing this I'm trying to teach him not to bite my arm or head-butt my leg...aggh

alright, grandma videos

I apologize for the really terrible audio.  it seems the mic on this camera doesn't have much of a sound threshold so either things are super quiet or deafening. ah well.

These first two feature chasing games and our constantly-torn-apart apartment




Counting with daddy


Hunting FLIES!!!


Random summer video of bears and his ball

Bears Love Beaches Part 2

My dad filmed a whole lot of Bears playing at the beach.  I managed to edit it down a lot but it's still about four minutes.  Don't worry, it's highly riveting stuff.  At least it is if you happen to be the mommy of this cudger.

They Have Canyons in Seattle

Okay, not in Seattle, per se, but just a short drive out, you can find the south fork of the Snoqualmie river which cuts a pretty sweet canyon. My dad decided that we should check it out since it got pretty good reviews.  Once we got to the pools, we got an inkling as to why.  It's some pretty stuff.

The whole canyon is supposed to take 4-6 hours with about four rappels down waterfalls.  Due to a typo in the directions, we weren't able to find the trail head until really late in the day.  Luckily, there was a way to enter into the canyon halfway down so we opted for that...and a good thing too.  Turns out we are pretty slow hikers, especially when it comes to trekking down a mossy, boulder-filled creek bed.  That sucker ended up taking us almost 5 hours and we even bailed early out by clambering up a mossy cliff before doing the final rappel because we were worried about time.  I'm pretty glad we decided to do that impromptu climb, though, because it ended up being the most exciting part of the trip.  It looked like a relatively easy climb from below but halfway up, we realized that the only handholds were moss and a few crumbling, rotted tree roots.  We were at that awkward point where it would be too tricky to climb down but going up looked even more dangerous.  We decided that the best thing would be to make an anchor out of the most solid thing available (a fallen tree dangling down the cliff with it's roots still seemingly solidly planted) and Dad would belay me from there.  It did the trick because it gave me confidence that I likely wouldn't die if I fell so I was able to kinda just shimmy up and over the last 20 feet of moss crumbles and then belay him from the top.  Action packed adventure at it's best, I tell you.  All in all, quite good times.

Bears Love Beaches

Last week Bears got to discover the wonders of the beaches off the northern coast of Washington.  I don't think it's a stretch to say that the beach is his favorite place ever.  I mean, just look at his smile in this next picture.  If he smiled any bigger, that cub would look plain crazy.

alright.  maybe he does look a smidgen crazy as is.  You get the idea.

He loved just laying in the sand just kinda petting it...

...pointing out very important features out at sea...

...stretching unsightly strands of kelp to get them back in shape...

...discovering things with the aid of his trusty stick...

...Writing notes to Daddy with the aid of Grandma...

...and just puttering around with us.

He was so preoccupied that he even gave grandma and grandpa some time to themselves.  A rare thing on this trip.

playing on the beach really wore him out though.  He fell asleep on grandpa's lap on the plane ride home.  He hasn't slept on anyone's lap since he was a newborn.  It was so cuddly cute.

Have I Still Got It?

I took this body shot before going out on the town with some girlfriends because I was feeling the need to document one of the rare times I'm not all decked out in mom wear.  unfortunately, there was no time to also take a picture of my face.   Apparently.   Anyway, the point is that for the first time in a while, I was feeling like maybe I'm still somewhat attractive and not just a frumpy mom, thus the need for photographic evidence.

Now, before you decide for yourself the matter of whether I've still got it or not, I feel like full disclosure is needed.  The other day I was feeling a bit bloated and again felt the need to document the state of my body.  Does the latter picture negate the former?  You might be surprised by the answer...

...and so will I because I just don't know what the answer is.  But I feel like maybe "bloated" is the new "ripped abs."

Zoey

We just got back from an 8 day trip to Washington and Bears really missed his friend Zoey.  He couldn't stop talking about her for the entire trip and kept thinking that he'd seen her and insist that we go after any fair haired girl who passed by just to make sure it wasn't her.  When we got home and started catching up on Pooper's blog, Bears couldn't get enough of the pictures of Zoey.  I didn't think to start filming it until he'd been fawning over her for over 5 minutes so in the video, most of his initial excitement had worn off.  You can still get a pretty decent idea though.

Bears Love Giving Kisses... (and smacks)

Right before bed time last night Bears really wanted to jump on the bed.  As usual, I thought this was a brilliant idea and we spent the next 20 minutes having a grand time that consisted of him flinging himself about the bed, jumping, and spinning in circles while I try desperately to ensure that he doesn't get the head injury he's doggedly trying to attain.  This time was a little different though.  About every ten seconds, he'd come over and give me a big slobbery smooch.  Normally he gets the same intense look whether he's about to give someone a kiss or deliver a hearty smack...and even in the best case scenario, his smooches are almost always followed by an energetic blow to the back of the head, which kinda offsets the cuteness a little.  Not this time though.  Just 100% kisses.  Well, okay, and one smack.  But that's pretty darn good taking into account the 40+ smack-less kisses.  It's times like these that remind me that being a mommy is pretty darn great.

Okay, some random videos for grandmas.  Almost every time that I sing the Reading Rainbow theme song, when I say the line "I can fly twice as high" he'll say, "Hiii" and wave hello.



He left the room for this one but you can hear him give an excited "hiii" from the other room if you listen closely.


Nothing really happens here...I just like how he looks in his Poop Deck outfit


I love the way he says "my oh my" and I'm always trying to get it on film.  still haven't succeeded but he does say some exciting things like "uh-oh."  Oh and be wary of the end.  He lets out a shriek that's a little unpleasant.

Poetry In Motion

I was making Bears his usual nap time smoothie while unbeknownst to me, something wonderful was happening. A bit of a haiku if you will.  And it goes something like this:

'Bears sits in corner
Fishes pooplets from diaper
Smears them in carpet'

And that's when I knew we were living the dream.

Because it's been a while, here are some random videos...

Bears kisses Tinkerbell:


Dancing to washing machine yet again:


This video is almost 4 months old but I just barely threw out the balloon featured in it.  I was feeling guilty for splurging and spending 8.99 on it but it turns out that you get what you pay for with these things.


Dancin around to a toy from grandma and granpa elkins:

All Dressed up With Nowhere to go

A friend gave us this awesome tux because she happened to find it at a consignment shop and it looked to be about Bears' size.  Fortunately, she was correct and it fit him perfectly.  Unfortunately, we didn't have a grand event to attend in the foreseeable future.  So I just dressed him up in his glorious new outfit this morning and we puttered around our neighborhood.

Here he is showing of his casual bachelor partying lifestyle...

Using his charm to get free pastries...

And here's his used-to-be-successful-but-down-on-his-luck side

Dangerous Rogue

Casual photo shoot outtake 

GQ

Super Hero

Orchestral conductor collecting himself prior to performance

And some more...

Summertime

And the livin' is easy...

 

Bears is really enjoying this summer.  Especially since he's big enough this year to beat the heat by playing in his swimming pool.

He's also gotten really into playing basketball this year.  And by that I mean that every time he sees the basketball he yells "BA!! BA BA BA!!" and then runs around in circles with it.

He was pretty pumped about this fire hydrant and kept giving it hugs.  I like to think that he thought it was a fellow baby who just happened to be in some sort of red space suit.

Lately he's been really into getting out onto this tarp that our landlord has set up in the backyard. It's especially great after a rainstorm when the dips in the tarp have filled up with water, leaves, and bugs.

Here he is about to take a drink out of the band aid-ridden water.  It was a close call but I intervened just in time.  I suppose I ought to mention that it was his band aid from earlier that day...even though that makes for a much less exciting tale.

Often times he enjoys just sitting and hanging out.  For up to 30 seconds at a time.

And of course he enjoys hangin' out with the Kins.