Alex and Mommy's Plants

Carol sent us home from St. Louis with various herb plants. I've been tending to them, often watering on the way between the car and the house going to and from work, and Alex would comment on "Mommy's plants." Well, after this weekend they are now "Alex and Mommy's plants" because Alex helped me pick some basil and mint this weekend and has been helping me water the plants. He now makes sure that we check on them every time we are out back. Maybe the green thumb gene has passed to Alex, even though it skipped me.

(The computer at home is on the fritz, so we can't upload the pictures for this post. Maybe we can supplement later.)

Big Truck Outside

A couple of weeks ago, the house next to ours was torn down and a new house is being built. Alex has had so much fun watching the construction and destruction, although his favorite part is all the interesting trucks that have been part of the process. "Big truck outside" has been a constant refrain around the house. Sadly, the concrete mixer arrived today just after Alex went down for his nap, so he's probably going to miss that one.

That's Our Boy!

Alex was playing in a sandbox this weekend and got in his own way when dumping out of a pail of sand. Surprisingly, it did not seem to bother him at all to have sand stuck to his face. I must confess that Dave and I had a difficult time stifling our laughter.

St. Louis Vacation

Ignoring the heat and Alex and I feeling under the weather, our trip to St. Louis was lots of fun. We had a great time with aunts, uncles, and cousins. Alex thought the Magic House was the neatest thing ever (lots of pics below), and so did we. Our timing was perfect to celebrate Maria's birthday (and enjoy her pool!), and Alex liked seeing two dogs every day, although mostly from afar. The picture below was the closest encounter he had with them, but Aunt Sue managed to help him feed them treats, so that was a big success. Aunt Carol's house was boy heaven, as Alex got to play with lots of fun toys from Quinn's childhood. Thanks family, we had fun!

Waterworks -- We thought we'd never get Alex to leave this room and explore anything else.



Making music with PVC pipes and flip flops.



Aunties waiting at the bottom of the slide.



Working in the Construction Zone.



The wall of pegs was a huge hit! We had to visit it several times while we were at the Magic House.

Of course we had to check out the exhibit on the Judicial Branch and sit behind the bench.

Checking out letters with Auntie Carol.

Feeding cereal treats to the doggies under Aunt Sue's protection.

Enjoying some relief from the heat in Maria's pool with Maria, Anna, and Daddy.

More Brussel Sprouts

Alex had a big meltdown at dinner tonight. Why? Because we ran out of brussel sprouts. At that moment, there was nothing in the world he wanted more than to have more brussel sprouts. We can only hope he remains such a good veggie eater all his life.

Puzzle-palooza

Alex really likes puzzles and has gotten the hang of the ones where you put in a piece at a time over a matching or corresponding picture. We already had some fun puzzles, but we hit the puzzle mother lode at a rummage sale this weekend. Alex has spent a lot of time this weekend playing with the new and old puzzles; they really keep his attention. We normally keep a couple puzzles on the coffee table because it's an easy height for him to work from. So, naturally, he wanted to put the new ones on the table too. You can see the overload below.

Hello Duck!

We had a busy day today, but one of Alex's favorite parts was the petting zoo at the Raven Festival. There were goats, sheep, donkeys, chickens, a llama, and a duck. He was very intrigued by the animals and kept saying "Hi" to them. He even got to see a chicken lay an egg!