Choo, Choo!

We were out in St. Charles/Geneva for a friend's 40th birthday this weekend and made it a mini-weekend getaway. Between our friends and my co-worker's family, who all live out there with kids, we got some terrific tips for fun things to do with Alex. By far the highlight of the trip for him was eating lunch at 2 Toots. They have train tracks running through the whole place, and your food is delivered by train. He loved it!

The caboose is red!



Here come more trains!



My food just came off of that train.

Letters

Sometimes Alex calls numbers "letters." Last night he saw the number 2 and the number 3 and was talking about them and called them letters. Dave and I explained the difference between numbers and letters, and as we were explaining letters Dave said the first few letters of the alphabet. This lead Alex to sing the Alphabet Song. When he finished, he exclaimed excitedly, "Someone wrote a song for the letters!"

This Year's Garden

This afternoon we finally got out to plant some seeds and get the garden up and running for the year. The oregano and mint came back from the winter, and we planted two types of basil, carrots, and lettuce today. We still need to pick up a tomato plant, but I'm glad to have the seeds in. Alex was a good helper, but he likes the watering part of gardening a bit too much. Hopefully the seeds won't get too waterlogged. The mint and oregano are clearly able to survive anything, so I'm not too worried about those.

Covering the seeds with dirt.



"Gently" patting down the dirt.



Here comes the water!



The proud gardener. (You can see how well the oregano came back. The container is already overflowing, and we haven't done anything to it.)

Emergency Room

Alex had his second visit to the ER this week. (When I initially posted this as his first ER visit, I was wrong. I had forgotten that we had to take him to the ER in Mt. Carmel over Christmas.) Fortunately it wasn't anything too bad. He took a spill at school and cut his forehead. The doctors decided that he didn't need stitches, just glue, but they didn't have any they could use in the office, so we had to have it done at the emergency room. Alex was a trooper and behaved very well, considering the injury and the fact that going to the ER meant not taking a nap. It's already healing very nicely.

Four Boys and a Park

We had a great time this morning with Owen, Jay, and Ben (Jay's little brother). Alex, Jay, and Owen all started day care together in the same infant room and have been buddies ever since.

On the big teeter-totter.

Everyone down the slide!

Choo, choo! Riding the train.

Making the train go.

My Little Green Wagon

Alex got a wagon today. We had lots of fun roaming around in it, and Alex likes pushing it too.

Loading up for the first time.



So happy to have a wagon!



Riding around the neighborhood.

Bike Riding

Alex's teachers told us that he had learned how to pedal a trike, but today was the first time we got to see him do it. Other than the fact that his front wheel could use a little oil to get rid of the squeak it was pretty great.



Cecily is very fast!