The Next American Idol

The other day William picked up his little green plastic guitar and started strumming and singing a little song he made up that goes "mommy.... daddy.... and peanut butter... on the couch" but it sounds more like "mommeeee... daddeee.... peeeee buh.. .on cow-owshhh"

William's Words

William knows many words now-- some need translation. Starting with the newest:
ga gee = pacifier (don't have any idea where he got "ga gee")
ee-buh = peanut butter
diiink = drink
cacker = cracker
outsigh = outside
nigh nigh = good night
eat, cookie, no way!, ma maa, da da, go go go, light, uh oh, oh no, mine (oh no!), shoes, socks, toes, nose, eyes, hiiii, bye, see ya, clothes, car, baby
all gone (while gesturing with plams up, fingers spread, shoulders shrugged)
A couple of weeks ago I asked William "Where's mommy's kiss?" and Wm gave me an innocent look, shrugged, and said....... "all gone". *sniffle*

In addition to those words and many more, he also repeats a lot of what we say. 21 months is a fun age!

Bad Computer!!

Today our 3 1/2 year old computer crashed. I spent all day trying to figure out how to fix it. When Josh turned the computer on this morning it just kept acting like it was loading windows, then to a boot screen asking to boot in safe mode, then back to the loading windows page, back to boot screen... an endless cycle. I found my bootable windows xp disk and was able to run a recovery and chkdsk /r to repair the hard drive. It seems to be working-- for now!-- so I am in the process of backing up some 1000+ pictures I've taken since I got the digital camera in Feb. 2006. It was scary to think we lost all of those-- all the pictures since William was born. I found this one from when Wm was about 4 months old. I think these two are just too cute.

Winfield!

We just returned from 2+ weeks of camping in Winfield-- what a great time we had! But it is good to be home. We didn't have internet access so have not been able to post since we headed out-- at the end of August!

If you've never been to the festival in Winfield, you don't know what you're missing. There is music 24 hours a day and for many folks, it is the best part of their year. I know it is for us. We see so many friends that we only see once a year. We have watched our friends' children grow up there, and now we have our own -- who I might add, is more well known than us, somehow! When we took him around in the stroller we would hear people shout "Hi William!" without saying a word to us.

2 and a half weeks is a long time in the life (and development) of an 18 month old. By the time we left, William was not only saying "bye!" (he has done this for a while now) but he added a "see ya" and followed that with "go!". So his farewell to friends as they were leaving was "bye..see ya..GO!" Yesterday he put his shoes on by himself for the first time ever. The coolest thing was when we finally got home and walked in the door, he was wide-eyed and smiling like.... "I remember this place... sort of!". He was especially excited to see the toys in his room.

It's time for bed so I'll have to continue the update another day........

Francis Bacon was a scientist during the Age of Exploration who lived from 1561 to 1626 and promoted research based on experimentation. He died from hypothermia sustained from stuffing a snow-packed chicken inside his shirt.
Not to be confused with the 20th Century Anglo-Irish artist (1909-1992) of the same name, although the artist Francis Bacon was what is known as a 'collateral descendant' of his earlier namesake
Retrieved from http://www.conservapedia.com/Francis_Bacon

Cousins

We spent the weekend out of town. We had a great time seeing family and attending my cousin Gwen's wedding. I didn't get any good pictures inside the church, but got this one in the hotel room-- William is pulling his cousin Anthony's hair... ouch! We are trying to teach him not to do such things. Anthony is a good sport though, and a GREAT kid. We hope William will grow up to be a lot like Anthony. (Click on the picture to bring up a full size view.)

"The Cute One" Eats Spaghetti

He's a big boy and can feed himself :o)

New Words

My husband just told me William learned a new word today:

Cookie

he wanted one

Daddy's Slippers

William is now walking around in BOTH of daddy's shoes. They don't slow him down much. He also climbs on top of the rocking horse then over the back of the couch. He is so proud of himself as he plops over the edge and stretches his feet to the floor.

Today I checked out a website I read about on another blog www.walkscore.com Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Our house scored 2 out of 100. My old place in the city got 82 out of 100. (Although I wouldn't walk outside after dark in that neighborhood!)
My mom's house got 43 out of 100.
Our score of "2" makes me feel like we're out in the boonies.

Tomatoes Coming Out of Our Ears

If I had to have a vegetable (or is it a fruit?) coming out of my ears, I guess I would want it to be a tomato. They are squishy.

After the varmints got into our garden, I went out and picked every ripe or near ripe tomato with big plans of making friends with the neighbors and winning points with the co-workers. While I did take many to work, and many to the in-laws, the neighbors are still waiting--and I'm still staring at these tomatoes! Now I love homegrown tomatoes about as much as anybody, but this is ridiculous (I can now understand why someone would make a movie about killer tomatoes attacking... I have had these nightmares!)

Our Backyard Garden

This spring we planted a vegetable garden in the backyard. Our yard is kind of steep so handyman Josh built a sort of raised bed. It is level to the ground on one end, and is built up a few feet on the other. It holds 12 tomato plants, many green, red, and yellow bell pepper plants, jalapeno and banana peppers, green beans, cucumber, zucchini, melons, basil and rosemary... a whole section of strawberry plants, onion.... some other stuff I'm forgetting right now but will remember shortly after this post.

About a week ago I noticed several tomatoes were on the ground, chewed up by some critter who sneaked in through the fence. Some rascal chewed through a section of the wood just wide enough to sneak through. Josh set up a live trap and the first night he caught a groundhog. The second night he caught a raccoon. The third night-- a possum. Today, another groundhog. geez. All animals were taken far out into the country and released. Personally I'd rather just wrap chicken wire around our entire yard than to deal with these animals. Oh yeah, they also got our first melon of the season at its peak of ripeness! Arrrrrggg!

This picture makes our backyard look huge! If this picture were panoramic, to the left of the picture would be our apple tree, and to the left of that, our garden. William enjoys splashing in his little pool on hot days.

Mom's Shoe

I need to keep a camera around my neck... I'm always a few seconds too late. Last night the little one was walking around wearing one of my shoes. He does this a lot. He has many funny walking styles, like tip-toe on one foot, like he's trying to do the splits while walking, stomping style walk, and walking backwards. He cracks us up!

Using a Spoon

William likes to feed himself most days; unfortunately he is very messy! This morning he enjoyed some "yo baby" whole milk yogurt. He's not a great eater, but he loves to point and whine at the yogurt whenever we open the refrigerator. He also tries to climb up into his high chair when he wants a snack. We put the food on the tray, set him in the high chair, then he starts squishing the food around, throwing most of it on the floor... spilling his milk on the tray and splashing his hands in it. Then he wants down. We are lucky that he likes food that is good for him, like broccoli, green beans, blueberries, and grilled chicken. What a funny, happy, sweet little boy we have!

The little one

some pictures of William when he was *really* little

Josh's Other Babies

Besides William, these are Josh's other babies. A Martin D2R guitar and Weber Bitterroot mandolin. He plays 'em real good.

Josh's turn

As it says on our profile our favorite music is bluegrass, and I ain't talking about this new age weirdo stuff, I'm talking about old school quick paced wonderful banjoful music. We also like other stuff pretty well, such as Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan and some other songwriter types. If you are new to bluegrass music and would like to get a taste of what I'm into, I would recommend Tony rice, and make sure to listen to the stuff he did in the seventies. I would also like to tell you, if you don't know, check out pandora.com and build your very own radio station. You can use any song title or artist to start out, I would recommend using your favorite song since some artists do things that you might not quite like. When you use a song it will choose songs for your station that closely match the style of that song. J-man OUT

josh's first time

Check this out. Sweet stuff don't you think.
This is Josh and my blogging debut. I thought maybe I should acquaint everyone with two things I hold very dear to me.
First is my 99 Dodge Ram 1500 V8 MAGNUM
It ain't the biggest made but it does everything I need it to, including pulling our 28' Salem camper.
Second is my 1982 Suzuki gs650glz
I was born in 1982
I just picked this baby up from Gary, the fella that owns the local gun shop which I frequently frequent. It is in need of some work which you might notice. This bike has been sitting without the engine for 15 years now. I have everything I need to get it running, however it is going to take some time and money. I intend to put some taller handlebars and a nice set of saddle bags on, and am also going to have a custom sissy bar put on it. My dad will make it for me, as he has been welding since 1968 with the railroad and now owns a rott iron (This is how he spells it because his mascot is his rottweiler named trick) fence company and also makes metal art and other metal things as well. He can weld anything. His current project is making a trike out of a 1981 Honda cb900f. I will keep you all updated on the project.

Still No Visitors?

It has been over an hour since my first post. Still no visitors? I am watching the counter sponsored by eHarmony.... waiting for you...... anyone out there??

Why Do I Always Have to Think of a Title?

This is my first post. I am up past 10:00. Decided to start a blog.... since everyone is doing it. I really don't know how to begin. Thought this would be a good place to store some recipes and pictures. Maybe it would be a good place to complain about things too. This is what I've learned from reading blogs. Most bloogers are witty and funny and know how to spell (that's not me!).

William will probably be the topic of many posts. He is 1 and a half. He talks but only he knows what he's saying. He is illiterate and has no job. We love him. Everybody loves William.

William was named after Willie Nelson. We call him Willie, or William, or Mr. Magoo, or Josie Wales. When he is really bad we call him things we shouldn't. Things that little kids call other little kids. He has only been really bad a few times.