Fishing

Previously, I had posted about Payton loving to catch "fish" with his new fishing game we had gotten at a garage sale. Well, today, we took him real fishing, in the small lake across the street from us.

We didn't use live bait, instead, we had little plastic fish as bait (i'm no fisherman but i think they are called lures?). So, at first, payton was super excited to reel up his pole numerous times and see the "small fish" that he caught. Then, Mike actually caught real fish and Payton called these the "big fish" (see video below).

What's growing in our garden?

What's growing in our garden today? tomatoes. Favorite use would be on bruschetta or in a caprese salad.

eggplant, favorite use, stir-fried with mr. yoshida sauce.
cucumbers
broccoli

and...this odd looking plant? the tomatillo...we actually haven't harvested any of these yet, but we thought they look very interesting...

Big Rip!

Remember seeing all those funny home videos shows with seemingly a good portion of the material having to do with guys getting pegged in the nuts by some errant flying object (why do we find that so funny)? Well after this incident, I realized that sooner or later (hopefully much later), I'm going to be that guy in the video. Despite not practicing much, Payton's hitting skills and power are noticeably improved.

Is this odd?

We went to the zoo a week and a half ago, Payton just loved it. Notice the cutoff shirt, it was a nice day, a little hot for illinois standards i think, about 80 degrees.



Yesterday, this is what we were wearing (in the morning). Last night i think it was about 43 degrees. Just crazy in my opinion. Is our summer weather already over?


Also, i've been mulling over potty training payton for months now. But, things keep coming up (or rather I keep making excuses to put it off) so i didn't do it... except, at his 2.5 year checkup, the doctor said, I should at least be sticking him on the toilet once a day (even if he's scared, which he was at first). well fast forward 2 months. and 4 days ago, payton just decided to basically potty train himself. 48 hours of no wet diapers (even overnight), i was absolutely shocked! I was beside myself and couldn't believe that possibly, I wouldn't have to ever clean up accidents and make him run around naked with a potty next to him for 3 days and repeatedly ask him if he needed to pee?

well, since then, he has reverted back somewhat, and decided that sometimes he doesn't want to sit on the potty, which I'm completely ok with, since I hadn't really "trained" him. I'm just hopeful that I still won't have to "train" him using the no diaper method. And really I'm pleasantly surprised because I've never heard of a toddler "training" themselves?

Meeting old and new friends

Payton had a busy week in texas catching up with old and new friends.
meeting baby E for the first time (only 1 month old!)
swimming with baby F (giving her a kiss to help her feel better about swimming, she was a little scared)
Playing with M. Previously only skyped. First time meeting in person. They played really well together.
Hanging with C and N, thanks B and L for hosting us!

Meeting H for the first time, such a cutie.

Group photo in age order. So cute! no one looks happy, but there are all sitting on the couch so nicely for their mommies to take pictures... :)

Family Fun

We had alot of fun visiting family in Texas.


the three muskateers (cousins)


hanging with hodebegiwith harmoni, and eating frozen bananas


auntie even made a special trip down!playing with gong gong and po po

Gardening

Just got back from a wonderful (and HOT) trip to texas. So much fun to see family and friends. Payton was quite exhausted though...
then rolled off the couch slowly...
still slept for another hour like this after getting home from the airport.

Even though we had no produce in our fridge for dinner the night we got back, our garden has been producing, so we were able to eat from some of that.
It's been alot of fun trying out different vegetable and fruit plants and watching them grow. In July, our raspberry bushes gave us something to pick everyday for about 3 weeks. Payton loved it!