A few pics summarizing last week

So for some reason I didn't take a lot of pictures with my camera last week. Not sure why, but here are some that were hanging out on my phone...

Colin's fascination with animals in general and horses in particular has led to everything becoming a potential horse. He also gallops any time we are trying to walk in a store now.
We went out for dinner at Tiago's and Colin scarfed down a whole plate full of enchiladas and beans and then finished off his meal with a huge helping of tortilla chips while Michael and I ate.
One of the only pics where neither of us is making a particularly weird face. Strange, since you can see your face on the screen before you click it...you'd think we'd always look absolutely perfect! Ha!
An evening Target trip in preparation for our weekend camping.
Dancing in front of the mirror in the men's section! Such a clown.
And that's all...I'm going to work on getting camping pics up now! :)

Antics and Animals

Colin gets sillier every day and we never know what's going to come out of his mouth. He's been making "puns" lately with new words he is learning (at least, I'm not sure what else to call them...pun-like-statements), pretending silly things and laughing about it, and telling us silly "lies".

Then, yesterday afternoon he did this (which you may have to click on to make big enough to see in detail):
I was chopping veggies for dinner and thought he was eating a banana. Then he walked up to me and said, "momma, I fix hair, banana! *heeheehee*". He had restyled his hair with banana-product. Cute, huh? Maybe we should spike it more often!

This is him saying "cheese" for the camera, another new development:
Since it's Wednesday, this morning we trucked out to the farm. I took some longer carrots and celery, which Colin found easier to give to the horses and cows through the fence.
He always really loves the goats.
And pouring sand on himself at the sandbox. He emptied each cup on that table over his belly.
Before we left today, one of the boys brought a hen and a rooster over to let Colin pet them. I thought that was really sweet.

Pictures from the Week

I just can't seem to get pics up every day right now (partial blame lies with the star of this blog, who does not like me to do it during the day and wears me out so I don't feel like doing it in the evenings!), so for those of you who look each day: um, sorry! :) At least I'm still taking pictures!

Here are some pics from our week:
On Tuesday, we met Michael on base and had lunch at the BX. He and Colin were already chowing down when I got to the table.
After that, we met Lauren, Lauren, and Kim at the zoo. Colin fell asleep while we were waiting on the girls...Lauren got a picture of this highly unusual event:We visited the butterfly house again. If you look carefully, you can see the pink and blue one in this picture:
And the butterfly that landed on his shoulder in this picture. He really wanted me to help get one on his finger, but we just couldn't manage it this time!
We got some pictures of all the kids on a little bench in the butterfly house (accidentally in age-order). Lauren and Kim got better pictures of all the kids' faces, but I like how the girls are both looking at Henry here:Mr. Independent:Who thinks he's boss of the zoo. I love the tiptoed peering into the rhino pits:
On Wednesday, we met Lauren and Anna at the Children's Museum. They had a great ball area, which shoots them through pipes and pops them with levers and such, which I'll have to get pictures of next time we're there. All the kids were fascinated by this and I guess so were the adults. Didn't even get the camera out of the bag until we were done in there! LOL!

As we were walking from that area to the next (a bubble room!), Colin hollered out, "whale"...it took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about. That kid is too observant. Taking him to the grocery store takes forever now because he notices animals on packaging I've never even looked at before and then we have to stop and talk about them all! :)
There was a little trolley, which of course Colin had to drive. Lily didn't seem to mind him being in the driver's seat too much...until he turned around and actually told her to "sit down" ~ haha...you think he hears that a little too much?!
Colin liked the little aquarium area and probably would have stayed an hour just watching the fish.
Lily prefered the mirror. Pretty girl!
On the lower level, they had a mini grocery store set up, complete with tiny carts and scanners that beeped when you rang up your barcodes. Colin went around labeling things, but not putting much in his cart. He was perplexed that the cracker boxes were empty and the asperagus (which he was excited to see) didn't crunch when he (much to my horror) tried to chomp down on it. Yuck!
Lily, (I think much to Lauren's horror) kept going back for another carton of ice cream! I believe she hit that aisle at least three separate times and always went for the same flavor!
When Colin finished, he went to an empty corner and started singing at the top of his lungs.
Later Lily joined him and they played on some construction equipment.
Yesterday was another Art Day and we had a ball. Here we are going on a nature walk to gather supplies for our projects:
We made some wax stained glass leaves and even the littlest kids seemed to enjoy the feel of the shaved crayons and the results were pretty cool. The older kids liked watching the wax melt under the iron.
We made collages with some of the flowers and grasses we gathered on our walks. Lily backed hers with a pretty purple!
Here is Colin's, which he made with very little assistance. I had them smoosh stuff onto contact paper to make it easier than gluing.
Here's Colin's finished leaf...not the best pic, but he arranged the colors on this one totally on his own and it turned out kinda pretty actually.
And that is pretty much it. Hope you like the pics! :)

Tick Tock

Laura took several cute videos while Colin was up in Arkansas a couple weeks ago, but I am just now getting around to making them small enough to put on the blog! Here's one of him listening to their grandfather clock (which he has been fascinated with for about a year now). I love how he wiggles his butt back and forth and says tick-tock!

I've also got a great one of him riding his stick horse, one of him in a giraffe costume my mom found, and several of him singing "Barbara Ann," but they all need to be seriously compressed, so I'm probably going to get them on here sporadically! :)

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall

Yesterday was project day around the Seal house (actually this afternoon is too, so I need to get it in gear). First up was putting up some plexiglass mirrors in Colin's room. He loves dancing in front of them, but most of our mirrors are far above his line of sight.
Michael explaining the process to Colin.
Trying to help screw it into the wall. He's really been trying to help with everything we do lately.
Admiring his handiwork...or himself?
Later he asked to paint, so we headed outside to create some masterpieces.
Ever the attentive mother, when Colin said, "momma, my eye," I said, "okay, let me get a picture and then I'll wipe it off." In my defense, I made sure it wasn't actually in his eye first!
And here's our finished product. :)

Right Now

What Michael and Colin are doing right now:

One Misty Moisty Morning, When Cloudy Was The Weather

Or, I should say, "TWO misty moisty mornings..."
Thursday
After being inside for a couple days from the rain and having our Wednesday trip to the petting zoo be a bust this week, Colin and I decided to brave the misty, moisty weather and head to the zoo. Here he is "roaring" at me like a lion as we get ready to go.
We met a few of our friends there too; here's Colin watching the flamingos while we waiting on them to arrive.
Girlfriends!
Colin, trying to convince everyone to come on!We got to look at some of the animals before the rain got bad again, but what Colin really liked was the puddles!
Friday
Today we tried the zoo again, with much better results. We got there early in the day and the weather was absolutely gorgeous! The animals were all really active (probably after all the rain this week) and it was in the mid-70's.

We did a couple things we've never done before too. One of those was going in to the butterfly sanctuary.
Colin loved watching them up close and it seemed like there were butterflies on every other leaf.
This one has a beautiful sky blue top side that I just couldn't get a picture of. :(See what I mean about them being everywhere? That's one flying next to Colin's head and you can see them on the plants.
We sat and had lunch by the giraffe, which pleased Colin to no end. Of the African animals, that and the elephant may tie for his current favorite.
You wouldn't know it by looking, but this is about the 100th time through this particular puddle. They apparently are just as fascinating the second day! Fortunately it's San Antonio and everything was nearly dry today, with only a few puddles remaining, so we didn't get stopped up too much!
After checking out the African safari section, I finally got brave enough to go into the bird feeding area by myself with Colin. I don't know what I was afraid of ~ he didn't freak out at all; in fact, he LOVED it and didn't want to leave. A nice gentleman shared a cup of nectar with us. Colin desperately wanted to hold it, but the birds were not landing on anyone under about 4 foot today for some reason. Probably for the best! :)
Hard to see, but that crazy bird is still on my head. He wouldn't get off!
Colin finally looked up for the man taking our picture!
Afterward, we spent more time with birds. About 20 minutes just watching the ducks. Wow, he is mesmerized by them!
And this afternoon, when we got home, he wanted to play sock puppets: one of his new favorite pretend games (learned at grandpa's, I think?). Here he is "roaring" at me.