Changes in Attitude

As Joey grows, his attitude towards certain things seem to change almost on a daily basis.  One day he loves corn, the next day he doesn't, and then he loves it again on the third day!  This is a frustrating fact of raising a toddler, but I guess it's a good thing too.  Just because he doesn't like veggies today, doesn't mean he won't like them tomorrow, right?  :)   Always have hope.   

This ever-changing attitude doesn't just apply to food, it happens in all aspects of Joey's life.  Some days he is scared to go down a slide by himself, or walk across a bridge alone and then the next day he goes down the tallest slide at the park!   

 His food palate definitely changes.  This day he decided he liked to eat dirt. 

 

He hates to wear hats!  Will fight you tooth and nail to get the hat off of his head.  However, on this morning, he HAD to wear this hat.  He wore it all morning long.  If the hat fell off, Joey actually threw a tantrum until I could get it back on!   

Joey is and has always been a mama's boy.  He will come a-runnin' to me whenever I enter the room.  However, Joey has really started to dig daddy lately!   Anytime there is a noise at the front door, Joey will stop what he's doing, and run to the door to greet Michael.  We met Michael for a Thanksgiving lunch last week.  As soon as Joey saw Michael, he took off across the parking lot, jumped into Michael's arms, and held on!   It was a great!   Joey has even told Michael "No!" when Michael tries to leave for work.  It breaks and warms your heart all at the same time.  

Joey has napped a few times in his crib, but that's after crying for 30-40 minutes.  Ugh!  He still naps in the car, but I have actually been able to successfully transfer him to his crib here lately!  Holla!   So, with this new attitude (mainly mommy's), I don't mind staying out and about in the mornings until nap time, letting Joey fall asleep in the car, and then transferring him to the crib right after he passes out.   If it gives my kid a couple hours of sleepy time, I'm all for it!

Joey has decided that he is no longer scared of the big kid equipment at the playground.   The other day Joey did not want to sit in the baby swing, he wanted to swing on the big swing.  He did great!   I pushed him, he held on, and swung for a couple of minutes. 

I know that these attitude changes are only going to get more pronounced and frequent due to Joey getting smarter and older.  It just blows my mind every time he does something that he wouldn't do yesterday! 

Da Beach

We live super close to the beach, aka Pacific Ocean, at our new home.  Like, 1.5 miles close!  When we first saw our home, I even asked Michael "Do we need to worry about tsunamis?".  (We live high up on a hill, so we're probably safe). 

Do you see the ocean at the treeline in this photo?   This is the view 1/8th of a mile from our house!!   Depending on where you stand in our backyard, you can see some of the ocean, too!  Crazy!

 I'm finding that the beach is a great playland!

 Joey can play in the sand and water! 

 And run for as long as he can stand!

 

If the beach isn't enough entertainment for Joey, there's always the beach playground!!  How cool is this?   This place is only a 1.5 miles from our house, so a super easy walk to get some multi-playtime use for the kiddo. 

Prelude to a Goodbye

Sorry, for the delay in postings this past week.  Blogger has been acting super funky and not letting me upload my pics!   It has been driving me bonkers.  Anyways, I am back and was able to get some pictures up.  So, without further ado...

Last weekend, we hung around town using up the last of our Alaska gift certificates, seeing some sights, and doing a little hiking.  We checked out this super sweet playground on base.  Why did we wait so long to play here?!?!  It was awesome!   Joey really liked this wooden platform.  You could make the whole thing shake!

We also met up with some of my Stroller Strides mama friends for a goodbye hike.  We had amazing weather in one of our favorite places in Alaska, Hatcher Pass.  It's nice that we've had so much time to actually get to say goodbye to people, but it really sucks because I just get more and more bummed about leaving.  We've made some really great friends up here and we will never forget them. 

After our hike, we drove a gravel road from Hatcher to Willow.  It was very pretty and we're glad we finally go to drive this road (and no, this is not the same road we drove a couple of weekends ago...there are a lot of dirt roads in Alaska!). 

Play Time!

This month has been super rainy.  We have had little tiny pockets of sun here and there, but mainly just rain and more rain.  A lot of Alaskans have been joking that our summer is over.  Actually, there was termination dust (first traces of snow before the upcoming winter season) on the mountain tops this morning!  Boo!  Good thing we're getting outta here soon! 

Anyways, even though it's always raining now, we still have to find ways to get out of the house!  Joey and I (and Daddy sometimes, too) have been able to hit up some playgrounds, trails, and creeks to play in!

In Alaska, they don't mess around with small playgrounds!  Well, that's not completely true, they do have a bunch of small playgrounds scattered throughout the towns, but some of the "larger", or more established and traveled, towns have HUGE playgrounds!  Girdwood, Seward, JBER military installation, and Wasilla have these larger than life wooden playgrounds!  I have been to the one in Girdwood, but kept thinking that there should be one in the Valley (Wasilla/Palmer).  Well, lo and behold, Michael took Joey and me to one of these monster playgrounds in Wasilla when we went to eat lunch with me!  On a side note, there isn't a monster playground like this in Anchorage.  I'm not exactly sure why that is...

I think I may enjoy these playgrounds a little more than Joey!  Joey does seem to like to be able to explore all of the little nooks and crannies of these fun areas!   

 Joey having fun in the driver seat! 

We also went on our weekly Thursday hike with our mom group this week.  Joey did okay for the first half of the walk, then he was D.O.N.E. with that stroller!  I let him get out and walk for a ways, until we went over the bridge!  He was absolutely fascinated with the running water below us.  We hung out here for about 5-10 minutes and then I had to carry him on my shoulders!

He played on the playground equipment for a little while, until he saw the water nearby!  What do you think happened?  That's right, he walked right in!  Since we were near the car, and the hike was over, I let him do his thing!

A bunch of the other kids took part in the water activities, as well!  This is Lucas, Joey's buddy.  He is just as "boy" as Joey is! 

After the water, I got Joey back up to the car and changed into some warm dry clothes.  I was going to let him play on the playground a little longer, but the trash can was his choice of entertainment.  I know you can't  hear Joey, but he was singing "I don't want to nap, I just want to bang on my can all day!"!

Sled=Pool

Some photos for you all to enjoy!  Happy August 1st!  :) 

 Freedom trying to chase Joey on the playground equipment!  Ha ha! 

Who needs a kiddie pool when you have a sled?!?  I don't want to buy Joey a kiddie pool until we're in California, so I was looking around our garage for something that could be used as a makeshift pool.  Lo and behold, a sled!  Filled it up with water and Joey was in heaven!   

He didn't really want to sit in the water.  He liked to just walk around and splash!   He also liked when I threw his little basketball in the water.  Joey thought that was hilarious!  Luckily, our days aren't too warm up here, so this "pool" works just fine for us!  :) 

Playground Fun

I heart that Joey is old enough to start enjoying playgrounds!  It's great that he can actually walk around and explore himself.  He loves other kids, especially older ones, so playgrounds are his favorite place to visit!  Now that the weather nicer, we've been hitting up the playgrounds two-three times a week!  Here are some photos from local playgrounds.

Joey was taking a food break during all of the chaos at this park!  There was a kid's birthday party going on, so once the food was brought out, we had to leave!  Joey tried to steal random kid's hot dogs!  My little food thief! 

These swing contraptions are pretty sweet!  Put your toddler in and push away without the fear of the falling out!   



Just a swingin'!

MeeMee and Grandpa got Joey his very own swing for his birthday.  We now can take outside swing breaks without leaving our front yard!

This was the first time Michael got to see Joey in a swing! 

One of the parks we visited this week had this super awesome slide!  What made it so great was that it was slow...this is normally a bad thing, but for a toddler?  This was the best thing ever!!  We could let him go down it by himself!

He really did love it!  I think he went down this slide 20 times!

I think Joey likes to swing whatever way he can!  He was really happy to swing with Daddy this past weekend!