Sidewalk chalk rocks!

Paul was so excited that Pa came for a visit this week. They got to spend the day together on Friday and then we all went out to dinner on Friday night. We decided to try Spaghetti Works and had a nice meal.

Paul just LOVES his applesauce!
Pa and Paul reading LOTS of books together this morning......

We got dressed and headed outside for some fun. Paul had a blast playing with the sidewalk chalk on the driveway. He is our little artist for sure!

When the novelty of the sidewalk chalk wore off, Paul wandered over to check out our garden. He decided he should try to help out by "picking" some of the scallions.

And no outside fun is complete without some bubbles.....

Pa hit the road, Paul is napping and Jason is riding his bike....quiet time at home for mommy which is much deserved!

You will notice that I decided to change the blog a bit....decided it was getting a bit stale. Since Paul is so thrilled with anything tractor, decided to go with the yellow and green theme!

A fun Father's Day!

We had such a nice and low-key weekend - it was great! After a really stormy week, the weather was sunny and nice on Saturday. We had the opportunity to get some yard work done and then hosted some good friends for dinner on Saturday night. Paul had a blast playing with his new friends R and C - the girls were so patient to play with Paul and we all had a great time.

Father's Day started with a yummy breakfast and then present opening of course! Paul had painted a nice rock for daddy at school...it was so cute. I picked out a smoker for Jason - he's wanted one for a while. He spent part of the morning putting it together and then had to run it for an hour to season it. I had planned ahead and bought a 7 pound turkey breast so he could smoke it for dinner tonight.

The wood chips soaking......nice hickory chips and they smelled so good!

The fancy new smoker.....daddy was VERY happy!

And the end result - it looked great and tasted even better!

Have I mentioned how much Paul likes to eat corn on the cob? I just know that he was meant to live in the Midwest given his absolute LOVE for sweet corn.

Paul is also fond of vegetables in general - he got pretty excited when I told him we were having broccoli for dinner too!

And after a wonderful day and a good dinner.....we ended with the obligatory cookie.....a vanilla wafer (or maybe 2). Paul, how much do you love cookies?!??! THIS MUCH!

The little man cracking himself up! Oh how I cherish these happy moments since we seem to be having more and more "2 year old" moments these days.

After dinner we had a little choo-choo playtime. Paul was "fixing" his choo-choo with his hammer. What a helper!

We ended the evening with a video chat with Gram and Pa. We tried to teach Paul how to say Happy Pa Day, but he got a bit distracted and it didn't quite come out.

Happy Father's Day to Paul's fathers in Korea. We know very little about his birth father but hope that this day finds him healthy and happy. We were sad that we never got to meet Paul's foster father, but we know that he loved him very much.

Fun...a trip to the doctor....and then more fun!

It was a weird weekend for the Marchik family....the weather was cruddy with lots of thunderstorms, rain and general gray skies outside. We hit an old fashion diner for our Friday night dinner and fun - Paul enjoyed his burger and checking out all of the fun old cars and even a cool Mickey Mouse. We did a little browsing at a furniture store and then headed for home before the next round of storms hit. On the way home, Paul started saying "owie" and was tugging at his wrist. He had what appeared to be 5 or 6 bug bites all clustered together. We figured he just had a run-in with some sort of biting bug and didn't think much of it. We put some anti-itch cream on it and off to bed he went.

When he woke up on Saturday morning, there were bumps in various clusters all over his body. Clearly NOT bug bites. We kept a close eye on them for an hour or so and then decided that these were probably hives and we should take him in to be checked out. We were lucky enough to hit a dry spell in the rain and we ran to the urgent care clinic - after a solid hour of waiting, we saw a doctor who agreed with our hives diagnosis. He told us to give Paul benadryl and also wrote a prescription for 4 days of prednisone (steroid). So, we ran to pick up the prescription and grabbed a little lunch. Paul slept well for his nap!

To keep him occupied on something other than the hives, we met up with some friends for dinner Saturday night - good food and fun times with our friends.

We layed pretty low today - Paul seemed to be doing better and the medication was clearly working. But, we didn't want to push it so we stuck pretty close to home today. Another stormy day so we couldn't spend any time outside but we had plenty of fun spending time together inside!

Tomorrow is a big day at Paul's school - since the little kids can't go anywhere for a field trip, the school brings the field trip to the kids. Tomorrow is the first of several fun events for the kids. The local fire department is bringing a fire truck and coming to talk to the kids. We drive by the fire department everyday and Paul screams "firetruck" each time. We taught him what a fire truck says and he does that everyday too! So, this will be a very exciting day for Paul at school. He doesn't usually go on Monday, but we changed his schedule so he could be there. I can't wait to hear all about it.

From earlier in the week when the skies were still blue....the meandering walk around the neighborhood. There is lots of pointing and checking out each crack, bug, rock or whatever.
The hazards of living in a house with a train enthusiast.......

We had a yummy dinner tonight - grilled chicken, corn on the cob and steamed peas (fresh from our garden). Paul is a corn fanatic - he was having fun trying to eat his corn with a fork - weirdo!

Paul was a big fan of the peas.....the look of concentration as he peeled it open and pulled out each pea individually to eat it.

Eating his peas.....

Big pea-eating smile!

Some fun video from today's lunch. Paul is SUCH a mimic now...he will seriously repeat just about anything you say. When a bug was buzzing around him I said "shoo fly" and he started saying it too. He also has been very into showing what a duck says and flapping his arms like a duck. Oh, and you get a taste of the sound a firetruck makes along with the hand motions. This is a video packed to the brim with funny Paul-isms.


We were playing with an orange play ball before dinner tonight and there was SO much giggling that I had to share. What a character.

Hey Mimi.....Hot Diggety Dog!

Paul has a new obsession with Mickey Mouse Club videos on youtube. One of his favorites is the Hot Diggety Dog song - and let me tell you that it really sticks in your head! So.....we've all been singing it over and over around our house. Paul can totally say hot dog....but the diggety part was tripping him up. Tonight - he mastered it....well, as much as a 2 year old can master a word like diggety anyway. We have film proof......and this is sent out specially to Mimi since she was a doubter that he would say it.

On a side note - we are experiencing the 2's this week for sure. Our lovable little man has turned into a stinker this week. I think it is mostly his 2 year molars causing the trouble but who knows. He can turn downright mean when he is in a mood. It's nice that there are 2 of us to tag team the situation - I have a great deal of respect for single parents in these situations since sometimes it takes 2 people to handle a 2 year old....sad, but true.

We enjoy the happy moments even more when he has been so ornery.

Sunshine rocks!

We had such a great weekend - lots of fun family time. We found a great restaurant that serves a few Korean dishes so we gave it a try Saturday night. I had bulgogi that was fabulous and Jason chose a spicy Chinese dish that about blew his socks off.

We decided to take a picnic lunch to one of the nearby lakes and then spend some time at the beach. It was sunny and 80 degrees with a nice breeze - the perfect day. We will most definitely go back to the lake for some swimming this summer. The water was chilly today but there were quite a few people in the water - brave souls.

Here's Paul and daddy during our picnic - it was "catered" by Subway! Paul was shaking his milk.....

We packed our picnic back in the car and grabbed Paul's bucket and tools and headed to the beach. Paul had an absolute BLAST!

Scooping sand in his bucket....

Look daddy, there's water out there!

His water-filled hole...

We headed home for a nap after our beach outing. I ran some errands, Jason putzed around the house and Paul snoozed! We put his pirate ship water table together before he woke up - let me just tell you that while it might look fairly simple, this was by far the WORST toy we have ever had to put together. It was a good thing that Paul was sleeping because there were some curse words coming out of both of our mouths. But, we got it put together and knew he would love it....and he did. After he got up and had his snack, we got him in his trunks and took him outside to play in his pool and with his cool pirate ship.

Oh my.....this is the coolest!

Having a blast with his bucket in the pool.....

This pirate ship is so cool - it has a battery operated pump in the mast that trickles water down. Paul quickly figured out how to turn it off and on.

This is how he splashes in his pool.

And it turns out that the pool is just one giant drinking bowl.....first Paul.....

......and then Maya.....

It was really such a wonderful weekend. I am so blessed to be a mommy to such a wonderful little man. These weekends go so fast, but we just try to enjoy as many moments as possible!

Sneezes and straws...oh my!

We are spoiling everyone with LOTS of blog posts over the last week! Last night, Paul decided that we should eat our dinner outside. Jason is not a fan of eating outside, but Paul was pretty persuasive. He wanted me to sit with him at his picnic table....it's not easy to perch on that little thing, but I did it.



This is what mommy looks like after a LONG day at work!



Paul needed 2 forks to eat his dinner.....

He got tired of sitting with me at the picnic table so he climbed up with daddy at the big boy's table.

Cheese mommy......

It is so much fun to see what new things Paul will learn. On the drive back to DM on Monday, Paul decided to fake sneeze....I think daddy taught him that one.....but how stinkin' cute is that??

Paul LOVES straws....so we taught him how to shoot the straw paper at people. This might turn out to be obnoxious later in life, but right now it is pretty cute. Here we are at lunch on Monday and Paul got 2 straw papers to shoot pretty well.

Happy Wednesday everyone!