Playdate with Cousin Kitt

This weekend we finally got to see Cousin Kittrick again! Mommy and Cousin Lisa are due one week apart from each other (Lisa isn't finding out the sex until birth, so we'll have to wait to see if Lenora will have a girl cousin her age or a boy cousin her age). The boys played very well together, especially since Kitt has such awesome toys. Ernie's been talking about it since we left: "Kittrick does have a big police car." "Kittrick has a train, and I'm the conductor!"

Next time we do it, there will be even more kids there to enjoy it!

And Ernie tried pedaling for the first time! Whoa! Last time we played with Kittrick we finally got brave enough to slide by ourselves. If he keeps up this streak, we're going to have to credit [blame] Kittrick for all of Ernie's maturity!

Ernie is a winner!

Faithful blog readers may remember several posts about Ernie partaking in the Lincoln Passport Program, visiting various cultural venues and learning to "be a tourist in [his] own hometown!"
Well, Ernie successfully visited 12 of the 21 locations and was drawn for a prize! We went to a picnic on Friday to learn what Ernie won and then to the Saltdogs game to be called onto the field and recognized. Ernie won a make and take project from the Lincoln Children's Museum and a free pint of ice cream every month for a year at Ivanna Cone! And he loved the game, especially the cotton candy (his first taste every - "just like my yogurt!" he proclaimed).
It was especially nice that Aunt Laura could join us, making him feel even more like a winner.

LaaaaaLaLaLaLaLaaaaaa

Ernie's been singing lately. It's been a long time coming but he's recently been testing his pipes. He's still a bit quiet and monotone, but with me as his father, that might not actually change all that much. He'll try singing "I'm Going Down" by Bruce Springstein, "Put Your Smile On" (sung to the tune of "You Are My Sunshine," it's a little ditty he was taught at toddler playtime), "The Ittsy Bittsy Spider," and the ABCs. He knows all of his ABCs now and can get through them with just a little bit of prompting (Q and Y are a couple sticking points).

Ernie's gearing up!

For Lenora. He's been all things baby sister lately: hugging and kissing mom's belly, talking her for walks, and sneaking peeks in her room and at her new crib. Recently, after we see mom off in the morning, Ernie says he wants to go for a walk with his orange and gray umbrella stroller, which he insists on pushing. He refers to these trips as going backpacking (I'm not sure where he got that terminology since I've never used it around him as we've never done that, but I'm rarely surprized anymore, if still amazed, by whatever new information he gloms onto). We walk about half to three-quarters of a mile and the whole way he pushes his stroller. He does stop frequently, however, to go around to the front of the stroller and make sure that Lenora is tucked in tight and all buckled up. He's very eager to become a good big brother.

We've also made some big headway in furnishing Lenora's room. After converting Ernie's crib into his big boy bed, we move the rocker over to her room; and we now have a rug and crib in there as well (hopefully pictures to follow soon). Ernie loves playing in Lenora's room (and he has pretty successfully started calling it that rather than "the guest room"). Last week he even took to running in there and yelling "Wake up, Lenora!" Hopefully we'll get that little nugget under control before she actually arrives.

Ernie's not getting anything for his 16th birthday

My last post mentioned how our battery died after Ernie left the dome light on. Well, it was dead again today so AAA had to come back out and rescue Dad and Ernie. While the car was being worked on (new battery needed) Ernie managed to lock himself in the car, and our locks are apparently too sophisticated for most of AAA tools. Luckily, Ernie followed Daddy's directions and was able to be rescued. Some time before Ernie finished "driving," however, he also someone locked our stereo. We have no idea how to fix it. So we have no stereo in our car until either a) we figure out how to unlock it or b) Ernie just pushes the right random buttons again.
*sigh*

"Uh, yes" is the new "Hey, Buddy!"

Whenever a male service professional enters our home, Ernie immediately crushes. The last one was Lyle, who spent about four days fixing the walls in Lenora's room. Lyle wore a light-colored baseball hat, and apparently once said "Hey, Buddy" to Ernie. Lyle lives on in our memories whenever we see a man in a similar hat "Dat might be Lyle!" or we feel like welcoming Mom or Dad or a visitor with a "Hey, Buddy! Lyle says dat!"
Yesterday SOMEONE (named Ernie) left the dome light on in the van after the last "driving" session, so we had to call out AAA to jump us out of the garage. The gentleman who rescued us was named Rob. Daddy asked Rob a question, to which Rob responded "Uh, yes." Since then, every affirmative response from Ernie has been stated as "Uh, yes." We've even added an "Uh, no," to color our language. Mommy expects this trend to last several weeks at minimum.

Big Boy Bed!!!!

We earned it. And we have now had four (going on five) successful sleep periods on our big boy bed. The whole family chipped in to convert Ernie's crib into a big boy bed on Saturday, and he loves it. We gave our rocker to Lenora's room, and we now read books on our bed. The new layout also makes our bedroom seem bigger and cleaner and all our toys are rediscovered anew! Mom and Dad are so proud the transition was so easy (the hardest part was probably finding a suitable used mattress and box springs on Craigslist).

We still love goats

Our temporary tatoo from the Lincoln Children's Zoo is almost worn off by now, but we did want to share these pictures showing how much we still really, really do love goats.

Here we're saying something like "Oh, goats! You'll be ok. I got you."

Mom is never too pregnant to scrounge on the dirt to pick up goat feed that some other sucker paid $.50 for.