We're still learning

Today Bean decided that he would try to feed our leopard geckos his sandwich. When I explained to him that the lizards only eat meal worms he could not understand why they did not like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Breakfast with Santa

The hospital that I work at has an annual breakfast with Santa. I had been told by my coworkers that it was worth taking my family to. The breakfast was held in the hospital cafeteria and each family that had bought tickets in advance had a table reserved for them with their name on it. Of course those printing out the names decided that my last name was Valencia, not Valencic.

The only thing that I was apprehensive about was how Bean would react to meeting Santa. I have heard horror stories about little kids first time meeting Santa and I hoped that for Bean it would not be such the case. In the end we were lucky that the hospital had hired a Santa that understood little kids and spent part of the morning going from table to table meeting the children before sitting down in the big chair to hear the kids' Christmas requests. When Santa came to our table Bean was quite shy and hid, but later he was such a trooper as he told Santa about the crayons that he got to color with while he ate his breakfast.

100% Boy

When we bought our house, many years ago, the back yard was just dirt and a stump from an old oak tree that the previous owners cut down. Over time Dam was able to get grass to grow and we added a shed at the back of the yard. I received many suggestions on what to do with that old stump: dynamite it (I don't think that the city allows that Dad ;) ), drill holes in it and then pour motor oil in the holes or burn it. Well we burned it. Now that the old stump is a pile of dirt, a ring of stump, and a fertile area for mushrooms to grown. Bean has decided that it also is his play area.

How is it that if you have any dirt lying around boys will find it and play with it???

Watch Out for The ZomBEEs

Halloween was an odd one this year because of two things: one, it fell on a Sunday; two, I was pregnant. Originally we were hoping to go for a theme for our family. Bean at the time was obsessed with "Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog", so we were thinking of Dam to go as Dr Horrible, me as Penny and Bean as Captian Hammer, but since I was starting to show and making an authentic Dr Horrible costume was pretty costly we decided to nix the idea. The next idea that we came up with was for our family to go as zombies. Dam's costume was quite easy: get some old clothes and tear them up. Some where we got the idea to dress Bean up in a bee costume and zombie it up so that he could be a zomBEE. In the end only Dam and Bean dressed up for Halloween, but we all had a fun time trick or treating at the few houses around our neighborhood.

Pumpkins

Last year carving pumpkins seemed so easy. Maybe it's because I am prego, but carving one pumpkin completely wore me out!!! At least this year Bean is excited about the pumpkins and wants to participate. If you look at the post that I made of last year's pumpkin carving you'll see that Bean wants nothing to do with the pumpkin that I got for him.

Bean had a lot of fun poking holes in the side of his pumpkin.

Dam's pumpkin is on the left and Bean's is on the right.

Man's Best Friend

I seriously believe that every little boy should have a dog. Even if that dog knocks him down every now and then when it is overly excited. Bean LOVES Fritz. The nice thing is that Fritz is sweet enough to withstand everything Bean does to him.

Missouri Botanical Garden

For a few weeks this month our family was lucky to have Ariana come stay with us. (Ariana is Dam's younger sister). During her stay with us we went and visited the Missouri Botanical Garden. These gardens are a photographer's paradise. Besides housing two Chihuly installations there is a large Japanese koi pond and a children's garden for hours of exploration.

One of the Chihuly installations

Bean thoroughly enjoyed playing in the Children's Garden. There were multiple slides that he got to zoom down, two different towers that he got to explore, and a small river that had a side area that demonstrated how locks work (i.e. like the ones used in the Panama Canal). Bean wasn't too happy when we had to tell him that it was time to go. I'm sure he could have spent the whole day there if I let him.

Has it Really Been Two Years??

This week my little man turned two years old!!! I seriously can't believe that it has already been two years, and what a whirlwind two years it has been! Happy Birthday Bean! I can't wait to see how you grow during this next year.

Forgive Me

Sorry that I have not posted anything in a while. I'm working on getting things up to date today. More to be posted later.

And His Name Is Fritz

Dam and I have been talking about getting a dog for some time now. Before we left for China we had two bichon frise shih tzu dogs that we had to give away when we left the country. Dam and I decided that after we had settled into our house that we would get a dog. I thought that would not be until the fall, but Dam found on-line a giant Schnauzer mix that needed a home. My only miss givings were that to see the dog we would have to drive to Springfield. So, it was arranged that we would go visit the lady who was fostering Fritz. We met the lady at the local Walmart and fell in love with the dog. In the end the drive was worth it. Even though it has taken a bit to get Fritz trained he is a dog that is very loyal to our family and is willing to have Bean jump on every now and then.

Traveling again

Dam has seven siblings. Getting them together all at the same time is a miracle. The last time we were all together was shortly after Dam and I were married. Well, some how Manda, Dam's younger sister, accomplished this miracle. Saturday, June 5th, the whole Valencic clan came together for her wedding.


When I heard that the wedding was going to be at the Nauvoo temple, I was excited because I love visiting that sleepy little town. The LDS church does an excellent job recreating the original city. Bean had a great time playing on old main street as well as visit cousins.

The night before the wedding there was a bar-b-Que so that the Valencics could meet the Wilsons (Manda's future in-laws). Dam's oldest brother, Tom, was there with his family and Bean immediately latched onto Benjamin (Tom's second oldest son). Even though there is a eleven year gap Bean enjoys hanging out with his cousin Benjamin the most.

I never thought that I would pack a sewing machine with me to help prep for a wedding, but I did for this one. Because of not having a permanent residence for two years my closet has been reduced to what I could fit in a suit case. Not a single item that I had in possession were Kelly green, royal blue or yellow, so I went on line shopping (Manda wanted the girls of the family wearing dresses that were Kelly green, royal blue or yellow for the wedding). The dress that I found was a cute 50's era piece. The only problem was that the hemline was two inches too short and I did not have enough time to return the dress and order a new one by the day of the wedding. As a quick fix I decided to add a yellow ruffle to the hem of the dress. The only problem was that I did not have time to fix the dress before driving to Nauvoo (I was busy making hair accessories for the sisters of the bride and groom). I have to say that I am so grateful that my mom taught me how to sew.

Time to Move Again

For the past few months Dam, Bean and I have been living in my parent's house, in Boise, while our house, in St Louis, is being rented. Our adventures here have been wonderful, but it is time to move back to our house!! In many ways I dreaded the four day trek back to St Louis, but how else were we going to get our stuff there?

So on May 11 we packed our little Kia to the gills and took off the next morning. Our destination? Salt Lake City, Utah! Our friends, Marren and Jeff Copeland, let us crash at there place for the night.
I have to say if you ever want to have the best smoothies in the world go to the Copelands and have Marren make you one. I'd drive back to Salt Lake just for one.


Our next stop was Rawlins, Wyoming. If I ever have to stay in Wyoming ever again I will make sure that it is Jackson Hole or not at all. The hotel we stayed at needed to be demolished, but it was stay there with two rooms or go to another hotel and stay there with one room. We needed the two rooms because Bean has gotten used to sleeping in a room by himself. I have tried sleeping in the same room with him and we did a fine job of waking each other up multiple times during the night.

After getting checked into our rooms Dam and I quickly learned 22 month-old and adjoining rooms equals trouble. Bean was playing on the bed in the adjoining room when I walked into the other room to grab my phone. Next thing I new the door to the adjoining room slammed shut and I immediately knew we were in trouble. I had safety locked the door to the room Bean was in because he kept running up to the door, opening it and then running out into the hallway, so Bean was locked in his room with no way for us to get in. I told Dam what was going on and then ran down to the front desk to get help. It was just our luck that the maintenance man had gone home for the day. Fortunately the gal working the front desk was able to get the maintenance guy on the phone and he told her a way to jimmy the safety lock open. When I finally got back up to our rooms poor Bean was crying hysterically because he could not understand why Dad could not open his door. After a few tries we got the door open and vowed never again to allow Bean to be alone in the spare room by himself.

Our next two days of driving were pretty uneventful. To keep myself awake I started playing the license plate game: every time I saw a license plate from a new state I wrote it down. The only states that I did not get were most of the southern states, some of the New England states and Hawaii. Arriving at my sister's house Saturday was one of the best things in the world. No more road trips for me for a LONG while!

Finally

I have been meaning to get a family portait taken for a while now, but some how I keep putting it off. THANK YOU Laura for driving out and taking our pictures! They turned out wonderful.

Aunt Amanda Came to Visit

Dam's sister Amanda came to visit the first week of this month. Bean had so much fun with her. Even though the visit was short they had a lot of fun at the park and feeding the horses.

It is so funny that Bean would behave for Amanda, but when I would walk into the room he would start acting out. I guess that is what I get for working all the time.

The Games We Play

Bean has been devising new games to keep himself busy these last few days. Here are a few of them:

sticky note pad: He has discovered sticky notes. He'll take one and put it on your head, wait a second and then put it on his. He'll giggle for a few seconds as he runs away. After he's out of sight he'll run back and start all over again.

Stealing food from his cousin: Natalie and Bean eat at different times of the day (she's a night owl and he's an early riser). So typically Bean's done with his food before Natalie has started hers. The way he plays this game is that he will run

up to Natalie while she is sitting in the high chair and wait for her to drop food in his mouth. He'll run away and wait till she calls for him. She calls him Geg-gee. Then it starts all over again till he looses interest or she runs out of food. We've found this is the only way for us to get him to eat veggies.

London Bridges: No matter what you are doing Bean will walk over, push your legs apart and walk under. He'll circle around and go again and again till he's tired of the game. Some days this makes cleaning the house take longer than it should.