Welcome Home - Dino and Maya Style

Every afternoon around 5pm my internal clock (or rage of hunger) tells me that Mom is due home any minute. Some days it a little later than others and when that happens I get antsy. I begin yelling for Mom. I stand at the door to the carport and yell for her hoping that she'll hear me and rush home to feed me. I am beginning to think it's working!

Today we captured this video of me waiting for her to arrive. When Dad saw the way I acted at Mom's arrival he instantly thought of the age old cartoon "The Flintstones". Watch the video above and let me know if you think Dino and I have something in common. I know, in the video it shows Dino waiting for Fred, but just think of it the other way around. Now, that's not to say that I don't eagerly anticipate Dad's arrival. I love seeing Dad but when I'm thirsty there is not much he can do.

~Enjoy

Potty Training or Pooty Training???

Excuse me, can't you all see that I'm busy here?

As you can tell from the picture above we have introduced the potty trainer. Mom and Dad have noticed my signs of readiness for using the toilet, so we purchased this new potty that perfectly fits my bum. All I want to do is either play with it (which Mom and Dad say is pretty gross) or sit on it. I have been trying it out for the last week and all I can do is poot. Yes, every time I sit on it I poot! I grunt, contract my stomach muscles and say peeeee but all I can seem to do is poot. And every time I poot I laugh! Today I laughed so hard I almost fell off the potty. We'll keep giving it a go and report back when we have success.

Dad had a rough nights sleep last night. When he woke up he told me why. He had a nightmare! In the nightmare he was running from a bull with very large horns. This bull kept chasing him into a row of bushes and as soon as the bull found him, Dad would escape and run away. Finally, just as he thought he was safe, the bull spotted him again. Dad dove into the bushes and rolled under a bush trying to lie there perfectly still. As the bull got closer Dad started to panic. Then all of the sudden the bull laid down only inches from where Dad was hiding. The bull was breathing very heavily and with every breath Dad thought he was dead. Then he awoke only to realize that it was me snoring in his ear and that I was in fact the bull that was terrorizing him in his sleep.

Mulching

Today was a day filled with yard work. Dad and I put on our work clothes, got our respective buckets and rakes and headed to the yard to spread a new pile of fresh mulch. While we were spreading mulch Mom was making crepes with fresh blueberries. Yes, we are STILL picking blueberries off our trees. We have already picked 84 cups this year (compared to 24 from last year) and they are bigger, juicier and tastier than ever before!

As you can see it was a big pile of mulch! This was our third load this year!

As Dad put the mulch in his bucket I picked some out and put it in my bucket.

It's a good thing we had a bigger bucket!

Ant Enchiladas, Fried Grubs, Crickets and Silk Worm Ice Cream!

Bugs! It's what's for lunch! And I ate it all! My favorite had to be the fried grub! The server only gave us one grub and when Dad wanted me to give him a bite I let him know I wasn't happy. I wasn't sharing my bug feast with anyone! Most of the bugs were crunchy and you couldn't even tell you were eating them unless you looked at it before you put it in your mouth. I must say that the silk worm ice cream was not my favorite of the four bug dishes. I think if we were lost in the wild I'd be fine with eating bugs in order to stay alive!

As you can probably tell Dad and I went over to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh for their Bug Fest. They had all kinds of bugs on display and we even saw a man completely cover himself with honeybees. It was a stunt that I am glad we didn't have to participate in.

Eating my grub!

This grub was deep fried with a hush puppy.

Ant Enchilada

I was the only person dancing for the band! I had a blast showing off my moves!

Enjoying some tasty bugs.

Somehow I was terrified of this little dog that was not much bigger than my foot. What's wierd is that I have no fear when we walk to visit the horses but this little pooch had me terrified!

ps...What do you think of my choice of clothing?

Tweet Tweet!

Yes, tweet is the sound a bird makes but it is also the newest method of communicating to my followers. Even though Mom and Dad have not yet joined Twitter, I have taken the step into the tweetosphere (or whatever they call it) to give you all a look into what I am doing. Yes, it's that simple. I can tweet up to 140 characters that describe what I am doing (or anything else for that matter) at that given time. Posting to our blog does take a lot of time so this will allow us a quick and easy opportunity to give brief updates on what I am up to. Now if I could just talk Mom and Dad into getting a phone that would allow us to tweet when we don't have a computer handy.

For those of you still unsure of what Twitter is take a look at this video. And by the way...my tweets are in the sidebar to the right of this post.

Special effects, stunts and my very own black eye

Today Dad and I picked up Mom for lunch and headed over to the Museum of Life and Science to see their special event on the science behind the film industry. When we arrived we heard a loud thud and looked up to see local stunt men jumping off the roof of the Museum. They were perfect every time landing without fail on the rather large airbag located 3 stories beneath them. We also got to take our picture with some gory, bloody and down right ugly faces. They didn't seem to phase me but one kid left pretty freaked out.

I think Dad is a better fit for Mom!

This girl had her head cut in half by a chainsaw.

That looked like fun!

Climbing on the rock wall.

This dinosaur is located inside the Museum and shows visitors a behind the scenes look into the building of the Dinosaur Trail that is set to open at the Museum next summer. The trail is slated to have 18 life-sized replicas of various dinosaurs and will be located in the woods just above the black bear exhibit.

A really cool exhibit where you interact with an image displayed on the wall from a projector. I was more interested in standing on my head than interacting with the exhibit.

Some older kids showing me how it's done!

And about that black eye. My black eye was not from any special effects or face painting at the Museum. It was actually all Dad's fault. After the Museum, Dad and I went to Lowe's to pick up some paint and while we were waiting for the paint to mix we were head butting each other. I know, it sounds awful but I actually like to use my head to bang into things. While Dad and I were bumping heads, Dad decided to look up and I missed his head and I slammed my eye right into the shopping cart. It hurt pretty bad and turned blue instantly (the blue is now gone) but I got over it. The store clerk looked at Dad and said "Mom's going to be mad at you for that one". I guess I'll make sure Dad does not bail on me before I crack my head.

Heroes, Villians and Special Effects

I am so excited about this upcoming weekend! We are going to the Museum of Life and Science to see Storm Troopers and a variety of other Star Wars Characters, meet stunt specialists and make-up artists, and learn more about the science and artistry of the entertainment business. Who knows, when we return we may have some new ideas for a film of our very own! Let us know if any of you will be coming out for the day!

May the force be with you!

You can read more about the day's events on the Museum's Website

Feeling Sick after Well Check

This is what I looked like last week. Perky, feisty, playful and innocent. Back then I had a little leak in my nose and a nasty cough but nothing too overpowering. But then it all caught up to me!

Mom and I went to our swimming class (Mom's the teacher) and when we left she noticed that I felt a little hot. We went home and Mom took my temperature and it registered 102. About 2 hours later and after a nice 2 hour nap we took my temperature again and it had reached 103.5. I was smoking hot! Last week when Dad had his fever he slept on the couch for 2 straight days. My fever of 103.5 didn't really phase me. Now that I have learned to walk I won't sit still for anything, including a high fever. I'm sick but you wouldn't know unless you held me and felt the heat radiate from body. Now my fever is back to 101 and we are monitoring it through the night. We are trying to hold off on the meds until tomorrow to see if I can break it on my own. We are going to try and let the fever fight the infection while I sleep and hopefully tomorrow I'll be fever free.

For those of you who don't have a good memory (me included), on this very same date last year I had a very high fever and had to go to the hospital so they could do some blood work. It was a day that I do not want to relive here so I will just leave you thinking about the coincidence.


On Friday of last week we went to see Dr. Ramsdell for my 15-month well check visit.

Weight: 24.4 lbs - Percentile 70%
Height: 29.5" - Percentile 20%
Head Cir: 19.25" - Percentile 97%

Now I am not a statistician but I can gather that from the above statistics that I am going to be a big headed shorty.

ps...The picture posted above was taken in the Tampa airport on our way home from Madeira.

Madeira Beach Bums Part 2 with Salt & Pepper

Mom, Dad and I took a long break from work and home and headed to Madeira Beach for Labor Day weekend to spend some time with the family. I was so excited to go since I just love the beach and I got to hang out with my favorite cousin Joseph. I call him JoJo and now when Mom and Dad ask me who my favorite cousin is I say JoJo! And JoJo is such a great cousin to be around. He takes such good care of me. As you can tell from above he was patiently trying to get to move faster so the waves wouldn't knock me over.

You can probably tell from the picture that we had some good waves. The waves and 48 hours of rain were results of Hurricane Gustav. We surfed and played in them as much as we could but it rained a lot while we were there so the lightning kept us out of the water for most of the time. I'm not sure what it is about us and the beach this year but Mom and I went to the NC beaches in July and got in the way of Hurricane Cristobal. And now we are hoping for Hannah to just bring some rain and nothing more!

You can see the Madeira Beach Bum's (or Salt and Pepper as we are often called) first trip to Madeira Beach here.

I desperately tried to catch this bird but it always seemed to be a bit faster than I was.

We also hugged and kissed each other a lot which led to a sharing of germs. I started the germ spreading since I was the first to get sick. Dad and JoJo now have it. It was a horrible way to end the trip!

Playing in the pantry (or the bus as Pepper calls it)

The siblings and grandkids

The whole family!

G3 wanted this picture taken since she has the exact picture of her and JoJo.