Memorial Day

In case you hadn't heard, Boalburg, Pennsylvania is regarded as the birthplace of Memorial Day (at least 2 dozen others towns also make this claim, but hey, we live in Boalsburg, so let's just go with it). With that in mind, the Boalsburg Memorial Day activities are certainly the biggest event occurring in Central Pennsylvania, if not the entire state. Literally thousands of people descend on our quaint little town for the weekend to enjoy the parade, street vendors, military re-enactments, period dress and other festivities.

We have been unable to attend these activities thus far, due to Katie and Lucas being gone last year and Lucas being born the year before, so we were looking forward to see what all the hustle and bustle was about.

Lucas had a great time, especially at the parade. In lots of bigger cities, the tradition of throwing candy has been banned due to unfortunate accidents, but that tradition lives strong in Centre County! Lucas made off like a bandit. Every fire truck (of which there must have been ~40), antique car, political hopefully, guy on a Harley wearing an American flag shirt, etc. was throwing candy. Tootsie Roll must have made a small fortune off of the sheer amount of candy purchases for the parade.

The actual Memorial Day activities were enjoyable, but very hot. We wandered among the street vendors, watched a civil war re-enactment complete with a live cannon ~50ft from our heads (we were not prepared for how loud that thing was going to be), bought an Amish made pretzel, and wandered around the corvettes at the car show. I think we all suffered a little heat stroke after wandering around downtown for a couple hours, because when we got home we all crashed on the couch unable to move. Lucas didn't even make it home before he was asleep, well in advance of his normal nap time.

Like everything about this town, the activities were quaint. Boalsburg is a very nice place to live.

(I've also included a little game with today's pictures. It's the "One of the pictures is not like the others, One of the pictures just doesn't belong" game. See if you can figure out which one.)

Lucas turns two!

For two days last week we celebrated Lucas' birthday. On Monday we had a party for him and his friend, Cooper, who had a birthday the day before him. The theme was "balls" (don't act so surprised). Lucas is still obsessed with balls. Cooper's mother and grandma made the cutest cakes decorate to look like balls. I did the same with cupcakes. Needless to say we had plenty of cake.

Lucas had tons of fun. It was fun to watch him when he blew out his candles, though it was more of a "drool out the candles", but it worked (we made sure to not serve that part of the cake). He ate his cupcake and some of another, that was left unattended. He had no problem opening up presents.

We have been trying to teach him to say he is "two". We have had minor success with this. Sometimes he says it, sometimes he doesn't. I don't think he understands the birthday concept, yet. I would tell him it was his birthday and he would repeat me and say "birthday", but I don't think he associated it with him, maybe next year.

For his actual birthday we had blueberry pancakes, went swimming, and ate lunch at the Subway in Walmart. About four weeks ago, we were running errands around lunch time, so we had Subway in the Walmart. He hasn't said anything about it even though we have been to Walmart several times since, but the other day when Craig was with him and they went to Walmart he started to point and say, "Lunch, Lunch". Later when we went to Walmart again, he commented about it and wanted to have "Lunch." So for his birthday we decided to have lunch at the Subway. We walked into Walmart, thinking he would walk up to the Subway and say "lunch", but he didn't. He just kept walking, so Craig and I said, "Lucas, lunch". That caught his attention, he got excited and ran back into the Subway!

We also had dinner full of Lucas' favorite things: beans. Pinto and black beans (in a casserole), and green beans on the side. Lucas loved it, and ate all of the beans on his plate! We sang to him again and had more cake and ice-cream and opened more presents. Lucas had a great birthday!

Crazy Bird!

Craig recently filled up our bird feeder so Lucas could see the birds. We do get several different types of birds (see picture in previous post). The trick is having them stick around long enough for Lucas to see them. When we tell Lucas that there are birds, he gets so excited that he starts shouting "Bird! Bird!", and by the time he gets there the bird has flown away. We're working on being quiet long enough so he can actually see the bird.

About a week ago, I was in the computer room, and I could hear this noise every so often, like something was hitting the window. Craig came home and and heard it too. He realized that there was this bird that kept flying into the sliding glass door. I went out to see, and sure enough this poor bird keeps flying into the window. We thought maybe he was hurt and was having a hard trouble flying, but no, he would fly away and then come back to do it again. The bird did this for a few days, until we got to the point where you just got use to the noise. Lucas liked it, he was sure to let us know when the bird was there. I have not heard or see the bird for a few days, but yesterday I heard it again, I went to investigate and sure enough there was the same bird at it again. Poor bird he probably has brain damage.

Ant Invasion

I love spring/summer, it is my favorite time of the year! But with every season there are pros and cons. Though there are several pros associated with spring/summer, there is a definite con, ants. The ants here are huge, were talking about some serious AOUS's (Ants Of Unusual Size). Every year at about this time, we find ants wandering around in our house. They are usually in the downstairs bathroom, but this year they have decided invade uncharted areas of the house. Recently we have been finding them upstairs in our bathroom. Every time you go to the bathroom, you are sure to see at least one ant, if not more. You know that feeling you get sometimes when you feel like something is crawling on your feet, well now every time I feel that I get a little jumpy, thinking I am going to look down and see an ant crawling on my toes (this has happened more than once). It is a little bothersome. Fortunately we have our own little "ant spotter", who can spot an ant several feet away. It is pretty impressive.

Spring is in the Air

We've had occasional days that tried to trick us into thinking that Spring had arrived, but it really wasn't until this last week that it really felt like Spring. There were birds singing and eating at our bird feeder, kids running around in shorts and t-shirts, and sunny days (4 consecutive days without rain). However, this doesn't necessarily mean that everything is bliss. Along with Spring, comes Katie's list of "Things we need to get done now that the weather is nice". (It also brought out the feral cats fighting under our deck, but that's a different story.) Katie got the garden weeded and prepped for planting, which we will hopefully get done this week. We also hope to refinish a dresser that has been sitting in our living room for the better part of 6 months now, and build an entertainment center that better protects both our equipment from Lucas, and also Lucas from electric shock. Hopefully, somewhere between all of the Saturday's we already have scheduled away, we'll be able to have some barbeques with the neighbors, do some fun things and enjoy the change in weather.

Echo........echo

Lucas has reached the stage of his development where he repeats, or attempts to repeat, everything you say to him. Sometimes it can be cute, while other times it can just be annoying. The other day Lucas was playing on our deck, throwing a ball over the side and his friend, Rhett, was throwing it back to him. When Rhett had to leave to go back inside, I said, "Lucas, tell Rhett goodbye". Lucas stared at me for a second, turned to Rhett and said, "Tell Rhett goodbye". Then he got mad when Rhett left.

Signs of Growing Up

Lucas has been more cranky than normal the past couple days, but we didn't think much of it until I was tickling him the other day and noticed something. Lucas is getting 2 new molars! Every time I look at them I think how painful it must be for a tooth that big to break through the skin for the first time. At least the incisors and cuspids are pointed on top and can 'slice' through the skin, whereas with molars it seems more like using a sledge hammer to knock down a wall.

The boy was born to sing...

Lucas has developed a fondness for singing the past few weeks. It started with "singing" along with the hymns at church (much to his joy, our embarrassment, and the dismay of the lucky family sitting in front of us). Recently however it has expanded to involve the use of actual words and the intended song can actually be deduced. Lucas' favorite songs are "Wheels on the Bus" (but only the "horn" verse) and "Ring Around the Rosie" (but only the last two lines). The best is when he does his own arrangement of "Ring Around the Bus" and combines the two into something that sounds like "beep, beep, beep.....beep, beep, beep......all fall down!"

(I know the picture has nothing to do with him singing, but it shows his love of music, and he's just cute.)

Galoshes

All winter long Katie was "heck"-bent on finding Lucas a pair of galoshes once Spring rolled around. Pennsylvania gets more than its fair share of rain in the Spring and Lucas was sure to not only have plenty of puddles to splash in, but we were confident he would want nothing more than to stomp in every puddle he came across. While it is true that Lucas does enjoy splashing in puddle while wearing his galoshes, what we hadn't anticipated was all the other things Lucas likes to do while wearing his galoshes. Lucas and his galoshes are nearly inseparable. Given the choice, I'm sure he would wear them to church (fortunately we're smart enough not to give him the choice).