Friday, August 5, 2011

A Toddler's Paradise

Since I have been laid off, we have tried to save money by saving the gas money I would have used to drive to work. And that has made me very crabby...add that to no fondess growing time away from a toddler who has learned the fine art of sass and an 8 month old who can cruise around furniture, has very defined opinions and absolutely no fears.

Well, I only drove 7 miles to work three days a week. That isn't very much gas!

So we decided to have some adventures anyway. And we end up staying pretty close to home for most of them, discovering...well, that we live in a toddler's paradise. Who knew?

-Our paddock is currently horseless (which contributes to my crabby personality). However, it is full of pumpkins and Brayden and I count them almost every day.
-Dinosaur Train shows up on channel two every day. It is the worlds greatest show for boys who love dinos and trains.
-Trains pass near our house several times per day and honk their horns and we hear them chugging along. Yahoo! We see them pretty regularly when we leave the house too.
-We live near a small airport. That means small air planes fly over our house quite a bit, prompting the question"what's that sound mommy?" and a race to a clearing to see it. It also means that if we park in the Menard's parking lot we can watch those same small planes take off and land and be put away. How cool is that?!? Not to mention Menard's has a play ground!
-Our yard is full of frogs to catch.
-Our new mouse catchers make Brayden laugh so hard, he litterally falls over. More to come on them later.
-Our favorite apple orchard also grows chemical free strawberries, raspberries and of course apples. Best of all...they have a cow train that gets pulled by a tractor. Brayden can ride it all by himself.
-Our neighborhood is full of kids to play with, so even when B. misses his little day care buddies, we can walk to the neighbors to play with them.
-There are a lot of "futter flies" (butterflies) in our yard this summer.
-We go for a walk several mornings a week...and we see Tow Mater. That is right, 'Mater lives in our neighborhood. He parks down at the end of our street. I will post pictures of him later too.

Now, if I can just remember all of that...and keep my patience!