I have had the BEST 2 days.  Things just seem to fall into place for me lately.  Last night Mom and Dad took me to the mall to do an exchange for Daddy.  That was fun, but then we went to the awesome store called “Best Buy.”  It was my first time (at least that I can remember), and it was AWESOME.  On the floor they had a GIANT yellow dot, and as you all know, yellow is my favorite color.  So I got to hang out on the yellow dot for a while.  But then we discovered that they also had a GIANT BLUE DOT!  That made my whole night complete.  I got to run between the yellow dot and the blue dot a TON of times.  It was really fun.  

Then this morning, when we got to day care, there were TOOT TOOTS!  It.was.AWESOME!  We pulled into the parking lot, and there, right in front of me, was a giant yellow backhoe AND a dump truck.  Mommy let me watch them for a few minutes.  Then when I finally had to go inside we could still see them from the window, and my teacher held me up so I could watch them some more.  

I wonder what other awesome things are going to happen to me, because I seem to be on a roll! 

Since Mommy and Daddy help me to get dressed in the morning, I like to return the favor and help them get dressed.  I recently discovered that they keep socks in a drawer that is very easy for me to reach, so I know I can definitely help them with socks!  I take a sock out of the drawer and hand it to daddy.  He says “Thank you,” so I head back to the drawer to get him the other sock… he needs two because he has two feet.  But by the time I get back to Daddy with his other sock, he has magically made one sock into two and has socks on both feet!  I just don’t get it.  The same things happens when I give the socks to Mommy.  How do they do that?  We need two shoes, but we can’t magically make two shoes out of one.  Geez… the whole “being a grown-up helper” thing is complicated.

Happy Belated Birthday to Daddy!  It was on Tuesday, and Mom and I made him peanut butter cookies!  We also went to the store after daycare to pick up New York strip steaks and a few other things for his special birthday dinner.  Unfortunately, Tuesday isn’t a super fun day to have a birthday, but Mom and I tried to make it special for him.   We are having a few people over this weekend to celebrate, too! 

I don’t remember if I have blogged about this before, but my favorite color is yellow!  Ducks are yellow, trucks can be yellow, I have a yellow shirt, and when mom asked me what color shoes I wanted I said “YELLOW!”  We got red instead, because Target didn’t have yellow shoes. 

From Mommy:

I haven’t found Preston affordable yellow shoes yet, but I’ll keep looking!

This morning Preston wanted to bring his bear (Beet) downstairs for breakfast.  Then after breakfast he kept asking for “Ah Ah.”  I don’t know who that is, but Preston indicated that we had to go upstairs to find out.  So he took Beet, his milk, and me all upstairs to find “Ah Ah” who turned out to be a monkey!  When you add Ah Ah to the mix, Preston had is arms full!  For the rest of the morning he carried around Beet, Ah Ah, and his milk! 
I am also noticing that Preston has a fake laugh.  He does it sometimes for practice and sometimes to pretend to be having fun.  I first noticed it when he was in his swing and it was almost time for his nap.  He was clearly tired, and wanted to have fun in his swing, but it just wasn’t that awesome.  So he started to fake laugh.  The most adorable part is that is sounds like a cartoony evil laugh, like “Ah…. Ah… Ah… Ah… Ah!”     

I have some big news!  I climbed all the way up Mom and Dad’s GIANT bed tonight… all by myself!  It’s like climbing the biggest mountain in the world!  I’m not much of a climber, usually, but now that my legs are long enough I can do anything!

We had a somewhat quite weekend, because we stayed home.  Mom helped Siobhan with cupcakes for a wedding on Saturday morning, so Daddy and I had some quality time together.  We built an awesome brio train layout and played outside together. 

Then on Sunday we went to the store to exchange some things, and checked out ANOTHER train set at Barnes & Noble.  In the evening Mom and I made a blueberry cake together.  We used a recipe from Martha Stewart.  I got to stand on a chair by the mixer to watch.  Sometimes Mom asked me to turn up the mixer, and I only moved it one notch (even though it’s my favorite when it goes super fast).  I liked it when Mom cracked the eggs into the bowl, and when she measured the flour.  I love to bake, and I hope that Mom and I can do it more often!

Today, Grandma came over for our last day together this summer.  She goes back to work tomorrow, which means that I have to go back to full-time daycare.  Mema and Poppop came to visit today, too, and we had to go on a long adventure in the car, got stuck in traffic, ate a bucket of fish (small bowl of goldfish), took a long nap, and then finally went out to dinner at Red Lobster.   My Monday was more involved than my whole weekend!

I turned 19 months a few days ago.  I learn new words every day, and I’m learning a lot of new skills, too.  I love to dance, march, jump, climb, throw, kick, and roll over.   My favorite color is yellow, I still  love bananas (although melon is super delicious), and my favorite toys are trucks (toot toots). 

As you know we have been away from home for a while, which means that Preston hasn’t been to daycare.  When I dropped him off on Monday morning we were both kind of sad.  I love spending all my time with him, and he’s in a phase right now where he wants his Mom a lot.  I called to check in on him at lunch time, and he was perfectly happy!  They said he was back to normal, loving all the toys, and having fun with his friends.  I was glad to hear that, of course.  I picked him up at the normal time after work and brought him home for dinner.  I could tell that one day back at daycare had stimulated all sorts of creativity in him, because he was talking up a storm in some made up toddler language.  It wasn’t random sounds either, because he would say something deliberate (that I couldn’t understand at all) and then repeat himself as if I was some crazy!  I guess having all the other kiddos to “talk” to at daycare made him more excited to talk.

Tuesday morning Preston was playing with his toy drill. It is yellow and has a removable 'bit.' Well, after a while we noticed that the bit was missing, so John asked Preston where it was. He took him right over to the vent in the dining room and pointed at it. Well, the vent was closed, didn't look like it had a plastic drill bit in it, and is the only one in the house that Preston can't get into, so John didn't believe him. A few minutes later after looking in all the usual places I asked Preston again where the bit was. Again, he took me right over to the vent.  So out of curiosity I removed the vent and found the bit!

Preston can open the refrigerator.  This is somewhat of a problem, but we haven’t had any crisis moments yet.  He likes to go in there to snatch some grapes, grab a sippy cup, or point to what it is that he wants me to get.  I had to move the pickles to a spot where he couldn’t find them, because he is sort of obsessed with them.  He likes to take things out of the fridge and carry them around, too.  That is where we could have problems, especially if he decides to open/carry around a gallon of milk.  I see a milky kitchen in my future!

We just got back from a week at the beach with Gigi, Grandpa, and Uncle Joe.  I had SO MUCH FUN!  We went to the beach almost every day where I got to dig in the sand, splash in the waves, dump buckets of water, and play in the giant holes that Daddy dug.  

Photo Album #1
Photo Album #2

Every morning we went on a bike ride as a family.  We rode up and down the boardway, stopping to get a donut and a lemonade.  When we go bike riding I always have to wear my “hat.”   Mom says it’s really called a helmet, and it is for my safety.  Now every time Mom even mentioned going for a bikeride I remind her that I need to wear my hat.  She’s lucky I remember every time!

Some afternoons we went to Aunt LuAnn and Uncle Charlie’s house to swim in the pool!  I am such a pro at the pool now.  I love to jump in and dunk my head underwater.  Daddy is always there to pull me up again.  Mom says that I am a daredevil, and that I make her nervous.

We went to the boardwalk a few times to eat pizza, play $.10 ski ball, and go on my very first solo ride!  That was a big deal.  I first go to try the Jeep ride.  Daddy strapped me in and then left.  I was steering the jeep and pretending to beep the horn when all of a sudden it started to MOVE!!  That was the BEST!  I was so excited I knew I need to steer to keep it going in the right direction, and I had to beep the horn, too.  Eventually it slowed down again and I had to get off.  After that I went on the fire truck ride.  That was even better, because I had my very own bell to “ding” along with the steering wheel!  What FUN!  Next we all went on the monorail ride around the whole park.  I got to wave at all of the people underneath us and watch all of the rides around the park.  When we were done with that I wanted to do the fire truck ride again.  I ran right over and tried to give the lady my tickets, but she couldn’t take them until the other riders were finished.  I was finally allowed to get on the ride again, so I sat down…. Rang my bell…. And nothing happened?!  Why wasn’t my truck moving?  Did I do something wrong?  I was starting to get annoyed with the whole thing, when the truck started moving out of nowhere!  Finally!  I had to grab my steering wheel quickly so that I wouldn’t go off course. 
We all went on the carousel, which was fun, but not my favorite, and then Daddy and I were allowed to go on the yellow submarine ride.  I had my eye on that one for a long time, but I wasn’t big enough to ride it by myself.  Daddy came with me, and I loved it!!  We went up SO high, and I could look out the window and wave to Mommy far below us.  It was my second favorite ride, and it didn’t hurt that it was my favorite color “yellow!”   For our last ride Daddy and I went on the flying elephant.  We flew up and down and all around.  I had an awesome night on all of the rides, and for the rest of the week all I wanted to do was ride the toot-toots anytime we got near the amusement park!

Pizza, arcade, playground:

Ski Ball:

From Mommy:



From Mommy:

Preston really loved the beach and all of the activities we did.  He is starting to associate a lot of things together now:  keys and going “bye-bye,” helmets and bike rides, shoes and going outside.  

I had a “mommy moment” when we were at the amusement park.  We determined that Preston was tall enough to ride the little rides by himself, but I was really nervous to strap him in an leave him.  What if he had a tantrum in the middle of the ride?  What if he didn’t like it?  The strap wasn’t that tight; he could easily fall out?  Just because he is tall enough doesn’t mean that he’s ready to go on rides by himself!  He’s still a baby!  But I decided that we could see how it goes.  We started with the ride that looked the least unsafe (let’s face it, NON of the rides are particularly safe, they are 50 years old, the straps don’t do anything, and kids could easily fall out, but whatever).  The jeep had the highest sides and the tightest strap.  John stuck him in, and walked away.  We positioned ourselves around the fence so that he had someone he would recognize no matter where he was, and then the ride started.  HE LOVED IT!  And he did great.  He was beaming, laughing, steering, and “toot-tooting” the whole time.  My mommy fears were gone… and so was my baby.  He is definitely more “big boy” than he is “baby” anymore.  He still has his moments, but he clearly knows what big kids are supposed to do.  I think that on every ride he was the kid having the most fun.  The other kids would sit and occasionally steer a little bit, but I really think that Preston actually believed he was driving.  He was even steering in the right direction!

This blog post is WAY overdue!  Mom has been busy (watching the Olympics).  I’m sure you all have been waiting and holding your breath! Here goes my weekend recap:
BLUEBERRIES!  They were the theme of our short trip to the lake.  I LOVE those little blue guys, but the cost a ton at the grocery store.  To save a little cash and still support my craving, my parents (who are amazing), drove 4 hours to upstate New York, left me to enjoy my morning with Grandma, and picked 6 quarts of blueberries.  For all you non-mathletes that’s like a gallon and a half…  That is a lot of blueberries.  And there not the big chunky kind you get at the food store, they are legit, little, wild blueberries, and they are SO good. 
There are 2 types of blueberry pickers: clean pickers (Mom) and messy pickers (Dad).  Mom only drops ripe blueberries into her bucket.  Dad drops: blueberries, green berries, sticks, leaves, stems, bugs, grass, dirt… you get the idea.  That meant that after Mom and Dad combined their loot there was a lot of sorting and cleaning to do.  I’m told that happened during my nap.  All I know is that when I woke up I had a dish of perfect berries waiting to be my snack!
You can see all of the pictures HERE

Since Grandma and Grandpa were with us at the lake this time, Mom and Dad could do a few things that I otherwise prohibit them from doing: canoeing together, waterskiing, swimming, etc.  Mom and Dad has a blast!   Dad got up on water skis for the first time and made a full trip around the lake.  Mom hadn’t skied in at least 10 years, so she was excited to do it again!  They look good up there!

I got to try out many different water craft: a canoe (which I’ve done before), a kayak, and a speedboat!                                                                                                                                                                      

From Mommy:

Sorry the blog is slacking.  I’ll try to keep up with it more.  Preston does adorable things, but he’s not changing as fast as he used to. 
This morning we went to Target to get a few things for our vacation to the beach.  When I tried to put Preston in the shopping cart he started kicking and yelling “toot toot!”  My child will only go in tricked out shopping carts that have a steering wheel (thank you Lowes and Giant).  He had a 5 minute temper tantrum about the lame shopping cart.  I had to take him for a walk in the cart for him to calm down.  I can see why Target doesn’t have the awesome carts, though.  There are seriously a TON of kids in there with their moms, and Target would have a lot of kiddo melt downs unless every single cart had a steering wheel.
Here are some more of my favorite pictures from our blueberry weekend at the lake: