New Assistant

As some of you may know, I am in the market for a new assistant. While I am looking, Lauren has been coming in to help out in the afternoon while 7 naps in the other office. It is really nice having someone so capable even part time and it is hard to beat the price. 7 also seems to really enjoy running around my office. I was helping Lauren with a jammed mail machine in the back room and when I came out, I found 7 taking over at the front desk.

At first glance, he seems to be just as effective as some other assistants that I have known.

Just as effective.

Sprinkles

I had to do the same thing to get Lauren to eat broccoli.

Overland Park Fall Festival

I have plenty of updating to do, but first here are a few pictures I took yesterday. The entire family, Molly included, spent Saturday morning enjoying the Overland Park Fall Festival. The weather was perfect for spending the morning outside. We hoped to make it to the parade, but got detained when we walked past the kids' area and saw all there was to do. Joseph particularly enjoyed dancing to the music performed by each musical group, whether a kids musician or large orchestra. They also had a couple of bounce houses set up that he did not want to leave. He's figured out the key to always getting me to say ok to bouncing longer... Once inside and getting a few laps around out of the way, he will always bounce over to where I'm standing and gives me a few quick kisses through the mesh before bouncing around again. Love it!

 He takes the whole bounce house experience so well. Even though he's always the youngest, smallest kid in there and gets bounced all over by the bigger kids, he just laughs and laughs while he struggles to get back up to standing and move 3 inches before falling over again.

We also browsed through the 200+ arts and crafts vendors and enjoyed a tasty lunch before heading home for naptime. I love this time of year and all of the opportunities to play outside as a family!

Thrifty Shopping 2011

Everyone who knows me knows that I can't resist shopping consignment sales and garage sales for Joseph. Goes along with the crazy couponing thing I guess. Of course, it's all so that we can afford to give Joseph the things we know he likes and will want/need, while allowing me to stay at home with him.

So it's no surprise that I managed to hit up a handful of consignment sales this past month to complete his entire fall/winter wardrobe. I also use the chance to look for fun Christmas and birthday presents, especially since he's at the age where it doesn't matter if something comes in the original box or looks perfect - he's going to love it as long as it works and is fun.

I like to head out with specific items in mind, so that I don't go overboard and negate any real savings by buying too much... but sometime's that's really hard to do!

Yesterday was the first day of my last consignment sale of the season, and I still needed to find a winter coat, snowsuit, and some possible gift items for the little man. Not two seconds after walking in the door, I saw this:

I mean, it's a MIZZOU tricycle that doesn't look like it was ever used! (Not surprising, being that we live in kU country and all) And yes, it is now living in our basement until Joseph's birthday. Unless he doesn't get much taller, and then it might need to wait longer than that.

I did find a coat, snow suit, sleepsack (it's comically funny how big they are now to fit him...he's now into the X-Large size and it's like 3ft+ long), one outfit and a small toy for Christmas too. All in all, a successful sale.

Then this morning, after dropping him off at school, I headed straight for a garage sale that advertised they were unloading a lot of Thomas/Brio train stuff. Joe and I are planning on making a table for him for Christmas, I'm thinking something along the lines of this fantastic one:

Taken from I Am Momma - Hear Me Roar

It's amazing! I love the cut out in the middle, as right now Joseph is just starting to love the idea of playing with trains on a table but can't reach anything that's more than a few inches from the outside edge. And the fact that they built it out of IKEA storage bins means less clutter and more built in storage for not only trains but all the rest of his toys!

So, I went a little crazy at the garage sale because they had multiple boxes of track pieces, houses/sheds/yard equipment and so many trains/cars/tenders. And I know fully well how expensive these things can be brand new! So for a fraction of the original cost, I came home with all this stuff:

 We already have a decent sized track set that I bought on clearance after Christmas last year, and know that he'll acquire engines and more buildings down the road. This should at least give us an awesome start and take care of this year's Christmas and birthday gifts. And it's only September. Now I just need to keep reminding myself of that!

Learning our animals

Boys night

Lauren is out of town until Tuesday afternoon so 7 and I get to spend some quality time together. Fortunately, my boss is letting me take Monday and Tuesday off as long as I come in to return phone calls, etc, while 7 naps in the other office.

7 has been trying to go down the stairs standing upright lately, but he can't reach the hand rail. These stairs, however, were just the right size so he went up and down about a dozen times.

This AM, we went to the zoo. This is a tube about 6-7 feet in the air connecting portions of the playground. He kept jamming his face through the hole and mugging for the camera, but my phone is too slow, so this is the best I could get.

18 Month Stats

I don't think I posted Joseph's 18 month stats, so here they are...

Height: 33 inches
Weight: 22.9 lbs
Head: 18 3/4 inches

No percentile stats, other than he's still somewhat tall and very skinny for his age. Now that the weather is cooler, especially in the mornings, I've been dressing him in pants. His 12-18 month pants all still fit great around the waist, especially when he's wearing a cloth diaper. Unfortunately, they're all about 2 inches too short! Time to break out the suspenders and overalls for the fall.

During the month between my birthday and Joe's, we also discovered that Joseph cut 6 teeth, with the remaining two coming through right now, for a total of 16 teeth now. Although he both seemed to have caught my birthday cold, I'm suspicious now that it may have just been serious teething. Other than a few rough days, he took this round of teething like a champ. I couldn't believe how many kept popping up! After the last two (bottom left) are fully through, then we're just waiting on the last set of molars before we're finished. Hooray!

Little Narcissist

This afternoon we went shoe shopping for Joe. Good think there are so many mirrors in shoe warehouses... Joseph was entertained for almost 30 minutes bouncing from mirror to mirror! :)

Little Tiger

We've been busy in the last few weeks! These pictures are a couple weeks old, but I thought they're still cute enough to post. I took Joseph with me to a couple kids' consignment sales two weeks ago, and he was less than impressed. I was fairly happy with our purchases, and managed to complete almost his entire fall/winter wardrobe, minus some new socks and a winter coat.

My favorite find? A brand new, tags still hanging on it Truman the Tiger costume, sized 24 months! And super cheap! Joseph was rather upset at the repeated stripping down and trying on clothes, so I just held it up to make sure it was long enough, and went for it.

When we got home, I had to try it on him to see how it looked....

 He wanted to read (of course!) but then quickly managed to morph into Tiger mode. We've been hard at work practicing his demonstration of his Tiger love/Jayhawk disdain (hopefully we'll catch it on video soon and post it!), and wearing the Truman suit seemed to bring out some true Tiger tendencies.

He grabbed the duck.... and when it started singing and dancing, he must have thought it looked like a silly, Jayhawk-esque bird. After roaring at it briefly, he put it on the floor. 

 And proceeded to squish the Jay-duck.

Taking a quick look to see if it was still alive....

 Time to finish it off! Satisfied that the Jay-duck was dead quiet, he proceeded to go throw it back in his new toy box.

This kid is definitely going to be ready for his first Mizzou Homecoming next month! I just don't know if Columbia will be able to stand his cuteness! :)

Yeah, you watch football. I'll be over here.