Mr. Talks-A-Lot

Drew took these pics a few weeks ago. Today felt like a good day to post them.

I also wanted to mention, simply because I haven't talked about it at all lately, that Silas now speaks in complete sentences, pretty much all of the time. I guess that's not surprising, given the fact that he's now over two years old. People always say that such things seem to happen overnight. But I feel like this transition has been very gradual, from him occasionally completing a sentence, perhaps 4 months ago or so, to now, when he most often talks in complete sentences.
And the things that come out of that boy's mouth! In particular, he seems fond of the phrase "shall we..." "Shall we read a book?" "Shall we eat crackers?" And when at the zoo: "Shall we go find L?"

He must have picked this up from his Dad as the word shall isn't exactly in my daily vocab repertoire.

Silas just got up from his nap and is sitting right next to me. To give you an example of how he talks, he just said "Daddy's in studio to work on something. Washing machine's beeping. Not working still (it's been partially broken for a while). Daddy's in studio! Mommy's typing something. Kitty's just upstairs sleeping. To sleep in bed. Cuz mouse upstairs. Mouse doesn't have any mommy-milk. Mouse upstairs sleeping. Sobin's upstairs sleeping too. Kitty's sitting upstairs. Kitty's upstairs. Mommy-milk. " Uh-oh, that's my cue to go. :)

Woodland Park Zoo

Last Sunday, we ventured to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle with our friends M & D and their little boy L. The boys are less than two months apart in age and they have such a good time together.

I've posted before about the mixed feelings I have about zoos. At least in the picture below, you can see that the amusement goes both ways...

Silas said "hi." At one point he tripped and fell of the ledge. He was fine but she (or he?) looked over with such concern.


Ready to jump!
I tried to get a picture of Silas wearing his giraffe sweater in front of a giraffe. It didn't quite happen.
The giraffes were in a barn due to cold weather. Poor giraffes. I hope it gets warm soon!

Silas missed the flamingos...

But woke up in time to go.
We spent all day there and still only saw 80% of the place. It's HUGE!

The boys were so cute, holding hands and conversing (or constantly repeating each other) in the van on the way back to the ferry.
What a nice day. We hope those two spend many more days together!

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Need a cute fix?

Well, there you go. Your daily cute fix has now been fulfilled.
If you are feeling truly cute-depleted, more pictures are posted here.

Veggie container gardening, take one

We've decided to grow more vegetables this year. Because we now have a deck, we've decided to do a lot of container gardening, in the hopes that less produce gets eaten by deer and sheep and slugs. We'll also do some traditional "in the earth" gardening as well.

The above picture shows the deck garden, as of today. It doesn't look like much now, but once those seeds get going, we should have a lot to harvest (fingers crossed). Some of the things we're growing: parsley, pole beans, cucumbers, mustard greens, romaine lettuce, bib lettuce, cress, spinach, and pictured below:
Peas! A definite Silas favorite. These are the only starts we've bought so far. I've also got eggplants and cayenne peppers starting in the greenhouse. We'll probably grow tomatoes in the greenhouse this year and will grow squash, potatoes, etc., in the ground. We already have an abundance of fruits growing on the property (plums, strawberries, raspberries, quinces, blackberries, apples, pears, Asian pears...). I can't wait for summer when we can pick so much food from the yard!

Wish us luck with our gardening endeavors. We are novices, to say the least.

Below are our first sprouts: crest. The spinach is coming up nicely as well. Hopefully, everything else will follow suit.

Orchid: official flower of Planet Silas

I bought this orchid soon after moving here in 2003. After the initial bloom, it was flowerless for years. Late in the winter of 2007, shortly before Silas was due, buds began to appear. I waited and waited for the first flower to open, just as I was waiting and waiting for Silas to be born. Every day, I stared at that orchid and thought that it was never going to bloom. And I thought my labor would never start too (recall that Silas was 2 weeks and 1 day late).

But finally, the first flower did indeed open. It happened on the morning of March 16th, the day Silas was born.

It has bloomed each year since, right around his birthday.

Spring showers for our egg hunt

When I looked outside this morning and saw the lush, drenched, green landscape, I was grateful that we'd only dyed 5 eggs yesterday. The egg hunt was short and sweet. Silas caught on after I showed him where the first egg was hidden. After he'd found the last egg, he said "find more eggs!" We pacified him by retiring to our warm dry house to eat some hot crossed sticky buns. Yum!

We hope you enjoyed some spring cheer today!

Big swing on the old oak tree

Our little boy is growing up way too quickly. This swing, which is on the big Garry Oak outside our front door, is a favorite with the neighborhood kids. A few months ago, Silas would not have been able to safely sit on this swing by himself. It's very wobbly. But look at him now!

I'm FINE, Mommy... just swing me again!

That's better.

I was surprised by how high I was able to swing him without feeling like he was going to fall off at all. And of course, the refrain "again again, please!" was heard countless times. This swing promises endless hours of fun this summer (and fall, and winter and spring...)
What else have we been up to? I took some time off last week (spring break for the school district I work for). While I was off, we hung out, took walks, went to the local children's museum, had a play-date... And Silas watched me knit (but really, that's everyday :). Just happy domestic stuff to fill the spring days. Also, we are going to be doing more vegetable gardening this summer, including quite a bit of container gardening on our deck. So we started that whole process. I will devote another post to gardening later on.

This weekend, we hope to work outside some more, attend a baby shower, and have an Easter egg hunt for Silas. Busy busy busy!

Pure bliss

I can't believe it, but my baby is now big enough to ride on the big swing hanging from our oak tree. Drew took a bunch of pictures of us playing on the swing this past weekend. I'm still sorting through them all and will post more images later, plus update you on our family's goings on, as of late, as soon as I have a bit of time.

April 09 book of the month

Introducing Planet Silas' April 09 book of the month:

Gator by Randy Cecil.

Note: There is a companion book to Gator called Duck. Duck will be the botm in May so stay tuned for more on that book. For now, if you think you might want to buy Gator, do yourself a favor and buy both. Seriously.

Gator is a wooden carousel animal who sadly witnesses the demise of the amusement park his carousel is part of, until one day, the park closes it's gates. After a long sleep, Gator decides it's time to step off of the abandoned carousel to see what else the world has to offer.

This book (and Duck, too) evokes such empathy from its readers. You truly feel for Gator and the other carousel animals when people stop taking interest in them. There's a "hole in Gator's heart where the carousel pole used to be." And in Silas' words "park closing, Gator sad." I don't mean to say this book is depressing; only that it covers the spectrum of emotion in a way that creates a main character who is alive and tangible, despite the fact that he is a wooden carousel creature. Silas really responds to Gator's character and has started calling his wooden toy crocodile "Gator." (There's time to learn the difference between an alligator and a crocodile later, right?)

It's safe to say that we love Gator, and that this book is an absolute treasure. And, okay, I'll say it again, check out Duck too, because, while Gator is well deserving of botm status and might be Silas' personal favorite, Duck is mine. Duck might be the best picture book ever. Seriously.