Green beans

Steven has been eating like a horse lately. I'm not sure if he's just growing or if he is just becoming a little boy. LOL I've heard that boys eat a lot. This morning for breakfast he started off with his usual fruit cup and Cheerios with milk. (Recently he has started eating them in a bowl with milk like a big boy.) After the first bowl he asked for another. He is so cute; he says more like a little New Yorker. Then after that he started saying something that I didn't recognize. I asked him to repeat it and he began to get frustrated. Looking at him I could all but see he little wheels turning inside his head as he thought about how he could get me to understand him. Then he asked to get down from his chair. So I let him get out and then he said "up, peas (which is how he says please)." So I picked him up and then he pointed to the cabinet where we store his food. We keep the foods that only he eats in one side of the cabinet and the foods that we all eat in the other side. I walked over and opened his side of the cabinet and then he pointed his finger through the cabinet door pointing to the green bean box which was in the other side of the cabinet. He then repeated what he had said earlier. I realized that he was trying to say "green bean." So I repeated back to him, "green beans? Do you want some green beans?" He replied with a very enthusiastic "YESH! (which is how he say yes)" I could see how proud he was of himself for communicating. I gave him a big hug and told him that he did a great job of letting me know what he wanted. Then at his demand, I began to fix him some green beans. LOL. He is so smart! Sometimes I am terrified of how smart he is going to become; what am I going to do when he is smarter than both of us? Oh well, only time will tell.

Gone fishin'

We spent most of our time this weekend up at Lake Altus-Luggert. We decided that we would take Steven fishing since he had never been and we both had not been in way too long. So we did some research and after Steven's nap on Saturday we proceeded to the Walmart to fetch us some fishin' poles. (lol) We picked up some rather inexpensive poles that came with pretty much everything we'd need to do a little fishin' and then stopped by the bait shop to purchase some live bait. We went with minnows; Steven was so excited, he loves fish! I told him they were called minnows and he just kept on saying "minnows, minnows!" throughout the entire 20 minute ride up to the lake. It probably didn't help that I let him keep them on the floor between his feet so he could watch them. He is really getting talkative lately. He seems to get a kick out of being able to communicate with us on higher level. I don't even think I can count all of the words he knows because he seems to have several new ones each day. When we got up to the lake he ran around saying "yay, yay!" The poor thing has barely been outside for months now, besides our daily trips to the park. We haven't had a backyard for him to play in since we moved from our house in November. He just loved being able to run around and stretch his little legs. He explored the shoreline while Richard and I set up our poles. It wasn't long before we heard his cheerful exclaims, he had found the bugs. LOL. He came running back to us yelling "bug, bug!" as loud as his little lungs would let him. It is so funny how he has to share everything with us; every bug, every stick, every everything. As he watched us cast our poles in the water he naturally wanted a try. After trying to wrangle him away from the poles long enough for any fish in the area to attempt a snack, we took the bait off of one pole so that we could cast it out and Steven could reel it in. We played this game for a long time. After spending a few hours at the lake on Saturday we returned home. The next morning after church we make the trek again and it was pretty much the same story; this time though it was much warmer out so we all decided to take a dip in the lake. Steven had such a blast. He loved splashing us with the icy water. Even though the water was fairly cold he still wanted to go in. After he started to shiver I finally had to pick him up and carry him out of the water. Then he proceeded to run around naked! What a boy! We finally managed to semi-dress him, just a diaper but hey it's better than nothing right? Well although we didn't catch anything over 6 or 7 inches, it was probably the best weekend we have had in a long time. Each time we caught a fish Steven would yell "yes, yes!" and get very excited. He acted like he wanted to touch it then would chicken out when his hand got close. We have really missed being out in nature lately. It is so nice to have a lake so close to us here. We plan to spend a lot of the up-coming weekends up there enjoying the beautiful scenery and the joy of each others company.

Bowling and dancing

We all went bowling this evening and we had a total blast. The bowling alley here is set up more for kids than the one back home. They have a ramp for the kids to use and they have a little play room. Steven actually did quite well, Richard only beat him by 4 points! LOL They had a jukebox and Steven loved the loud music. I've posted some videos of him dancing to the music. He is so cute and has great rhythm.

Air Show

Yesterday we went to the Altus Air Show. It was awesome. Richard was given an amazing opportunity to work on the C-17 display, which they call a "static." It is actually an interesting story which I will go ahead and tell you. After we arrived in Altus we picked a church to try. Some people that we had met actually recommended this church that we had already picked to try, so we went. It turned out to be a ridiculously charismatic church and we were very disappointed. So we picked a different one for the next week. In contrast, this church we LOVED! It reminds us very much of home, with a little Larry The Cable Guy twist, lol. We even went to a sunday school class. In this sunday school class we just happened to meet a Senior Master Sergent (SMSgt).

So through this contact Richard was invited to work on the C-17 static with the SMSgt and a few other select individuals. Everyone in his dorm had to work in some form at the air show. Most of them had to pick up trash or direct traffic, meanwhile Richard got to show people around the C-17. Needless-to-say everyone was very jealous and wondering how Richard who has only been here for a few weeks got the static and the rest of them, most of which have been here for months, got stuck with crappy details. Richard had a blast working on the C-17 and he was even made an honorary 58th squadron member for the day, which meant that he got to wear a real 58th patch instead of his student patch. The air show was really cool and we got a bunch of great pictures. Steven had a blast walking around on all of the air planes and getting to sit in the seats and play with all the rings and gadgets. It was pretty much the coolest thing we've done so far in Altus. I can't wait for the Travis Air Show in August! That one should be even better.