Cruising with Daddy

The Depot - still one of Tad's favorite places.

In late February, we experienced a wonderful hint of Spring - warm and sunny! Tad loves to be outside (he stands at the door to the deck and says "shoes, side, side"), so we spent our days on walks, at the park and Johnny took Tad for his first spin the Mustang. He loved it!

At 21 months, Tad is learning new words every day. Until recently, he has been a bit of a generalist - all fruits are apples, every direction is up (two syllables: u-up), all vehicles are trucks and all four legged creatures are ufs (as in doggies say uf-uf) or orses (silent h). Tad has now decided to diversify his vocabulary adding many animals (elephoot, affe, goat, goose, etc.), car, bus, tractor and different fruits (nana, orange, blooberry). However, his favorite word is tootie (cookie) - Tad inherited my rather large sweet tooth and stands next to the cookie jar saying "tootie, more, more". He is a big fan of Girl Scout cookie season.

Aunt Meg & Uncle Joe Visit

Breakfast with the Bowles boys.

Henry hanging out in his bumbo seat.

Coop being silly.

Feeding the ducks and geese.

Brady hanging with Mommy.

Coop and Tad sampling some of the duck food (aka cheerios).

A visit to the choo choo.

Run, Forrest, Run. Tad's favorite activity.

Uncle Joe and Coop.

First attempt at a group shot.

Aunt Meg and Uncle Joe.

A giggling Brady on the go.

Three of the Bowles (Daddy was working and Henry was chillin in his stroller).

Another attempt at a group shot. Tad was fascinated with the swing.

Another attempt. Not sure what's going on behind the swing...

A final attempt at a group shot. The kids are miserable! We're sorry, Gammy - we certainly tried!

Sweet Henry - almost three months old!

In late January, Aunt Meg and Uncle Joe headed south for a visit and we all gathered at the Bowles in Nashville. As is obvious from the photos, it was freezing! Seattle was probably warmer than Nashville, but we had a great time despite the chilly temperatures. The kids adored Uncle Joe and Aunt Meg and we had a great time catching up with them and hanging out. Thank you Meg for taking all the fabulous photographs above.

Fish!

To life our spirits and shake Johnny's hangover, we headed to the Georgia Aquarium the day after the Falcons playoff loss. Tad loved all the fish and wahwah - two of his favorite words at twenty months old. We hadn't been there in several months, so it was fun to see Tad's excitement and explore more of the aquarium. Tad especially enjoyed the penguin habitat (the first two photos above). He first yelled "fish" and we said, no that's a penguin. He then yelled "Abba" (Tad's nickname for Abby), which cracked us up. She is black with a white belly like a penguin, but she definitely cannot swim.

Maybe next year

As you can see, the Frenchies were very excited about the game.

This last photo says it all - we were very sad to watch the Falcons lose their playoff game in January after such an excellent season. We really enjoyed watching the Falcons with BC Grad Matt Ryan at quarterback. Hopefully next season will last a bit longer.

Beet Lover

These are the best...

especially when followed by a Nilla wafer.

One of Tad's favorite sides is sliced, canned beets. Go figure. At 89 cents a can, Tad is doing his part to watch our wallet during the recession. As you can see, beet eating is a contact sport, so he has to eat them in his undershirt.

Snow Days

Helping Daddy.

Yikes. This stuff is cold.

A view of our street. It looked like this for about four straight days.

Sledding with the neighbors!

Southerners improvising to make sleds.

During the second week of January, Atlanta was hit with a snow and ice storm. While I first laughed that 5 inches of snow could completely shut a city down for a few days, I soon realized it was very true. The CNN headline "Atlanta's Plan for Snow: Spring" was rather fitting as we were trapped in our house for 4 days until the ice finally melted enough that we could venture out. I kept commenting that we would be fine once the plow made just one trip through our neighborhood and Johnny kept reminding that there was no plow that would ever be coming.

We decided to make the best of the forced holiday and enjoyed several lazy days with Tad - playing inside, followed by sledding with the neighbors, a good nap and tasty dinner. Tad was the best dressed kid on the block as Grammy had sent from New Hampshire the awesome, marshmellow snow suit and boots (Tad still likes to wear them around the house and point and say, "boots"). Thanks, Grammy - can't wait to try skiing! We finally made it back to work on Friday, for a challenging one day work week, followed by the long MLK Weekend.