Beckett at 14 months

Beckett is so much fun right now. Don't get me wrong he's definitely a toddler, and there are the inevitable meltdowns that occur when I won't let him play with the telephone or I take away the keys. That aside, he's becoming an inquisitive little person with a pleasant personality.

He still has a major love of books, and he reads to himself daily. He will now point at the objects in the pictures to get you to tell him what they are. For some reason he finds it especially funny when we tell him "the cat says meow." That always makes him laugh.
Beckett was about ready to climb right into this fountain. He loves water a little too well.
Jen sent Will's old Halloween costume. We fear it may not fit Beckett in a month and a half. So here are some shots of the spider. He didn't seem to mind that he was basically wearing a pillow.

Beckett loves the outdoors, and he already tackles the playground with gusto. It's hard to get a good photograph at the playground with Beckett so focused on climbing.
One of Beckett's favorite games right now is to run down the hall to his bedroom and then slam the door in your face. He laughs and laughs the whole way down the hall. Then when you knock on the door and open it, and he laughs some more. It turns out to be a pretty fun game for mom too because after a couple knocks he'll come out and give me a hug. Then he runs away to repeat the process all over again laughing and laughing.

I'm also enjoying the moments when Beckett sit with me. The other day when I was lying on the couch sick with strep throat Beckett climbed up to sit with me for half an hour while we watched a cartoon. He'll come over and pat your leg to get picked up. This is nice, but we have to be wary of the throat grab. That kid thinks it's hilarious to grab people's throats with his little hands and squeeze. It really hurts, but he just laughs at our pain.

Nate got this nice shot at the park the other day. Beckett will go down this slide all by himself.

Farming

Nate and Beckett took a drive out to the Kansas countryside. Beckett liked holding the map.
This weekend the three of us went to the farmstead. Beckett and the cow checked one another out.
B also liked ringing the cow bells in front of the milking barn.
No trip to the farm is complete without feeding the goats. They are hungry and greedy. Beckett enjoyed watching Nate dole out goat treats.

Four goats in a row.

Goats are pretty entertaining.

Water

We're heading into another week of hot, hot temperatures. In a Kansas summer the only bearable outdoor activities involve water. I came back from our trip to California fired up about spray parks. Beckett had a great time at the spray park there, and I didn't have to worry so much about him drowning or drinking the whole pool. So I set to searching for one in town, and I found there are a bunch of free spraygrounds (as they call them here) on the other side of the state line. One just happens to be in the park right near Abby's and Ava's house. So we all ventured out for an afternoon at the sprayground.

This sprayground is a bit more intense than the one in California, but Beckett plunged right in.
Ava was a bit more tentative, but once she got the hang of things I think she liked the park even more than Beckett.
The babes decided they would each carry around one of the two cups I brought along. Here they decide who gets which one and then they held on tight to their respective cup for the rest of the outing.

Below the kids play in the serious side of the sprayground. Those are some wet babies.
The other day we let Beckett play outside with the hose. At first he just played with the water.
Here Zephyr fulfills her lifelong ambition of worming her way into as many pictures as possible.
Then Beckett decided he was thirsty and started drinking from the hose.

We're so proud.

Storm Troopin

Today is Toby's birthday. Who's Toby? He's the kid I grew up with. He's also the same guy who flew across three states and show up at my place of work dressed as a storm trooper. Now I know we all have good friends, but ask yourself when was the last time any of your friends showed up dressed as a storm trooper? That's what I thought.

Beckett was as shocked to see Toby as I was. You can't see it, but he liked pounding on his armor.

Here we are at my office. Did the Empire really give thumbs ups?

Toby was actually the perfect height and build for a storm trooper. Note to Toby: Remind wife that Toby is the perfect build for an intergalactic tough guy.

Toby was one of the judges for our ward's annual Golden Tongs BBQ. Storm Trooper Toby gave out the awards.

The kids went crazy.

The IT Ops team loved Toby's outfit. Justin, here, is wearing a Star Wars t-shirt with a storm trooper on it.

Meanwhile, Scott's desk had a picture of Luke, Han, and Chewy.

Dan thought it would be fun to pick a fight. (Not a good idea.)

Later that weekend we visited the Steamboat Arabia Museum, which has the largest collection of pre-civil war artifacts in the world. Toby was thrilled since it gave him lots of ideas for constructing his dream cabin. Toby wants to do it Grizzly Adams style with no electricity.

This is what Wal*Mart looked like 150 years ago.



Lastly, we visited the Liberty Jail and Independence. Toby started the weekend as a Storm Trooper and ended it as Superman. I think he's more of the latter than the former. As a father of 2.5 who owns his own start-up and can beat anyone I know at rock climbing, cycling, and flying a helicopter, Toby really is a super man. Happy Birthday.

Brooke and Aaron's Backyard

We took a trip to see the sealing of Keontay and Daysha to Brooke and Aaron. It was a beautiful ceremony, and the kids looked like angels. We are so happy for them all.

We had some good times while we were visiting. We had dinner with the whole family twice at Val and Dorothy's. We took three trips up to Mormon Center where the Sacramento Temple is located. We went to a sprayground. But we were terrible about taking pictures. Seriously, what you will see below are all the pictures we took. We kept forgetting to bring our camera when we left the house. Thus, the title of this post. Every single picture we took during this trip was in Brooke and Aaron's backyard.

And a marvelous place it is, too.

They have a baby pool.

Beckett jumped on the tramp.

The Stephens have chickens.
Keontay pulled Daysha and Beckett in the wagon.

Topeka

Back before Beckett was around Nate and I used to take lots of little day trips to various nearby cities and towns, like Fort Scott and Atchison. We had a trip planned to Topeka that we finally were able to execute on my birthday.

First stop: Gage Park.

Gage Park has several fun attractions. We ate our picnic lunch near this old-fashioned carousel, built in 1908.

We walked through the Reinisch Rose Gardens, home of over 350 varieties of roses on over 7,000 bushes.

Gage park also has this cute train and playground of zoo creatures that I'm sure Beckett would have loved if he were a couple years older.

The Topeka Zoo is located in Gage Park, as well. Topeka's zoo is cute and small and probably will be a pretty awesome zoo in the future. (At least that's what I gathered from all the signs advertising coming attractions. "This site future home of Creatures of Darkness." "This site future hyena habitat.") But, in all seriousness, I love a good nocturnal exhibit so we might just have to return to witness the future awesomeness.

In the meantime, we enjoyed the small, quiet zoo. One thing that we loved about the Topeka Zoo is that they have posted signs telling visitors about the individual animals living there, not just about that animal species. This is actual something that Nate and I have never seen at a zoo, but that we've discussed longingly many times.

So, for example, we learned that the black bears living in the Topeka Zoo are named Sneak and Peek and that one of them likes to climb trees and the other likes to hang out in the cave.

We learned that the lions living in the Topeka Zoo are all very young and that the two female lions are sisters. Look how close we let our baby get to the lion. (He called it a cat in his baby language, by the way.)

And we learned that two of the giraffes in Topeka came from the zoo of my childhood, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.
We learned the names of the Orangutans, and that this one likes to wave to passing folks.
But B's favorite attraction at the zoo was probably this small aquarium. We might have to take him to a dentist's office or PetsMart or something.
The Topeka Zoo has a small, horrifically hot, but beautiful rainforest. Inside Beckett hung upside down like the bats and made friends with the flamingos.
After our trip to the zoo we went to the Kansas Museum of History, which thoroughly exceeded our expectations.
The museum covers the whole range of human history in Kansas from the native tribes, to the pioneers and the Civil War and up to today. It has a real train you can walk through, a stagecoach and tons and tons of artifacts.
Plus the museum has a fantastic kids' center where children can play a Kansas Jeopardy game, dress like a cowboy or a farmer, and pretend to live in a log cabin. If the museum was closer I think we'd go back frequently just so B could play with all the fun Kansas-themed toys.

Topeka has several other places of interest. We didn't even make it over to the State Capitol. So, if any of you local readers are looking for a short, fun day trip, I'd highly recommend Topeka. It did not disappoint.