Daddy, look at me!

Tyson started standing up and cruising at the beginning of June (9 1/2 months old) and stood watching Thomas mow out the window.

M-Braves - My first real baseball game

I love baseball, or at least the idea of it. I walk around the yard with a plastic bat and beat on things, every now and then I hit a ball (though Momma says it looks more like golf than baseball), and I talk about baseball. Daddy got some tickets through his work, so we got to go to a Mississippi Braves game!

I was interested for a few minutes, but let's face it, baseball isn't the most spine-tingling sport out there. And I know what's at baseball parks.

First I make them laugh and think, "Oh, what a cute little guy that Cole is. I think I should buy him something."

Then I give them the one-two punch...that's one hotdog, then I say, "I want some more please" in a cute voice and ba-da-bing, Grandpa buys me hotdog number two!

I'm getting close to being 3 years old, and that's almost a teenager, so I have to practice being way too cool to sit close to my parents...

Well, they have me trapped now, hopefully these glasses will help the ladies overlook the un-coolness I'm surrounded by.

"Want to read the story about Cole going to the zoo"

Momma's been taking over the blog long enough. I'll take the reigns from here: A few weeks ago we got up early and got to the zoo at 8:15 so we could enjoy it before it got too hot. Here I am on the way there. Can you see the excitement in my eyes?

Zebras, ostriches, antelope, gazelle, ahhh, basking in the glory of wild animals

Mama, why did we have to bring THIS one along? He's making me look all trashy throwing his snack on the ground. They're gonna kick us out of paradise on earth with this kind of behavior.

Well, he is kinda cute...I guess he can come along...but make him keep his Cheerios in his mouth.

My other love....trains....Daddy took me on the train....$2.00 well spent.

At nap-time and night-time I always, without fail, ask Momma, "Want to read the story about Cole going to the zoo." That means I want her to tell me about going to the zoo. So she lays on my bed, closes her eyes, and mentally walks through the zoo recounting all the animals, big and small, while I listen with a joyful look on my face, and remember this little slice of heaven. I. LOVE. THE. ZOO.

Cole's Memorable Sayings

Cole has begun to understand humor and silliness a little better and he likes to come up with things that don't go together and he'll say, "Mommy, Dogs don't ride in schoolbuses, Noooo!", "Mommy, Birds don't eat dog food, Noooo!" He's very proud of his silliness. *~* He's also getting better at pretending and taking on different characters. Some of his favorites are, "I'm like a baby" as he gets in the fetal position with his bath towel wrapped around him, "I'm a weedeater" as he makes motor sounds with his mouth, and his latest, "I'm like a rhino," but this one applies to a vast array of different things that he does and how they're related to rhinos I'm not sure but he's adamant that he's impersonating a rhino when he does them.

He loves to catch me making our bed and he gleefully yells, "I make a tent! Mommy, make a tent with me!!" I remember my Mom doing the same thing with me, fluffing the sheet up and trapping air (and a child) underneath it in the bubble. *~* Yesterday I wore a pair of sandals I rarely wear and he was sitting on my lap and noticed them. After leaning over looking at them for a minute he says, "I like your shoes." What a gentleman :). *~* The concept of time is beginning to sink in on him and if he asks to go to the zoo (which he does almost every day) and I say, "not today," he says apologetically, "Maybe another day." He doesn't care for any TV except America's Funniest Home Videos which he would watch for hours if allowed to. Almost ever day I hear, "When Daddy comes home we can watch silly videos," or "Mommy, can I watch silly videos on Daddy's 'patooter' (computer)?" I tell him not right now and he follows with, "Maybe later." Hope springs eternal.

Cole's two obsessions (other than "silly videos") are trains and the zoo. He went to the zoo a few weeks ago with Thomas and relives the visit every day. One of his favorite bedtime activities is to get in his bed, put his monkey beside him, make sure his blanket is covering himself, Monkey John, and a corner on me ("Put the blankie on, Momma, we can share" he says), and then have me tell him stories about his recent life. "I want to read the story about Cole going to the zoo," is what I hear at every nap and every bedtime. So I tell him about Cole and Daddy going to the zoo and each of the animals they saw there. If I pause for a moment he says eagerly, "And what ELSE we saw at the zoo?" If I throw in an animal that's not there he quickly corrects me. He has always had an affinity for off-the-beaten-path animals. Macaws, peacocks, gibbons, orangutans, and ostriches are favorites. I never hear about lions and tigers and bears. He decided on his own that peacocks say "MACAW! MACAW!" He likes to play that he's a peacock. During this bedtime story-time about his life I often give him a run-down of what he did that day. Yesterday we went to the Children's Museum and I was reliving that with him at nap time and if I paused he would say, "And what ELSE I play at the zoomeda (museum)?"

The obsessions with trains has been longstanding but it's not just the train. He's fascinated by the crossing guards too. "Momma, CHOO CHOO TRACKS AND CROSSING GUARDS!!!!!!" I hear from the back seat as we drive to his great-grandma's house. We finally got to see a train on the tracks a few days ago and that was met with great delight. He knows that the train goes close to Daddy's work, so when he hears the far-away whistle at our house he says, "Momma, choo choo...by Daddy's work." In all his books he knows where pages with animals and pages with trains or train signs are and he looks at them often.

Above is Cole waking up from a nap. I smile every day when I see him totter out of his room loaded down with all his nap items. Here he has 2 blankets, 2 burpies, Monkey John, his sippie cup, and a book. At night after I tell him a story I'll say, "Alright, time to pray. Who do you want to pray for tonight?" The answer always goes like this: "We can pray for Mommy and Daddy and Tyson and Cole and Mimi and Grandpa and Jiji and Uncle Andrew and Cole and Tyson (they usually make it in the list several times) and Miss Sheri (our neighbor who broke her back) and Max and Bo (dogs) and Mommy and Daddy, and we can pray all those things." The list varies every evening depending on who he's seen recently. Jackson, Jude, and Freeman are regulars on the list, but it always ends with "and we can pray all those things." One night I prayed through most of the list (I thought) and said Amen. Cole starts crying and says, "I want to pray for Uncle Andrew!" Apparently I had skipped him or hadn't prayed adequately enough for him so we prayed for Uncle Andrew and he was happy. Cole, you are an absolute joy to us. We are so blessed to be your parents and to watch you grow and learn new things and say new things every day. We love you!!

Cole's brotherly love

Cole went through a screaming-for-fun phase at the table that we quickly put a stop to. Tyson, being 10 months old, loves to screech as loud as he can in his high chair, so Cole has take it upon himself to teach Tyson what we taught him: "Let's not scream, Ty-Ty" he says very earnestly.

Yesterday I put Tyson down for a nap and he whined/cried for 15 minutes. Earlier we had been playing in Cole's room and Tyson's water cup was still in there. Cole, out of the purest motives, decided on his own that Tyson must be thirsty (Cole takes a water sippy to bed at all times) and took it upon himself to go find Tyson's cup and bring it to him. I only caught on as I saw Cole reach for Tyson's door handle. "Cole!!!!!!!!!" But it was too late, Tyson had seen him and came unglued. Cole was so confused why such an innocent gesture caused Tyson to scream even louder, and I needed a few deep breaths not to come unglued myself...at Cole...nap time around here for Tyson is no laughing matter, but Cole loves to do sweet things for his brother.

Cole has recently become quite the little kisser. When Tyson goes to bed Cole says, "I want to give him a kiss and a big hug." When we put Cole to bed we are showered with kisses that go something like this: Cole is laying all tucked in, we tell him a story, pray, say goodnight and give him a kiss. He immediately struggles to sit up, "I gotta get up...I'm gonna give you a kiss on your cheek (kiss), now this side (kiss on other cheek), I'm gonna give you a kiss on your ear (kiss), I'm gonna give you a kiss on your other ear (kiss), I'm gonna give you a kiss on your hair (kiss), I'm gonna give you a kiss on your nose (kiss)." He eventually gives kisses on all parts of the head except the mouth (we're not parent-child mouth kissers around here) but he likes to tease about it saying, "I'm gonna give you a kiss on your...teeth" and then grins as I say, "No, silly!" We drink up every last kiss from our sweet boy, I know they'll soon diminish :).

Two big highlights of the week are Wednesday and Saturday mornings when the trash truck comes by. I set Tyson in the yard in the very thin shade of the tree trunk and went to pull a few weeds and Cole went and sat right next to him while they waited for it to come down our street.

Garage Saling - JACKPOT DAY!!!

One of my favorite things to do is go to Garage Sales. It started when I was a little girl, my Dad would get up before dawn on Saturday, run down to the gas station and get a paper, come back home and mark us out a route on a laminated map expressly for this purpose, and then wake us up earlier than we ever got up otherwise and we'd head out. We found so many fun things like a My Little Pony collection and a vast assortment of pierced earrings for pennies that I put on my doll so I could live vicariously through her since I wasn't allowed to get my ears pierced until I was 13. My Dad was so good at bargaining and he hunted down every last sale until mid-morning when we would head back home. That was how he was in all of life, did everything to the best of his abilities and spent the majority of his home-time cooking up fun things for us kids. So Garage Saling makes me nastalgic for my childhood anyway. But my find below almost made me cry in one couple's garage.

Every week for years as a child I would make a batch of Peanut Butter Playdo that we would eat for a treat after we cleaned our church (we were the janitors). There was a specific Tupperware container that worked to make it in and I have often regretted not taking that Tupperware container when my Dad was getting ready to move out of the house I grew up in after my Mom died. He asked me to take the things I wanted, but being a young and dumb college student, Tupperware was at the bottom of the list of things I was interested in. Today I walked into one elderly couple's garage and there it was...for $1...just like the one I used to make PBP in. I just looked at it and wanted to hug that lady. Instead, I bought 23 other pieces of Tupperware from her. "Honey, do you have somewhere to PUT all this?" she asked. "Yep, I've got a big cabinet with just a couple pieces in it waiting until I came across something like this," I replied. Here are the rest of my garage sale finds:

I had checked Craigslist and the online Clarion Ledger (a lesson in disastrous web-architecture) and found 22 sales in a one-mile area. I was a woman on a mission and made it to every last one of them in my 2-hour window. I paid a grand total of $27, a STEAL of a deal!

1 Car Seat for Thomas' truck - $2

10 kids books (including an almost-new Cars and Trucks and Things That Go to replace our 25-year-old copy that is in pieces with several pages laying on my kitchen counter to be taped back in. - $2.50

1 Under-Bed rolling storage container - $2

1 Set of measuring cups (I often run out when baking b/c I don't plan my wet/dry measuring well) - 15 cents

1 Set of measuring spoons (same deal as the cups) - 10 cents

1 Strainer - 10 cents

1 vintage Fisher-Price train set. I have an identical set from my childhood but all the cars are broken now - $1

And 27 pieces of Tupperware for $19! I've been biding my time for 6 years of marriage with the few pieces I had, looking for a good deal, but no one ever sells the stuff! I even told Thomas I wanted money for Mother's Day so I could buy some when I found a good deal. I was almost ready to give up and get some cheap Walmart knock-offs because I often run out of containers between the freezer, fridge, and dishwasher. And here, an older couple was combining 2 houses and she didn't have room for all her Tupperware. "You'd think she was a dealer" said her husband :). I bought half of what she had, shaking with glee as I carried my prizes out to the van. What a blessing! I am so excited to have great-quality kid-freezer-dishwasher-fridge friendly containers in every shape and size imagineable! The 13x9 container alone retails for $28 so I would say that less than $1 apiece for this stash is a GREAT DEAL!! Thank you Lord!

Gulf Shores Trip - May 2011

The 7 Bomgaars cousins - with 2 more on the way (not us! haha) John, Sophie, Kate, Cole, Millie, Tyson, and Simon. Wouldn't Grandpa Dennis and Grandma Sharon love to squeeze this bunch of blessings?

Playing on the beach with Daddy. They went out every morning and evening together and played, looked for crabs, and made and re-made a flower pot with these pinwheels.

"Look, Mama! Look at this Mama! Mama, Look!" I hear this all day every day with Cole :) I think often of the kids around the world with no one to be excited for their small accomplishments, no one to praise them, no one to encourage their dual-shovel abilities. I am so blessed...

They had so much fun together

Grandma and Grandpa Smitty (great-grandparents) flew down from Iowa to come on the trip

There were actually 29 people on the trip but Momma only took the camera out once so maybe later you'll get to see the rest of them. We had a grand time!

Potty Training - Attempt 1 - FAIL

Last weekend we tried to potty train Cole using the "indoor naked method." Blankets to spare the carpet, potty right there, thought it was going great until about lunch on Friday. We had 5 hits in the potty (because I basically kept him on it all morning) with much celebration each time, but after lunch we never got another drop in the potty for the next 24 hours. Saturday morning we tried the "outdoor almost-naked method" with equal results. He just didn't get it. By 11:00 am we were so exhausted and frustrated we decided he wasn't ready. I always thought that was a cop-out - people have been training their kids to go potty for thousands of years - how hard can it be? I have been silenced. It can be VERY hard. We'll try again after our big trip in August. Hands down the worst parenting experience thus far.

If you don't have a pool...

A container of fun on a hot day

Tyson likes "hands on" demonstrations in pouring technique.

Cole prefers no help

But Jolly Old Tyson doesn't mind, he just plays along and spashes by himself.

Happenings around The Garrison

We've had a lot of storms lately so I like to be prepared even on a sunny day. One day we had to sit in the closet for a very long time for a tornado and I pulled out all kinds of wrapping paper, bows, and ribbon, but Momma said it was ok as long as I was happy...and I was :)

3 mornings a week we get the excitement of trash trucks and a recycling truck coming by. This morning I was helping Mommy make cookies when we heard the rumble.

I think I might need my own apron...this is treacherous to walk in. In this picture you can also see one of the most important landmarks on our street...who am I kidding, one of the most important in the NEIGHBORHOOD. Baxter, my most beloved canine friend across the street, often sits at the top of the hill right by that window (in the picture) and watches. I love to muse about what he's doing. Usually I decide "Baxter eat bitfist (breakfast)", "Baxter take nap", or "Baxter yootin (looking)".

And another of my favorite treats, "Momma, Watch dog beedeo (video)?" Every now and then she'll search "funny dogs" on YouTube and let me watch a few minutes of silly animals.

Someone has a twinge of their mother in them...a nice organized line of items :)