Buddies

After his recent haircut Rory went to visit his friend nearby. These boys ran around and giggled like crazy. It was adorable.

Haircut 100

Before

And after

The Big 3...

Rory turned 3 this month. We still can't believe it. He is getting so big and he amazes us every day with the things he remembers, thinks and figures out how to do all by himself. He had a wonderful birthday celebration on his actual birthday. We tried to keep it small but just inviting a few of his friends and neighbors, and Grannie and Grandpa...of course, we still ended up with over 20 people and 8 kids in the house, but we had a blast. Our neighbor Edie made him a baseball cake, which was what he requested and much less complicated than the "red pickup truck with a car on a trailer in the back" cake which he had previously been requesting throughout the summer. Whew!! He has loved every single one of his gifts, and has played with them all mulitple times in the past couple weeks. He's even excited about the clothes and gets excited each time he gets to put on a new pair of big guy underwear or a new shirt. Here's a video of cake time. I have 2 favorite parts of this movie...1) that he sings the whole song to himself and 2) Bev's quick duck around the birthday boy to blow out the extra candles before he leaned his whole head into them and caught his shaggy hair on fire. For our family in Massachusetts, we are going to have another cake for him sometime this weekend so everybody can enjoy the singing live and celebrate. No need for gifts, but he's excited to share more cake with everyone. :) Other exciting news that we've been hesitant to say out loud, but our big guy is mostly pottly trained. He's been wearing big guy underwear every day since July 2nd, and he's doing a great job. I think he's only had 3 accidents since that day. We still have him in a diaper at night and sometimes for naps, but I'm not entirely convinced he needs them at naps. He does fine if we just make sure he goes before he lays down. We're so proud of him. Mostly I think he was ready for it, but we did make sure to start really putting effort into getting him to wear underwear on a week when we were all home on vacation to give him more than just a weekend to adjust before having to tackle the potty at school, but as it turns out, he didn't really need that time. He was ready and he did great with it right away. That worked out great for everyone and he really was excited about it. Here are some shots of the making of the birthday muffins. We stole the idea from one of our friends that a birthday brunch is actually better than an evening birthday party for a 3 year old because naptime is typically 1-3pm, so best that all the kids be fresh and happy in the morning, then give them cake at noon and then the sugar crash happens right at nap time. (Thanks Alex) So, for birthday brunch we though some muffins would be a nice addition as a pre-cake snack. Grannie and Mama B made sure Rory did a good job of making his birthday muffins. He loves to help bake and they came out great!!

Visit to the Wee-wee house

Memorial day was a fun weekend of lots of yard work, some sangria with friends and a couple BBQ's. To top the weekend off, we stopped by the fire station where our friend Brian is the fire chief. He had offered to show us the firetrucks, which Rory insists on calling "wee-wee's" since that is the sound they make. With true toddler innocence, Rory walked into the BBQ and immediately went up to Brian and asked, "Brian, can I see your wee-wee?", which of course set off a whole slew of adult content jokes which Rory thought was hysterical simply because everyone else was laughing too. Luckily Brian was nice enough to put aside the embarrassment and bring us to see the firetrucks anyway. Rory was so happy that we ended up spending over an hour there, sitting in the trucks and ambulances and pretending to pick up sick people. Of course, in true Pigeon fashion, he also decided we should go to a restaurant and eat after we dropped the sick people off at the "hopitable". Always food on the mind.

Rain, rain, rain...

So, it's spring and officially rainy around here. We've been horrible about updating the blog the past few months, so I'll try to cram a bunch of stories in here and hope to find some photos on my computer to throw in since that's really what everybody wants. Rory has been having a blast getting outside in the yard and playing with the neighborhood kids (and their toys). His latest obsession is the trampoline at the Reno's across the street. He spent nearly an hour and a half just bouncing the other day and cracking himself up every time he fell. I tried to get pictures of that, but I was in it with him and a little too close to get a good one. Next time (as I'm sure there will be many more). He has taken to singing songs at the top of his lungs to wake us up in the morning. He definitely gets a big kick out of himself and his songs are usually very silly and sometimes clever. This morning he was singing "Mommy, I'm all done my mommy cage". It took me a few times to figure out what he was saying, and when I finally thought I had it, I had to go ask him if that's really what he was saying. I said, "Rory, are you calling your crib a "mommy cage"?" He laughed and said yes, which I thought was very clever and very funny. Our other favorite of his songs is Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. He sings his "funny version", which I'll write out here, but you really have to hear him sing it to get the full effect of how funny and absurd it is. We have no idea where he got it, but he tells us he just made it up, so maybe he did. Baa, baa, black sheep ANY has a wool (this line is always said very emphatically, which is hysterical because it's wrong, but we like it so we aren't correcting him) Yes sir, yes sir 3 bags full...in a trash can One for my master...in a trash can One for my dame...in a trash can One for the little boy named Rory, lives down the lane...in a trash can (to which I always say "you live in a trash can?" and he cracks up and says yes) Baa, baa, black sheep ANY has a wool Yes sir, yes sir 3 bags full...in a trash can He thinks the whole thing is hilarious. His other favorite bedtime songs right now are Ally Bally (a Scottish ditty that Grannie sings to him and now he knows the words to) and the ABC's. He's been so lucky to have Grannie staying with us for the past several months during her recovery from hip surgery and every night he says to her "we have breakfast together in the morning Grannie?". It is clear that he is really treasuring all this extra time with her and it's so wonderful that he's had that opportunity. I don't have any rainy day photos to add, but I'll throw in a few of Rory helping out at the Farm. Enjoy!