In and out

We have been noticing that Stanley is more and more interested in takin objects out of a container and then putting them back in. He will sit for minutes (this is like several hours to him) and put blocks in and out of his wooden container.

Today I saw him take this interest to a whole new level. While he was playing by himself in the living room (I was trying to put dinner together) he spent the whole time shuttling his various toys over to the gate separating the living room from the kitchen and then tossing the toys over the side of the gate and out of the living room. Here is a picture of his handy work. I'm curious how far he takes this.

Shapes

Stanley has become intensely fascinated with what fits into something else and how pieces fit together. He was entertained for 40 minutes with putting blocks into the wood box and then taking them out again.

 

Also, I found out tonight while cooking that Tupperware can keep him occupied for enough time to cook an entire meal. Below he is exploring the new glass Tupperware. This was stopped after a little bit and exchanged for plastic versions.

 

Big haul

No problem that the bed bath and beyond paring lot is crazy. We now have out solution.

Driving Video

We just realized we never put up this video of Stanley driving the steering wheel at the park up the hill from our house.  If you read the driving post, you will know how much Stanley loves driving things.  Here we are driving the fire truck thing at Douglas Park.

Airport fun

More picture in the future about Stanley and my trip in NC, however, from my phone I wanted to post about our fun time in the Charlotte airport. Stanley and I followed Mo, Paul and Clyde to the airport. We missed an exit so Stanley got to go into a new state...South Carolina. I cannot say we saw a lot, but just to prove we were there I snapped a picture of a water tower painted as a big peach.

 

When we were at the airport Stanley and Clyde had a grand old time together watching each other eat, stealing each other's toy straws and eating eachothers food. Lots of fun times together.

 

Stairs

When Lolo was here taking care of Stanley for a week while Halima was on vacation in Germany she spent hours and hours teaching Stanley to go down the stairs at our house feet first.  She would sit at the bottom of the stairs while he tried to crawl down them and every time he would go head first she would tell him "no, no, no..." and block him from going down at all.  She would only let him proceed if he went feet first, and then give him long rounds of applause for his accomplishments.

Well, all that hard work has certainly paid off.  Stanley will (almost always) crawl up to some stairs, pause to look at them, then spin himself around and go down feet first all on his own.  We still have to watch him and remind him every now and then, but he is pretty good these days.  Take a look for yourself.

Who needs toys

We spent the weekend in North Carolina for Meera and Sarah's weeding. More on the trip later, but here is a photo from when we arrived and saw Clyde in the airport. Who needs toys when you have mommy's suitcase. And the other photo is from near our cabin in the smoky mts.

Talking

We noticed that Stanley has become a lot more chatty lately.  He will just launch into a long diatribe about who knows what, babbling and blurbling.  It mostly happens after he has seen a lot of exciting things.  For instance, if we go to the park or playground where there are a lot of other small children around, he will spend the whole time completely silent just watching the other kids to see what they are up to.  Then, when we leave he will start chatting and chatting.  I guess he is telling us all about the stuff he just saw.  Too bad we don't speak the same language.  Maybe he's speaking Russian...

Tahoe Visit

We all went up to Lake Tahoe this past weekend to visit with our friends Kris, Rylan, and Emily and to pick up our new Big Dummy bike. While we were there we had lots of fun enjoying the hot summer weather and swimming in the lake. Here we are at the beach along the East shore of Lake Tahoe. We got Stanley to wave by holding my sunglasses up in front of him. He LOVES all types of glasses.

Big Dummy

I know what you are thinking and, no, this post is not about me doing something stupid. The title refers to our new bike. It is a "long bike" or "cargo bike". The greatest thing about it, though is that you can put Stanley in a super great seat and still have room for a whole load of groceries on the bike.

We picked it up this weekend up in Tahoe and took Stanley for a ride on it. He absolutely loved riding around on the back of the bike. When we were done we took the seat off the bike and set it on the ground. Stanley went up to it and looked at it, then us, then back to the seat as if he was telling us to put it back on and take him for another ride. Take a look.

Standoff

Stanley had quite the standoff with a cat at Rylan's house.

But after a little time they both were happy to examine each other from a closer vantage point. Tha cat a few times tried to get Stanley to play which turned out to scare them both, but all in all the both had a good time.

Flying

Taking after his uncle Geoff and great uncle Geoff, Stanley found a steering wheel at the airport.

Driving

Stanley just loves steering wheels. He will stand and 'drive' for a very long while. In Piseco, Papa Doug  would sit in the car with Stanley while Stanley would play with all of the levers and buttons and then turn the steering wheel. Whenever someone got in the car to drive the car for real, the lights, wipers, and turn signals were always already.

Lolo & Lele also found that he likes steering wheels at the park. (Sorry there is no picture of Lolo with Stanley at the park.)

And in Winter Park, Stanley was not keen on his life vest. But, once he found out that if he wore it he could drive Aunt Ricki's motor boat, he decided to deal with the life vest.

Stanley x2

While we were playing with Stanley in Winter Park, a lady started addressing Stanley by name. She had a little baby who was about 8 months old. The woman came over and asked us for some sunscreen and then it became apparent that her baby was also Stanley. As you can see from the graph, the popularity of the name has been on the decline. What a coincidence. They found their name from Mt. Stanley near Winter Park. Our Stanley's name came from Stanley Idaho.

Here are some photos from playing in the park.

Hiking with Lele

In Colorado we went on a hike at the winter park mountain with grandma Lele. We didn't go all the way up because we were getting tired carrying Stanley and we were also worried about the altitude. We did stop for a nice photo op and some nice hikers took this picture of us.

Corn on the cob

Stanley really likes corn on the cob. He doesn't get much off the cob, but he sure does enjoy chewing on those kernels. Here's a picture from when we were in Colorado. I think there is a video somewhere and I'll post it if I find it.

Friends

We have a lot of  blog catching up to do from our trip to Winter Park Colorado. However, we are back home and just recieved this photo from Halima of Peter and Stanley. Seems like they are happy together again.

Stanley and Peter back to playing together.