Fun at Bakerwoods Farm

Our Family Home Evening activity this week was held at Bakerwoods Farm. This was our first time visiting and we absolutely loved the beautiful scenery, the animals, and the friendly owners. Crystal and Ethan Adams joined us for the evening of fun.

We also enjoyed delicious ice-cream afterwards, which I didn’t take pictures of. We were too busy eating. Thank you Crystal for coordinating this fun-filled event!

View from the bridge
Ride em' cowboy!

Ammon enjoyed seeing all the animals
Family Pic
Daddy & Ammon
Ammon & Ethan playing w/ the tea set
Happy Trails

Woodstock's Agricultural Days

Woodstock, a nearby town, held their annual ‘Agricultural Days’ on September 13th - 14th. Ammon and Daddy spent a few hours together while mommy worked from home. Life has been a little crazy this month. Nathan has been working weekends and spending additional time at work to prepare for the Rhode Island Air National Guard’s fiscal yearend. Luckily our lives will soon be back to normal.

Ammon loved the one-on-one time with daddy, and I appreciated being able to focus on the bookkeeping tasks without having to entertain a three year old while doing it. Thank you daddy!

Enjoy the pictures.

Ammon gives the rooster a "high five"
Posing for the tractor picture. Ammon is a little spoiled after visiting Grandpa & Grandma Hunsaker's farm. Nothing measure up to the real thing.
Ammon loves to paint. We spend lots of time each time working on some type of art project.

Where's the milk?

Ammon's Creations

Ammon loves to learn. We’ve been teaching him his letters and he is able to identify both capital and lower case letters for every letter in the alphabet. His mind is a like a sponge. It’s amazing the details that he remembers. Yesterday Ammon spelled his name with the alphabet magnets that we purchased from Walmart. I was quite impressed. He is constantly asking what letter different words start with and wants to know how to spell them.

Ammon shows me what he made... and spells out his name for me
Ammon's creation...

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We attend a play group every Thursday morning. Last week Ammon made a ‘speckled’ frog puppet. He loves art and is quite creative. He inherited this trait from his daddy & grandma, because I don’t have a creative bone in my body!

Most of the children painted their frogs green, but Ammon insisted that his frog was speckled, so he used brown paint as well. This frog puppet has been a source of entertainment for the family ever since he made it. Ammon is very particular about how the tongue is rolled and usually has me ‘fix it’ a few times each day.

It’s amazing how similar our personalities are. I am a bit of a perfectionist and thrive on having order to everything. Luckily, I have a husband who keeps me calm and brings balance to my life. Nathan and I are both hoping that our next child is a little more mellow and inherits a little more of his personality. Although I’ve heard Nathan was a little bit of a challenge in his younger years.

Please don’t get me wrong, Ammon is such a joy to be around. He makes us laugh and keeps us on our feet. It can be a little challenging at times though, because he expects things to be a certain way. He loves routine and struggles with changes to it. I think that’s one reason why travelling is so challenging.

Ammon interacting with his puppet

Ammon isn't to eager to pose for this picture. Can't you tell by the look on his face. I actually had to bribe him to do it.

A Dinosaur Way of Life...

When Grandma King came to visit in May, she brought a bag of dinosaurs that she has purchased from a garage sale for Ammon. He plays with these daily and recently insists on taking them everywhere he goes. He eats with a dinosaur, bathes with all the dinosaurs, and even takes them with him when we’re out running errands. He even notices when he’s missing one of them. The other day he was freaking out about not having one of them. Sure enough we eventually found it and I was so surprised that he knew exactly which dinosaur was missing. He probably has about 15-20 different dinosaurs.

He very meticulous about how he arranges them and get a little irritated if someone changes the order that he put them in. Not only are these dinosaur toys, but they also represent his friends and family members. For some reason, mommy is the biggest dinosaur. This doesn’t make me feel so good especially since I’m feeling rather huge being almost 30 weeks pregnant. I tested him the other day to see if the same dinosaurs were the same people… and sure enough they were. Uncle Collin is always the same stegosaur, Grandma Mort is always the “flying dinosaur”, and Grandma King is the “water dinosaur.” I’m not as knowledgeable about the technical terms for them as Ammon is. He usually corrects me, and it can be rather embarrassing. I could go on and on listing which dinosaur his friends and family members were… but that would get rather boring.

I am constantly amazed by Ammon’s intellect. I’m sure he’ll surpass me later in life. The other day I was working on the computer and came into his room to check on him. He was looking through his book of dinosaurs that Grandma Mort has given him and was placing the toy dinosaurs on top of the dinosaurs in the book. When I asked him what he was doing, he explained that he was putting the baby dinosaurs with their mommies. I know some of these things are typical three year old behavior, but some times I worry that Ammon might be borderline OCD. I guess we all can be to some point.

Ammon lives his life like a T.V. Show. When we’re done playing with dinosaurs and move on to another game he says, “The end and another Ammon show is coming up next.” Then he’ll run to the toys and pull out whatever he wants to play with and announces “Now it’s the Ammon and (whatever he is doing next i.e.) Daddy show.” He refers to Nathan as Mr. Potato Head. I think it bothers Nathan a little bit that he always has ‘him’ wearing the red women’s shoes and girly arms and always has an earring in his ear. I love you babe and no one will question your masculinity! Please forgive me for posting this. Mr. Potato Head (AKA Daddy) is also a toy that Ammon also plays with often. He always wants to participate in whatever Ammon is doing. You can see him watching Ammon play with the dinosaurs in the picture posted above.

One more little bit of news that we are pleased to announce is that Ammon is almost potty trained. He hasn’t had an accident in a few days… but getting him to poop in the toilet has been a big challenge. If anyone has tips for me please share. Also, now that he can undress himself, he is constantly stripping down to his underwear. Every time I turn around he has completely undressed himself.

Growing up too fast!

Ammon came out of his room this morning wearing the clothes that I had set out for him. The shirt was on backwards and the shorts were inside out. I think it took him a few attempts to put them on. I was so impressed though! He was so proud to have dressed himself too. He going through the stage where he wants to do everything himself and wants little help from Mom or Dad. It's kind of exciting and sad at the same time. I'm excited to see his enthusiasm and witness his progress, but at the same time it just reminds me how quickly he's growing up.

Trip to Arizona

Last week we flew to Arizona then drove to Utah to attend Aunt Kim's wedding. She was a beautiful bride, and we were so happy that we were able to be a part of this special event in her life. Kim & Jhon, we love you both and wish you the very best! Ammon was so excited to ride the airplane, but wasn't too fond of the whole experience once he was actually on it and realized that he had to sit in his seat for such a long period of time. I called Nathan and told him this would be the very last time that I fly back to Arizona with a young child. I think these kind of experiences are very similar to child birth though. Once we were there, I soon forgot just how challenging the travel experience was. It was so wonderful to see our families again. Time passed too quickly though, and before we knew it -- it was time to fly back.

Ammon w/ Grandma & Grandpa King
Ammon with Grandma Mort & Grandma Felix
Ammon & Papa Mort - Taking a ride
Aunt Kim & Claire
Uncle Aaron busy at work

Playing soccer at the Oscarson Family Reunion
Ammon & Daddy at Aunt Kim's reception
Playing with cousin Claire
Britney, Uncle Matt, and Ammon
Some of the King cousins with Ammon (it was too hard to try to get all of them to sit still for a picture)

Ammon & Uncle Ed
Water Play with cousins (Kennedy, Kaili, and Kendra)
Fun with Grandma Sue and Grandma Mort at Peter Piper Pizza
Feeding Horses with Daddy & Grandpa King
Ammon & Great Grandma Oscarson at the Oscarson Family Reunion

Newport Beach, Rhode Island

We visited the beach in Newport and walked the "cliff walk" with Collin. It was pretty crowded with tourists, but we all had a great time.

Like Father... Like Son Ammon put on his glasses and said, "Hey look at me. I'm a cool boy!"
Walking on the beach with mommy
Uncle Collin & Ammon
Collin in front of one of the mansions
running in the water...
Digging in the sand
Just chillin'