go hawks!

go silverhawks!  all the way back in october we had been invited by some friends to join them for a silverhawks game.  rob and veronica had reserved a box almost a year in advance to a south bend silverhawks game and we got to enjoy it with them.  diana's mom and david agreed to watch ledger for the evening so we could go out and have a fun time with some friends, and it certainly was a lot of fun!  miranda and levi joined us, along with a bunch of other friends, in the box at the game.  we got all the perks of being in a box seat at the stadium: all we could eat hot dogs, brats, and hamburgers, as well as chips, popcorn, cookies, and soda!  the weather was perfect and we got a chance to catch up with friends and just have a fun time together.  oh, and i think there was some sort of sporting event going on as well, i'm not entirely sure...
(more pics)

double the fun

for days ledger had been excitedly asking 'is liam coming today?'.  david's daughter kate, her husband jared, and their little guy liam had made plans to come and visit for a weekend.  we were all very excited to see them again, but we made the big mistake of telling ledger a few days before that his cousin was coming to see him.  finally they arrived and ledger was thrilled to have someone to play with and share all his great toys with!  they are only a couple weeks apart in age and two of them were just so funny to watch.  liam was loving all the toys, just quietly digging around in the toy boxes and checking everything out while ledger was talking away telling him about anything and everything!

lucky's back!

its been a while, but lucky the horse is back!  ledger got lucky for christmas from mom and david and he absolutely loved it! he would often spend hours on it each and every day.  at first it was a little big so he needed our help getting on and off of it, but as he got bigger and more comfortable with it he started to get himself on and off without any help.  well, one afternoon he was getting off lucky and he slipped and fell.  he didn't hurt himself, but it did totally freak him out.  no matter how much we encouraged him or tried to get him on there, he just wouldn't get back on that horse.  (i know, we even tried explaining to him the old adage that if you fall down, you need to 'get back on the horse', but he wasn't buying it...)  so there lucky sat for a month.  ledger would still pet him and talk to him, but he was not at all interested in riding him anymore.  so, one evening, after ledger had gone to bed, i brought lucky out to the garage, effectively retiring him from active toy duty.  the next morning ledger didn't even notice, in fact it went unaddressed for about two months.  and then one afternoon ledger asked 'daddy, where's lucky?'  i told him that lucky had to go away for a while, but if he wanted, lucky could come back home to see him again.  ledger got really excited about the idea of seeing lucky again, so he said 'yes!'.  the next morning lucky was back in the living room, and ledger was thrilled to see him again!  he hopped right on, forgetting the fear that kept him off lucky for so long.  and ledger has been hopping back on lucky for rides every day ever since!  i guess nothing can break the bond between a boy and his horse...

learning to swim

we live in a beautiful home with an amazing view of a gorgeous lake.  we totally love it.  with water so close, we knew it was really important to get our son used to being in and around it, staying safe by knowing how to swim.  so, we decided to make sure that he begins learning now!  there just so happens to be a fantastic community center pretty close to us that has a huge swimming area and cheap swimming lessons, so we signed him up.  the class ran for eight lessons over two weeks.  we told ledger that he was going to get to play in the water every day, so he was thrilled at the idea!  that first day diana and i went together, it was a really small class, just ledger and one other girl.  on that first day he did amazing- he was absolutely fearless!  it was a child and parent class and each day they started out without a life jacket or swimmies.  he did really well, right up until the part where he had to actually put his head under the water- oh boy did that freak him out!  over the rest of the lessons we took turns working with him in the water, even having his grandma and auntie come along for a lesson or two to cheer him on!  he got a little more nervous being in the water without swimmies as the lessons went on, but he stuck it out and passed his first class.  we will soon be enrolling him in the level 2 classes which are independent- no mama or daddy allowed in the water!  we'll see how that goes...
(more pics)

hosed

diana's dad sure does spoil his only grandchild!  at the beginning of the summer he got a couple lawn play sets for ledger- a little one with a slide and door, and then a much larger one with swings and a big slide.  as if ledger needed any more reason to love to see grandpa!  every time we go over there ledger runs to hug grandpa, pets poco and the cat, then immediately asks if he can go in the swing.  we all spend the next 45 minutes taking turns pushing him back and forth on that thing!  its really funny when he gets into the rhythm of the swing, he almost goes into a sort of daze...  he is the most talkative boy on the planet, but when he gets into that swing he goes dead silent, almost like its meditative for him.  on this visit i was pushing him on the swing and his head kind of started to droop- i'm pretty sure he had gotten so zen that he actually started to fall asleep!
finally, we convinced him to get off the swing and join us for lunch.  dad had prepared us a fantastic meal, as always, and as soon as we were done, ledger was asking about going back out on the swing!  we told him that we would go back outside, but we weren't going back on the swing.  instead, we checked out some of the other fun things in grandpa's yard.  ledger wanted to go exploring in the garden, poking all the different veggies, telling us what each of them were and asking if he couldn't figure it out.  he also found his new favorite thing in the world: the garden hose!  at first he asked 'what this?' and after grandpa showed him how it shot out water, he was hooked!  he spend the next 10 minuted drowning everything in the vicinity with a heavy mist of hose water.  after 'accidentally' spraying us for the fourth time, i finally wised up and snuck over to the faucet and turned it off.  when the water stopped coming out of the hose he was absolutely crestfallen!  all he could do was sit and pout.  poor fella!  eventually we got him out of his funk by checking out grandpa's art studio and playing around with some charcoal and paper, but that moment where the hose stopped working was one of the most sincere expressions of heartbreak i may have ever seen in my life!  next time buddy, next time...
(more pics)

cookies!

so there i was, just sitting around with nothing to do.  ledger and his mom had both laid down for naps and i wasn't tired at all.  so, for some reason i decided that i would take this opportunity to do some baking.  that's right, baking!  i found a cookie mix in the cupboard a few days ago and i just had this strange desire to bake up a batch of cookies.  i figured no one would complain about having some fresh made cookies to eat, or would mind having that delicious smell in the air for the rest of the day, so i dug in and made a batch of cookies.  i cant even remember the last time i baked- could it have really been as far back as my own childhood?  the last time i remember baking cookies was with my mom!  with so little experience to draw from, i hoped i would mess it up big time!  turns out those 'easy bake' mixes live up to their name, it was really easy to whip together and plop down on a few cookie sheets.  a half hour later i was hip deep in soft warm cookies!  not surprisingly, diana got up soon afterwards (the fantastic cookie smell must have made its way down the hall and into the bedroom by then, huh?) and the two of us enjoyed some pretty tasty treats!  a little while later ledger got up from his nap and we figured we should keep all this fresh baked goodness for ourselves... we don't give ledger sweets very often, so it was a special treat for him, and boy did he love it!  immediately after finishing his cookie he was asking for another!  i'll admit, he might have had more than one that day, but then again, so did we!
(more pics)

random ledge

i may be a bit bias, but i think i have the cutest son in the world!  (honestly, look at that photo and tell me i'm wrong.  you can't, can you?)  because of that fact, i make sure to take a lot of pictures of him just being cute!  no really, i have thousands and thousands of photos.  most of them are just him sitting there in the living room being cute.  hey, i'm a proud dad, i can't help it!  sometimes the pictures i take don't really demand a whole post of their own, so instead i've been just dumping them all in my photo page.  if you ever have a desire to check out all the random pictures of ledger, this is the best place to go- enjoy!

splish splash

its summer, its hot, lets go in the pool!  ledger has been playing with his water table recently out on the back deck, so mom figured she should get his little pool out and filled with water as well!  we put water in it, let it sit for a while in the sun so the hose water would heat up a bit, and then let him loose!  he was so excited to get out there that he didn't even have time to put his swim suit on- it was just bare diapers for him!  his favorite thing to do in that pool, by far, is to stomp around and splash as much as humanly possible- i'm pretty sure that there wasn't any water left inside the pool by the time we headed back in!

backyard fire

one of the improvements we wanted to do around yard this year was to put in a fire pit.  diana has been pining for one for years.  she would always talk about how fun it was to have fires at their house in buchanan and how much she missed it.  we also have been building up a huge collection of branches and wood from the many summers of cleaning up and trimming the plants around the yard.  so we figured it was about time to do something about it!  david and mom had been strolling around the home improvement store when they came across a fire pit assembly that they really loved.  so david and i went back recently and picked it up.  we unloaded all the stones and mapped out the spot that we wanted to put it.  once the weather was good i got to it and dug out the grass, leveled out the spot, and put the thing together.  after checking with everyone to make sure they liked the placement and look of it, i glued all the pieces into place and we are now ready for a fire!

the rocket's red glare

even though its really late for him, we kept ledger up so he could see the fireworks for the 4th of july.  he came along with us last year too and really loved it, so we knew he would be up for it again.  it was a bit of a cold evening, so we wrapped him up in a hoodie and brought a blanket along too.  the fireworks can be awesome to see, but for a little guy like ledger they can be a bit too loud, so papa was planning ahead and grabbed a pair of sound dampening ear muffs for him.  he really seemed to like having them on!  when we first put them on he thought it was really neat, he started going 'ahhhhh' just because he thought his voice sounded silly with them on!  there was an extra little chair for him at the beach, so he hopped in and enjoyed sitting on his own like a big boy, but as the fireworks started he wanted to sit on my lap so he could tell me about what he was watching.  he wanted a turn on mema's lap and mama's lap too!  after a while though i think the late night got to him, he stopped paying attention to the fireworks and instead nestled his head into my neck and just wanted to fall asleep- so cute!  after a minute or two i told him that he was missing out and that he should watch the fireworks, after all, he doesn't get to see them very often!  he listened and fought off the sleep through till the end.  when the show was over and we got back to the trailer he didn't put up any fight at all when we told him it was bed time!
(more pics)