Meet Toad, the newest member of the family

As you may know, RC2 Corporation recently recalled approximately 1.5 million Thomas and Friends wooden railway components including vehicles, buildings and other set components. The reason for the recall is that the red paints on the recalled products contain lead which is toxic if ingested by young children and can cause adverse health effects. To see this recall on the Consumer Product Safety Commission's web site, including pictures of the recalled products, please go to http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07212.html



Nicholas had two pieces affected by the recall. For the recall, we had to mail our recalled pieces to the company. RC2 will replace the pieces (with non-lead painted ones), send a free gift for our troubles, and also reimburse our shipping costs. Nicholas received his free gift this week. It is a cute little train car named, "Toad" and he has real working brakes!



Today I received an email from RC2 stating that the two replacement pieces have been shipped to us.

It's so sad that this happened. How many children have put these contaminated toys in their mouths and sucked and chewedon them? Unfortunately, Fisher Price also had a recall recently for 80 different toys that contain lead. Both the RC2 toys as well as the Fisher Price toys came from China. I'm glad to say that government in China has banned both of these factories from exporting their products and they are investigating.

Walk the plank!

Nicholas has been having problems with allergies and coughing again so we are just taking it easy around the house today. His coughing seems to be getting a little worse and I'm afraid he will be wheezing soon. This seems to be the typical pattern before he ends up on breathing treatments. Please keep him in your prayers.

I was going to bake some bread so I got out my stand mixer and dough hook. Nicholas was planning to help me until he discovered the dough hook. Suddenly he transformed into Captain Hook and I was Peter Pan. He explained to me that he had captured Wendy and the boys and I had to save them then I was supposed to come back and fight him. He said, "Become a pirate or walk the plank!" It's kind of hard to bake bread when you are fighting a mean pirate so I'll put that off until later. There will always be time later for baking (and laundry, and cleaning the kitchen, and yard work, and...) but these precious moments playing with my little boy are priceless and they won't last forever. I'm not going to miss them for anything!

Super Heroes to the Rescue!

After swim lessons, we went to play at Brendon's house. Brendon has some really fun toys and costumes. Nicholas chose to be Superman and Brendon dressed up as Batman. They used to vacuum cleaner attachments as light sabres and bullhorns and ran around the house fighting bad guys!

Learning Froggy Kicks

Today the swim instructor taught the class how to do "froggy kicks". I was a little surprised they were covering that so early because it requires some coordination. Nicholas did pretty well for his first attempt. He was very excited about learning a new skill. As we were leaving class, Nicholas proudly told all the other moms and kids that he learned how to do a froggy kicks! Sorry for the poor video quality but I was filming through a window from the observation room.

Lunch with Daddy and Fun in Frisco

After swim lessons, I went to Plano to run an errand. Nicholas got to go through a revolving door for the first time. He just loved the "spin around door" and we had to go around and around in it for quite a while. There were several onlookers who smiled at Nicholas' enthusiasm for such a simple thing. Since we were in the area, we stopped by Pepsico and picked up Daddy for a lunch date. We went to Abuelo's and had a great time. Nicholas just loves eating at restaurants. He always gets a lot of attention from other people who comment on how cute he is. He just eats that up.

Daddy had to get back to work but Nicholas and I weren't ready to go home yet. We ventured over to Central Park in Frisco. What a great place! There are hills, trees, a rustling little stream that meanders around the park. Most exciting is the history of the Texas cattle drives throughout the park. There are quotes about cattle drives on various steps and stones throughout the park, relief murals of cattle drives, as well as bigger than life bronze sculptures of cowboys on horses and longhorns. We had a wonderful time and it turned about to be a great educational experience.






Nicholas did some crayon rubbings of the quotes on the steps. Here he is rubbing the word, "horse".


Nicholas said one of his favorite things that we did was counting the steps as we went up and down them. We counted 15 steps on one side of the park and 18 steps on the other side. I read to him the various quotes on the steps and talked about the cattle drives in general as we did this.

We found this neat cowboy on one of the relief murals. I had brought some foil with us to try to copy some of the relief murals but it was really too thin to hold much detail without tearing. Next time we'll try it with a thicker foil. I recall my dad copying reliefs with me when I was little and I believe he used thin sheets of copper. Maybe we could try copying it with Playdoh or modeling clay too.



Nicholas found a nice bench along a path and said he wanted to take a break. After he sat down he realized what a choice location he had found for directly behind him were several construction vehicles hard at work. We sat and watched them for a long time.



We looked at some interesting plants and leaves. We talked about how we can tell which way the wind is blowing by watching how the plants move.




When we left the park, we were both hot and thirsty. We stopped and picked up some drinks for the ride home. Nicholas chose something called "Bug Juice".

Adventure Week

We have Adventure Week at our church every summer. It's like Vacation Bible School but it's a really huge production, as is everything that Fellowship Church does. As the name implies, Adventure Week lasts for one week but the church offers the same show for four consecutive weeks so that everyone can get a chance to go. There are indoor and outdoor games, Bible stories, and snacks for the first hour and a half then the children go into the main assembly for a 5-part performance called "The Clash For Courage Kingdom" that continues over the course of the week. The church has completed the first two weeks of performances. They have had 1500 children come through already and about 600 of them have accepted Christ into their lives for the first time during their week of attendance. It's incredible! We can't wait for Nicholas to attend but children must be four years old so Nicholas will have to wait until next year.

Last night was the beginning of week 3 performances. For week 3, I am volunteering to give out snacks and Stuart is volunteering on camera. Since snack volunteers finish their tasks before the performance, we are able to go in and watch the show. I checked Nicholas out of the preschool childcare and brought him in with me. We got a seat right behind Stuart so Nicholas could watch Daddy at work. I surprised Nicholas with a little Adventure Week souvenir for his first time at Adventure Week. It's a rope light necklace that has multi-colored lights in it and they will flash or blink depending on how you set it. Nicholas was as enthralled with this as he was the performance. He was very proud of it and showed it to everyone around us. He got more involved with the show as it went on though. He was so happy to be in there with the "big kids" and I loved watching him get up and dance in the aisles to the music.

When the performance was over, Stuart got to show Nicholas how the cameras work.

On Fridays during Adventure Week, the church has Family Fun Night. Instead of the children being with their regular groups for the fun and games, the parents are encouraged to come out and have fun with their kids. The fun starts at 5:00. Outside there will be a wakeboarding show on the lake, a BMX stunt show, several inflatable games and even a section set up by the Fort Worth zoo! Inside there will be a family Bible study, Boz the Bear, family crafts projects, and an illusionist. There will also be several vendors selling meals as well as popcorn, ice cream and sno-cones. I don't know about Nicholas but I know I'm looking forward to Friday!

Stuart and I are volunteering for week 4 performances as well. Stuart will be on camera but I will be in my regular volunteer position as stage crew. Since I will be involved in the actual performances I won't be able to bring Nicholas to the show. I'm a little worried about how that is going go over now that he has seen how much fun it is!

Shark Tale and Sno-Cones

Today we went to Studio Movie Grill to watch Shark Tales with some friends. We've been to Studio Movie Grill one time before and we love it! You can order food and drinks to enjoy during the movie. Nicholas calls it the "food eating movie place". When we got our tickets, the lady behind the counter handed us our menu and a little box that we can use to call the waiter to our table. Nicholas was very proud to hold the box but he kept pushing the button to call the waiter before we had even made it into the theater!

We saw Shark Tale which is an animated movie by Dream Works so you know the graphics are awesome. It's a story about a fish who tells a lie in order to be a hero but he ends up losing a friend because of it. In the end he realizes the importance of telling the truth and being happy about who you are. It's a great story and it's lots of fun to watch.

However, there were several times when characters said, "Shut up!" Nicholas didn't like this. He told me that this was not a nice movie because "shut up" is not a nice thing to say and people shouldn't talk like that. He even leaned over to tell our friends sitting next to us the same thing. However, for a PG movie, it was clean and kid-friendly. Nicholas also noticed the projector at the back of the theater. He asked why there was a little TV back there when there was such a big TV in the front of the room???

After the movie we stopped to get a sno-cone. Nicholas wanted Ninja Turtle flavor (banana and blue coconut which made a very pretty blue-green sno-cone). I got just plain coconut. Nicholas decided he liked mine better so, as usual, I gave mine up for him. We both enjoyed it. What a fun (albeit sticky) way to spend a hot summer afternoon!