What's up, Big Haircut?!?!?!?

Well ... tonight was the night. Natalie finally caved and set up an appointment with cousin Allison Smith to cut Jasper's hair.

We'll miss that one big curl that stuck out from behind his right ear (especially when he got a little sweaty and it stuck out even further), but at just over 16 months old, it was time for a good shape-up.

Things started off curiously, with Allison throwing a bright pink cape over J's shoulders. He gave it no mind.

Same goes for the haircut.

In fact, he was oddly quiet and sat very still through the whole thing, which didn't even take 10 minutes. Not surprisingly, he showed NO EMOTION AT ALL, and kept that inquisitive, patented 'Jasper' look the entire time.

Allison caught J off guard with a couple quick spritzes from the water bottle, but he took those in stride. He even grabbed a comb and tried to help her out a bit.

Grandma Vicki, who had an appoint right after J’s, was on hand to witness the event, and Nat taped pretty much the whole thing. It’ll be as well-documented as any first haircut could — and probably should — be.

We want to thank Allison for a great haircut. (I’m sure we’ll be back!)

Photos shown include J pre-cut wearing the ‘dandy’ cape, ‘the first cut’, him looking serious as Allison takes a quick break, him cuddling up on Allison after the cut, and the Big boy himself, showing off his new cut - spikes and all. (He's very excited, can't you tell?!?!?)

It's my friend, Suzy!

Suzy came back from Indianapolis this past week to visit her family in Stuart, and decided to meet us at the Downtown Farmer's market on Saturday morning. It was great to see her, catch up, and explore the market together.

Crazy to believe that over 2 years ago, we took a trip to Virginia, Washington DC, and Philadelphia to visit Suzy and Andrew when they were living out there. Little did we know that Jasper P was also with us on that vacation and we had no idea :)

We also explored the market on Saturday with Grandma Vicki, cousin Noah, and uncle Jason. Afterward, Noah brought some toys for him and Jasper to play with in the sandbox - thanks, Noah! Jason had a soccer game that morning in Ames for the Iowa Games. Maybe one day, Jasper will follow in the footsteps of Uncle Jason and mommy and play soccer up at the Iowa Games?! (the picture of the boys isn't the greatest - but still wanted to capture the moment!)

We Will Miss You Guys!

It's official - there is a big, fat SOLD sign on our FAVORITE neighbor's house! We are so excited for the Cavanaugh's to start their new life in sunny, Florida, but we are going to miss them soooo much! They made sure to get a house big enough for guests, so we will definitely be making a trip to see them!

They came over Friday night to hang out, enjoy a BBQ, and Michelle was so excited to get to play in Jasper's sandbox with him. Not only does Jasper love Tom & Michelle, but we are going to miss their dog, Roxy. One of Jasper's favorite things to do is to go out and give Roxy (miniature pincher) a doggy treat through the fence.

Just recently, the Cavanaugh's were out of town and Jasper and I were in charge of watering thier plants. He would go over to their house and walk right to the hose, make his way up the deck steps, and help me water their plants. We watered them for 4 days, so it became a routine and he would get excited when we started to walk over to their house - so cute!

Thanks, Cavanaugh's for being such great friends and neighbors - we will miss you, but will be definitely keeping in touch!!

Isabelle and Jasper

Jasper and Isabelle took a few minutes to wrestle with Joe and play around on the couch while over at our place for a BBQ. Jasper P even got to show off his sandbox to Isabelle and Baby Ethan. We had a fun time!

Time for a haircut

Wednesday Jasper will be getting his hair cut by cousin Allison Smith. I tried to get a couple of quick photos of his curls, or mullet, Sunday before the big day.

The other photos is just an extreme close-up.

Wet 'n wild

Or ... not so much.

We blew up Jasper's new mini-pool Sunday evening while I washed the car. He sat in it for a few minutes but found better things to do, like push his bubble mower, drive his 4-wheeler and climb on the motorcycle.

Maybe next time.

Either way, I got a few cute photos.

Motorcycles. Hell yes.

Us men went on our first motorcycle ride together tonight. I, as I always do, had a good time on two wheels. J, on the other hand, had a GREAT time on his first ride!!!

I fired up the bike in the garage and sat with J on the tank for a few minutes to make sure he wasn't scared. He wasn't.

I started to inch forward. Scared? Not a chance.

But his mother was.

Nat didn't think it was a good idea for us to hit the road, but I promised we'd be safe and move slowly, so she moved out of the way and we puttered up and down Jefferson and Larnard a few times. I tried to keep my left arm around J's belly to make sure he didn't lean one way or the other, but he wouldn't have it. He was pushing it away just like Grandpa Paul said he did when they went on their last 4-wheeler ride. He sat tight, enjoying the ride.

J insisted on wearing the shades, so I went without. And he loved honking the Yamaha's puny horn. We 'beep-beep-beeped' at Nat and waved as we drove by (she watched from the front stoop), and made sure to wave at everyone and everything (including the neighbor dogs) as we passed.

J hated to get off; he was so upset he cried straight through his bath and through part of his bottle. I'm sure he's dreaming of motorcycles now, so he and I will have to make nightly rides a tradition.

Sleepy heads

J is a VERY good sleeper. He normally goes down at 7:45 or 8 every night and will sleep until around 7 the next morning. He'll make a few noises at night, but it's been a LOOONG time since he work up in the middle of the night and kept us up. (Yep. We're lucky.)

We're always amazed how much of his crib he takes up. He's not really that big, is he?

The other photo is of Nat and the Coz sleeping LITERALLY as I write this now. They're sleepy, too.

Keep your eyes on the road

We borrowed Grandpa Paul and Grandma Debbie's truck to help get all our stuff home after our anniversary weekend. I didn't have time to get gramp's oil changed, but I did take a few minutes to give it a cleaning Sunday morning before giving it back.

J came out wearing his jammies to play around for a bit in the big truck ('Whoa!' as he'd say.)

Here, he's trying to steer the great ship while trying to figure out why we were taking photos. 'Just drivin'," I'm sure he thought.

Using a spoon!

A week or so ago Natalie emailed me at work with a story from that morning's breakfast.

"Jasper wouldn't let me feed him this morning," she said.

Every time she would try to put a spoonful of oatmeal in his mouth, J would grab the spoon. He's a big boy now, I guess, and wants to use the spoon himself.

So, every morning since we give him a chance to feed himself. Some days he's more interested in using the spoon than others. On the day of this photo, he ate the whole bowl of oatmeal (with peaches!) on his own.

He doesn't have it mastered yet, but he's not doing too bad. we definitely started using the bib again.

As you can see, he was pretty pleased with himself. And so were we.

Fun in the yard!

Sunday after we got home the yard needed mowed, so it was time for Jasper and I to break out the new mower. He likes to help, although we don't turn the mower on yet. That, I'm sure, will some day be one of his chores, but not quite yet.

Before mowing, though, we played a little bit. J rode the electric 4-wheeler and wrestled me in the grass. (That's him STANDING on the 4-wheeler and that's him closing in on me for a form tackle.)

Omaha mural

Found some information today online at www.omahamuralproject.org about this large mural that was located just north of the Old Mattress Factory in Omaha. Very impressive, and something that we could easily make out from the pedestrian bridge over the river, which was easily a couple hundred yards away.

Energy Systems Company
The 70-foot tall, 328-foot long east wall of the Energy Systems building at 13th and Webster Streets is the canvas for Fertile Ground. "It almost never happens that someone comes to tell you that they want to enhance your property with no strings attached," Energy Systems senior vice president Dan Markham explained. "And all we had to do was step back and allow them room to work so that our building could become the center of attention in a major civic project that will mean so much to the NoDo area and to the rest of Omaha. Energy Systems is proud to be the home of Fertile Ground.”

Stops along the way

Some of the stops on our anniversary weekend included restaurants Aunt B's Kitchen, where we ate lunch Saturday in Walnut, and the Old Mattress Factory, where we ate dinner in Omaha. Inspired by our brief Freedom Rock history lesson during our time in Casey, we stopped there on our way to mom and dad's, and just before we finished our trip we stopped by the old gas station in Menlo and took a couple of pictures of the 12-foot-tall waving sign.

Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge

I mentioned the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge in the 'Anniversary Weekend' post, so here are a few photos. It's an impressive structure that spans more than 2,200 feet and connects Council Bluffs with Omaha.

Recently city leaders hired a surveyor to find out exactly where the border between Iowa and Nebraska was and they had someone sand blast the line with 'Iowa' on one side and 'Nebraska' on the other. (Yes, that's Natalie giving a thumbs up to Iowa.)

After seeing the bridge in the newspaper it helped make up our mind to continue our anniversary roadtrip west to Council Bluffs. We're glad we did because the bridge was a cool stop and we had a nice dinner at the Old Mattress Factory.

Gotta wear shades

Found this photo of Jasper during Syd's preschool graduation in May and thought it was funny. He won't wear the Cars the movie kiddie sunglasses I bought him last week but he'll wear heart glasses in the Menlo gym? Something isn't right here.

Anniversary weekend

Nat and I celebrated our fourth anniversary Thursday night with a nice dinner at Claxon's in Altoona and an antique tour of western Iowa on Saturday.

We set off early Saturday morning, with our first stop being Casey. It just so happened to be Casey Fun Days but they weren't quite as fun as billed, so we hit a couple of shops, saw a fainting goat someone was leading around town by a rope (yes, it's wearing a neckerchief), and had a very friendly shop owner give us a history lesson on the Freedom Rock near Greenfield. The same man that paints the rock every year with a military team has murals in a cafe in Casey and a large one just outside the cafe. According to a press release I received Monday, Ray Sorensen, the painter of the Freedom Rock, will soon be giving the Iowa Lottery use of some of his art for lotto tickets. You know you've arrived when your art is on a lotto ticket.

From Casey we headed straight to Walnut, Iowa's Antique City.

We found our biggest buy - a red pie safe we have in our kitchen (pictured) at the first stop we made, Kelly Reed Antiques, but didn't pull the trigger until the end of the day. We scoured each shop for nothing in particular, stopping at Aunt B's Cafe for lunch and Roberts Bakery Treats & Treasurers for ice cream and pie.

We didn't end up buying much - Nat grabbed an old scale and I bought a vintage Sports Illustrated with Mark 'The Bird' Fidrych posing with Big Bird from 1977.

With our backseat filled by this pie safe we debated whether we should continue our weekend or head home to unload. We proceeded west, as the early settlers did, to Council Bluffs, where we were headed to the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge that connects CB with Omaha. (See separate post for photos, etc.)

We crossed the Muddy Missouri on the impressive bridge and found a restaurant — The Old Mattress Factory — where we had dinner of pizza (Nat) and fish 'n chips (me) before heading to Menlo to stay the night with mom and dad.

Great time!

4th of July ... a week late (No. 2)

The Wilders came to Waukee to watch the parade with us and celebrate the holiday with Nat's side of the family at Junior & Sandy Swallow's house. It wasn't your typical Iowa 4th of July; with temps in the 70s and gray skies, you saw FAR more people than normal with long sleeve shirts and pants on. But it wasn't too chilly for a parade ... and water balloon fight!

Jasper loved the parade. He 'ooohed' at the loud sirens and bright colors, delighted when a few people walked by with dogs and pretty much waved 'hi' at everyone who passed. He also took a few minutes out of his busy schedule to hang with the girls (friend Campbell and cousin Perri).

As you can see J meant business once the water balloons came out, and spared no one in his quest to soak 'make it rain'. Not sure if one of the balloons he threw ever broke, but he sure tried hard! The way he's been tossing around balls and blocks and remotes and phones and food at home, he's going to be dangerous next year with those balloons. You've been warned.

4th of July ... a week late

We owe you all a 4th of July post and a week later here it is. We kicked off the holiday a day early by spending part of the day July 3 with the Wilson side at the Blank Zoo and then had dinner at our house, after the rain hit as we were walking to our cars on our way home.

Jasper P, Gramp Paul and Syd got wet in the waterfall; J and Syd gave the sleepy lion a big 'High 5'; J milked his first cow (She was empty); we all rode the train (J sat on Nat's lap); and gramp took J into the heart of groundhog land. We also watched the monkeys play around, pet goats, fed the fish, played around in the playground, watched part of the sea lion show and MUCH more. Very fun!

The next post will be of our day with the Henderson side during Waukee festivities.

J's new hangout spot

I walked into the bedroom Sunday to find Nat hanging up clothes and J in his new hangout spot - the laundry basket.

He was content sitting in there with nothing more than his 'Jasper' water bottle that our friend Erin Gibson made him, but I had to spruce it up a bit with his blanket and a pillow.

Note the sleepy eyes. It was mid-morning - not quite nap time - but he almost fell asleep in his basket.

Later on Sunday he got back in there to hang for a bit, but it was more play time than anything else and Nat pulled him around the house.

Fun times!