Father's Day Weekend

Poor Andrew did not have the best Father's day weekend this year - he developed a really bad cold/flu and we had a few personal things happen on Sunday as well that put a downer on the day. We did, however, try to make the most of the weekend and I think he is just happy to be celebrating being a dad, despite how he was feeling!

As a disclaimer to the following photos, I will say that, yes, Andrew did get some other unphotographed gifts that are truly for him. "His" best gift, though, was the supersize 60th anniversary edition Tonka dump truck that he (Andrew) has been ohhing and ahhing over ever since Ben was about 3 months old, eagerly awaiting the day when his son would be old enough to play with it. Andrew had a similar one as a little boy, hence the obsession with getting one for he and Ben to play with together. Of course I could not resist buying this for "Andrew"as one of Ben's Father's day gifts to his dad when I saw that they had a limited edition one in the stores.

Ben loves this truck. Actually, that is an understatement since he is obsessed with it. He puts all of his smaller trucks inside of this huge one and wheels it around the house like a maniac, swerving around corners and making funny sound effects.

He loves all cars, trucks, trains, vehicles lately and always points them out to us when he spots one outside by either doing a siren sound or a "vroom" sound (depending on the vehicle). Lately he has also started to make them honk at each other as he plays with his trucks. My favorite sound effect, though, has to be when Ben gets caught in one of the "forbidden" zones of our house (aka unrolling the toilet paper, splashing in Barney's bowl, playing on the glass coffee table, helping himself to treats in the pantry, you get the picture.) For months I had been telling him to "Backup!" and "Turn Around!" when he got caught and had to exit the danger zone, which usually involved backing up the toy he was playing with or rolling one of his trucks away since he always seems to have one with him. As he backed up I would always make the "Beep!...Beep!...Beep!....Beep!" sound effect that construction vehicles make when they back up. Ben would smile because he recognized the sound (we have stopped to watch numerous construction vehicles in action on our various walks through town). However, now HE makes this sound whenever he backs up his trucks. It's hilarious. We will hear him vrooming through the house with a truck and will all of a sudden hear him beeping, and when we look he will he backing out of some corner or backing up to avoid hitting into Barney!

Here Andrew shows Ben the big truck and Ben gives it a whirl.



Silly faces!!

He doesn't seem to like being inside the truck as much as he likes filling it up and rolling it around himself!

Finally, poor Andrew was so sick that he didn't go to work today. His boss Kevin will be turning 40 in a few weeks so his wife had asked 40 family/friends to each do something small for him on one of the 4o days leading up to his birthday. Today was our day so last night I had baked a gigantic chocolate chip cookie and decorated it with a "Happy Birthday Kevin." I went into Andrew's office this morning to pick up some papers for him to work on at home and also to drop the cookie off. Kevin and the other guys on Andrew's team were sending Andrew emails all day telling him to feel better and letting him know that he was missing out on the big cookie. So, after dinner Andrew got his own cookie so he wouldn't be left out!