The Adventures of the Salm's Backyard Water Park

This is the Salm's Backyard Water Park. Oliver is beached on the whale slide in the picture above. Oliver loves to be outside and since it has been so hot here I figured a mini water park would allow him to play outside but not get to overheated. He loves to play with all the toys and haul water in his dump truck. I taught him how to slide down the slide and as he would go down I would say weeeeee. Oliver picked up on this and when got to the bottom after the third time down he looked at me and said eeeeeeee. 

 When we came into the house after the backyard water park I let Oliver run around the house naked. It only took 2 minutes until he had to go and I didn't realize until after I took the picture what Oliver was doing but apparently Oliver is watching himself pee.

Oliver is now able to walk on his own pretty well. He uses the walker when he wants to run. You can see the look of shear determination on Oliver's face in the picture above. This is because he is trying to run away from me as I try to put a diaper on him so no more accidents happen because after the pee incident I was really concerned for the other type of accident to happen. If you look real close in the picture you will see a Wisconsin license plate with Oliver's nickname attached to his walker. We felt that since he drives that thing around the house like a mad man it deserves a license plate.

Well summer has officially arrived for me. School is out and although I am still working on classes for my masters degree my summer is pretty free for fun with Oliver. He has really grown in to a little man. I looked in the backseat of the car today while I was driving and Oliver was looking out the window so contently. I couldn't help be awed by him. He has grown in so many ways in a years time and keeps amazing Erik and I daily. 

The pictures above and below are of Oliver and I enjoying the awesome weather we have been having. Oliver really enjoys playing with his water table splashing and pouring water on back and forth into different containers. He is completely soaked and loving every minute of it. 

In the picture below I asked Oliver where the tractor was and he was pointed where the farmer had planted corn this year. He sure loves his tractors and cows.

Year One Look Alike Contest

It's been a year and out come our old baby pictures for a year one look alike contest. So compare Erik's and my year one pictures with Oliver's and vote on who you think it is.

Oliver

                 Erik- 1 Year                                                                              Heidi- 1 Year

Happy Birthday Oliver!

We'll a year has passed and of course it is hard to believe. On Oliver's birthday Erik and I talked about the day Oliver came into the world and it's hard to believe a he has grown so much. He is now 25 pounds and a very tall little man.

We had a small birthday party with close family which was really nice. Oliver was his usual show off self, performing for all the relatives. We tried to give him so cake but he wasn't very interested. He would rather have some blackberries and raspberries. I guess that's a good thing.

Oliver is really close to walking and has added several words to his vocabulary. His new words are truck, tractor, ball, and maa (When you ask him sound a cow makes or he sees a cow). Oliver is able to understand most of what we tell him. Yesterday Erik had his feet kicked up in the recliner and Oliver stood up next to them and I said tickle tickle. Oliver sits down on the floor and starts tickling his own feet. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen.

Happy Easter!

The Little Man

Oliver sure likes to keep himself busy. He loves to lean up against the windows and check out what is going on outside. Erik was out doing some yard work and Oliver was glued to the patio doors watching Erik walk back and forth across the yard. Every once and a while Erik would pop out behind the Blue Spruce tree in our yard and made laugh with delight.

 Oliver is going to be one next weekend and he is sure becoming a little man.Today was his first experience with spaghetti and boy did he love it. The picture above is of the beginning stage and the following pictures are the aftermath. I had to take him straight up stairs and to the bath but boy did we both have fun in the process.

The Busy Little Man

Oliver has really had some big gains in the last 3 weeks. He pretty much eats all solid foods now. Erik and I decided it was time to teach Oliver the word no since he loves to feed Gunner while he eats. So the first attempt at teaching him no, I held down his hand as he was about to throw the food and I told him "No". Oliver just looked at me and threw the food. So when he was about to do it again I grabbed his hand and lighted slapped the top of it and said "No". He responded to this by laughing. So I figured since Erik and I never yell or raise our voice I would raise my voice when I said "No". Well boy did this work. Oliver was a blubbering mess. I don't know who felt worse me or him. I have been working for 10 months to keep him from crying and now I'm making him cry. It's heartbreaking but in a sense nessary. So later that day I put Oliver in his jumperoo and Erik said to Oliver, "On your marks. Get set. Go!" Well GO sounds like NO and we had a blubbering mess of a child again. Long story short, he knows what the word no means now.

Oliver is off and crawling these days and is everywhere and into everything. He also finds the stairs a fun place to play. The word no and lots of tears happen on those stairs now. He also loves to crawl over to the bookshelf and pull off his books and flip and babble through them.

Oliver has also graduated to a new carseat. He started to become like a stuffed sausage in his old one so it was time to move on. We have to still face him backwards until he is a year old but at least he has more room. It's hard to believe it has been 10 months since he was born. It's sure amazing to see how much he has grown and changed in such a short amount of time. It's hard to think of what he will be doing in another 10 months.