Green and purple shirt

For comparison's sake

Serious harmonizing on the invisible mike.

Forest Park III

We finally put batteries in Stanley's bubble gun, which he got for his birthday. Lots of fun.

Forest Park II

Ants


Heading for a mud puddle.



Mid-stride



Bird

Forest Park

Lookin' good, pre-natal style.


Stanley plans his next move.


Stanley watching the MetroLink from the bridge above.


Henry pushing the pram as Stanley looks on.

Fathers and Sons II

I took Stanley on a campout on May 9-10 with many others from church. We had a fun time, and Stanley slept very well in his doubled-up sleeping bag. I was pretty cold during the night, mainly because I only had this thin red jacket to wear, having forgotten the other jacket at home in the midst of everything else. It was fun, though.




Stanley as a four year old

Fathers and Sons

First there were two boys.


Then there were three.


Then there was a fire.



Then there was dangerous playing around the fire.

More Mary Elaine

None of the boys had cheeks like that when they came out.

More zoo

St. Louis Zoo

Stanley and Henry love the zoo. The great thing about a free zoo is that you can go for an hour, look at a couple things, and go home for a nap. Plus it was hot as fire.


In front of the zoo.



We watched the hippos eat and then dive into the pool with the fish.


This is a bad picture of one hippo as it swam through the pool surrounded by fish.


Cheetah

Mary Elaine

First day or so



Stanley likes when she sticks her tongue out.


Looking cute.



Mary and Daddy

Ride

A couple weeks ago we were at the Mall of America. Stanley wanted to go on a ride pretty badly, so we bought some tickets and he went on this ride alone and then with me on the ferris wheel, a/k/a El Circulo de Cielo - Dora the Explorer's own ride. In any case, when we approached the pictured ride, Wonder Pets Flyboat, there was already a full complement of chilluns on the ride, so we watched it go. The thing goes up slowly, then freefalls about halfway, then goes up to about three-quarter height, drops again, and then sort of bounces up and down like it's trying to shake the candy out of the kids' pockets. For a childres ride it's pretty intense.

I thought Stanley would think it was a bit scary, but he said he really wanted to go. So we redeemed the tickets and entrusted our firstborn son to the capable hands of the sixteen year old ride operator. Stanley loved it. He hadn't caught onto the idea of holding his hands up like the other kids, but that's pretty normal for him; he's pretty straight-faced during most activities and processes the experiences later, talking about how exciting it was.

And sorry the pictures are so bad. We didn't have our camera so I took these with my phone.



I think it helped that he was on the ride with a bunch of kids who had just ridden it and were not crying.