Signing Time

Videos: May 2, 2009

Jonas loves getting educational videos from the library. He seldom picks out any other kind of video. His favorite series is Signing Time which teaches American Sign Language. It's pretty cool and Jonas has picked up a lot of signs from watching them non-stop.

The video above is Jonas' performance of Signing Time: Move and Groove. Yes, he is definitely getting his groove on. Even though he seems to just be flailing his arms about randomly, he is actually using ASL signs, albeit pretty aggressively.

This second video is Jonas doing Signing Time: Zoo Train. Both of these videos also accurately show how A) Jonas love to talk and sing and B) Jonas never stops walking around, especially if he is also talking. This is just everyday life for Jonas, and not just because the camera is rolling.

Mother's Day Gifts

Photos: May 2009

I took Jonas to Painted People in downtown Redmond to pick out something to paint for Mother's Day gifts. We spied some cool mosaic-looking coasters and decided that was just what Grandma Bonnie, Grandma Rose and Auntie would love to have. Jonas had a lot of fun picking out his paint colors and getting his craft on.

He painted the sun for Auntie.

The dragonfly for Grandma Rose.

And the butterfly for Grandma Bonnie.

Mother's Day morning he decorated some envelopes with stickers and wrote the names of the lucky recipients on them all by himself.

Oohhh, awwweeee, purdy.

Easter

Photos: April 12, 2009

Another riveting Easter Egg Hunt out at Grandma Rose and Grandpa Jim's house. Auntie hid all the eggs and Jonas and Chloe (the dog) found most of them. The rest of us hunted for eggs if we were in need of a chocolate fix....then we would just hide the empty egg again for Jonas to find. Yes, that is awful but we we desperate for chocolate, so that makes it ok.

I wonder where the egg is since everyone is staring in a different direction....?

I think they may have been contemplating the big questions in life: career, marriage, kids. That or else Jonas was talking non-stop about the alphabet. It could have been either one, really.

After awhile Jonas would just follow Chloe around while she sniffed out the eggs and then he would try to grab the egg before she could slobber all over it. What a great system.

Finally done and checking out what's inside all these beauties. Shake, shake...

...carefully crack it open....

...ah, sugary goodness at long last (with only a bit of dog-slobber, mmm.)

Faux Egg Hunt

Photos and Videos: April 11, 2009
Location: Beautiful Downtown Redmond, OR

We headed downtown the saturday before Easter for a Faux Egg Hunt....you know the kind, where the eggs are just spread out on the ground and it's a chaotic free-for-all? Yeh, that kind. Actually it was a pretty cool event and we happened to see our friend Michelle with her two kids, Jace and McKenzie, down there, too. It was nice to have friends to hang out with before the big "hunt" began.

While we were waiting, Jace and McKenzie tried out their baskets as hats. Very stylish.

Jonas tried to follow suit but for some reason his square basket was not as hip. He kind of looks like a robot or something.

Oh, ooh, ooooooh.....such anticipation.

And the chaos begins!!

After less than 2 minutes all the eggs were gone in Jonas' immediate area and he was a little overwhelmed by the whole event. Most of the kids ran down to another area where someone was dumping out more eggs but Jonas just stood there nervously until we waved him in.

Need to see it for yourself? Here's a little video complete with audio of some dad (no one we know) yelling at his kid to get as many eggs as possible...no pressure or anything. You can also see how non-competitive Jonas is in this type of situation. He's not much for confrontation or conflict. I wonder where he gets that??

Jace and McKenzie were lucky enough to get some candy in their eggs.

Of the 10-12 eggs that Jonas got, he didn't get a single piece of candy. It was even better. He got 3 prize tickets and $26 "Downtown Dollars". {Downtown Dollars can be spent like cash at a bunch of businesses in downtown Redmond. So this was more like a prize for the parents...at least in the Cook household. Score!!}

McKenzie and Jace also got prize tickets and the three of them went to "Prize Central" to pick out some cool stuff. I love that Jace got the giant Easter Bonanza Basket complete with a flowery purse. His mom said the purse was the thing he really wanted in there. What can I say, the boy knows how to accessorize.

The fantastic-ness continued inside Prize Central with a Cupcake-Walk game. For Jonas any game that combines numbers, music and food is a dream come true. He pranced around those numbers for 15 minutes and was nowhere near winning, partly because he thought that he was supposed to go find the number that they called out. Finally the nice girls that were running the game kinda rigged it so that Jonas could win. He was super-excited to pick out a cupcake.

Here is some riveting footage of the Cupcake Walk. Sorry about the poor videography halfway through...I obviously can't do two things at once {talk and hold the camera straight.}

Suh-weeeet!!!