Post Valentine's.

We had a wonderful Valentine's day at our house!  We started with a breakfast of blackberry waffles with whipped cream.  Altair baked (and delivered) rolls for the homeless women's Valentine's day dinner downtown at Tony Caputo's.  Skyler and Maizey went for a walk with Mommy.  I made a superb beef tenderloin with baked potato and salad for dinner (forgot to take pictures of the beef, it was that good!)  We finished the evening with red velvet cake and watched the movie "Gravity".  The movie was the only disappointment of the day, highly fictionalized and hardly believable.

Made from scratch with love.  :)

Just a few of the 81 rolls that she baked yesterday.  She too made them from scratch.

She baked pretty much from 9am to 4pm.

Altair's arrangement of Valentine's cheer.

She got me some balloons.  Skyler really thought they were for him.

A bad pic of Skyler's books with the flowers, balloons, candy and "Niner."

Valentines.

Skyler got a cookie from Grandma yesterday.  As you can see, he really enjoyed it!

My Mom is so great!  She packaged it in the decorative bag and a zip lock to keep it fresh.

"What a beauty!"

"Ready..."

"Mmm..!"

All that was left, he wouldn't eat the actual cookie, just the frosting!

For his Valentine's Day present today, he got a new John Deere round baler toy to hook on the tractor he already has.

Round baler toys have sure come a long way since I had one as a kid.  Mine was metal and the pickup teeth got caught in the carpeting all the time.  This is from Ertl's "Big Farm" series.  Mostly plastic and designed for toddlers.  Hopefully it's Skyler proof.  :)

So tired...

...that he fell asleep on the floor yesterday.

A sick selfie.

Skyler wanted to take his own picture yesterday.  :)

You may never be the same after watching this!

Since Skyler is still not 100%, I don't have any pictures of him being adorable.  Here's something to freak you out for the rest of the day!  Fat Bike clown!

The Twiddlebugs.

This is all I have for today.  I saw a horrible computer generated version of this on Sesame Street yesterday while watching TV & being sick with Skyler.  Skyler likes this version much better!  So do I.  I remember watching this when I was a kid home sick from school.  How fitting that we're doing the same thing today.  Sigh...

Having steak & eggs & sittin' on a paper towel roll.

I think he's feeling better! :)

The greatest truck ever!!

Spotted on our trip to Trader Joe's yesterday.

On a side note, Skyler seems to be feeling better today.  I'm not.  Now I'm sick.  Sigh...

Poor little guy!

Skyler is still under the weather. :(  he's been pretty good about resting though.  Here he is resting and dining in his bed.

An added bonus to the Children's Museum!

If you go, your kid gets sick!!  Yep, Skyler is sick.  Coughing and a runny nose.  If you ask him how he feels, he says "good" or "fine." :)  He won't let me take his picture this morning so I leave you with no picture of him today.

How I feel when Skyler doesn't feel good.

Whiteout.

Even Skyler was impressed by yesterday's lake effect snow squall.  It dropped an inch in about 30 minutes!

Back to Sears.

Skyler wanted to watch the demolition of the former Sears again yesterday.  I couldn't argue with that idea!

We didn't get to see it run, but it was right next to the fence. The machine weighs 135,000 pounds!

The boom is HUGE!

The demolition shear.  It's taller than me.

The dock is slowly getting filled in.

More boom.  The extended reach boom can be removed and a regular excavator boom can be installed.

The tracks are extended here.  They hydraulically retract for transport.

A trip to the children's museum...

...or, don't wast your time or money!  We took Skyler down to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum yesterday.  He had a pretty good time, I did not.  The place is filthy!  The exhibits are worn out, or not working properly and it almost appears that they only pay the building rent instead of investing in exhibits or cleaning!  Ugh!

The main reason we went, there's a real helicopter on the roof!!

Mommy is showing him the gauges.

It appears to be a surplus old Agusta helo.  I don't think IMC ever flew these?  It's tiny!

He had a great time using the conveyor belt at the "farm" exhibit. 

Hard to capture the flurry of motion, but he would crank the corn into the basket that mommy was holding.

Walking...

We went for a walk on the parkway Friday.  Skyler looks sad, but he wasn't.  He was just concentrating on the bike tracks.

He was really happy to see a skid steer!

RIP Sears.

The Sears I've known my whole life is being torn down so a new Dillards can be built in it's place.  I can remember shopping there when I was young, my father buying all kinds of tools, and getting a lawnmower and snow blower there among many other things.  The demolition is fascinating to watch, Skyler and I both watched it the better part of a half hour yesterday.  I think we have some daily entertainment for the next couple of weeks.

The main piece of demolition equipment, this Volvo extended reach demolition shear.

Looking Northeast from where the old auto repair shop was.

Looking West from the East parking lot.  Can you spot the skid steer inside on the top floor?

A dump truck just finishing dumping fill material....

...to fill in the old dock!!

They even have an ADT to move broke up concrete into the dock pit.

A panorama pic.

They're filling in the dock pit with fill material and parts of the building!

Another dumper getting ready to dump over the wall.

Filling a truck with all the non concrete waste material.

Can you see the skid steer upstairs?

It appears my magic iPhone 5's camera is developing a spot on the lens.  I've cleaned and cleaned it and that red heart shaped spot is still there.  Sigh...  See the skid steer's lights upstairs? :)

Thanks Great Grandma!

Skyler got a present in the mail on Wednesday this week.  Great Grandma from Nebraska sent him a truck, mittens, a book, and a movie!  He hasn't stopped playing with the truck or wearing the mittens since he opened the box on Wednesday. :)