Saturday, December 31, 2011

Christmas!

Since we're almost to the new year, I figured I should update on our Christmas celebrations! We started at our house on the 23rd - Santa was nice enough to come to our house a night early. We started with a pizza picnic dinner in front of the tree.



And waited on our cookies to bake


And read lots of Christmas books




We left out milk and cookies for Santa


And he came to our house!


On Christmas morning when Luke woke up he asked for his cookies. He was very concerned that "Santa eat Luke cookies?" When we got downstairs he bypassed the presents and went to inspect the cookie plate.

No worries though - he went back to his gifts! We opened everything and then did lots of playing! The best gift was the train table top that Jason and I made.


Close runner ups were the dinosaurs (rawrs) that Santa left in his stocking.


He also loved his easel and table/chairs from Santa!


Merry Christmas!

Monday, December 19, 2011

22 months



Age: 22 months!

Weight: I'll guess 33lbs or so

Length: Over 34"

Size: Size 5 diapers during the day; size 6 at night. Shoes size 6. Clothes are 24 months or 2T. Pajamas are 3T for some reason.

Hair: The boy needs a haircut! We're hoping to get that squeezed in this week sometime.

Teeth: 16 - I can't tell how many of the 2 year molars are coming in, but I will be so happy when we're done with them.

Sleeping: Same as usual!

Eating: Staples are veggie pouches, chicken nuggets, mac&cheese, peanut butter and crackers. And he loves mustard and ranch. And syrup.

Talking: He said his first real 3 word sentence! "Help me daddy" - in reference to his trains. Just like last month, every day brings brand new words. He repeats things over and over (and over and over) until you acknowledge it.

Favorite toys/activities: choochoos, dinosaurs - especially when combined

Dislikes: having to sit in the cart at a store. He would rather walk. Unfortunately after a few minutes of that he decides he's done shopping period and will lay down in the middle of the aisle and tell me "night night."

Disposition: Emotional. He'll go from so very happy to so very not happy in the blink of an eye. This is not all the time - just on emotional days. Hey, we all have them right?

Other things about him:
*He wants to sit on the potty now. He hasn't gone and we are not potty training him yet, but he'll ask to go and wants his diaper off, so we'll sit him there.
*He loves all things Christmas. LOVES. I feel sorry for him when this holiday season is over.
*He is now forward facing in the car and just loves it!
*He's become very mommycentric. We think it's because Jason traveled for a little bit and he was a little mad at him. (On that, he would wake up in the morning and ask for daddy. When I'd tell him daddy is on a trip he'd ask "plane?")
*He dislocated his left elbow last week - 4th time this has happened, first in that arm. I'd like him to grow out of this soon!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Family pictures

I wanted some family pictures this winter so Karen came over and took some awesome ones!







Letter to Santa

Luke wrote a letter to Santa this year (er, mommy wrote it.) He told him that he'd been a good boy and that he wanted a choo-choo rawr for Christmas. (That is Luke talk for "dinosaur train.")

Then he took the letter to the special Santa mailbox - and we've already received a reply back!



It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Christmas time this year has been so much fun. Luke loves everything about it - the tree, Santa, lights (and more lights and pretty lights and tree lights ...), the baby Jesus, snowmen, elf, etc.

We decorated our tree the week after Thanksgiving. The night started with a fun make-your-own pizza. Luke mostly wanted to eat the cheese.





Then we decorated the tree. It was one of the most awesome memorable nights of my life. Luke absolutely loved it. He loved the ornaments coming out of the box and hanging them on the tree. We had Christmas music playing and the fire going. I teared up several times just taking it in. (Which is also why we don't have many pictures.)

I do have this short video though!

Life with a toddler

I posted this on facebook as my status a few weeks ago:

"One piece of the train track came apart from the rest. This led to angrily throwing the rest of the tracks to the floor, which resulted in a total meltdown because the choochoo was no longer on the table. Ah, life with a toddler ...."

Sadly, that is not the only time it happened. It's something that has occurred enough that I was able to get it on video. Such a mean mommy ...


So that you don't think it's always like that, here was a status from this week:
"One of my favorite times of the day is when we go into Luke's room at bedtime and he looks up at me and says "rock, mommy?" Sweetest moments ever."

Some fun pictures

Wearing daddy's slippers


Shopping at Target. :)


Luke loves to stack things now. This was at my mom's one evening. She asked him to go pose next to his tower of cans and he did!

Catching up

So my last post was when Luke was 21 months old. He's now a week away from 22 months - safe to say I'm a little behind.

I'll do a quick November recap and then jump into the fun happenings of December!

Nov 4-6 - we made a trip up to Chicago. I was going to be running a 5K with my cousin Ryan and his wife Anne but that actually didn't end up happening. We had a great time visiting though! We stayed with Anne and Ryan, but also spent time with Matt and Alli, and my friend Chrissi.




That week we also got back Luke's school pictures. Yes, those are actually all different pictures. He apparently just wasn't feeling it that day and they couldn't get him to smile at all.


On November 12th we went to a holiday festival at Hamilton Town Center (the outdoor mall near our house.) We got to meet a reindeer and then later at night heard a band playing. That is also where Luke got his reindeer hat that was seen in the last post. It was getting cold and late though so we didn't stay for Santa's arrival.


This led into Thanksgiving! We celebrated at my mom's on Thursday and then down to Jason's parents on Friday/Saturday - I think I gained 5 lbs that weekend. :)

We did some crafts leading up to Turkey Day. This one was supposed to be a pumpkin turkey, but we had some issues with it so it was a deconstructed turkey.



I wanted to decorate some cookies on Thanksgiving - Luke just wanted to stack the sprinkles. I'm hopeful that the Christmas cookies will turn out a little better.


We did something fun that night - we went bowling! Luke really seemed to enjoy it - the bumpers came out for his turn, we would carry the ball up, and he'd push it. The first time we let him do it himself and I think it took a good 5 minutes to get down to the pins. After that we helped just a little.

Luckily he only decided to run down the lane once. I'm sure that was a sight, seeing this mama run after him.


We had a great time down at Jason's parents as well. I don't any good pictures (my camera started to crap out that weekend) but we played a lot, especially with all of Jason's old dinosaurs. Rawr!!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

21 months old



Age: 21 months old. 3 months away from turning 2, although the tantrums that have been thrown lately make that seem a lot closer.

Weight: I'm guessing 32 lbs?

Length: He was 34" 3 months ago, so taller than that.

Size: Size 5 diapers during the day; size 6 at night. Shoes size 6. Clothes are 24 months or 2T.

Hair: Almost to the point that he needs another trim. I also think it may be starting to get a bit darker.

Teeth: 16 teeth - some of the pesky 2 year molars are starting.

Sleeping: Night time is the same (7:30-7.) The time change threw him off a bit, but we're just about back to normal. Naps seem to be getting shorter though (about an hour.)

Eating: We are making some progress! He ate strawberries and oranges the other day! His current favorite thing to eat is cheese. "More cheese!"

Movement: He loves to jump on the bed

Talking: I'm having a hard time keeping up with his new words. He seems to pick them up so quickly. We were outside the other day and Jason mentioned it was windy. When we left the restaurant 30 minutes later, the wind hit his face and he told us it was windy. Our current favorite words are: gobble, Santa (which half the time comes out like tatas), moon (with a long drawn out nnnn sound at the end), and several others that I can't think of right now.

He's starting to put some words together into short sentences: "more cheese", "no cat", and my favorite "love you."

Oh, and Nemo has gone from "momo" to "memo" - he's getting there.

Favorite toys/activities: playing with his choo-choos, reading books (lots and lots of books), wrestling with daddy, and dancing.

Dislikes: being told what to do, having something not go his way, sharing (are you noticing a theme here?)

Disposition: Still just the sweetest little guy - he loves to give kisses and when you say "I love you" he'll sometimes say "love you" back. However ..... the crazy toddler emotions and terrible twos are starting. When something goes wrong (the train comes off the track) he has a total meltdown. He's also had 2 or 3 temper tantrums - screamed at Marsh because I took my credit card from him, threw a fit in downtown Chicago because he didn't want to leave, and laid down in the middle of the library lobby looking up at me like "what are you gonna do about it?" He also is having some struggles with sharing at school, but we're working on it.

Other cute things about him (or "here is where I brag about him!")
*He seems so very smart to me. The words that he repeats now astound me. He knows the color yellow. He knows that 2 is more than 1. He recognizes, points out, and tells us the letters B, D, E, O, and I. He recognizes and will point when you ask the letters A, C, and others that randomly pop up here and there.
*He continues to point out things that belong to certain people and tell us who's it is (specifically cars." He also has a great memory and if we all sit somewhere one day he'll tell us where to sit the next so that we're in the same spot.
*He can drink out of a regular (but small) cup. We still use the sippy most of the time, but will give him water in the little cup once a day or so.
*The pacifiers are gone!!! This was about the biggest non-issue yet. One night we left some in his crib, just didn't actually hand him one. The next night we just put one in there, up near his pillow, and he never touched it. We keep an emergency one for backup (but have only used it 3 times in the last few weeks) and they have one at school. This morning he found one on the floor and came and gave it to me laughing.
*He loves books and loves to read. He knows what they're all about now, even the ones that we get from the library every few weeks. His favorites are his "moon" book (Goodnight Moon) and his "roar" book (Goodnight Sleepy ones, with lion cubs on the front.) The moon book is not to be confused with the "choo-choo moon" - a library book that has both trains and a moon.
*He loves to line things up in a row. He'll carry things across the room, one at a time, and then line them up over there. Very anal retentive.
*He tells us when he needs his diaper changed! Granted, he says "pee" for it all - but still, this is great progress! I guess at daycare he stands by the changing table and tells them. I think we might add potty chair to his Christmas list.
*He's had a few "boo-boos" over the last few weeks. A run in with a little dog that left his cheek/eye a bit puffy for a few days, and he dislocated his elbow again.
*He's had his first dentist appt. It was actually my appt, but he came in at the end and let them (quickly) look in his mouth. Then he got to pick a toy from the treasure chest - he thought it was great fun. Hopefully he won't take after his mama with the whole dentist fear thing.

We just had Christmas card/21 month pictures taken today - so stay tuned for those!

Monday, October 31, 2011

Toddler Halloween Party

(Last Halloween post, I promise!)

We had some friends over on Saturday for a toddler Halloween party and had a blast! Parties are so different these days, and in some ways, more wild than they were in college.

We had lots of great food - and several things that were Halloween inspired!

First, pumpkin straws for the kiddos:


Ritz cracker spiders:


Spider web Nachos that Kelli made:


Mummy dogs - they were supposed to have eyes made out of mustard, but we didn't want to use that. I tried ketchup, but it was too hard and the kids were hungry - so they eyeless mummies.


And mummy cupcakes that Laura brought!


We did a craft of sticker pumpkin decorating



Luke loved this craft so much and has made about 6 of them since then.


Everyone's final masterpiece


Before we ate, we tried to get a group shot. It actually went better at this get-together than it usually does. I think it's because we've gotten smarter - we give all of the kids crackers (or candy) and it keeps them happy. Well, maybe not happy enough to get them all to grin - but it keeps them sitting.

Elliott (puppy), Rowan (was an elephant, but here in a cute Charlie Brown pumpkin shirt), Andrew (puppy - and older brother of the smaller puppy), Luke (dinosaur!), Sammy (train conductor), Quinn (little ducky), and Tyson (farmer and older brother of the ducky.)


Time to eat!


Then more playing ...


Luke and Rowan cheezing it up for the camera


Intrigued by piano music ...


A few videos on what a toddler party looks like:




What our living room looked like by the end of the party


And lastly, we got out the bumbo chair for one of the little bitties, and Luke decided that he wanted to sit in it. He kept pointing at it and saying baby, and then decided he was the baby.