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!

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!

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!!