Monday, October 31, 2011

Trick or treat!

We took Luke trick or treating tonight and he had a blast!


He was pretty shy at first, but he would occasionally tell you that a dinosaur says rawr and also say trick or treat.






After going around in my mom's neighborhood to a few houses, we stopped over on Anne and Kyle's street for the famous annual hotdog giveaway. :) Luke tried to pick up a 327lb pumpkin while we were there.


Luke and Eleanor (or Nanor as he calls her)


Eating a piece of chocolate before bed!


Worn out little boy

The dance moves get better ...

I have no idea where he learns these moves, but it certainly isn't from us (make sure and watch until at least past the 20 second mark ...)

Dennis the Menace

Luke was running around yesterday in overalls, with his hair sticking up in the back, and being a little mischievous. He reminded us of someone and we finally figured it out - maybe he should have gone as Dennis the Menace for Halloween?

Sunday, October 30, 2011

A dinosaur says rawr!

Luke loves his dinosaur costume! The first time we put it on him he stood in front of the mirror and just grinned and pointed and said rawr. So adorable!




Freeman Farms

When we were down in Bloomington last weekend we went to a fun little place called Freeman Farms. Luke got to pick out another pumpkin, and he got to pet and feed several animals!



Riding a pony


Corn maze for blonds - love it!

Pumpkins!

Luke loves pumpkins, so we had 3 main ones this year. A Mr. Potato Head one, one decorated in stickers (we actually have about 5 of those - it was a great toddler activity), and a Nemo pumpkin!



Costume pictures to come later :)

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

20 months old


Age: 20 months - I apologize now for the length of this post :)

Weight: 30 lbs. Length: Taller than 34"

Size: Size 5 diapers, and mostly in 18-24 months clothes

Hair: Just had another haircut, but style is still the same. That is, unless Jason styles it - then it looks like this:

Teeth: 16 teeth - the 2 year molars are the only ones left

Sleeping: 7:30pm -7:15am. Unless it's the weekend - then he's been giving us the wonderful gift of sleeping in. He has made made it until 9am a few morning!

Eating: He continues to be an awful eater, unless it’s crackers, peanut butter, mac & cheese, cereal, pancakes, yogurt, applesauce, or granola. No matter how much we try he just will not eat actual fruit, vegetables – or really anything that we’re having for dinner. I have recently discovered baby food in pouches though. They make these great apple sauce things in pouches that are great on the go that he loves. When I saw the mixed fruit and veggie baby food in pouches, I thought we’d give them a try. It seems a little strange to me that my 20 month old is eating baby food again, but at least it gets some veggies in him while we were on the actual vegetables. It took a huge stress off my shoulders just knowing that. He also gets a Flinestone vitamin after dinner every night.

Movement: When is he not moving? He wants so badly to go up and down the stairs like a big kid. He gets frustrated easily and will just give up and then not even want to crawl up them. I don’t know how many nights he’s stood there with his arms reached up wanting mommy to carry him up the stairs.

Talking: I’m not even going to try and count the amount of words that he says. He’ll repeat so many things, and even though other people may not be able to understand him, Jason and I can have a whole conversation with him.

He can repeat almost the entire alphabet, and recognizes at least the letters O and B (That is probably because of one of our favorite songs “The B Song” sung by the Dixie Chicks on Sesame Street.) Sometimes when I ask him if he can say the alphabet, and I start with A – he’ll follow up with B and C. If he sees a bunch of words written out, he’ll start with the B and then start telling me random letters that he thinks should also be there – O, P, Y, E …. B is his favorite though.

He can also repeat his numbers up to 10. Sometimes he seems to know the order they go in, and if I say one, he’ll say two. One day he fit nine by himself into the sequence at the right point.

His current favorite color (and my current favorite word that he says) is yellow. He’s pretty good at picking out the yellow things and sorting out the yellow colors from the rest.

Favorite toys/activities: Nemo, cars, rocks, sticks

Dislikes: Like last month, he doesn't like waiting. He has not yet learned that patience is a virtue.

Other cute things about him:

- He loves to dance – especially bobbing his head and raising the roof. When we were at the cabin last weekend, we got these awesome moves on video.



-He has started to sing, which is just about the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard. His favorites are the B song, and also the “oh oh oh oh” part of The Right Stuff, a New Kids on the Block song. If a song on the radio has a chorus with some ooohs and ahhhs or lalalas, or just a repetitive word that he knows (baby for example) he’ll sing along.

- He is such a boy – he loves rocks (throwing them), loves dirt, loves sticks (breaking them) … I was excited when were at the cabin that we collected some rocks and acorns in a bag to bring home. We were lining them up on the front porch back at home and I thought he’d think they were treasures and want to keep them. Nope – he just wanted to throw them in the yard.

- He’s learning to say people’s names. He can say almost everyone in the family. “Grandma” comes out an awful lot like “mama” but it doesn’t bother me so much since I’ve been promoted to “mommy.” He really struggles with the “K” so Karen is a work in progress. He can also say some of his friends name’s at school – his teacher Miss Bobbi, Kate (ate), Josh (osh), Anna (nana), and my favorite, Eleanor (Nanor.) In case you can’t tell, we like to drop off the first letter of the word.

- Nemo (or rather “Momo”) is still his best friend. It’s pretty cute – even his little friends at school know that it’s his momo. The funniest part about that is that he could say it correctly, he just won’t. Jason asked him to say knee the other day – he said knee (which by the way, is one of his favorite body parts to point out.) That was followed up by Jason asking him to repeat “mo” – which he did. Then you tell him to put it together and repeat “Nemo.” The response? Momo!

- Another cute thing that I want to remember – we’ve tried to teach him the phrase and hand motion for touchdown! That is so very confusing for a little kid that is also trying to learn the difference between up and down. Why do you reach “up” when you say touch”down”?

- He thinks it’s funny when Jason gives me a kiss. He’ll laugh and exclaim “Daddy!” like he thinks he's being silly on purpose.

- He likes to play Simon says, play ring around the rosie, wrestle with daddy, and still hide and seek. - He tells us when he poops. Sometimes right before, sometimes during, sometimes after. He'll grab his diaper and say "poop" - He has a great memory. When we were at the cabin last weekend, for breakfast he started pointing at chairs and telling us where to sit. He was pointing at exactly where we sat the night before at dinner - I was amazed that he remembered that!

Videos

Here are a few videos from the cabin weekend.

Luke touching a fish:


Uncle Pat skipping rocks:


Luke skipping rocks:


Playing in the leaves in Story, IN:

Brown County Cabin Weekend

We went on our now annual trip to Brown County this weekend and had an absolute blast! Lots of good food, good drinks, a hot tub, campfire, pool table, hiking, fishing, collecting rocks, sticks, acorns ... those last few activities equaled heaven for a little boy.

I'll let the pictures do the talking - such a wonderful time!




















Pumpkin Patch

We had a great time at Stony Creek Farm again this year picking out our pumpkins. Luke was able to ride a little train, play in the straw, go through a maze, and ride a pony! He was very serious the whole time, but also kept saying "neigh!"




And for fun, last year versus this year. :)

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Mr. Smarty Pants

Luke is starting to learn colors, numbers, letters, and shapes at school. They focus on one or two in each category each month, and we try to reiterate them at home. The only color he seems to know is purple - and more often than not, all colors are purple. He has repeated red, blue, and a version of yellow - but mostly we get purple. He was right here though!


We work on the letters ABCDE all the time. He can point out and tell you the letter B. Most of the time he can also point to A when you ask him. He can repeat almost all the way to I though! (This video just goes through G.)

Fall Art

I use this awesome website now called Pinterest - basically it's like bookmarking, but you save things by category and it shows pictures instead of a web address. It makes finding things again so much easier.

I have a whole category of fun art projects to do with Luke and today was a great day to do a fall inspired one.

This was our inspiration - an autumn tree with falling leaves

http://myblessedlife.net/2011/09/fall-kids-crafts.html

This is how ours turned out. Our leaves were not so much falling off, but rather being blown off in the middle of a tornado. I love every bit of it.

Reading our favorite book



If you'd like to read along:
A cow says Moo
A sheep says Baa
And three singing piggies say la-la-la
No no you say, that isn't right
Little pigs go oink oink all day and night.
Rhinoceroses snort and snuff
and little doggies go ruff ruff ruff
and other dogs go bow wow wow
and cats and kittens say meow
quack quack says the duck
a horse says neigh
Shh! it's quiet now - what do you say?

Sunday, September 18, 2011

19 months



Age: 19 months

Weight: I would guess between 29 and 30 lbs.

Length: Taller than 34"

Size: Size 5 diapers, and mostly in 24 month shirts. 18 month pants still fit. Someone explain this to me - Luke is 19 months old, and 89% for height - yet some 18 month pants are still too long. Short legs I guess!

Hair: Almost to the point that he needs another trim.

Teeth: 16 teeth - the 2 year molars are the only ones left

Sleeping: He goes down at 7:30 and lately we've been waking him up just past 7. He takes one nap. On Sundays that nap seems to be 3 hours - and then it dwindles down as the week goes on.

Eating: He loves peanut butter now - yay! Other staples are still cheese, cheerios, yogurt, mac&cheese, and crackers. He's been willing to try other things - we actually ate apple slices yesterday!

Movement: All over the place. He can do the small porch step up and down, unassisted now.

Talking: he tries to repeat almost everything we say now, even if he doesn't know what it means. He's also added several words that he uses on a consistent basis. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but words that were new this month: turtle, paper, poop, mommy, door, bowl, Pat, choo-choo, apple, trash, truck, knee, and Nemo.

There are some words he has said but doesn't necessarily on a regular basis: star, crab, backpack, and pancake. He also does several animals sounds: a cow says moo, a horse says neigh, a sheep says baa, a dinosaur/bear/tiger/lion says "roar", a chicken "clucks" (said by clucking his tongue), and a birdy says "tweet tweet."

The words from last month still apply as well: mama, dada/daddy, ball, no, yea, wow, uh oh, cat, dog, hat, hot, hi, duck, more, Matt, rocks, water, frog, and car.

Signing: This is really phasing out, although there are some words he refuses to say and will only sign. Bird, fish, and airplane are some of them.

Favorite toys/activities: He loves his little people. We have a garage/ramp and a town and he stays busy with them for hours. He also loves music and loves to dance.

Dislikes: He doesn't like waiting for food - when he decides he's hungry he'll start yelling eat until you get him some food.

Disposition: Happy and loving. I was cooking yesterday and he came up to me and put his arms around my legs and gave me a big hug - then went on with whatever he was doing.

Other cute things about him:
*We find out that he knows all sorts of things from school. He can do hand motions to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and he can sing the first part of "Row row row your boat" also with hand motions. It was the same on the animal sounds - we didn't know he knew them until we were reading Brown Bear one night and he told us what they said - we were shocked!
*He knows all of the kids in his classroom. He can't say their names, but they have a poster with all of their faces and if you quiz him he will tell you where each person is.
*Nemo has replaced Cars in the movie obsession.
*Nemo IS the obsession. He loves his little Nemo friend and takes him everywhere.
*He now calls me mommy most of the time, instead of mama.
*They are working on letters, numbers, and shapes at school. There are days when I would swear that he knows A, B, and C. I'll draw them and ask him where the A is, etc - and he knows it! That seems to come and go though, so I'm not sure if it's just coincidence.
*He likes to go around and tell us who things belong to. Daddy or mommy. It's funny to see who he thinks owns some of them. For instance, toilet paper = daddy.