Update and Santa

Thanksgiving - Santa

Just thought I would get in a quick update before Christmas. There has not been too much going on here. We got a foot of snow just after my birthday on the 5th. The schools here got two snow days (Tuesday and Wednesday). The streets in town are still pretty slick since it hasn't warmed up enough to thaw anything out. I have been wanting to take the kids out to play in the snow, but they have had runny/stuffy noses and been coughing some, so I didn't want to take the chance of making them worse. Landen did get to play out in the snow for a little while, but he took his mittens off and didn't like it when his hands got cold. Landen has had his cough for a little over a month now, but he seems to be getting better. I did call the doctor and talked to a nurse and she said they have had a lot of people/kids come into the office complaining of a cough with no other symptoms (his runny nose has only been recently) and they have just been telling them to take allergy medicine, so she told me to try that. He has coughed less since I started giving him allergy medicine. Elliot seems to have a persistent cough this time of year, so I think Landen just inherited whatever makes Elliot cough. Adellyn has had a snotty nose for about a week now and she had a couple rough nights where she coughed most of the night, but she also seems better now. I'm kinda glad I didn't rush them into the doctor because they are getting over whatever they had on their own.

We went to see Santa this last weekend. I really prepped Landen to see him and by the time we got there he was super excited to sit on Santa's lap! Adellyn was not as excited, but she calmed down enough for pictures. She did better than other kids her age that were there and better than I expected.

Adellyn is walking pretty good now. She is slow and steady, so she gets down to crawl when she wants to get somewhere fast. She is really good at picking objects up while she is standing and then will carry it. Today she carried a package of yogurt melts to me several different times and then whined for me to give her some. I'm trying to teacher her to sign "please" but she is being stubborn and just throws herself down in a fit instead. I'm not sure how many times she hit her head on the floor today when she threw herself down, but she got over it. I really want to get her to quit/reduce her whining to get things (I realized I was getting bad about giving into her whining because I knew what she wanted and it was easier to just give it to her).

Landen is talking more and more. He is putting sentences together that I didn't even know he could put together. He is also coming up with funny things he says. The Schwan's man stops every other week and always gives Landen a sheet of stickers. One night he started putting the stickers on his pants and told me that he had "sticker pox!" I thought that was pretty clever of him to come up with that! He has a couple of lines that we hear a lot right now. One is "Come on _______" (fill in the blank with Mommy, Gran-ma, Crap-pa, etc). He also changes the context in which he says it. Sometimes he is trying to lead you somewhere, sometimes he is trying to get you to give in to something, and sometimes it is his response to getting a spanking. He also changes how he says it. He draws out the vowels or lowers his voice. It's hard to say no to him sometimes because it is pretty cute! The other line I have been hearing a lot is not so cute. He has started saying, "I can't do it" to anything he doesn't want to do...most commonly, feed himself. I think he wants to be fed because it goes faster and he can get down sooner. Either that or he gets frustrated and it is easier for us to feed him. I want to find a way to discourage him from saying that he can't do something without punishing him. (any suggestions?) A funny story from today...I was changing Adellyn's diaper in the living room and Landen was in the kitchen. I noticed he was suddenly very quiet (which is never good!) I asked, "Landen, what are you doing?" After a pause I heard, "I'm pooping," followed by a quiet grunt! Gotta love his honesty!

I'm still going to local family's house to teach Algebra twice a week. We also go to MOPS twice a month. I think the kids and I are going more places now than we did when the weather was nice! That could explain their colds! I'm looking forward to the warmer days we are supposed to get later this week. Stay warm and have a Merry Christmas! If you have to travel for the holidays, drive safely!

Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving!

I wrote this the same day as my last post (before Thanksgiving), but I had troubles getting my pictures to upload. I had to figure out how to re-size them so they weren't so big, so I finally got that figured out. We had a good Thanksgiving at my parents' house. We gorged ourselves on prime rib instead of turkey this year! Elliot and I went shopping on Black Friday and the kids spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa Becker's house. That was Adellyn's first time away from us over night. My Mom said she woke up a couple of times, but went back to sleep pretty quickly and she took a good nap on Friday before we got back to pick them up. My Dad had shoulder surgery this morning. Everything went well and they said there was not as much damage as they were prepared for. He will still have 4 months of recovery...I hope he can make himself take it easy for that long! If you know my Dad, that won't be easy for him. Not much else to report. (keep in mind that what is written below the pictures was written a week ago!)

Our two little thumb suckers!!! They both suck their thumbs while cuddling their "blankies." Adellyn sucks her right thumb and Landen sucks his left.


I hope this is not a sign of what she will be like in about 15 years...talking on the cell phone, foot on the dash while driving!


Landen doesn't like to get dressed, but he did put his shoes on [the wrong feet] himself!!!


I found some plastic beads in my Halloween decorations and decided to get them out for the kids to play with...Landen was having fun dancing around the living room with them on!


Adellyn was pretty serious as she stacked the cow and horse on the tractor.


Not a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. I don't think I mentioned in my last post that I am tutoring/teaching Algebra to three girls whose family home schools. They were struggling with it and decided to contact me to help, so I go to their house twice a week. The youngest girl keeps an eye on Landen and Adellyn while I work with the older girls. I am enjoying it and it is a good opportunity to keep myself "in practice" for when I decide to go back to teaching. The kids have had colds this past week (I'm guessing because we have been going somewhere different more often than they are used to). Just runny/stuffy noses and coughing. I have been keeping a close eye on their temperatures because H1N1 has been going around in Arapahoe. I took Adellyn to the doctor this past Friday for her one year well child check-up (even though she was still a little sick). She weighs 20lbs (40th percentile) and is 29 1/4 in long (50th percentile). The doctor listened to her chest and Landen's chest and said their lungs sounded clear, so that was good news as far as them being sick was concerned. They are better this week, but not over it yet. Adellyn is making some progress in walking. She is getting more balanced and even tries to carry things now. (although, she isn't really walking well enough to try to carry anything)

In other news, Elliot shot a deer this year. We like deer jerky, so it only made sense to help thin out the deer population! He got a bonus permit, which means he can get two deer for the price of one. He is going to get a second deer in January when the rifle season reopens for two weeks.

That's all for now.

Adellyn at 1 year old!

I have been meaning to do this since Adellyn turned a year old 2 weeks ago and I finally got a chance (and the motivation) to sit down and type this up. I feel bad that I have not been as good about updating this blog since she was born, so I thought that I would try to "make up" for it by writing out everything that makes Adellyn who she is at a year old.



At one year old Adellyn is...
-silly. She loves to tickle anyone just to make them laugh.
-loving. She loves to give hugs and kisses to those close to her (and her dolls!) You can consider yourself "in" in her book if you get a hug or kiss from her!
-sneaky/ornery. She pokes or touches things she knows she is not supposed to and then checks to see if you are watching, then giggles when she gets in trouble. She is most guilty of closing my laptop when I'm using it or just pounding on the keys!
-a copy cat. She copies facial expressions and sounds. She also likes to get you to copy her too. (i.e. she opens her mouth to get you to open yours so she can feed you)
-trying to be independent. She does not like to be fed anymore. She will tolerate it for a little while, but so gets upset because she wants to do it herself.

Adellyn loves...
-to eat. We have joked that her nick name should be Mikey. ("Give it to Mikey, he'll eat anything!") Some of her favorite foods are fruit (most any kind), cheese, graham crackers, yogurt, and noodles.
-getting attention from Landen. She picks on him just to get him to play with her. She giggles like crazy when he tickles her even though he gets a little rough.
-to sing and dance. Every toy that plays music is a favorite. She will sit and sway with the music and she plays them over and over again! She also "sings" along with them. She really loves it when I pick her up and dance around the kitchen and sing along with the radio. (I only do that when no one else is around.) ;-)
-to take a bath. She will put her face in the water and blow bubbles and usually throws a fit when it is time to get out.
-going for walks. She really loves to just be outside...but what kid doesn't? This could be a really long winter since both kids love to be outside and the weather will not always be nice enough to go out.

Adellyn does not like...
-to be left in a room alone. In the morning when both kids wake up, Landen can get up and leave the room and Adellyn screams as soon as he leaves because she wants to go too.
-to be surprised. She is pretty jumpy when it comes to sudden noises. I have a Halloween jack-in-the-box that is a black cat in a pumpkin and she was terrified of it until about a week or two before I put it away.
-strangers. She is getting better about not being scared of people doesn't know. She really doesn't not men with a lot of facial hair...Christmas will be interesting both with family and visiting Santa!

Long overdue update and Adellyn's 1st Birthday!

Sept - Oct 09

Once again, two months have flown by without an update. I did sit down and start another post a month ago, but I got called away to eat supper…I suppose that is important…anyway, I never got the motivation back to finish it. A lot has happened in the last two months, so much, I don’t know if I can remember it all, but I’ll give it my best. Elliot and I have been trying to clean up the room I had nick-named “the black hole” (stuff goes in and it doesn’t come out). It was supposed to be an office, but it rarely got used as that…especially since I got my laptop. We are turning that room into a playroom for the kids so we can get the toys out of their room and the living room. It is half done and we have moved some toys in there and got the foam puzzle piece floor to make a softer play area. Elliot is going to build some shelving along one wall to store toys and some of the office things that we can’t put anywhere else. Elliot’s free time has been spent mostly on the shop that he and his parents put in at the vineyard. It is a very big Cleary building that will eventually be a wood working shop and, of course, the winery. Elliot and his dad have been putting in the floor and now they are working on the insulation. They are hoping to have the winery part ready by the time the grapes are ready next year. This year’s batch of grapes are fermenting will hopefully be ready for tasting by harvest next year. At the end of September the kids and I went to North Platte to Railfest. Karen, Troy and Sutton joined us and the boys had a lot of fun playing together. In October, we enjoyed the random nice days we had. One of the highlights was Landen got to help Grandpa Becker drill wheat. I’m not sure who had more fun, Landen or Grandpa! We also went to a pumpkin patch near Hastings and the kids really enjoyed that. I think it will be more fun next year when Adellyn can walk. We had a great Halloween…the weather turned out REALLY nice, especially since it snowed two days before. Landen was Thomas the Train (well the engineer, anyway) and Adellyn was a candy corn. I made both costumes this year and I had a lot of fun doing it. We got a lot of complements on both costumes and everyone was most impressed with Thomas! If I would have realized that before the parade was a costume contest, I would try to get there in time…oh well, there is always next year and maybe Landen will actually WEAR the costume I make! So far this month, we have celebrated Adellyn’s first birthday. Her birthday is actually tomorrow (the 11th), but we celebrated on Sunday so that our brothers could come and also since my parents are leaving for South Padre on Thursday. A couple small things we have done that we are going to continue throughout the winter are going to the library and going to MOPS meeting. I have taken the kids to the library a couple of times and Landen enjoys getting a couple of new books for a while…now I just need to work on getting him to not run around the library when we are there…at least it isn’t usually busy, so we don’t bother people. The MOPS meetings are twice a month, so it is a good opportunity for Landen and Adellyn to get to play with other kids and also a good chance for me to talk to other moms. The women at the church where we meet watch the kids for free during our meeting. That is about all that we have done in the last two months. Of course, the kids are doing new things all the time, so here is what is going on with them.

Landen is talking SO much now. We can understand most of what he says and he repeats a lot of what we say…so we have to be more careful about what we say around him! One of my favorite things he says now is, “I wube you too” as we tuck him into bed! He calls my grandma “Grape Anma.” It’s too cute to try to make him say it right! Landen can also ride his trike now! He likes to ride it in circles on the deck and we sometimes ride up and down the sidewalk in front of the house. I can sent him out to the back yard to play by himself now that we have it fenced in and when I look out to check on him, he is usually riding his trike or “cooking” in the kitchen I found on a garage sale. Landen’s latest thing is to make sure people take their shoes off when they come into our house! He has always been good about taking his shoes off when going into a house and now he checks everyone else’s’ shoes. If you still have your shoes on, he’ll grab your foot and say, “help, help…shoe off” or something like that. I have taught Landen how to put his coat on himself. I learned a trick from Elliot’s cousin who has triplets. You lay the coat on the floor and he stands at the hood and puts his hands into the sleeves and flips the coat over his head. He has gotten so good at it that he positions the coat on the floor himself. He sometimes comes to me with his coat on and wants me to zip it so he can go outside!

Adellyn is also talking quite a bit now. She says: good girl, uh-oh, bye-bye, baby, boo, thank you, hi, tickle tickle (while tickling something and laughing), cup, ki’e cat, coo coo, ma ma, and da da and I think I have heard her say “Landen.” Some of those are just repeated after we say it and there are probably some I forgot about. She says good girl all the time. One time she was saying “good girl, good girl…” as she was spreading food all over her high chair tray and onto the floor…I was thinking, ”nooo, you’re not being a good girl right now!” In the last two months Adellyn has been doing a lot to learn how to walk. She is now a pro at cruising around furniture and climbs on top of, over and through any obstacle she can find. She started standing on her own around the beginning of October and used a pillow to get herself from sitting to standing…and I happened to have the camera handy when she did it. After that, she started walking with the help of a toy or us. One afternoon at the end of October we were outside and Elliot said she took a step and fell down. She didn’t try it again until November 2nd. That day she took 2 steps several different times. The third time she did it, she actually stood up on her own from sitting and then took two steps. Four days later, she took 4 steps while Elliot’s parents were babysitting and then the next day she took 9 steps to me. She has been getting pretty excited about it and tries to go faster than she can keep herself balanced! She should be walking pretty well by Christmas! I am also still nursing Adellyn twice a day…in the morning and just before bed. During the day she drinks whole milk from a sippy cup. She actually wouldn’t take a bottle because the milk wouldn’t come out fast enough, so that ended up being an easy transition. I haven’t decided when to stop nursing for good. We both like the cuddle time, so I guess it will depend on when I run out of milk!

Well, that is long enough for now…I hope I didn’t bore you too much. Enjoy the pictures.

2 funny stories

I have two funny stories that I wanted to share so that I wouldn't forget them.

In our house it is common to have the kids shower with one of us instead of giving them a bath. They love it and it is faster and easier than a bath. Last night, Landen was already in the shower with Elliot and I was standing in the bathroom with Adellyn waiting to hand her in to him. For the fun of it, I set her down on the little potty chair next to the bathtub. At first I left her diaper on, then I thought that I might as well take her diaper off since she was sitting on the potty chair so Elliot wouldn't have to wait for me to take it off when he was ready for her. She sat there and played with the shower curtain for a while and then I noticed that she was actually going potty in the chair! This was so funny to us because Landen has never actually gone potty in it or any toilet! I wouldn't be surprised if I end up potty training them at the same time...Landen just is not that interested and won't sit still long enough when I can convince him to sit on the toilet or potty chair. I keep hoping that one day he will make the connection of what he needs to do when on the toilet.

The other funny story happened today at lunch.
Landen and Adellyn were eating Lil' Crunchies after they had finished the main portion of their lunch and this is a conversation between Landen and I when he wanted more.
Landen: more some
Me: What do you say?
Landen: Say!
Me: No, what do you say when you want something?
Landen: sumpin'
Me: *while laughing, I slapped my leg*
Landen: *dramatically copies me*
-repeat the last four lines with us laughing even harder-
During this conversation with Landen, he nods his head using his full body to really make his point! (if that makes sense)

Sorry so long!

Where did the summer go? We have been pretty busy these last couple of months. July was pretty stressful for my family. Since the summer started out so cool and wet, the wheat was a little slow to turn and then the rain kept my dad out of the field and harvest ran until the middle of July. Landen and I got to ride in the combine with my cousin Jerome and also ride in the semi with my Dad to take a load of wheat to the elevator. Landen was pretty fascinated with the combine. He really liked watching the wheat come out of the auger and unload into the grain cart. He also liked watching the bin empty while unloading into the grain cart and fill up while harvesting. This was just another time that made me think that he will be an engineer someday because I’m sure he was trying to figure out how it all worked! My family is also very involved with the Furnas County fair, which was a little earlier this year than in the past, and wheat harvest ended just barely in time for fair week. I help out with entering exhibits in the open class, so I spent Wednesday in Beaver City. It was really nice since it wasn’t extremely hot this year! That night was family night for the midway, so the kids got to ride a lot of rides. Unfortunately, they were not feeling very well, so I don’t think they had as much fun as I had hoped. I was sick the week before fair with a sore throat and a sinus infection and Elliot and the kids got it the week of fair. They all went to the doctor on that Thursday and both kids had ear infections and Elliot had a sinus infection. I should have kept the kids home, but I look forward to fair week every year, so I drug them to the fair every night. Landen LOVED going down the Super Slide and he also enjoyed some of the kiddie rides. Adellyn also enjoyed the slide and the airplane swing ride. Saturday night of the fair is the demolition derby. We didn’t watch the whole thing, but Landen enjoyed watching the end of it! We took it easy for a few days, then Wednesday we left for a long drive to Ohio for a Nelson family reunion. We took 3 days to get there, spent a day there and took 2 days to get home. I wish we could have stayed longer, but Elliot wasn’t able to take another day off work. On the way there, we stayed in Lawrence, KS with my aunt and uncle, and then stopped again in St. Luis. We stayed in a hotel within walking distance from the arch. We went to the top and the view was awesome at night. We could even see the stadium where the Cardinals were playing (see the pictures). We didn’t really do any sight seeing on the way home, we were just ready to get home and out of the van. We were so glad to have the van with a DVD player! I don’t know if we would have been able to make the trip without it…at least not with our sanity! The kids were really good until we got close to home and they were getting antsy (so were Elliot and I for that matter). Even though it was a long trip, I was so glad to get to see family that I haven’t seen in many years and some that I had never even met before! After that long six days, we stayed home for a while. August 17th we picked our first row of grapes to be turned into wine. Landen helped pick and with every grape he picked he said, “I pick it.” Larry and Elliot would give him a cluster and he would proceed to pull off the grapes one at a time. He had a lot of fun helping. A few days later, the kids and I spent all day at Harlan County camp ground with my Mom, my brother and his wife. Elliot joined that evening for supper along with a lot of friends. It was a great way to end the summer, as it was our last opportunity to go to the lake for the year. I’m hoping that next year we get to spend more time on the lake since the kids will be older and I won’t be nursing. The last weekend of August Elliot and some guys he works with entered a meat smoking/bar-b-q competition in Norton called Smokin’ in the Barn. They smoked brisket, pork ribs, pork butt and whole chicken (Elliot did the brisket in his homemade smoker). They didn’t win anything, but they had fun. This was the first year for the competition and they had 23 teams. I think they are planning to enter it again next year and are already making plans to improve! Elliot found out that of the 19 briskets submitted for judging the top one beat the bottom one by only 9 points (I think there were 100pts possible), so that just shows how close it was…they had no way of finding out where he placed in that, but he wasn’t one of the top 3.

Landen has learned so much this summer. He can now recognize every letter in the alphabet! We are still working on getting them in order, but he doesn’t like it when we sing the alphabet. I guess I will keep trying! He also knows all of his numbers through 9…he can say them in order (with a little help) and recognize them. He is still obsessed with clocks and now every clock is a coo coo clock! He is putting sentences together now. Some of the sentences he has been saying are: “It makes noise!” (every word enunciated perfectly!) “I close the door.” “I fix it.”

A funny conversation we had a couple weeks ago went like this:
Landen (pulling on my hand) in a whiny voice: tress tress (trying to say trains)
Me: say it correctly (he had been saying it right)
Landen (let go, stood up straight and nodded his head while saying): correc-y
I about rolled on the floor laughing!
He has really gotten into Thomas the Tank Engine lately and wanted to watch one of his DVDs. He also has a few books of Thomas and that is all he wants to read now also!

Landen also got his toddler bed this summer. The first couple of nights in it were kind of rough, but he is sleeping in it really well now. Elliot built it and it is only about 8 inches off the floor, so there is no rail and Landen has never fallen out. I did find him with his legs hanging over the edge one night! He likes to jump in it, and had gotten several spankings for jumping. Now, Adellyn likes to climb in it and play up there…I think she feels like a big girl because she just grins when she gets up there. Landen doesn’t seem to mind, in fact, he gets up there with her and starts jumping to make her bounce…they are quite a pair!

Adellyn is also growing so fast. At her 9 month check up she weighed 18lbs 4oz (50th percentile), was 27.25 in long (60th percentile) and her head measured 18in (90th percentile). The doctor said that a big head is a good thing! She is crawling everywhere now and follows Landen all around the house. She is also pulling herself up to standing on anything that she can reach. She is just starting to discover “cruising” (walking along the furniture…a crucial step for learning to walk). I have even seen her let go and stand for a few seconds before falling or holding on again. She is not far behind where Landen was at that age, and she is still ahead of the curve! She loves to play the songs on the LeapFrog fridge farm and then she watches and waits for me to clap the beat and then she claps along with me! She also found a new game to play in the highchair; she will throw Cheerios on the floor one at a time, look over the edge for it and say, “uh oooh” and repeat. I just watch and laugh! One time when she was doing that and Landen was in his chair at the table he started saying “oh shit” every time she said “uh oh.” I was glad I was in the other room so he didn’t see me laughing…I hadn’t heard him say that in a long time and I haven’t heard it since. Adellyn is quite the copycat now. She copies faces (I stick out my tongue and she copies) and sounds (she copies Landen coughing and saying “coo coo” among other sounds). The other day we were eating lunch at the Dairy Queen with Elliot and she pointed to his cup and made a sound that sounded like “cuh.” I looked at her and said, “That’s right, that is a cup!” She looked at me and grinned and started bounced herself in the highchair as if she were proud of herself. She is a really good eater! She loves tomatoes! About the only thing I can’t get her to eat is baby food…go figure! She will eat some baby food still, but she would rather have whatever we are eating. Her favorite food is probably yogurt. She gets pretty excited when she sees the yogurt container. I give her lots of finger foods, so she gets pretty messy at meals, but she can feed herself. Today, I went to give her a lick of my popsicle and she took it from me. It wasn’t worth making her scream to get it away from her, so I let her have it. The funny thing is that she was less messy than Landen!

Well, I can see that this is getting very long. Sorry for taking so long between posts…no guarantees, but I will try to be a little better this fall and winter.

Summer!

Where has the time gone? I knew it had been a while since my last post, but I didn’t realize that it had been a month already! (I actually started writing this on June 28 and it obviously took me a week to finish it.) I thought May was busy, but June has been a whirlwind! Landen’s birthday, our anniversary (which are on the same day), father’s day, and Elliot’s birthday make for a lot of things to pack into one month. Not only that, but we still go to my parents’ house on Sunday nights (that is if they are home) and we just try to do things to take advantage of nice days. I also had to take the kids to the doctor at the beginning of June for well child check ups. I take the kids for a walk to get the mail and run errands almost every day. They like riding in the stroller and I get some exercise. We also go to the pool a few times a week.

Here is rundown on what is new with the kids.

Adellyn:
- started crawling on her tummy about June 15. She looked like she was swimming because she would lean over and put one shoulder on the floor, then reach forward with the other arm and stick her butt in the air and push forward with her feet. Then she would lean to the other side and repeat the whole process. As she has been practicing, she has started doing more of an army crawl and even pushing up on her knees and rocking herself. It won’t be long before she takes off crawling!
- recently has started trying to pull herself up. She pulled herself to standing using the laundry basket of toys in the living room on Elliot’s birthday (the 29th)
- has gotten five more teeth in the last month. She now has 4 teeth on top and four on bottom (the last two just broke through this weekend).
- went on her first overnight camping trip on Friday the 26th. My parents were camping in Cambridge and Adellyn and I went up and spent the night and Elliot and Landen came up at noon on Saturday.
- stayed in a hotel for the first time the weekend of the 12th and 13th when we went to Lincoln for a wedding.
- loves to go to the pool (she is more of a water baby than Landen was).
- developing the pincher grasp very well…she pinches whatever skin she can feel while she nurses (and has left marks). She can also pick up Gerber puffs and put then in her mouth. It’s funny to watch her try to pick pieces of bananas because they are slippery and just shoot out of her fingers.
- will sometimes raise her arms for “so big”
- is quite the little chatter box! She always seems to be babbling and has just figured out how to click her tongue.

Landen:
- turned 2 on June 11. We celebrated that night and left for Lincoln/Omaha the next day. We had planned to go to the Henry Doorly zoo on Friday (as part of birthday gift to Landen and because we were so close), but the rain made us change our plans and we went Saturday morning instead. Unfortunately, we forgot about the College World Series when we made our plans and it ended up taking an hour to get parked, but it was worth it to see Landen get so excited to see some of the animals.
- wanted to have his birthday candles relit several times so that he could blow them out
- got a tricycle, Little Tykes basketball hoop, Little Tykes T-ball, clothes, quiet book (that my Grandma made), squirt gun and a patio set just his size!
- went to swimming lessons the week after his birthday. He did really well the first 3 days, but I think he got tired of it and Thursday and Friday he didn’t even want to get in the water. We have gone swimming a few times since then, but I have troubles keeping him in the water because he just wants to run around and explore. I’m hoping that I can get there when there are other kids to play with him so he won’t try to run off as often (and I have other moms to either help run him down or watch Adellyn while I run him down!) I’m probably crazy for even trying to take them both by myself!
- Landen has [finally] figured out how to crawl in and out of his crib. I have mixed feeling about this. It is nice at nap time when I don’t have to go in to get him and he is not as crabby when he gets up since he doesn’t have to wait for me to get him, but it is not so nice when he wakes up a 6:30am before Elliot and I are awake. One morning he went out into the living room and found a chair to push up to the TV and get the bottle of finger nail polish off the top. He then tried to paint his toenails and then moved on to paint the wall in the hallway and spilled on the floor and his pajamas…ah toddlers!
- continues to be observant. He has watched me pump breast milk and has since got into my pump bag and takes out the shield and holds it up to his tummy and makes a sound similar to the pump. Then he’ll look at me and say, “I pump.” I have to try really hard not to laugh as I take it away from him!
- starting to show some interest in potty training. He likes to go in the bathroom when Elliot is in there and take is pants off and sit on his potty chair. We can’t get him to sit long enough to actually do anything, but he has learned how to tuck his pee pee in…so that is a step in the right direction.
- when he hears crying or sees a picture of someone that looks like they are crying he says “her cry” or “I cry.” He has a sensitive side!
- when he doesn’t want the food on his fork or spoon and needs to use it for something else, he will hold the utensil up and start sticking out his tongue like he wants us to lick it off for him. It is pretty fun to watch his tongue.

Sorry this got so long. I’ll post 4th of July pictures later this week (hopefully).