I love this snoozer so much!
20 February 2013
17 February 2013
Welcome Home, Annie!
Evan and I visited West Virginia to welcome Annie home from Afghanistan. It's hard to believe he couldn't even walk the last time she saw him. Crazy!
We left at bedtime and he was perfect the entire way. Of course, when we got there, everyone made a big deal about him and then he was excited and didn't want to sleep. As I was laying in bed at 2am and looking at him in his pack and play, he was laughing, jumping and dancing. Lovely. We left at naptime for the trip back. He napped for a total of 50 minutes (instead of 2 hours) but sat in the back chatting the entire time. He enjoyed a few snacks (totally breaking my no food in the car rule) and didn't even need to be bribed with the stack of books I had ready to hand him.
We had a great time catching up with Annie, Charles and Michaela. Although there was some non-sharing on both their parts, Evan and Michaela had a great time together.
We had a Welcome Home party for Annie. Since we missed Christmas, Grandma Barbi and Grandpa Ed brought Evan's gifts to the party. It was books and books and books. While all the other kids were playing on the dance floor chasing balloons and each other, Evan sat on the sidelines and read his books. Such an awesomely weird and cool kid. I love his love for books (most of the time.)
We were there from Thursday night until Sunday afternoon. It was both too short and too long. Evan missed his Daddy (and I missed him too) and we both missed our own home and our own routines. It was so wonderful to see the cousins play though and to chillax with Annie, Chase and Mom. Most of all, I'm just so glad Annie's back. We're destined to be long distance sisters, but I'd much rather be hundreds of miles apart than thousands of miles apart.
We left at bedtime and he was perfect the entire way. Of course, when we got there, everyone made a big deal about him and then he was excited and didn't want to sleep. As I was laying in bed at 2am and looking at him in his pack and play, he was laughing, jumping and dancing. Lovely. We left at naptime for the trip back. He napped for a total of 50 minutes (instead of 2 hours) but sat in the back chatting the entire time. He enjoyed a few snacks (totally breaking my no food in the car rule) and didn't even need to be bribed with the stack of books I had ready to hand him.
We had a great time catching up with Annie, Charles and Michaela. Although there was some non-sharing on both their parts, Evan and Michaela had a great time together.
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| Some very rare sharing ;) |
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| Totally oblivious to the playing kids behind him... |
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| Once he finally played, he carried that balloon around in his mouth. All the kids kept tattling that he was biting the balloon. To which I replied, "Well, he'll learn his lesson, won't he?" Does that make me a bad mom? Hehe. |
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| I made a tutu for Michaela! |
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| The Jacksons |
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| ♥ |
06 February 2013
18 Months
A year and a half. It's pretty hard to believe. Six months ago, he couldn't walk. A year ago, he was just learning to sit up. Crazy.
At 18 months, Evan's personality is really starting to shine through. He's sweet and goofy and smart.
He's moved past the toddling and now walks and runs with confidence. He still can't jump (he can't figure out that his ankles are part of the equation) but it's hilarious to watch him try. He's always willing to do a little circuit of tricks including sit down, stand up, clap your hands, stomp your feet, pat your head, rub your belly, turn around, run, freeze, go like this (pose in some way), dance, etc. This is what I do in the evenings to tire him out.
He is still obsessed with books. He's almost always in the back of the room alone or with a teacher reading when we pick him up from daycare. He spends most of every evening flipping through books and bring them to us to read. He's amazing at identifying animals, colors and various other objects in books.
He can say and identify his colors. He's well on his way to identifying and saying his shapes. He can repeat the alphabet and identify a few letters. He knows his animals and makes their sounds and is starting to actually say their names. He says dog, polar bear, hippo, duck and just a few more.
When we're driving in the car, he says "tweet tweet" when he sees birds out the window. He points and identifies trees, buses and beep-beeps (cars.) Outside, he points toward the sky and says "moon" (sometimes when he sees it and sometimes not.)
He says lots of fruit and veggie names and pretzel, pizza, water, milk, and others.
I guess the point is, that he says a lot. However, the other day he handed David a small animal. David asked, "what's this?" Evan made a "guh" sound and I thought, "oh, it's a goat." David looked at it and said, "it's a goat. Can you say goat?" To which I replied, "he told you it was a goat." And then I thought about it. What he said sounded nothing like "goat" but I'm so used to listening to him that I know his sounds. So maybe he's not really saying all those things I just said he's saying.
He loves Laika and Lars and any other animals we happen to see. I can't wait until it warms up a bit so we can take him to the zoo. We call him our little zoo keeper because he has a set of magnetic animals that he spends a lot of time transferring from the fridge, to the back door, to the front door, back to the fridge. It's like he's moving the animals around the zoo.
He's able to climb on the couches now but mostly stays off of them. And (knock on wood) doesn't climb on anything else, even though he's capable. He's a little mischievous with things like the kitchen cabinets, the dog's water dish, the cat's water dish, dresser drawers, etc. Typical 18 month old stuff, I suspect.
My favorite is that he's so lovey. Between his reading and animal transfers, he can be found with his arms wrapped around one of our legs, or crashing into our laps for hugs, or french kissing our cheeks (yes, he's still a full open mouth kisser and now he's added tongue-- but I think it's just because he thinks it's funny to lick our faces and the reaction it gets.)
At 18 months, Evan's personality is really starting to shine through. He's sweet and goofy and smart.
He's moved past the toddling and now walks and runs with confidence. He still can't jump (he can't figure out that his ankles are part of the equation) but it's hilarious to watch him try. He's always willing to do a little circuit of tricks including sit down, stand up, clap your hands, stomp your feet, pat your head, rub your belly, turn around, run, freeze, go like this (pose in some way), dance, etc. This is what I do in the evenings to tire him out.
He is still obsessed with books. He's almost always in the back of the room alone or with a teacher reading when we pick him up from daycare. He spends most of every evening flipping through books and bring them to us to read. He's amazing at identifying animals, colors and various other objects in books.
He can say and identify his colors. He's well on his way to identifying and saying his shapes. He can repeat the alphabet and identify a few letters. He knows his animals and makes their sounds and is starting to actually say their names. He says dog, polar bear, hippo, duck and just a few more.
When we're driving in the car, he says "tweet tweet" when he sees birds out the window. He points and identifies trees, buses and beep-beeps (cars.) Outside, he points toward the sky and says "moon" (sometimes when he sees it and sometimes not.)
He says lots of fruit and veggie names and pretzel, pizza, water, milk, and others.
I guess the point is, that he says a lot. However, the other day he handed David a small animal. David asked, "what's this?" Evan made a "guh" sound and I thought, "oh, it's a goat." David looked at it and said, "it's a goat. Can you say goat?" To which I replied, "he told you it was a goat." And then I thought about it. What he said sounded nothing like "goat" but I'm so used to listening to him that I know his sounds. So maybe he's not really saying all those things I just said he's saying.
He loves Laika and Lars and any other animals we happen to see. I can't wait until it warms up a bit so we can take him to the zoo. We call him our little zoo keeper because he has a set of magnetic animals that he spends a lot of time transferring from the fridge, to the back door, to the front door, back to the fridge. It's like he's moving the animals around the zoo.
He's able to climb on the couches now but mostly stays off of them. And (knock on wood) doesn't climb on anything else, even though he's capable. He's a little mischievous with things like the kitchen cabinets, the dog's water dish, the cat's water dish, dresser drawers, etc. Typical 18 month old stuff, I suspect.
My favorite is that he's so lovey. Between his reading and animal transfers, he can be found with his arms wrapped around one of our legs, or crashing into our laps for hugs, or french kissing our cheeks (yes, he's still a full open mouth kisser and now he's added tongue-- but I think it's just because he thinks it's funny to lick our faces and the reaction it gets.)
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| Evan's First Snow |
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| What We Do |
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| Big Boy in Daddy's Chair |
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| Goofball |
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