Happy Halloween!

my little monkey

if you asked brody, he would tell you he was monkey george (a.k.a. curious george).

we had a visit from grammy and grandma debbie, and we enjoyed a bonfire, chili and a little bit of trick or treating.  

grandma debbie dressed up like a penguin! 

our first stop.  he said trick or treat, and the figured the whole thing out after a house or two.  he was loving the attention.  

grandpa barry even stopped by for a quick visit right before bedtime.  he brought brody a stuffed monkey and a pair of cool monkey boots.  thanks grandpa barry!

hope you all enjoyed your halloween!

twenty four months

photo via

twenty four months.  woah.  thats two, people.  

two years seems like a long time right?  well... not to me.  it seems like just yesterday i was handed this tiny squirmy baby.

b had his two year check up last week.  we went to see a new pediatrician, dr. joyce.  i used to work with her at the hospital,  she just opened a practice right near our home. she pretty much rocks. b is weighing in at 24 pounds, 7 ounces (this is the 11 percentile folks.  woo hoo!! back on the growth chart!) and he is 34 1/2 inches (54 percentile) tall. still skinny, but making some progress!

we have moved on to wearing mostly size 24 months and 2T clothing.  Mostly so his clothes will still fit through the winter, as they are a little big right now.  i finally moved him into size 4 disposable diapers (for the occasional times we aren't in cloth), but they are a tiny bit big still.  he still remains to be a pretty picky eater, but does well when he finds something he likes.  daily requests are for (turkey) hot dogs, cheese and 'orang-eees'.  i am fighting the transition from a sippy cup, but he prefers to drink from an open cup.  we are still giving him organic, whole milk, and probably will until he goes to college based on his s.l.o.w. weight gain.  dr. joyce suggested giving him a pediasure every night before bed to supplement his intake, and we will go back for a weight check in six months. 

we started b at a new school this past week.  his old school was closing, so we took that opportunity to enroll him in the program i loved when we first started looking at schools.  now that he is two, it was a little more affordable.  he is attending school three days a week, and has done really well with the transition.  his teachers say he listens really well (ha!) and has been making new friends easily.   

i am really enjoying his vocabulary.  he can express himself most of the time and his vocabulary is amazing.  he jabbers all the time.  he sings twinkle twinkle and makes up all kinds of songs while laying in his crib.  he points out every truck, tractor (bulldozer), or motorcycle he see while we are out driving.  he can identify many sounds airplane, trucks, fire truck, dogs, cows, etc. 

(jenna... we have cows in the field across from our subdivision.  

b tells me 'mommy cow, daddy cow, and baby cow'  or 'cows sleeping' when we don't see them! 

i thought you would be proud.)

he still gets frustrated and a little whiny but after a gentle reminder to use his words and tell us what is wrong, he does pretty well.  we have implemented the use of time out on occasion, and b knows if he does something wrong if he is sad or upset, he will go stand in his little corner in his room until he calms down.  

we are still making progress on the potty training front.  again, we have never pushed him to go, but offer him the chance to sit on the potty about every 2 hours, and we have been 90% successful.  there are many days where he is dry most of the day, and we have even had a few days in big boy underpants.  a few accidents, but nothing that we wouldn't expect.  

i am enjoying each day with this crazy, silly little boy.  we continue to have adventures and make more memories every day.  i hope someday when he is older, he will appreciate looking back and reading about what he was like as a baby.  on my most nostalgic my baby isn't a baby anymore days, i love going back through and reading about what he was doing at certain times in his life!

i just can't believe it, but i'm looking forward to another crazy, fun-filled year with my little man!

The Digger Party: part two, the details

thanks to my major Pinterest obsession, i was able to put together a board of "digger party" ideas.  A very big thanks to Shannon from Very Pretty Parties for my construction printables and for her inspiration photots.  She hosted a similar themed party for her son brody, and was awesome enough to send me pics from her party for inspiration.  The remainder of my party supplies came from Hobby Lobby, multiple dollar stores and Target/Walmart. 

****************

overall I was pretty happy with our final results.  however, it would have been much easier if i hadn't waited until the last minute.  seriously, i put this party together in about 10 days.  i had done some mental prep work, but seriously worked at it for just about one week.  

Not too shabby, huh?!

now, to get it all cleaned up and start getting ready for halloween... that is up next on our agenda!

The Digger Party

attention: 

you are about to be overloaded with a mass amount of pics of my super cute birthday dude.  don't say you weren't warned! 

i can't believe we are celebrating little man's 2nd birthday.

all b's little friends joined us for lunch and ice cream sundae's.  they all looked so cute in their construction gear.  

daddy and brody eating b's birthday sundae.

 we had a special visit from our policeman friend and his police dog.  (it wasn't a bulldozer but the kids thought it was pretty cool)

the birthday boy in the drivers seat

 

 b's concentration face :)

friends played outside, drove trucks around and took turns on the swing.  

brody received lots of very cool presents.

we are so thankful we were able to spend time with our friends and family.  

 he wasn't too sure what to do with the cards

 thank you hugs for grandma!

 a street map play rug

cool cards 

 brody's favorite present (from grandma, of course!)

he loves his ride on digger!

again, we had a great time and wanted to thank all of b's little friends for joining us!  i will post a separate post with all the party details for all of you that are interested in my obsessive party planning!  

A sneak peek...

23 months

here is a  VERY delayed 23 month post... needed it posted so we can move on to our 2 year next week!

no official photo shoot this month.  he pretty much hates my big camera.  my iphone camera is tolerable, as long as i use the rear facing camera and he can see himself.  

************************

at 23 months brody is:

Wearing clothes sizes 18-24 months, shoe size 6, and size 3 diapers (when we use disposables). 

loving vehicles.  trucks, tractors, motorcycles, diggers, bicycles, dump trucks.  if it has wheels, he loves it.  he has a tractor or a truck in his hand 95% of the time.  

loving reading.  he likes all types of books, but there are a few favorites that come out to be read, and read again, and read again... especially at bedtime

becoming a kinda picky toddler.  meals include food favorites of hotdogs, chicken, 'roni & cheese', chocolate milk and apple juice.  pretty much all he is living on right now.  i need to work on giving him more options and trying to make him eat what we do, but you gotta pick your battles, ya know?!

he is getting tall, tall, tall but still a skinny minny.  from what i can tell on our bathroom scale he weighs about 24 pounds.  i am looking forward to our 2 year check up to get official heights/weights. 

b still goes to school 4 days a week and is loving it.  he is learning so much and his vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds.  he is using 3-4 word sentences, and can pretty much get his point across  when he has something to say.   

our big accomplishment for the month is potty training.  another little boy at B's school has been working on potty training, and of course brody wants to be just like him.  he had been telling us when his diaper was wet or dirty, so when he started asking about the potty, we went for it.  he goes almost every time you put him on it, and has even had a few days where he was dry all day at school.  now we just have to work on him telling us he has to go, instead of us just putting him on there every hour and a  half!  we are taking it slow and letting him go at his own pace, since i know he is really young for this still.  

thats about all we have been up to recently.  There has been lots of party planning for a special 'Digger' Birthday Party.  hopefully you will have a blog update of the party sometime soon.  

****************

in unrelated news... my computer is dying a slow death.  it is weighed down with about a zillion photos and its memory and speed are almost impossible to tolerate.  I am working on deleting any pics we don't need (since I am notorious for taking 10 pics just to get one good shot) and I am going to learn how to back my photos up onto my external hard drive and delete them from my computer.  hopefully i can do that successfully and can get this computer back to working effectively again.  I miss being able to blog post as often, all because our internet sucks and my computer is super slow and takes FOREVER to download pics from my camera and to upload into blogspot.  

if your still with me, amen to you!  thanks for reading!