Project 365: November Mosiac

334/365: Ornaments

On Saturday evening, Morgan, Astrid, their roommate, Mom and I decorated the tree. We also had a little help from Astrid's cat Mia.

333/365: Selecting a Christmas Tree

Ethan giving his opinion on a Christmas Tree.

332/365: Roof

Garrett helping my dad up on the roof.

331/365: Floor Puzzle

Practicing his ABC's with his floor puzzle. He know his alphabet but sometimes the order gets a little confused. He's got most of the phonics though and knows quite a few sight-words as well. He told me today that he just really wants to learn how to type. I think he needs to learning reading and writing first though. ;-)

Landon: 14 months!

Landon,

This month I am posting your update very late and with less details than I normally do. At 14 months you:

• Weigh: 24.6 lbs (just a tiny bit over 50th percentile)
• Wear cloth diapers during the day and size 4 disposable diapers at night.
• You wear 18 month sleepers and size 18 month clothing with a few 12 month winter outfits. You also wear size 4 shoes.
• You have 6 teeth. (4 on top, 2 on bottom)
• Words (new words in bold): Mama, Dada, banana, more, up, hi (you also wave when you say it), car, kitty, cracker, All done (sign language only), light, stack, Thank You.
• You are a happy little guy and quick to laugh. It doesn't take a lot to make you laugh either. You think its especially funny when we "baa" like a sheep. You never find that it gets old- you love it! Lots of barnyard noises make you laugh but this is the only predictable one.
• You are weaned from your pacifier. You had some trouble without it at naps but you are now doing fine. The process was relatively quick and easy.
• You love to chew on your elephant and you have become very attached. You like to carry elephant with you from room to room.

 

Time is flying by fast little one!

330/365: Advent Calendar

I spent a nap-time and an evening working on two advent calendars. One for the boys and one for Garrett.

329/365: Dinner with a friend

Ethan's imaginary blue cat named Rocket joined us for dinner. The best part? Trying not to laugh when Garrett accidentally sat on Rocket. :-)

328/365: Landon with train

327/365: Staying warm

Yep, we jumped the gun and put up the tree before Thanksgiving. Just lights though, no ornaments. :-) With as late as Thanksgiving is this year it was hard to wait!

326/365: Cold and wet

I had a very disappointed boy who wanted to go outside and play. When he got his chance he didn't stay outside long!

325/365: Playing Castle

When you have a Mom showing you how to play castle it starts to resemble playing "doll house" rather a lot...but who says boys can't play "house"?

324/365: In the backyard

323/365: Reading in a tent

With as early as it gets dark the boys have enjoyed playing in Ethan or Landon's dark room with flashlights, glow sticks, glowing toys, etc. On this night we made a tent in Landon's room and the boys read books together. I thought it would be a fun activity to help span that last hour before Garrett gets home but alas sometimes its more work than fun. They enjoyed it but I had to break up several fights over the fact that we just had one working flashlight. Oh well, all part of making memories, right?

(In the above photo they are experimenting with colored light)

322/365: Fall Art

We did scratch art leaves with Ethan and then hung them up on the window for decoration. This is Garrett's leaf. I'm not photographing mine. ;-)

321/365: Leaves starting to fall

I love this time of year. I love looking out and seeing leaves on the neighbors roof. I love seeing leaves as they drift down from the trees when the wind blows. The trees on our street are starting to change colors and I just love it.

320/365: Family visit

We had a nice visit with Garrett's parents this weekend. They came up for a few days and we went to the Chinese lantern festival and the Arboretum. It was a fun-filled weekend and I'm so glad they were able to come for a longer visit!

319/365: At the Drive-in

Ethan and his best friend watching a movie at the "Drive-in".

318/365: At the library

317/365: A little evening TV

316/365: This one's trouble

Oh, Landon, you make me laugh and keep me on my toes!

315/365: Late afternoon lines

314/365: Nurturing

Reading the book "How Do I Love You" to Caterpillar.

Ethan: 3 and 3/4

Ethan,

At 3 3/4 you:

• Weigh: Between 34-36 lbs (depending on if you are on a extra stubborn eating streak) and you are 39.5 inches tall. 
• Wear: Size 3 and size 4 pj's, Size 3T pants and shirts and size 9 shoes.
• Sleep: You still go to bed anywhere between 8-9 pm (sometimes 10) and you wake up sometime around 7 am. You wake up almost every night and go into the living room, curl up in your favorite blanket, and fall asleep on the floor. Sometimes you wake up with growing pains as well.
• Eat: About the same as last time. We usually ask you to at least smell your food or lick your food before you get down from the table. These days you refuse to look at us when you are eating because you don't want to "see our food" or "smell our food". You also don't want Landon to see you. I'm not sure why on that last part but maybe it's because Landon will down a whole plate of broccoli in front of you.

• Favorite color: RED. You want red construction paper, and red crayons and markers. You are very big about anything red right now. Green temporarily took over as a favorite color until you had blood work done and they used a green tube for your blood. You were mad and said your new favorite color green hurt you. (Since I started writing this you have started to forgive the color green. Sometimes you pick green over red now)
• Favorite animal: You are still my little kitty loving boy and like to pretend to be a cat though not quite as much as before. You'll even curl up on the arm of the couch and pretend to be a cat.

• Favorite cartoon is Lunar Jim. Up until October when we started watching Halloween cartoons you didn't want to spend your screen time on anything other than Lunar Jim.
• We set more defined boundaries for your screen time so that you would understand our expectations better and not get as upset about being told no. We printed out 6 cards with symbols for the tablet, computer (abcmouse.com), and the TV. Each day we put the 6 cards back in your screen time envelope and with our permission you spend them throughout the day and they move into the red spent envelope. Each time you use a card we set the timer for 20 min. This way you are limited to 2 hours a day and you are varying it up and not chaining one screen activity to another back to back. If given the choice you would do only screen time instead of play. I promise we aren't being mean, this just became necessary.

• We re-tested you on your food allergies. You are allergic to eggs, peanuts, sesame seeds and pretty much every nut except cashews. However, your tree-nut allergies are pretty small according to your blood test so we are not avoiding those. However, you do have strong allergies to eggs, peanuts, and sesame seeds. Eggs we are working to re-introduce but peanuts and sesame seeds are to be strictly avoided. You cannot even have anything that may contain trace amounts. You are slightly less allergic to egg than at 15 months but slightly more allergic to peanuts. We were bummed by the news but in hindsight not surprised. When you were 15 months old we had been given hope that your peanut allergy was a false positive but I had begun to suspect differently even though I was hopeful. Oh well. Life moves on. In addition to taking Benedryl with us everywhere we go (which we already do because of your dog allergy) we'll keep an epipen in the first aid bag as well. 

• You are still fascinated with the doctor. You tell us all the time that we need to go for minor things and you pretend to be a doctor. You also say that you are going to be a doctor when you grow up. (Now, you definitely do not like the blood lab. You don't associate it with doctors though. I have a feeling you don't like the allergist either. However, we don't refer to either of them as "doctors" around you)

• You love art and want to do crafts all day long. You like to come to me and say "Mom, let's make something!" You've been doing a lot of Halloween stickers and pictures of pumpkins. You sing made-up songs about pumpkins and Halloween while you are drawing and when you are done you whisper "Happy Halloween" in a long drawn out stage whisper. You make me smile every time you funny boy.

Your pumpkin drawing of a pumpkin with "10 curly legs". Sticker artwork. You make up some interesting stories when you play with stickers.

• You still love pumpkins. In October we had several small pumpkins and you would play with them like they were people.

Other funny things you have been up to: 

• You emptied half a toilet paper roll into the toilet so that you could have the empty tube to play with.
• You ask us to sing you the "Darth Vader Song" (Imperial March) before you go to bed each night so that you can have nice dreams of Darth Vader. And no, you have never seen Star Wars. However, you DO know that he's the "bad guy". 
• You have been making up your own descriptive phrases like "Red-fish-tastic to outer space". This is an extreme compliment in your book because the "red-fish" is a powerful tool in Angry Birds and you love anything space related.
• You ask us to "Make the car sing" when you want to listen to music.
• Some other descriptive coments and phrases we'll hear from you when you are playing in your room are "Crashing Comets!" and "Let's get lunar!"
• One day when you were following me around the house chatting away you started talking to me about your Dad. You told me that your Dad "loves to laugh". Not only is it true, but I love that you are making these observations and voicing them.
• For the better part of the last 6 months you've been trying to convince me to go to the Hospital and get a baby girl. You don't want to replace Landon, you just want a girl baby too. You finally told me that it was because you wanted Landon to have a friend. (sweet....but no).
• Speaking of your brother...I hear a lot of "I want Landy, I want my Landy back. Is it time for him to wake up yet?" as soon as I close the nursury door for his naptime. However, when y'all are playing I hear a lot of "Landon needs to go get some zzz! It's time for Landon to sleep, Mom!"
• You are very social and outgoing. You like to follow me around the house and don't stay in your room long without me. When I asked once why you didn't want to play in your room you told me "Mom, I just want to be with you." You do not know a stranger. (It scares us a bit.) You talk to everyone. Anyone we pass in the store aisle, other random mom's at the park, anyone you see anywhere. You ask them questions and you tell them stories. People think its funny and laugh and enjoy talking with you. We also can't go outside without you wanting to go talk with the neighbors. If you hear a lawn mower, you want to go visit and talk their ear off about life. 

In short, just as soon as I think I've got you figured out, you make another big cognitive leap. It always happens but still I'm always amazed. You are still changing so much so fast. Right now I can feel age 4 just around the corner. It feels like one day you woke up and you were a big BOY. Totally a kid! Making jokes (that don't really make sense), pushing my buttons in jest, and talking about Star Wars and other big boy things. Then you go back to being all pre-schooler all over again. My little kitty boy. You're straddling the line and living in both worlds right now. That's okay. I'm not ready to let go of sweet age 3 yet. I'm sure 4 will be plenty of fun but right now I'm savoring the stage of the moment.

313/365: Playing Rabbit

312/365: Gleefully getting in trouble

Nope, keeping extra cushions behind the chair doesn't deter him. Not much does these days!

311/365: Constant Movement

310/365: Post-daylight savings chaos

Once again, life has been thrown into chaos by the daylight savings time switch. Landon has tried to give up his regular nap and tries to nap when he's supposed to be going to bed.  Even Ethan has been taking a nap around dinner time. As a result, bedtime has been pretty late this week and finding the opportunity to keep up with chores has been a challenge. Before I was a parent I would have never guessed how much little kids can be thrown off with the time change. Can't wait to get it all ironed out and back into a consistent routine again!