Getting Ready for Christmas

We've spent parts of three different days over two weekends getting Christmas lights up. Cold weather and burned out (new) net lights have slowed the progress. We haven't started inside at all. Sunday at the end of Jason's light hanging, Will and I went out to play with the chalk for a bit.

I've been good! Really!

No, really! She likes when I do this!

Oh, bless Rachel and her patience with Will! By the time I got the camera out, he'd already climbed on her three times. I was fully expecting her to stand up or roll over and knock him off, but she didn't. I gave her some treats right after this picture, because she deserved it.

I Want Mama!

I can't believe I forgot about this until now, but my day intentionally started early and ended late so I could get some projects moving at work. So, the plan was that I would get up early and drive myself to the train station as soon as I was ready instead of having the guys drop me off on the way to daycare. But, Will woke up even earlier than my early alarm. After realizing he was serious, I got him up and changed him and took him, his blankets and his sippy cup of milk to hang out with Jason who was still in bed - but obviously awake by now.

Ok, I'm making this an unnecessarily long story. I left the unhappy baby in bed with his daddy, and as I closed the bathroom door I heard the cry "I want Mama!" It was plain as could be, but impossible. However, as Jason and I were just recapping the day, he said he heard it too. Wonderful and horrible all at once!

18 Months Old

This picture really sums up what Will is about right now: sports and stories. I've abandoned the regular Froggy pictures (which I'm sure I'll regret) since Will doesn't sit still on command anymore.

The past month or two have just been tremendous from a developmental perspective. I guess I think that every month or few months, but the talking and the rest of his communication skills are taking off, so it seems so dramatic.

Here are a few highlights I don't want to forget:

• Loves to look at all of his books, all of the time. His favorites involve pictures of animals. Current must reads are the Little Golden Books "The Jolly Barnyard" and "Baby Animals" and his two big board books that Jason bought him called "On the Farm" and "In the Jungle" that have flaps to open, wheels to turn, and pages that slide. The jungle one is his favorite because it has monkeys eating bananas. "Nana! Nana!" It - and his children's bible - also has lions. For the past few months, I've been saying, "What do lions say? Roar!" And just this weekend he started doing the "roar" back. In his adorable baby voice. :-)
• Loves to play outside and still has great love for rocks and sticks. He also waves and says "hi" to cars and people who go by. The waving has been for several months, but the hi is new this month. Again, super adorable in his little baby voice.
• Has a ton of energy. It may be directed for good (art projects, hide and seek, going down the slide, playing basketball, throwing the toy for the dog) or evil (hitting, pulling the dog's hair, climbing on the dog, digging through cabinets, or throwing a tantrum when we stop him from any of the above).
• Acts like a big kid. He can easily open all of our interior doors thanks to their levered handles. Although he's speedier while crawling, he often walks down the steps while holding our hand and the wall.

More Thanksgiving Fun

We spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday with Jason's family at his parent's farm in Indiana. At one point we had 10 adults, 6 kids (including 4 toddlers), and 3 dogs racing around the cabin. As Will says, "Whoa!" But we had lots of fun and are so happy we got to see our family! Molly (unlike Buddy) wasn't so sure about all the visitors to her house. Will is an equal opportunity dog lover and spent time snuggling with Molly, Buddy and Rachel. Oh, and (mostly gently) pulling out their hair to hand to people. Pre-teen and toddler, working collaboratively. Ali and Carter are so sweet about wanting to make their younger sister and cousins happy! Here Ali has Will's attention with one of his favorites. Will giving Ali a "yay!" and a clap for her excellent tower building skills. He just started saying "yay" a lot in the past few weeks, and I first saw the clapping last Sunday when I got it for my tower skills. It's just the sweetest thing; it melts your heart -- and makes it glow with pride for your accomplishment! Friday was Jason's birthday, so we celebrated with a cake. The outside of the cake was decorated, but Hilary bought a can of spray frosting for Ali to spell out the Happy Birthday. I added the Jason on the graham cracker for good measure. Ali said earlier that she wanted to hear about sorority life; I felt it was important to demonstrate the transferability of puffy paint skills to frosting decorations. :-) Unfortunately it was very, very cold for Thanksgiving, so we didn't get to play outside much. Too bad, because Will is in love with all things with wheels and with animals. So, we were really looking forward to our visit. Although he was very excited to spot the tractor (mostly used for spreading horse and donkey manure this time of year. . .), it was just too cold for much more than a quick photo op. Yes, even in his fully decked out snow gear, the wind was brutal.We just got Will his new winter coat last weekend, and it's a size too big (wishful thinking that it will last for next winter, too). Sadly, it contributed to him falling over and scraping his forehead on our front porch yesterday. He bent forward to get on his knees/stomach to scoot back off the step, and he just fell over flat on his face onto the pavement. He was two body lengths away from the step, so I didn't sense the safety issue and wasn't close enough to grab him. Although, as with most kid falls, it was so quick. . . . The coat goes down to mid-thigh length so he doesn't have the same bend at the waist as with his baby coat.

Thanksgiving Fun

After a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, the grandkids put on their new Christmas jammies for a group picture! Carter (9), Lily (2 1/2), Lexi (18 mos), Will (18 mos) and Ali (11)
Will and Lexi

Will and Lily

Ali reading to Lily and Lexi

We had a mostly good night's sleep. Will went to sleep in his pack 'n play at regular time (7:30ish) but barking dogs (including Rachel) woke him up at 10:30. When I picked him up, he went right to sleep -- on me. Jason and I let him sleep with us for the night, and it went ok. Luckily when the guys got up at 7, I could sneak back to sleep for a few more hours alone.

A Sort of Healthy Recipe that Tastes Great

I was looking online yesterday for a zucchini bread recipe that was semi-nutritious and found this one that I edited just slightly. I highly recommend it; I have no pictures because we ate up one loaf and the second had to be wrapped away for Thanksgiving before it tempted us!

Banana Zucchini Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Bread

Dry ingredients:

1 cup white flour

1 cup wheat flour

1 cup oats (I used my Quaker quickoats)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

Wet ingredients:

4 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup oil

1/2 cup applesauce (this is the amount in a snack cup)

3-4 ripe bananas, mashed

1 tsp vanilla

Other ingredients:

2 cups zucchini, grated, with excess water squeezed out

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients in medium bowl and set aside. In large bowl or mixer bowl, beat eggs. Add the rest of the wet ingredients to eggs and mix. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients at a time into the wet mixture and mix until incorporated. Fold in the zucchini and chocolate chips. Bake for 45-50 minutes in two loaf pans that have been sprayed with Pam.

I covered my pans lightly with foil for the last 10 minutes since the loaves were getting dark on top.

Eating Out With Kids

Well, it only took me a year and a half, but I have developed an appreciation for family restaurants. We've spent the last 5 years avoiding them, but now we've got our own mac 'n cheese eating, milk-bubble blowing little buddy to take with us!

We semi-regularly eat lunch at Panera with Will, and we've been out to a pancake house for brunch a few times. But we've only had dinner out a few times - mostly because we aren't out on weekend evenings. Saturday we decided to tackle errands after Will's afternoon nap. After we stocked up on snow gear for Will at REI, it was dinner time. We tried Rock Bottom Brewery but the line was too long. I wanted the California Pizza Kitchen next door to it, but Jason vetoed. So, we went across the parking lot to Red Robin. I was very impressed - from the less than 10 minute wait, to the quick mac 'n cheese, to the refills of mandarin oranges, to the football playing on TVs (boy, this kid loves football!), to the balloon on the way out. Oh, and Jason and I each had time to enjoy our adult beverage since Will was content and not fussing about the fact that it was an hour past his bedtime. He's actually very well behaved (usually) when we eat out, because he likes to eat and he loves to people watch.

And so there it is. In the week leading up to Thanksgiving, I am thankful for restaurants that hand out crayons and serve milk in plastic cups with straws.

[Editor's note: the picture is pb&j at home for lunch on Saturday. I had managed to clear his plate but not wash his face before he popped his pacifier back in to chew on. Better to bite the pacifier than people!]

Almost 18 Months

At almost 18 months old, Will has become such an interesting little person! He seems to understand all of the words that he hears and can point to a lot of things when asked such as yours and his body parts (ears, nose, mouth, belly button, feet) and the pictures of animals in his books (pig, cow, horse, dog, cat). I've started a list of the words that he regularly says in the sidebar. They are in the order that he started using them. Well, the Mama and Dada were early words, then he stopped, and now they're back, so they get top billing. He was saying "buh-bye" last month but hasn't been saying it recently, so it's not on the list.

As grown up as Will often seems, he's still a real cuddler when he tired. And he loves his blankets at all time of the day. We have a half dozen, and they - like his pacifiers - are interchangeable (thank goodness!) so we can always swap out clean ones. About a month ago when it started getting colder at night, we gave him a thicker blanket as a cover in addition to his regular receiving blanket that he holds. He actually prefers to hold the thick blankets, as well, versus using them as a cover.

He is also obsessed with his Boppy pillow and doesn't allow anyone else to use it. In the picture below, Jason has been allowed to get as close to the pillow as it allowed; but don't you dare rest yourself on it!By Sunday morning, four blankets were in the family room: the two from Saturday morning and the two he brought with him this morning. Here he is assembling them all and then heading to get his Boppy pillow so he can snuggle back in.

Casual Fridays

Every few weeks, we get behind in the laundry so that the only clean pants Will has on a Friday are his khaki dress pants. Luckily he has a lot of polo shirts, so he dresses business casual for daycare. :-)

And, of course, who doesn't like to play some hoops to work off the steam of a busy day at the office?

Or, heck, even go down the slide! We're really enjoying the play room. I expect it will be the background for many pictures in the next few months as it gets colder and we stay inside more and more.

I don't think Jason reads the blog, so I'll post that Will and I had a fun time on Saturday doing some coloring to make Jason's birthday card. And we also used stickers for the first time at home. It was really fun to see which stickers he picked and where he put them!