Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Miles at 18 Months


Our little guy was 18 months at the end of September. Here's an update. I apologize if there's redundancy from other posts. I'm just going to do it in my typical stream-of-consciousness style.


First of all, as evidenced by these pictures, he's officially on-the-go, so action shots are mostly what we settle for these days. He's still tripping some, but no longer holds up both arms when walking. He loves trying to keep up with Brooke and her friends. He also can be quite the little comedian. He's got a few faces that he'll do to make us laugh and he likes to push Brooke, which usually makes her laugh...but sometimes makes her cry...she's a girl.


He's a huge snacker, which is probably my fault for taking snacks everywhere we go to keep him occupied. He's not a picky eater and is getting better and better at using utensils. He likes fruit a ton, although it's different fruit each day. He's not a huge meat eater.


He loves animals, especially Ozzie. I feel like he has a bond with Ozzie that Brooke didn't really have. Not that they ever didn't get along, I've just seen Ozzie being more affectionate toward Miles. Maybe he's just more aware of how this whole "baby thing" works this second time around.

He's getting more and more words. Some of his recents are "appy" for apple, he'll say "thank you" when you give him things, he FINALLY started calling Matt "Dada" after I was away for a night (It was "Papa" before that). According to Miles, animals generally either make the sounds "roar" or "moo", regardless of the animal. We're working on it. He's finally got the siren sound for emergency vehicles, but he makes the same sound for pretty much all other vehicles.


He's his mother's son. He still LOVES to throw things in the trash. He also likes to pick things up and put them away (we'll call that "sorting", right?). He's sleeping about 12 hours at night and napping about 3 during the day. He'll still take his morning nap if he can get it. In a relatively recent turn of events, he comes to me and tells me when he's pooped. Brooke almost always pooped when she slept, so this is a new phenomenon to me. At his last doctor's appointment, he was 24 lbs. - right around the 50% mark. He was also right around average for height. Of course, his head was in the 75%.


He loves to kiss us on the mouth, then say "thank you." Despite his movement, he can also still be quite cuddly. He's generally mild-mannered, although he has hit me a few times out of frustration. He's not doing that as much, but now he'll go to hit me, realize he's not supposed to, then bop himself on the head. Hopefully this stops soon.

I'm not going to lie, I'm his favorite person in the world right now and he has some separation anxiety here and there. It seems like his personality is starting to shine more and more and we can't get enough of it. He's a perfect addition to our family and we couldn't love him more. Thanks for being you, Miles!



Pumpkins!


We met some of our friends at Cosley Zoo again this year for some fun and photos. Unfortunately, we had some scheduling conflicts so we weren't all there at the same time this year. And the boys are much more active so we had to settle for mostly action shots.


Brooke was actually feeling the camera a little bit!


Miles just wanted to move the pumpkins.


Scarecrow Brookie.


Telling us how high she was?


Good shot, minus the creeper in the background.


Really, Mom?


Let me just take this opportunity to point out that Kellen (far right) is about 6 weeks older than Miles and Evan is about 7 months older. It'll be fun to keep taking these as they grow. Right now, it looks like we've got a peanut.


I think I was singing something at this point to get them all to look.


Not the shot I'd hoped for.


Brother/sister love.


Miles was over the pumpkins and ready to hitch a ride in a cart.


The two cutest little pumpkins I know.


Autumn Thus Far


I think that the combination of returning to a schedule, all the fall birthdays in our family, football season, autumn holidays and wanting to soak up every last nice day that we have contribute to my general lack of productivity at this time of the year. So, to justify, I'll show you some shots of what we've been doing. Sidewalk chalk is a friend to us. Not to our clothes, but it keeps Brooke busy for quite awhile. In the photo above, she's showing a flower she drew. Not to get all "OT" on you, but her visual motor skills are really coming along. It helps that she's finally interested in drawing and writing.


We also took a trip to a pseudo-local children's museum with my friends Joy and Jen and their kids (and my friend Lex's boy, Dylan). It was great. It reminded me a lot of the Magic House in St. Louis.


The whole gang - right before lunch so no one was really feeling the photo op.


Tye showing Miles how it's done.


And of course we've spent lots of time with Kali and Christy. Here are the girls at Brookfield Zoo.


And at the apple orchard we went to today. (Not bad, but it was no Eckert's.)


Happy Fall! Here's to this awesome weather sticking around!

September St. Louis Visit

 

Wow. You know it's been waaay too long since you've blogged when you have to look back to figure out the last thing you've posted. I'm not going to make any more promises to get better/more frequent at updating, but I can at least catch you up on what we've been up to since the last post. I'll start with the trip to St. Louis we took (several weeks ago - wah-wah).


The highlight of the much too short visit was a trip to Eckert's. We found a Groupon and got in for only $5 each and there was SO much to do. Here's everyone waiting for the pig races. Yep, I said pig races.


Here we are at the "magic show" that was about 15 minutes too long, but the kids seemed to enjoy it. They especially liked heckling the magician (he was encouraging it - I wouldn't typically let my 3-year-old yell at a performer).


Miles liked looking at the goats while the big kids went down a giant slide.


Not the best pic (story of my life), but here are all the kids playing on a tractor. Miles is obsessed with all things transportation.


Farmers Luke and Brooke.

 

Of course we did some apple picking, highlighted by the tractor ride out to the orchard.





They also had rides included in the price of admission. Miles' face while on this ride was pure joy. He had a huge smile on his face the whole time and each time he passed us, would get excited to see us again. The lady running it said she didn't want to stop it because he was so cute to watch.


They also had a cool canary cage that you could go into and feed the canaries. I think all of the kids were scared initially, but ended up loving it. Krissi got some great shots.






We also spent some time at Tim and Krissi's. Here are the boys being boys. The girls were probably in the back room dressing up at this point.


Lexi's first soccer game! I had to miss to stay back while Miles napped, but I'm sure she was the best one out there.

We also got to spend a morning with my Grandma. The kids had fun doing "projects," eating lunch, and feeding the birds.




It was another great visit. We can't wait to see you all again soon!