linden | 18 months

Linden boy, you are 18 months already!

 

I can't imagine any other kid like you.  You are the perfect boy to make our family of four.  Your personality comes through more and more each month and it's so exciting to watch you develop your own likes and dislikes, and watching you get excited for things.

 

PLAY

Now that the weather has warmed up a bit, you have discovered how much fun it is to be outside.  All I have to do is say the word "outside" and you go running for your shoes and carrying them back yelling "SSSHOOOES". It never gets old.  You've also quickly developed a love for daddy's tractor. The second you hear that thing fired up you're running over there with your arms lifted up demanding that you get a ride.  And really, there's nothing cuter than watching you ride around wearing adult sized ear muffs on daddy's lap. 

 

You also love any toys with wheels (so much like your brother). It's not surprising to find you with a toy train in your hand scooting it around the floor saying "choo-choo".  You're still not quite sure what to do with all the bubbles when we run the bubble machine outside but one thing you do have figured out is your love for water.  It still isn't warm enough to go swimming at the beach but it doesn't stop you from going straight in while you have your clothes on and splashing around.  You have a huge love of water little boy!

 

TALK

There is definitely a list of words that you know and you know how to say them well! And the rest of it still sounds like a jumbled mess, but you look like you know exactly what you're saying when you have something to say.  Your vocab list includes words like "up", "hi", "bye" (you love telling anyone bye), "choo-choo", "food", "shoes", "uh-oh", "sit down", "get down", "go", "no" and "want this".  And even though I might be missing words and there are still a lot of words for you to learn, you seem to understand what we say very clearly.  You're great at following through with commands, that is unless you're being a little stinker who is intentionally ignoring me as part of a game.  You do that often these days.

 

SLEEP

You're not a huge fan of nap time, and I can't really blame you because who is? But you go back and forth between taking one nap a day and two naps a days.  Usually you'll protest for five minutes in your crib but then eventually quiet down and either play until you fall asleep or just lay down.

 

Nighttime, however, is a different story.  These days, you get so excited for going to bed at night. We've bumped your bedtime back to 8pm and you seem to do really well with that.  By the time I say "it's time for nigh-night" you start running over to your daddy or Conner to give them a hug good night.  Then you open your mouth wide so I can brush your teeth (and you have 12 teeth now by the way!) and eventually grab the brush and move it around in your mouth to finish off the task.  Then it's off to the crib when I hand you your favorite blanket and you give me a final wave and sweet little "bye" for the night.  My heart ends up in a puddle every night.

 

FOOD

Let's just say you've been quite the picky little eater.  I've always had trouble getting you to drink milk but I'm not concerned.  When you have an appetite, you eat an adult-sized meal.  It amazes me that you're only in the 20th percentile in weight for kids your age.  You love raspberries and this is quite possibly your favorite food ever.  Following close behind are strawberries, yogurt, peanut butter, pancakes, oatmeal bars, pizza and ranch. You love to dunk food whether it's salsa, ranch, guac, you name it.  If you see anyone dunking food into anything you start letting us know that you want whatever we have!

 

 

 



we're back!

We are back!

 

So it's pretty obvious that I've taken a long break from this blog.  Like a solid six months.

There has been a lot going on since the start of the new year so this has really taken a back seat in my life.  And by back seat, I mean like the trunk space area of my life.

 

At the start of this year I dove into my own slice of entrepreneurship and started a small photography business.  It's been a blast so far, but it's taken up a lot of my available free time.  I even set up my own website!! That's something I never thought I'd ever do!

 

But that hasn't been the only thing keeping me distracted from typing away here, but I'll save that for another post soon to come.  In the meantime, I just want to do a photo dump from January through now to give a taste of what we've been up to around here.

 

 

linden | one year

This entire year with Linden has been the best year ever!  Here's a look back over the past 12 months with this little boy :) 

 

 

 from bringing you home from the hospital 

& 

watching you smile for the first time at three weeks

&

your first little laughs

&

seeing you rollover from your front to back at six weeks old!

&

sitting up by yourself

&

your first bites of real food (bananas!)

&

crawling and climbing stairs

&

cruising the furniture

&

getting into e v e r y t h i n g

&

stealing our hearts every moment along the way

 

this is why this past year has been amazing.

 

LAST MONTH: 

 

THIS MONTH:

 

EAT

We've made the transition to whole milk! We had just enough frozen milk to make it to his first birthday and while he's no stranger to formula, I am pretty excited to move him to whole milk now. And when it comes to table foods.. we have good days and bad days.  There are days that he doesn't want to eat the food I give him and other days he'll eat whatever he can get his hands on.  We try and get him to eat whatever it is that we are eating for supper and most of the time he's on board with that, but we still have our days where life gets busy and his supper consists of chicken nuggets + yogurt drops + berries. Some nights we just need it to be simple.

 

SLEEP

He's a rock star sleeper! He goes to bed around 7pm and wakes up around 6am.  I admit there are times on the weekend that I am just not ready to start the day, and Linden is totally cool with hanging out in his crib and talking to himself for a while.  (We never got that lucky with Conner, when he was awake, you had to be awake too)

He's still a two-naps-per-day kinda boy.  He gets a nice morning nap around 9:30am and again around 2pm.  It makes it a little challenging on the weekends when we're trying to run around with kids in tow, but he takes it all in stride if he misses one of his naps.



 



PLAY

He's discovering the joy of climbing on toys and rocking chairs and anything else that he can climb on and scoot around on.  We have a little four-wheeled bike that Conner got from a family friend when he turned one, and Linden loves it! He'll climb up and plop himself down and scoot backwards across the floor.  And when Conner sees him scooting around, he'll rush over and grab the handle on the back and push him around the house.

Linden also figured out the game of hide-and-seek and chase! Just last night Linden was chasing Conner (or Conner was chasing Linden...still not sure which) around our coffee table.  Honestly, those boys must have circled that table 62 times and in full blown laughter!

   

 PHOTO DUMP