Emmett is 17 months old!

Time is just flying by with this little guy. It's been a while since I wrote an update of his "doings." Here's a summary below:

Sleeping: He goes to bed at 7:30PM ish and we get him at 7AM. Half the time he sleeps straight through, but the other half he cries out 1 to 2 times. I usually just go in there and re-adjust him, find his paci and turn on his "bug" sounds. 2 min max of disruption...you won't hear me complaining! I'm getting pretty good at sleep walking.

Pacifier: Just this month we started limiting the paci to just sleeping. It's going ok, but if he catches sight of one, he lets you know he misses it!

Eating: He loves his fruits and veggies. Until this last month he wouldn't touch meat and I discovered he'd eat it if it was ground and mixed with rice. He still won't touch eggs, chunks of meat, beans, tofu, pancakes, and waffles. He LOVES yogurt, cheese, bread crusts (which is nice because Aria doesn't like them), beets, carrots, zucchini, blueberries, sweet potatoes, pears, grapes and strawberries.

Words: He currently routinely says "up", "buh" (ball, bug, box), "ba-ba" (fire, butterfly, diaper) "Pop Pop", "Dadda", "Ma-ma", "Ya-ya" (Aria), "ella" (our elf-on-the-shelf), "gabba" (Yo Gabba Gabba). His most favorite word has been "yep" with the accent on the P - he also says "yesh". He'll wake up from his nap sometimes, just saying "Yep, yep, yup, yesh, yup..."

Separation: We've been taking him to the toddler/twos room during church and he has had a hard time adjusting to us leaving. The past week Emmett showed signs of being more comfortable with it all and Kevin left with no problem. Before then he would cry so hard, so we've just been taking turns hanging out with him. Other than with the grandparents, we haven't left him alone.

School: Next month he starts school. Kevin will be easing him into the 3 hours of school slowly. Eventually when Kevin gets a full-time job, Emmett will stay until 4. Emmett loves the school because he drops Aria off everyday with Daddy. He also already knows his teacher (same one Aria had at his age). Kevin took him to a Parent/infant class with the same teacher in the spring. After dropping off Aria, Kevin has been taking him down to the class to spend a little bit of time to check things out before they head home. He seems excited about all the "work"/learning materials.

Physical Activity: Emmett started walking at about 14mo. He is a mover but enjoys a rest. We love that he can just "hang out" and listen to books, snuggle, sit on the couch and watch a little bit of TV next to sister.

Sister: Emmett has caught on that anything he plays with Aria will come up and "remove" it from him since she wants to play with that same thing coincidentally. When she approaches him, he drops what he is holding and walks away. We keep telling Aria that someday she will regret doing that. She loves her brother, even though she doesn't show it to his face. She is so proud and will talk about him to everyone at school and she loves it when he comes into the classroom during drop off to stay for a couple minutes.

Emmett definitely has his cranky moments like the rest of us, but he a cool little guy and fun to be around.

1st Snow Day!

Halloween 2010

I made these cookies for a dessert potluck at work. We had a lot of fun with them. The next day I put a couple in a strawberry/spinach salad for another potluck...hehe. The spooky witch fingers were a hit and tasted yummy!


And now, introducing...

ANGELINA BALLERINA

A JEDI MOM
(the costume was a combination of my robe, mobi wrap [baby carrier], and a lightsaber made from a spice bottle...it was all Kevin)

GOOFYDADDY

MR. BONES

just in time for the Sound of Music's 45th anniversary!

Remember the summer?

Aria's 4!

For Aria's actual b-day we took her out for pizza and ice cream just the 4 of us. We hardly ever go out to eat, so this was special for her.

Our little walker!

Aria "helped" me make her birthday cake for her party...well, she cleaned up the batter!

We had her party at a park with a pavilion and playground. There were about 15 kids. We got them to decorate pinwheels, Aria's G-ma did face painting, we passed out foam bug wings and they played on the playground. It was a lot of fun!

Aunt Jennine made it to the party too!

Instead of gifts we asked people to donate canned foods to a local food pantry. Everyone was so generous! We're excited to drop it off this coming weekend. (Kevin will have to carry it, it's sooo heavy!)

* Somehow Aria's puzzle got put in the basket...I found it today and took it out (Thanks T&J - she loves the kitty!)

Baby Steps

We laugh because he's taking a lot of steps but not going very far. This stage is so fun, he's changing so much daily.

Emmett takes a couple steps!

We Love Cousin Felipe

And he loves us :-)

We had a great time traveling to MA recently to visit with family. We spent a whole day playing with Felipe. The kids had a great time together.

Emmett's 13 months old

Emmett is a growing boy! Last time I documented his doings he was 8 months. He had his 1 year check up and everything went well. He got some super powered creme to treat his eczema, which works great. He checked out 24% length-for-age, 31% weight-for age and 70% head! Basically he's a smaller guy with a big CUTE noggin :-)

Emmett is continuing to enjoy his time home with Daddy. He's been a good napper. Over the past month he's transitioned to 1 nap a day getting about 2-3 hours sleep in the afternoon (noon-3:00ish). During that time Kevin tries to get as much work done as he can. Since Emmett has been sleeping a little less than before, Kevin catches up on work early mornings and sometimes the evenings now. We put in the paperwork to sign Emmett up at Aria's school for next January when he's 18 months old.

Emmett's continuing to eat well. I lasted the whole year providing milk for him (YAY me)! One week ago was the last time a pumped. So he is drinking whole milk and happy with it. He drinks about 2 cups a day. He's down to a bottle in the morning and a bottle after dinner. The rest of the time he's happy with getting his liquids from a straw sippy. He hasn't picked up how to use a regular sippy...this probably is the result of him still not holding his own bottle (his sister didn't hold her bottles either). He just doesn't get the whole tipping thing. He LOVES getting additional dairy by yogurt and cheese. He's done great with finger foods. He gobbles up whole wheat Ritz as fast as his sister and he really likes strawberries/peaches/pears. He dislikes bananas. If he doesn't like something he is very vocal about it...although if I feed him his favorites first he seems to be a little more adventurous about newer foods that remain on his tray. I can usually get him to eat meat, beans or tofu by flavoring it with dressing or soy sauce -- whatever works! (This is the opposite of his sister, plain Jane.)

His nights are ok. He still is great about staying in his crib for 11.5 hours (no eating or having to take him out) He still wakes a couple times a night half the time. He usually cries or yells out and I sleep walk to his room, find his pacifier and plug him! I'm blaming it on his huge molars that are growing in as slow as they possibly could. He's been pretty healthy over the last few months so I can't blame it on that.

He now has 9 teeth that are fully grown in (including one bottom molar). He's still drooling A LOT and he's working on the next couple molars.

We are still using cloth diapers about 60% of the time. We're sticking with disposables at night and for convenience during the day for trips out of the house.

Emmett has perfected his crawl and is quite speedy! He's cruising more this last month. He's still not very sturdy on his feet, but he's getting stronger everyday.

Emmett surprises me when he repeats words. For example, he's repeated "apple" and "elmo". He still doesn't use these words day to day. His favorite word is "da-da" and he's getting better with "ma-ma". He also has a couple words for Aria's name - "ra-ra" and "ar-ra". I think more words will be coming very soon. We haven't done much with signing but early on he picked up the sign for "more" and he continues to use it.

Emmett's getting better at clapping, waving and blowing kisses everyday. Instead of not doing it because he can't, I'm pretty sure he chooses not do it. Kevin said he'd been waving pretty consistently to cars on the trip back from dropping Aria off in the morning. Emmett has pointing down now.

Just last week Emmett pointed out a dog in a book and then we asked him "where's the doggy" and he turned a couple pages back and found the dog again. It shocked us. Little smarty pants.

Overall he's a pretty happy boy, but when he's cranky...he's really cranky. He still adores his sister even though she never lets him play with anything without her playing with it first, including his own toys! That will probably change as he gets more mobile and vocal. We love this little guy.

Aria loves combing his curls down/forward after his bath and when it dries it pretty much stays that way...she's discovered a nice look on him, I think!

Big Sister!

Emmett's One

Emmett turned 1 on the 16th! We had a small party with family. Uncle David, Tia Maria, and cousin Felipe made it down from MA too! We had a nice time and Emmett seemed to enjoy himself.

Yearly picture next to Emmett's Tree

The cousins and their lovies - Doogan, Fante & Gary

Happy Bithday to me, the mommy!

We went to the farm this morning and picked fruit, played and had a picnic. Then we went out for ice-cream this evening. It was a nice day full of family time.

This last picture cracks me up!