She pledges allegience

I waited too long to get this on video - she now says America instead of Comerica which was so cute but it's gone. still cute with the Royals flag.

Happy 18 Month Birthday

Carter is 18 months today.





weight: 25.7 lbs (just under 75th percentile)
length: 34 inches (90th percentile)

He grew two inches since his last checkup. Although according to this he lost about a pound, so I'm not sure his weight today was right. He didn't want to have anything to do with the scale.

He is saying all kinds of words lately. We've been working on animals and when you ask him what each animal says he gets them all right. He's really good at
moo
meow
woof woof
neigh

We've also been working on body parts and his favorite is mouth which sounds like
"m-ow". He does tummy, toes, head, nose (usually). Ears and eyes are close but not quite.

He will repeat almost anything. When I said apple he said papple which is really cute.

He signs kitty cat (pulling at your cheek like you are stroking whiskers), dog (patting your leg as if you are calling your dog to come), and also does more and please. I only know these because Candi recognizes them and tells me my child is signing to me. They have been teaching him at daycare. They are usually accompanied by him saying the word as well so I have just been going off of the word.

His very very blonde hair reminds me of my youngest brother Zach.


At 18 months he loves...

..."this little piggy" and will say "again" after you are done holding up the other foot each time. He also likes a game we play called Jack Black Pony where I bounce him on my knees. I got this nursery rhyme from my mom but I don't remember it from when I was little so I'm not sure if she did this with me. He also asks for this "again."

... Elmo, or as he says "Melmo." Anna's first character that she was "in" to was Mickey Mouse.

...the dogs. He calls both dogs "ah - eeh" even though only one is named Tassie. He loves to let Sonar kiss him all over his face and in his mouth. It is so gross.

...legos. Anna never really played with legos so this is interesting to me. He has really just gotten into loving books too. We've been reading "Carry Me" and "Don't let the pigeon drive the bus" which he loves to say "NO" to each time the pigeon asks if he can drive the bus. The books by this author are so cute. Anna especially likes Knuffle Bunny right now, where the pigeon makes an appearance on a kid's t-shirt.

...to ride in the sling and almost prefers it over the stroller.


At 18 months we are "dealing" with...

...rashes. He has very sensitive skin and I am still dealing with the rash issue. As soon as one gets cleared up another starts. I took him to get tested for food allergies last week. The chlorine free diapers didn't help so we are back to Luvs, cheaper.

...taking the binky away. We are working towards only doing binkys at night. He is still teething though so sometimes I like to let him have it so he isn't chewing on me or the furniture. Anna had her's until she was 2 1/2 which was too long and only at night for a long time, but I'm not in a hurry to take it away yet.

Funny story about that binky - when we were at the lab to have his blood drawn for the food allergies last week an old lady was in the waiting room. While I was chatting with the ladies who worked there the old lady was talking to Carter. She asked him what was in his mouth and if she could have it. Well Carter took it right out and tried to give it to her. She didn't know what to do. She was telling him no thanks which I'm sure confused him. She looked at me and said "Usually they don't take it out when I say that!" I thought it was pretty funny. I ask for it all the time so he is used to giving it to me. And he actually hands it to me or Kevin quite a bit to give it up on his own.

...potty training? no not yet. Kevin tried to put him on the potty last week and he freaked out so I don't think he's ready for that yet. Even though you can tell when he's peeing because he grabs his diaper.

...serious separation anxiety. He wouldn't even ride in the grocery cart tonight. I'm building some serious biceps. It's cute when they love you so much but also slightly annoying when you can't walk two feet without having someone latch onto your leg.

Excluding the Lois part I literally live this every day.



But mostly everything he is doing at this age I find fantastically adorable.

Two nights ago he waved and said bye bye to everyone in their seats as we trekked up the stairs from the Royals game. It was pretty freaking cute, especially since we were only going for a diaper change and not really leaving.

******

Looked back at pics of Anna at this age. She loved dogs at 18 months too. This is her with Roxy.

Happy Belated Memorial Day

You can't really tell but they are wearing flag T-shirts courtesy of great-granny!

What a weird day

I had a list of errands to do today and I got everything done but it was just a weird day.

1. Tires
I was told to get new tires before the weather got bad. Mm Hmm, I think that was in like October. of last year. I finally got around to it and it was even more depressing and horrible than I thought it was going to be. Wayyy too much money and time later I moved on.

2. Target
shave cream, sunscreen to leave at daycare, kleenex, binkys - some of our others are getting pretty old

Go to daycare to pick up kids for next errands. they were still sleeping.

3. Go to city hall and sign Anna up for baseball. I asked her last week if she wanted to do dance or baseball and she surprisingly said baseball. See dance goes through the end of june but baseball starts at the beginning of june and they overlap on times so she can only do one. not doing dance means we skip the recital at the end of the month but i'm ok with that.

Go back to daycare to pick up kids now that I let them sleep a little longer. Carter is up and we wake Anna who was surprisngly asleep. I tell her I signed her up for baseball. She proceeds to cry and cry and cry and tell me how she doesn't want to do baseball. she wants to do dance.

Unfortunately my four year old didn't go for my argument of "but last week you said you wanted to do baseball so I signed you up. Mommy paid for it so now we should do it." So I ended with "we'll talk about it later."

4. On to LabCorp to get Carter's blood drawn to get tested for allergies.
He constantly has rashes and even had some sort of reaction to ranch dressing (I know, he can't possibly be related to me after that) a few weeks ago. This was a pain. The orders had been faxed to a wrong location so they had to refax. twice. I think we were there for almost an hour after it was all done. And the drawing part was sad.

5. On to find a birthday present for Julian for his 4 year party on Saturday morning. We went to TJ Maxx but didn't find anything quite right. Then Anna proceeded to throw a huge fit in the car after she sat in Carter's seat and wouldn't move when I asked her to. I told her she might not get to go to the party.

We went home for a break. Carter stayed at home while Anna and I went to Target (yes my second visit in one day) to get his present.

Done with errands. Change kids clothes.

6. Back to daycare for their "graduation" program.
Anna's in red. Carter's in the argyle sweater vest.




Done. Dinner. Done. Baths. Done. Anna tells me she wants to do baseball instead of dance. thank god. Kids to bed. Done. Cookies and milk and blogging. Done. 'night!

Whew. One more work day and then three days off. hooray!

Little good thing for me for today: I had a good hair day.

Sunday family fun

Trip to the Deanna Rose Farmstead today. I think the best part is feeding the baby goats. Carter loved the ducks and kept saying "quack quack"




Afterwards, while Carter slept Anna and I had girl time getting pedicures with Candi.

Lemonade Lemonade Lemonade.... woooooooooooo

How we entertained the kids during a garage sales at our friends house.

Who needs toys?

And that was the second time I got crabs...

So last night Kevin called the cops because there was a suspicious car parked at the end of our cul-de-sac. It's really dark at that end so we weren't sure if anyone was in it. We figured there wasn't much going on in Raymore on a Sunday night so they should show up pretty fast.

After he called we hung out in the laundry room watching out the window. Then the dome light in the car came on and we could tell there were two people inside. They were moving around a lot and then I told Kevin

I think they're putting their clothes on.

Just as they turned their headlights on and started to pull away two cop cars showed up and lit them up right in front of our house. We had the window open so we could hear what was going on. They had them get out and searched the car but nothing turned up.

Kevin kept quoting Super Troopers "It reeks of sex in here" to which I couldn't stop laughing.

Happy Mother's Day To Me

Kevin put away two loads of laundry, plus washed and dryed another, moved one of the pictures on our bedroom walls, hung the framed art my in-laws gave me for Christmas, plus got me a new coffee maker since my old one has been leaking water.

Thanks sweetie! I really appreciate all of that!

Scraptaculous

Saturday was NSD

Saturday was National Scrapbook Day. I had read about this earlier in the week and promptly forgot. But sublimily (word?) I must have remembered because I did some scrapping on Saturday. Here are my latest LO's (that's layouts for you less-savvier scrappers :)

There wasn't quite enough sunlight when I shot these tonight, but I wanted to get them posted. The colors are slightly off on the green.

All photos are from July 4th 2007.