Kid updates and family pictures

We had a wonderful Christmas and are thoroughly enjoying our time in Texas.  The kids are thrilled to get so much play time with their grandparents, aunts, and uncles.  Christmas update hopefully coming soon, but first, some kid updates that I have been meaning to post for a while.

Elise - almost 4 years


Things are going well.  She is definitely a strong willed child, and  I feel like discipline is a work in progress (especially for the last few months!), but we are having so much fun with her.  She's grown up so much and I treasure the time that we spend together.  Since my most recent Elise update in September, things haven't changed too much.  Sleeping and eating are still great, even on vacation, though sometimes she takes forever to finish her meal.    She still takes a 1.5 hour nap almost every day.  She's grown about 1.5 inches and gained a few pounds, and is now about 42 inches tall and weighs about 40 lbs (clothed).  A few of her 5T clothes are too small now but for the most part she wears size 5 and 6.  Size 11.5 and 12 shoes still fit but I think she needs new ones.  Birthday, perhaps?

In the last 3 months, Elise has grown up and learned new tricks.  She can pump her legs to swing herself in the big girl swing and actually catch a ball.  She switched from baths to showers and now prefers to walk rather than ride in the stroller (unless I am pushing the stroller while running... then she gets to walk after I am done).  Most of the time, she dresses herself in the morning before coming out of her room.  She absolutely loves preschool and playing with kids her age.  She also loves playing with Jack, but that usually consists more of chasing each other and acting silly.  She's entered the princess phase and loves jewelry, dress up, dolls, accessories, and anything girly.  She's my little companion and loves getting to run errands with Mommy, especially when the boys stay home :)

She was talking to Pop on the phone earlier this month and he asked her how many days left until our trip to Texas.  She enthusiastically said 10 days!  And then tomorrow there will be 9 days, and then the next day there will be 8 days, and the next day there will be 7 days, and continued until she got to one.  I had no idea that she could count backwards.

For most of this time period, she was obsessed with her bible from preschool.  As in, we read it for every nap time and every bed time for about 3 months.  It is 500 pages long, and I'm sure we read through the whole thing at least 20 times.  She knows the stories very well and can describe them to you. This has resulted in a few funny conversations...

She was playing around on her chair at dinner and almost fell off:
Me:  Elise, please turn around and face the table.
E:  Why?
Me:  So you don't fall off the chair and hurt yourself.
E:  But don't you think that God would heal me?

Praying at dinner:
E:  Thank you God for our food and our toys and for Mommy and Daddy and Elise and Jack and Boss and for everything around the whole world, and for light bulbs and beds and for my clock and for sending Jesus to die on the cross to save us from our sins.

Reading a bible story from the old testament:
E: "Are Elijah and Elisha in heaven?"
Me: "Yes."
E: "Why?"
Me: "Because they believed in God and Jesus."
E: "But Mommy, Jesus hadn't even been born yet!"
Oops. Elise: 1, Mommy: 0


Jack - 19.5 months


Jack is in a really cute phase right now and we wish that time would slow down just a little :)  He is also sleeping great, even in a pack and play.  He's still a pickier eater than his sister, but I think he has fewer picky meals now than he did at the last update.  He is still tall and thin and wears 18-24 month tops and 12-18 month/18-24 month pants.  Size 7 shoes are still good.  

He speaks in mostly 2-3 word phrases and can accurately say up to about 4 syllables.  He talks all the time.  He's 100% boy and loves trains, trucks, cars, balls, blocks, collecting sticks and rocks, and knocking things down.  About a month ago, he finally started calling Elise "Weese" instead of "tister".  He is very interested in letters and probably knows all of the capital letters, most of the numbers from 1-10, and at least half of the lowercase letters.  He loves his block toys and duplos and always stacks duplos of the same size on top of each other.  He won't make a tower with mixed block sizes.  He is very good at the shape sorters and is getting good with his colors (red, yellow, and pink are his best).


His little brain is working hard!  Here are a few little stories from the buddy.

He's started putting up a little bit of a fight when you tell him it is time for bed.  He will run away from you yelling, "No bed!  No bed!  Play mommy!  Play daddy!"  Once you pick him up and take him to his room, he is fine and content to read his truck books.

The other day, he wanted to go outside and I was holding him, so he kept saying "Mommy outside".  I told him it was too cold for Mommy to go outside, so he said "Daddy outside Daddy outside."  Daddy didn't answer right away so he turned to Mimi and said, "Mimi outside!" Mimi obliged and he was successful in manipulating us :)  

He was fussing about 15 minutes after going down for his nap today, so Mike went in and checked and he had pooped.  As soon as Mike laid him on the changing table, he said "Tank ooo daddy, tank ooo daddy!"

If you ask him if he is a baby or a big boy, he says, "I baby!"  If you ask him how he is, he says, "I fine!"  If you ask him how old he is, he still says, "Two!", even though I've tried to teach him otherwise.

He often says "peeease" and "tank oo" without being prompted.  He loves to greet people by saying "Hi" or "Heyyy".  He is able to say anything that he needs to say, and usually communicates very well, except for some reason he cannot clearly say "water" and often gets frustrated because we don't understand him the first, second, or third time.

He loves his grandparents, aunts, and uncles, and especially loves hanging out with the guys.  He will walk up to them saying "Hug _name_" and give them a big hug.  He will cry if one of his guys leaves without him.  He loves following his daddy around and greatly prefers for Mike to put him to bed.

He also likes to direct people where they should go.  I was fixing breakfast a few weeks ago and he grabbed my hand and started dragging me to the playroom saying, "No eat. Mama playroom!"

Mimi was playing cars with him and said, "Jack, that is so silly!" and he replied, "I know.".

He has started saying "Bless you" after he sneezes.

Here are some favorites from our November photo session with my lovely sister-in-law, Michelle, of Michelle Boyd Photography.  Jack was extremely fussy during this shoot because a)he didn't want to wake up from his nap, b)it was very cold and windy (low 40s) outside, and c)he isn't bribe-able for picture taking.  Elise will smile for a goldfish cracker.  Thankfully, Michelle still got some awesome pictures and we love them!

Family Christmas

Here are some pictures from our family Christmas a few days ago.  Mike and I laugh because we totally could have stopped at the stocking and not gotten anything else.  Elise was so thrilled with the new socks and bows in her stocking that she didn't even realize there were more presents.  I hope this excitement over little things lasts for many, many years.  We had a hard time figuring out gift ideas for her this year because she isn't into anything specific.  There wasn't an obvious "big toy" like there has been in years past.  She's taken a recent interest in dresses and princesses (until this month, she hadn't willingly worn a dress in a year!) so I may do something like that for her birthday.  She loves clothes and accessories, so we got her the socks (HUGE hit... she tried on all three pairs right away), a sparkly headband and a few bows, a new pair of pajamas (pictured below... another huge hit!), and a new shirt.  Jack got her two mini American Girl dolls, which she loved and immediately proclaimed, "Jack did such a good job picking out these dolls for me!  I love them!"  Santa brought her a new Boz DVD.  Jack got a Duplo table (courtesy of $10 on craigslist) and was not interested in anything else :)  Elise gave him her old trike, and he also got new pajamas and socks and an old toy of Elise's (the Melissa and Doug shape sorting clock) and a Boz DVD.  We are so thankful for our precious kids and can't wait for more celebrating with our families next week!

Before we started

Jack loves Duplos

modeling the new PJs and accessories

 opening the American Girl dolls

Jack trying to escape

trying on the third pair of socks

Boss's present, which was demolished in about an hour

Sisters

So thankful to have these ladies in my life.  Elise and Jack love their aunts and had a great time with them in November!

Elise and Jennifer in front of the White House

Checking out an airplane by the WWII memorial

Elise and Michelle 

Don't be fooled since you can't see their faces... Jack is definitely less than thrilled whenever Elise wants to show her affection... but it does look cute from behind :)

The kids can't wait to see all of their aunts and uncles in about a week and a half!

Jack - 18 months

Happy 1.5, little man!  Elise was so excited for you to turn one and a half so that we could all be ____ and a half at the same time.  Jack, you are such a fun and adorable little guy.  You have boundless energy and can always make us smile and laugh.  We love you!

Stats:  Jack had his 18 month appointment a few days ago and is 33.25 inches tall (75th percentile) and weighs 22 lbs 11 oz (10th percentile, still), so he's hanging on to his tall and thin stature.  He wears size 7 shoes and can still wear most of his 12-18 month clothes, as well as his 18-24 month clothes.  His last incisor popped through this month so we're done with teeth until the 2 year molars.  We will be switching to size 4 disposable diapers as soon as the 3s run out.

Eating:  Jack is a decent eater at most meals but occasionally will barely eat anything, which can be very frustrating (especially when it's something that he usually likes).  I try to offer 3-4 different foods per meal (one meat/protein, one vegetable, one fruit, and one pasta/rice/bread/starch) and just let him eat whatever he wants.  I don't break out anything else unless he finishes everything, and I don't stress if he barely wants anything.  Sometimes we can trick him into eating more if he thinks he's eating from our plates (even if it is the same exact thing on his tray).  He likes to play with a spoon or fork but isn't proficient yet.  Favorite foods include:  offel (waffle), seeyul (cereal), take (steak), rahroni (macaroni), pahtah (pasta), granola balls (almond butter, honey, oats, and flax seed), most fruits, orange vegetables, etc.  Lately he doesn't want cheese by itself but will eat it if it is melted on a tortilla or piece of bread.  He still does not like green vegetables, even when they are covered in a cheese sauce.  Oh well.  He insists on feeding himself his squeezy packs and Sili Squeezes, which can be interesting and definitely requires supervision.  Favorite snacks include saisins (raisins), caaan (pecan), cacka (crackers), taw (veggie straws), and whatever anyone else is eating.    

Sleeping:  Jack is still a great sleeper and had ZERO issues with daylight savings time.  I was so proud. I knew Elise would be easy because she loves to sleep in, but I was pleasantly surprised that in the days leading up to daylight savings time, we got him going to bed a little later and sleeping almost an hour later than normal.  It helped that he took several really long naps that week (and I didn't wake him up like I normally would).  He wakes up around 7-7:15, takes a nap from about 1 - 3:30 or 4, and goes to bed around 7-7:15.  He's been very easy to put to bed this month.  After we read books, we ask him if he is ready to get in bed, and he answers "yes" about 98% of the time :)

Learning:  Jack's vocabulary continues to grow like crazy.  He says over 200 single words and started combining 2 words together at about 17.5 months.  Favorite new words include "bitamins" (vitamins), "tankoo" (thank you), "stop sign", "funny" (when he's being funny, followed by a laugh), "helicopter" (we see the news helicopter often), "monitor", "pinecone", "steak" (the boy is obsessed), "black bean", "chipotle", "aaaaamen!", "potty", etc.  Some typical phrases include:
"Night night, slug."
"Play ball please."
"Dada football" (when wanting Mike to play football with him),
"Mama phone" (identifying my phone)
"help please"
"Mimi salsa" (Mimi likes to add salsa to her food)
"two ____" (when he sees two of something, like two trucks, two cars, etc)

He recently greeted Mike in the morning with "Big poop.  Gross."  Earlier this week, we spent 20 minutes chasing the recycling truck around the neighborhood while he repeated "Running.  Tee Tie Ting Tuck.  Hi!" over and over again.  He refers to many of his books by name, like "Night night (Good Night Gorilla), "Tuh tucks" (Tough Trucks), "Fish" (Rainbow Fish), "Moon" (Goodnight Moon), "Bible", "fash" (Flashing Fire Engines).  

He correctly answers lots of questions, like "What is your name?", "What is that?", "Who is that?",  and communication is made much easier because he will answer  yes/no questions accurately.  He says "mine" to lay claim to something that belongs to him or is being carried by him.  He can name about 5 letters, a few numbers, and several shapes and always tries to say AEIOU or EIEIO when he sees letters.  He thinks that most things are green :)  The other day I asked him how old he was, and he responded with "Two!".  Ha.

Jack loves music and tries to sing along with favorite songs, especially in the car.  He has picked up on the Apple Apple A A A concept from listening to the song quite often follows the pattern and will pick a word and say it twice and then say the beginning sound three times (like "Daddy Daddy duh duh duh" or "side (slide) side suh suh suh" or "baby baby buh buh buh").

Playing:  Jack is definitely a little boy.  He loves trucks, trains, cars, planes, balls, climbing, sliding, chasing, and running.  He still loves the zoo, aquarium, children's museum, going for walks, exploring in the forest, playing at the park, and collecting sticks.  At home, he especially enjoys the play house, cozy coupe, his blocks and shape sorters and boy toys.  If anyone even mentions the B-A-T-H word, he gets so excited he can hardly stand it and races upstairs screaming "tath time!  tath time!"  

Personality:  This is such a cute age for the little man.  We love hearing his voice and watching him be so proud of himself for learning new things.  He loves to cuddle... when it is his idea.  He often says "hi" to strangers and enjoys playing around other kids and in the nursery at church.  He loves his peeps and especially enjoyed Mimi's and Michelle's visits this month!  This age doesn't come without tantrums though... he definitely has a little temper and can get very upset when we leave somewhere or when he doesn't get something that he wants.  Stay tuned for a future post of the pictures that Michelle took when she visited last week.  I can't wait to share them... she did an awesome job!  For now, here are some pictures that I attempted last weekend.  Someone is not a big fan of pausing and smiling at the camera.  We love you, little buddy!

Halloween Giraffe