Elise is 4!

Happy 4th Birthday, Elise!  We love our sweet, silly, smart, and strong-willed little girl :)  She is growing up waaay too fast.  We are so, so blessed to be her parents.  The 4 year old summary is coming soon.  For now, here are some pictures from her family birthday party in Texas in early January.  Thanks to Bryan and Michelle for documenting it for us!  I absolutely love the facial expressions in these pictures.  She loved having all her grandparents, aunts, and uncles together to celebrate her special day in person :)

The very happy birthday girl!

Jack REALLY wanted her cupcake...

Jack - 21 months

Yet another month has flown by.  We adore this sweet little boy.  Seriously, this is my favorite age with him to date.  He is silly, super polite, sweet, playful, obedient, very talkative, and 100% daddy's little boy.  Happy 1 3/4, Jack!

Stats:  Need to measure height and weight.  He's recently outgrown some clothes so I think he has gotten taller.  Heavier, probably not :)  He wears 18-24 month and some 2T tops and mostly 12-18 month pants, size 2T pajamas, and size 7 shoes.  Updated:  Height is approximately 34.5 inches and weight is approximately 24 lbs, with fuzzy pajamas on :)

Sleeping: Sleep is still great.  He goes to bed between 7 and 7:30 and is usually up around 7 just talking in his crib.  I usually get him up around 7:15.  He takes a 2.5ish hour nap from about 12:30-3.

Eating:  Eating is still okay.  He always eats a great breakfast and loves eggs, bacon, pancakes, oatmeal, bagels, waffles, dry cereal (current favorite is plain Cheerios), yogurt, fruit, etc.  Lunch and dinner are hit or miss.  He is offered 3-4 items that are similar or the exact same as the rest of us are eating and if he doesn't choose to eat much, then that's his choice :)  He likes all fruit, meat sometimes, beans sometimes, and he will finally eat regular cheese again.  I've tried peanut butter again and it doesn't make the skin around his mouth red, so he gets that sometimes instead of almond butter.  His favorite (ok, only) vegetables are sweet potatoes and pureed butternut squash.  I still make purees with fruits and green vegetables about 5 times a week, and he enjoys eating them out of a bowl or in a Sili Squeeze.  He uses a fork and spoon well and enjoys his newfound independence with food that he can spoon feed himself.  Mama enjoys this, too!  His all time favorite food is macaroni.  I walked into Panera Bread the other day to pick up some bagels, and he immediately started saying "rah roni peeeez, rah roni peeez" and only gave it up when I promised part of a bagel.  His favorite snacks are currently raisins, pretzel goldfish, healthy granola bars, fruit, or squeeze packs.  He drinks probably 90% water and 10% whole or 2% milk.  This month he finally started saying "water" or "my water cup" instead of "mytraw" (my straw, which took us a long time to decipher!).

Playing:  Jack will play for a long time with a lot of different toys, but his favorites this month are the trampoline, duplo car track, magnets (letters, shapes, numbers, words, etc), balls, and stacking cups.  He has one train car and loves trains, so I think we will probably go that route for his 2nd birthday.  Any opinions on Thomas vs. Chuggington or other brands?  He absolutely adores jumping on the trampoline and I have counted 30-40 consecutive jumps on multiple occasions.  He still loves to "pay football dada" and run around and chase or be chased by us.  Elise brightens his world and he always wants to know where she is and what she is doing.  He gets so excited when it's time to get in the van to go pick her up from preschool.

Learning:  Jack is such a little chatterbox.  He is constantly using short sentences and phrases to narrate his day.  He can now answer "or" questions instead of just repeating what I said.  He always points out colors, numbers, letters, and shapes.  He knows almost all of the lowercase letters now and a lot of new shapes, like octagon, pentagon, parallelogram, trapezoid, etc.  He's started picking up on letter sounds and will sometimes randomly say them while playing with his magnets, like "Z Z zuh zuh zuh".  He often stacks 6-8 small blocks on top of each other before they fall.  He normally tells me when he goes #2 and asks for a new diaper.  He likes to sit on the potty but hasn't done anything on it yet.

Other Likes:  Riding in the car, stroller, and Beco, playing with his peeps, climbing, hiding, getting his vitamins, music
Dislikes:  Getting nails or hair cut, when Boss takes a piece of food out of his hand (he bawls and bawls, which is why he eats most snacks while strapped in the booster chair), when someone says that it's nap time or bed time

Funny Sayings:  The funny sayings have started and his little voice is so sweet.

(during a diaper change)
Daddy:  "Who loves you, Jack?"
Jack:  "Mama wuvs you.  Daddy wuvs you.  Weeese wuvs you.  Payoom (playroom) wuvs you!"

(in the morning after going to look for Daddy)
"Here he is!  Get up, Dad!"

Me:  "Jack, where are your shoes?"
Jack:  (walks over to front closet)  "My shoes.  I found it!  Here it is!"

Me:  (trying to distract him while making dinner) "Jack, where is your (car) track?"
Jack: (trying to lead me to the playroom to the track that Daddy made) "Come on, Mom!  I found it!  Play track.  Daddy did it!"

(when seeing something new)
"That called?" or "This called?"

Random adult at the store:  "Hi there, how are you?"
Jack:  "I fine."
Random adult:  "What is your name?"
Jack:  "Gak."
Random adult:  "How old are you?"
Jack:  "Two!"
Me:  "How old are you really?"
Jack:  "One half!"

Since our house is split level, I throw the dirty clothes over the railing upstairs to get them close to the basement door.  One morning, Jack's diaper had leaked and he absolutely did not want to get out of his beloved fire truck pajamas.  After I threw them downstairs, he cried and kept saying "Tuck mamas want to get!  Tuck mamas want to get!"  He started going down the stairs after them until they were in his way, and then politely said "Cue me, tuck mamas."  (Excuse me, truck pajamas.  Ha!)

I have taken very few pictures lately but here are some of him from our family photo shoot in early January.  He does not get the "smile at the camera" concept :)  Happy 21 months, little buddy!