24 Month Update

Believe it or not, we've survived two whole years of parenting a little boy.  Who knew it's be so wonderful?

Let's get right to the update.

STATS

He's now 30 lbs. and 36" tall.  Most importantly HEALTHY.

He's wearing size 24 month clothes and the pants are finally not falling off his hips.  He was so tall he outgrew his 18 months, but there for awhile 24 months were too big around and fell right off.  He's finally filled that out.  He's also in size 5 diapers now.  He still fits in size 4; however, size 5 seems to hold a little more so we bumped him up.

SLEEPING

Sleeping is going GREAT.  We introduced a pillow about a month ago and he does great with it.  He's still in his crib, which we will keep it that way as long as humanly possible.  He also goes down for naps and bedtime with a bottle.  This is something we will start working to remove this year.  The fact that he goes down easily, makes me not want to change a thing though.  Why ruin a good thing?  He naps and noon and goes to bed at 8pm.  Usually like clock work.

EATING

He's on the picky side of eating.  He loves fruit.  Fruit fruit fruit.  Other then that, he's pretty picky.  I can get a few bite of veggies in him each meal and he's not a huge meat fan, but again, I get a few bites in every change I can.  He's a green smoothie kid.  He loves them!!!  Our favorite: strawberry, banana, yogurt, kale, spinach, chia seeds, and ice.

POPSICLES.  His absolute favorite thing to eat right now.

POTTY TRAINING

Still the same here.  He has gone on potty strikes here and there and we aren't pushing it.  I asked a few times a day if he needs to go - and try to get him on at least once a day.  His doctor said no reason to push it just because he's two now.

PLAY

He's an outside kid!  Through and through.  He could be outside with no toys and be happy as a clam.  He loves bubbles and any kind of ride on bike or scooter.  He's got a good collection going now.  I just bought the kids a mini trampoline and that's a big favorite right now too.
Inside he likes to watch Bubble Guppies, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, and Blues Clues.

He still really likes his tools, trucks, and trains too.

SPEECH

He has a good vocabulary going now.  He can say 2 and 3 work phrases:
Where'd mommy go?

What's that?

Night Daddy (or Sissy or "Pombo" - Pongo our guinea pig)

Go outside

Etc.

He has his emotional days.  Usually after naps we have a 50/50 shot of getting a happy kid.  Tantrums are in full swing, but he's learned time out and now understands that counting "1,2,3" is an important message to listen to.

Carter is just a normal happy sweet emotional cute lovable kiddo!

Can't believe it's been 2 years that he's been with us.  Seems like he's just always been here :)

Planting flowers

Working on fine motor skills with a glue stick

Playing on his Kindle Fire

Helping me work on the porch

Cheering sissy on at her volleyball game

First tractor ride with Papa

Silly boy watching tv hanging off the couch

Balance beam we made for the kids

Our big 2 year old!

Carter's 2nd Birthday Video

This is our special little guy's full birthday video!

We celebrated with a call from the Bubble Guppies, green smoothies for breakfast, a trip to the Missouri Botanical Gardens with Aunt Shae, Birthday cards, and a family mini party back at home that evening.

We had a birthday party for Carter the weekend of his birthday which I'll share all the details on soon!

Happy Birthday to our Carter Lee!

Carter's 2nd Birthday Photos

Carter is officially a TWO YEAR OLD

We had his well visit today and he is 30 lbs and 36" tall

Here are some photos I took of him on our fun day out to the Missouri Botanical Gardens on his actual birthDAY (April 16, 2015)

It was a BEAUTIFUL day!  Carter's Aunt Shae joined us.

I'll do more of a milestone update in another post.  But I love these photos we captured of him on his special day.  Definitely memories to cherish.

21 Month Update

If I don't start writing some of this great stuff down I'll completely forget all about these precious times!

 

So yes, our "baby" is in the last quarter of being 1 year old.  It's an amazing time.

 

I'm sure I have lots of stories, good, bad, funny, scary I could share, but let's do the basics.

 

Eating:
He weaning about 4 months ago, so he's on whole milk, VERY watered down juice, and water for the most part.  He can be a good eater and he can be terrible eater.

He LOVES fruit.  He devours it.  He always eats that first on his plate and will let a whole plate of food plop on his face while he's trying to drink the fruit juice left behind.

He is a fast eater.  It's like he eats what he wants and he is done, time to throw the plate, fork, drink, rip off the bib and squeeze his scrawny little butt and legs out of the high chair.  That's all while there is still plenty of food on his plate.  A lot of times he gets out of his high chair, finds a seat next to one of us and starts begging for us to feed him off our plates.

He loves raisins, cereal, cheese, smoothies, peanut butter, and any kind of fruit.

As long as he has ranch dressing he'll about eat anything if there is a dip.

 

Sleeping:

We still go through our ups and downs with this.

He finally started sleeping through the night on a regular basis probably around 18 months.  He didn't really do much of that at all till 14 months.  And it's gotten better as we go along.  He had reflux so bad as a baby that I think that really messed things up for his sleeping habits.  Now usually sleeping gets messed up if he's teething, sick, or has a bad dream.  But for the most part down if he wakes in the middle of the night he can get himself back to sleep.

I updated on our new bedtime routine HERE

 

Communication:
He is such a babbler.  I know there are kids his age talking a lot better then he does.  He really tries to say a lot of words, but they just don't come out right at all.  I spoke with his dr. about it and he seems to not be concerned.  He is understanding what we are saying, follows directions (most of the time, he is a toddler), and signs words plenty.  Plus he IS babbling so he has something going on as far a speech goes. 
Words he says well: BYE, HI, baba, trash, booboo, truck, nigh-nigh, no no, bubbles, he says "mommy" now instead of calling me "meme" and calls Steve "daddy" instead of "dada",  "where'd it go?"  I'm sure I'm missing a bunch.
Then words he is signing regularly are:
light, night-night, more, eat, water, juice, please, thank you, poop, potty, open, he's always shook his head "no" but now he is shaking his head "yes" a lot.

 

Which brings me to Potty Training:
We've been putting in on the potty for months now.  And he has been going.  But he's never been much for telling us to go.  He does sometimes but usually it's me asking and he will say yes or no.  Usually he say yes, but then he won't go.  He's said he needed to poop on the potty 2 times and both times has.  So that's awesome!!  I think he goes pee on the potty at least once a day.  Usually after a diaper change or before a bath. 
We haven't used cloth diapers for months now.  They all need a very deep cleaning with stuff I need to order and haven't done it.  I went ahead and put some on his one week just to save money and he hated them.  He has been out of them for so long now, he just doesn't get it anymore.  He just says "MY BUTT!"  :( 

 

Health update:
He had blood work done about 2 weeks ago to check his anemia.  It has greatly improved to the point where we don't need to give him meds every morning.  He was taking a iron supplement first thing everyday, and did that for 3 months.  But other then that he is in great shape.  He has a cold that has him congested right now, but nothing to be concerned about. 

I need to weigh and measure his height to see just how big he really is.  I know we just had a growth spurt, he's pretty well pushing the limits of his 18 month footed sleepers.  Problem is 24 months pants do not fit him around the waist and nearly fall right off.  Weird stage in size right now.

 

He has 11 teeth now.  4 molars, 4 front on the top, and 3 front on the bottom.  Pretty sure he's trying to get more right now.

 

He is a CLIMBER.  Wow, boys are much different then girls in that area.  He has hacked some of the baby proofing.  He's tried climbing over gates.  He can climb INTO his crib, I'm trying to deter that so he won't climb OUT of his crib anytime soon.  Lord help me when it's toddler bed time.... ugh... just the thought makes me loose sleep.

 

He's such a funny little guy.  His baby voice and his silly faces.  The way he plays pretend.  The belly laughs.  The way him and his big sister play together and laugh and laugh.  The kisses he's always blowing.  Bringing up blankets and then climbing into our laps to snuggle.  The fact that he already thinks it's funny when he toots.  And a million other things.

 

We just love our Little Man

 

Not feeling well eating some strawberries

Morning bedhead

He climbed up on the couch with a blanket all on his own with the pillow

Wanted to wear his backpack like sissy one morning while taking her to school

Morning breakfast smoothie



Betime Routine Update - 21 Months

 

Little man is 21 MONTHS OLD.

 

What.  In.  The. World.

 

 

We have a new bedtime routine!

 

 

 

Carter is finally FINALLY going down, by himself, in his crib.  BOOM.

Back story, he nursed till he was almost 18 months old (that's a whole different story).  So he had just ALWAYS been held to go to sleep.  Nurse and he was out.  Naps and betimes, were all on my (the mom's) shoulders.  Till one day, he decided that nursing wasn't good enough anymore.  But he still was wanting to suckle to go to sleep, but didn't want a paci.  Sooooo... we introduced a bottle, yes, we did, at 18 months old. 

That leads us to the part where, now mom is no longer the sole provider, yay!  Dad's turn!  Night time was now daddy/Carter time and I still had him for his 1 nap during the day.  We split it equally.  Steve loved it.  He finally got that time with Carter after all these months.  Then came the trouble.  He was starting to wake up as soon as he'd lay him down in his crib.  It got to the point where he would be in such a panic even after we were well out of his room.

 

Onto the solution.  He's got his bottle, why not lay him IN the crib WITH the bottle.  It eliminated the transfer from lap to crib.  Should work right?  His first day of this was a little rough.  He wanted to be held (of course) to go to sleep.  But I really took it slow and got him comfortable with the idea after a couple days he was running for the crib asking for his "baba" and ready to go to sleep. 

 

The catch here, I was sitting - on a stool - next to his bed - waiting for him to fall asleep.  I did that for a couple weeks, and after the first week I sat on the stool next to the door where he wasn't able to see me, and then by the 3rd week, we were out the door. 

 

So now we are finally, after 21 months, able to put our little guy down and walk away during nap and bedtimes.  Shewww... Long haul there.  Our daughter had no trouble with sleep or us not being in the room.  Carter is very much a momma's boy. 

 

So now onto the next task... weaning from the bottle.

He will be 2 in less then 3 months and I think that will be a good time to kick it out the door.  I mean, he's only had it a total of 3 months period of his entire life.  So yeah, some might think he's too old for a bottle, but he'll be on it much shorter amount of time then the average baby anyhow.  So it is working for us right now, and for that I'm grateful.

Fall Sesnory Play for 17 Month Old

FALL IS HERE!

My little guy is 17 months old now and is such an explorer.  He picks up on things pretty quickly now too, so it's time to start some fun learning type activities that are age appropriate for him.

Day #1:
Fall Sensory Play

I got this idea from THIS PIN ON PINTEREST

 

I found things from around the house that I already had: fall leaves, pine cones, acorns, burlap, a sunflower

and bought styrofoam pumpkins from the dollar tree.  Four in a bag for $1

The pumpkins were by far his favorite.  I think because they are most like balls.  He threw them, kicked them, scattered them.  We used them to count.

Fun play for a beautiful fall day outside.

Mother/Son Outing to The Magic House

We took advantage of a Magic House Groupon that happen to pop up in our area.  HALF PRICE!  We had a membership with our daughter when she was younger and it was great!

We've already been 4 times in a month with friends, our family, and me and my little guy have gone once on our own.  Here's video of our day together...

A Week in the Life with my Two Kiddos - August 2014

Because my little girl is back in school now, there is a lot more time with just me and my little man now.  We have had some fun and not so fun times trying to figure out our new routine without big sister.  Here's some of the time's I caught on tape.

Alyssa's 8th Birthday Video

May 24, 2014
I can't believe my baby girl is EIGHT years old!

She is in 3rd grade this year.  She's grown so fast it seems.

This year she wanted to have a bedroom makeover instead of a birthday party.  Which, of course, she chose a Disney Frozen theme.  Boy am I glad she still has some little girl princess in her :)

We weren't going to let her birthday go uncelebrated even though she decided that she didn't want to have a party with friends.  We took her to Sweet & Sassy, a salon/girly store dedicated to this age range.  She was pampered with a manicure, pedicure, hairstyle with hair "scent," a glitter tattoo.  We also let her make some facial scrub.  Afterwards we had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen with family.

She had a pretty fun day.  We ended the day back at home for cake, ice cream, and presents.  What a lucky mom I am to have this little girl as my daughter.  Love her so much!

Here's the video of her special day:

Carter's 16 Month Update

This about sums up our Carter Lee...

However, I can elaborate on all that too.

This little guy is no longer my baby boy, but my little boy now.

He is an outside boy through and through.  He gets crabby, we grab his shoes and out the door we go.  He's been great about staying close to me and not running off.  He has his moments, but then comes right back around.  He loves to slide and swing.  He loves to dig in the sandbox, help me garden, blow bubbles, and draw on the sidewalk with chalk.  He loves to swim, play with balls and trucks out in the grass.  We have been outside A LOT this summer.

Caught him mid "hey!"

Biggest thing since he turned 1 year old is the talking.  He always gibber gabbers and sometimes he really is trying to get a point across but we have no idea what he's saying.  What we DO understand now are the following words:

Hi

Bye Bye

down

done

kitty

bubble

"what's this?"

"there it is" - more like "there is"

the end

sis and sissy

UH OH!

shoes

cheese

Hey!
YAY!

fish

He also signs the following words:
done

milk

eat

more

and we are working on "potty"

He blows kisses, plays patty cake (love the roll it up part), favorite song is "Wheels on the Bus"

We are actually in the VERY early potty training stages.  He has used it nearly everyday give or take a few, for the last 3 weeks at least once a day.  One day we got twice in a single day.  I just put him on the potty before and after bath time and usually that works.  He says "yay!" claps, gets tissue, and helps flush.  We added in M&M rewards this week which he seems to like.  Just trying to get him to wrap him head around the concept of what the potty is and what you do with it.  No way is he ready for full on potty training, and he may not be for quite awhile, but this is a good start for him.

We are still cloth diapering - you can read more about that HERE

He is a BIG eater right now.  There isn't really anything we do not give him that we aren't eating at meal time.  He went through a phase for about a week or two where he didn't want to hardly eat anything, but that quickly turned around. He did go through a period where he protested eating veggies, but we found he liked to dip them in salad dressing that got us through that phase.  Now he seems to eat most everything on his plate with or without something for dipping.  He LOVES fruit.  Always eats that first.

He is still nursing 1-2 times a day.  Only during nap and bedtime just to get him to go to sleep.  He usually does just fine with a bottle if he's with my parents or his daddy at bedtime (yes, I'm ok that he takes a bottle for bedtime still right now, it's the closest to the breast if I'm not there).  I did pump while we were away for two nights on a trip, but otherwise he no longer has a freezer supply of milk and has whole milk if I'm not there (which isn't that often).  He gets whole milk at breakfast and other then that he gets water the rest of the day.

Sleeping Angel

SLEEPING!  That's been a new and wonderful change.  We struggled with nap times, and bed times, getting him to go down.  Naps weren't as bad as bedtime.  He loved his naps and was napping twice a day, but then way up till 10-11pm.  Not only that he wasn't sleeping well at night and was up constantly.  To the point where I was over the sleep deprivation.  So I decided to take out one of his daytime naps and he in response he started going to bed earlier and then also SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT.  He was about 14.5 months old when he finally started to sleep good and for a good 10-12 hours a night. (I say this as he was up at 1:30am last night, which must have been a fluke b/c he hasn't done that in weeks).  So HALLELUIAH for SLEEP!!!

Morning play time

His routine right now with sissy back in school for the year:

7-7:30am: Wakes Up

Breakfast and play time till about 10:30 when I start thinking about lunch

11am - lunch

11:30 - nap time

1:30-2:00 he gets up from his nap

Get sissy from school at 3pm

Homework with sissy then time to start cooking dinner at 4:30pm

Dinners usually ready by 5:30-6pm

We hang out as a family till 7:30 then it's bath and shower time

Bedtime is at 8:30pm for both kiddos

We are usually up till 11pm working or cleaning up or trying to relax

It's a busy kind of day but it is working for us right now.

Carter had a 15 month check up but he was closer to 16 months when we got in there.  He was:

21 lbs

31" long

Pretty much average for his age

He also got two vaccinations last week and has to go back in November for more :(

Aside from all that he's pretty much a wonderful little boy!  He has his times where he doesn't like the car and shopping is one of his least favorite things to do.  But he's pretty normal.  He makes us laugh every single day.  He makes me smile ear to ear with pride.  I wasn't sure what to expect with having a little boy after I knew how much I loved having my little girl, but it is just simply amazing having a son.  It truly is different but wonderfully different.  He is mine and I am his.

Summer 2014

 This summer was CRAZZZY!!!!

With a capital Z

I am not sure why I felt the need to make sure we "did it all," but that we did.  Here's a few of the things we did that I have photos from. 

Alyssa's 8th Birthday

Branson Vacation: inside the zoo's bird cage.  Carter thought it was pretty neat

Branson Landing

Shopping in Branson - huge rocking chair

Circus

Trip to the farm to pick strawberries, but it raining.  Still had a lot of fun with all the attractions

Alyssa visiting her cousin and God Mother at EKU

Kids at the splash pad.  We went here a few times this summer.  Both kids love it there.

 

 

First time eating at the big table instead of the highchair

Visit from Carter's Great Uncle who was in from Florida

Grandma C's 50th birthday party

Lowe's build and grow clinic.  We also did several of these this summer.  I've gotten kits for Carter and take them home for him to do when he gets older; however, Alyssa builds hers at the store.  She really enjoys it.

Kids super tired after the day at a water park.  No pictures from the park b/c of the fear of water ruining a camera.  But we needed to run into Home Depot on our way home and you can tell they are wiped out.

Nintendo event at the mall.  Carter got to meet lots of the gaming characters.

First painting experience at the Magic House.  He could have painted all day, he really really liked the paint. 

Silly boy, gets himself stuck under chairs and stools and cries for dear life for someone to rescue him. 

Mommy watched Carter's buddies one day and they all had a fun time hanging out and playing

backyard splashing in his new shark swim trunk set

Trying on sissy's make up (shhhh... don't tell her)

4th of July before the fireworks

Popsicle and the 4th of July parade

Alyssa ready to ride on the firetruck for a parade with her daddy

A day at the farm.  Playing with kitties, chickens, and horses

ANOTHER hair cut.  We are up to 6 now

Summer reading program at the library

Alyssa's first time lighting candles at church

Dropping sissy off at her BIG week long girl scout camp

Alyssa's first official friends slumber party

Playing at the YMCA kids room while mommy worked out

Rock climbing

Mother/Daughter Day!  Roller skating!

Alyssa with her favorite horse Gabby

 

 

Sissy's 1st day of 3rd grade!

We really enjoyed this summer.  Carter was finally big enough to come run around and have fun with us although he still needs a lot of close attention.  I think after last summer we just stayed in so often (hottest summer in decades last year), that we needed to make up for it this year.  Alyssa went on 3 vacations, had girl scout camp, and 4 vacation bible schools.  She also did swim lessons, the reading program at the library, and an online math course.  Besides that we celebrated 4th of July, a couple birthdays, went to parades, the circus, the Magic House, the park and spash pad, had playdates at home and away from home.  I started 5K training 3 days a week till 5 weeks in I broke my toe.  We had church every Sunday, went to the county fair a few times.  Steve has Fire Drill every Monday.  I made it out of the house a few times ALONE to hang out with "the girls."  I also had quite a few visits to the dentist to have some work done.

And now that summer is "over" (school is back in session), I hope that we can slow down :)  HA!  Guess that's probably not the case with Girl Scouts starting this week and more dentist appointments for me and Alyssa both.  We are all ready for fall, the fall weather, the rich colors, the comfort foods, the fun of Halloween and so on.

What a blessing this summer was.