Handsome Guy

Check out these pictures I was able to get of B playing outside today. It was such a gorgeous day for February in CT. Probably a little cool to be out with no jacket, but I wanted to get a few good shots before putting his jacket on him. So glad we had some outside time this afternoon! He had a great time playing with all the sticks in the yard. Can't believe he's gonna be 2 in just over a week!

A is for Alligator!

I have so many crafts I want to do with Brennan pinned on Pinterest or floating around in my head, but just haven't been sure when he'd be ready to do them. Kyle was gone this morning, so I decided we'd go ahead and try a simple one. I had all the materials I needed (other than googly eyes), so we went for it.

My inspiration for this craft came from here. No Time for Flashcards has TONS of great craft ideas for toddlers!

I gathered my supplies: green, blue, and white paper; markers; glue stick, and scissors. I used Peel and Stick Post-It Note paper to cover Brennan's table so he wouldn't get marker everywhere. I then drew an A on the green paper (including little triangles for the eyes) and let him start coloring.

Brennan has never been super into coloring. He always wants to color at the library, but it will only hold his attention for a few moments and he'll just put a few scribbles on the page. Letting him use markers today changed all that. He LOVED it. This was by far the most scribbling he's ever done. Before he'd put the marker onto the paper, he had to touch his finger to it. He was pretty mesmerized.

He continued coloring while I cut out some white triangles to use as teeth. I also flipped the A upside-down so he'd get more marker over the entire letter. He used the purple marker the most!

He had fun watching me cut out the letter A (I forgot about those little triangles I had made for eyes and cut them right off...guess it didn't matter since I didn't have googly eyes anyways). He also found his marker-covered hands very interesting. That is until I went to clean them off and the marker wouldn't come off completely. He was super mad that his hands still looked dirty. Oh well!

Once the A was cut out, I had B help me with the glue stick, and then we glued into onto blue paper. When he came time to glue the teeth on, he was starting to lose interest and got up from his chair. He liked it when I chased him around with the alligator though.

Here's our finished project! I won't include so many pictures next time, but this was the first one, so I wanted to capture it!

A Lazy Morning at Home

Most days it feels good to get out of the house with Brennan. Our favorite local spots to go are the library, aquarium, mall, and Children's Museum. Somedays, however, it's nice to just stay at home and play. We had one of those days today. I was even able to document some of the fun we had.

Most mornings B wants to read several books before we even leave his room. We did this today. We started reading up in his glider like normal, but then he wanted to move onto the floor. We had already read several books when he picked out Little Boy Blue. Listen to him help me read it.


We kept reading after that and he picked Kipper's Book of Numbers. He loves counting books. Check out how well he does counting to ten. Some of the numbers aren't super clear, but he's much improved. His counting to ten sounds something like this: "wah, ta, see, huh, high, si, se, eigh, ni, te."


We were having such a fun morning that even included jumping on Mommy and Daddy's bed. Then he wanted to build with his Mega Blocks. He helped me build a really tall tower and then he knocked it down. This is what happened after HE knocked it down HIMSELF. Whoa mood swings! :) And yes, I recorded it because it was funny!


I feel so lucky to get to have these kinds of moments with him every single day; even the crying moments!

Cleaning House...Sort of

Ahhhh....

I feel such a sense of relief. I just cleaned up my Google Reader and it is so so so much better! I had way too many blogs on there so if I even missed one day of looking at my Reader, I'd come back the next day with sometimes 200+ new blog posts. Way too many to actually read, so I'd end up just marking most of them as "read" without actually doing any reading. Today I took the time to remove the ones that I haven't been reading recently.

I also started "following" all the blogs in my Reader. When I first started blogging, I think I felt strange following someone's blog who I didn't know. I preferred just to stalk it instead because that's less weird, right?! I fixed all that today, so if I'm a new follower of yours, I've actually been reading your blog for a long time! Going through my Reader also helped me realize some blog addresses had changed, so I was able to fix that and start getting updates on those blogs again. So glad I finally took the time to get all that organized!

Now on to actually clean our real house!

Here's a pic of B because I know I can't make a post as boring as this one and leave off a pic! He loves his Lightning McQueen slippers!

First Snow

Just wanted to share a few pics of B enjoying the snow yesterday! We had an unseasonably warm December and until yesterday it had barely snowed all winter. It was the first snow of the winter and B's first snow since he learned to walk. He seemed to like it but it was cold so we only stayed out for about 5 minutes.

Wow!

The other night during bath I let Brennan play with shaving cream for the first time in quite a while. He had so much fun! My favorite part was that he kept saying, "Wow!" every time he got some on his hands. It was so cute. I also had no idea he knew how to wash himself so effectively. He had shaving cream everywhere! I was pretty impressed!


He has also uttered, "Wow!" a few times this morning while watching the snow fall. This is the first real snow we've gotten this winter. I think we'll go out and play a little later, but here is a shot of him observing from inside.

Dear Brennan,

Sorry your update is a little late this month, but I think having fun in Disney on your 23-month birthday is a pretty good excuse. You are growing and changing so much and I can hardly believe that next month you'll be two! I say it every time, but time just keeps flying by. You are still in size 4 diapers, but I think when these run out we will move you up to size 5. You wear 2T clothes.

You're doing great with walking and keep getting faster and faster. You still don't run, but Momma is okay with that. You did a ton of walking in Disney and also love going to the mall just to walk all around. You still can't climb up things and don't know how to go up or down stairs yet. When you get to stairs you will stop and either say, "Help" or "Ca". "Ca" is your word for "carry".

You talk quite a bit, but still don't say many words correctly or completely. You do lots of first syllables for words still. Some of your newer words are cool and wow. It's so funny to hear you say those. It's been so fun to hear you talk about our trip to Disney and tell people how you saw "Mou" (Mickey mouse), "Goo" (Goofy), "Pooh", and "Tig" (Tigger). You can't say an "f" sound, it comes out as "sh" every time.

You continue to amaze people with your knowledge of number, letters, and shapes. You can count to ten without any help and can also recite your alphabet with only a little help. Colors are probably your favorite because you point them out all the time. In fact, you like to walk up to strangers and tell them what color they are wearing. You are also really good at identifying and naming shapes.

You are still really liking trains right now. You enjoy playing with all your new Thomas stuff from Christmas. Your favorite Christmas gift though was your car ramp. Another Christmas gift that gets a lot of use is your IKEA table and chairs. You like to sit there and do puzzles or eat your snack.  It's been really neat to see you start developing interest in certain things. You get so excited for certain things and will let out the loudest squeal. We heard that squeal so many times at Disney and it was absolutely priceless! You have also developed a new fondness for our pastor's daughter, Mackenzie. She's always helped out with you a lot Sunday mornings, but now you get so excited to see "Zie".

I mentioned in your previous update that you had started saying, "No". Now it usually comes out as a string of no's. It can been pretty frustrating at times to hear you saying "no no no" over and over again, but I just keep reminding myself that it's part of your increasing communication and that it's only a phase. You can also get pretty whiny so I'm hoping that's just a phase too.

Most of the time you are super sweet though. You were fantastic on our trip to Florida. It was our last flight with you as a lap baby and you were wonderful. You are almost always happy in the car and you also love your stroller. I'm so thankful you're such a happy little guy.

I've started working on your 2nd birthday party. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a construction theme and you'll have fun playing with all your friends. We are trying to get you to hold up two fingers instead of one now when someone asks how old you are, but haven't had success yet. We'll keep working on it!

Momma and Dada love you very much! We will especially remember this past month because of our trip to Disney. You are so much fun and we can't imagine our lives without you!

Love,
Momma

Brennan back at 22 months

Brennan yesterday - a few days over 23 months old

We were able to get a good picture before this happened:

He's also really into wrestling right now! :)