17 (and a half) months old

I missed Nicholas' 16 month update because we were in Toronto when he turned 16 months and just never did that blog post when we got back.  Then he turned 17 months the day I went back to work so I'm just a tad behind.

He weighs a little over 21 lbs but I don't know his head circumference or his length.

He is a chatterbox.  He has several intelligible words:  shoes, hat, dad, mom, Ela (Mikaela), Cocoa, "ready, go", abre, banana, eat, please, help, up, bye, and probably a few others I'm forgetting right now.  And when I say "intelligible" I don't always mean completely correct pronunciation, but close enough that you know what he's saying.  On occasion, he has surprisingly clear speech.  He signs quite a bit as well including: where, shoes, hat, dog, more, milk, please, help, eat.  He also makes plenty of sound effects for cars like vroom, etc.

He loves to run, be outdoors and oh my, is he a climber!  He's gotten his leg stuck 3x in the crib because he was trying to figure out how to climb out.  I'll be searching for toddler beds soon, I supposed, but I"m really not ready for him to leave the crib!

He's a pretty good eater.  I think his list of "green foods" is relatively short (though longer than Mikaela's), but he will try just about anything you put in front of him.  He doesn't always like it, but will at least give it a taste.  His favorite foods are green beans, strawberries, bananas, grapes, mangos, oranges, peaches.  Yep - he loves his fruit.  He'll eat yogurt, crackers, chicken, cheese, spaghetti/pasta, bread, and other veggies fairly consistently but always goes for the favorites first.  Sometimes he doesn't eat too much but he's always wanting to run and play so who has time to stop and eat?  Certainly not him sometimes.

He is in transition between 1 nap and 2.  Some days he still takes two but often it's just one and total nap time sleep is rarely more than 1.5 hrs.  He sleeps about 12 hours at night, sometimes 13.

He still loves to cuddle and that is OK by me!

He also loves to "read."  He's constantly pulling books off the shelf to "read."  Many times he brings me one then sits in front of me (back to me) to communicate he's ready to read.

He's starting to promote at church to the toddler class. We still drop him at nursery but usually end up picking him up next door.  He seems to be "in the middle" where there are several smaller babies in class and then the toddler kids are a tad older but they move him over after awhile and he's liking it there.

Every day he seems a little older and a little less baby.  I love to watch all he learns and does, but it is going by too quickly!

Here are some pictures/videos of him from the past month or so.

Chick-fil-a story time

mini golf at Daddy's work

Popsicle with Mikaela and Benjamin

being silly with pacifiers he found.

The video below shows Nicholas playing "Where's the Ball?"  After putting the ball into the giraffe's mouth, it goes down and will come out one of 4 places so a game developed that after the ball goes down, we sign "Where?" to find which slot it came out of.  That's what he was signing.  

Swim Lessons

The past two weeks, Mikaela had swim lessons at the city pool.  She is still quite timid in the water but I didn't see growth this year.  She loves being in the water, swimming with a kick board or noodle, and wearing her goggles.  She still doesn't want to put her face or head in the water but is more willing to blow bubbles and such.  She's just not a risk-taker (not only in the pool, but in many things of life).  Still, here are photos from lessons.

Lining up for the diving board

confidently climbing onto the board

confidence waivering

needed assistance (aka teacher dropping her in)

sitting with her class while others "dive"

blowing bubbles with her pal, Caleb

with her certificate

Mikaela Quotes

Today after everyone had piled in the car and things quieted down a little, we hear, "So... as I was saying..."

This afternoon she was working on a puzzle while I was cleaning/organizing, and I hear, "Little help, here."

Toronto Trip: Day 5: Toronto Island

On our final day in Toronto, we packed up, checked out of our hotel and had about 6 hours before we needed to leave for the airport.  So we decided to walk down to the lake and catch the ferry to Toronto Island.

We could have easily spent much more time here, but it was still great to walk around, get great views of the city, and just enjoy the outdoors.  We got rained on some, but the weather was cool and we knew we'd be heading back to Texas heat very soon.

We had a fantastic trip.  It was so wonderful to get away just us.  Neither of us realized how much we needed that time away until we took it.  Thanks so much to Graemma, Graempa, and Aunt Amy for watching our kids (and Cocoa Bean) while we were away.  It will probably be awhile before we do something like this again, but we had a blast and will have memories for a lifetime.

Toronto Trip: Day 4, Rangers V. Blue Jays

Mike and I decided we'd like to see all the ball parks in America.  Ideally, we want to see the Rangers play at all of them.  Some of them are unlikely given that they are NL and the Rangers are AL, but we'll give it our best shot.  So this goal is what sparked our search for a 10 year anniversary trip destination.  Looking at places where the Rangers would play this year, we decided Toronto would be fun.  So, Friday night of our vacation, we dressed in Rangers gear and headed to Rogers Stadium so see them play the Toronto Blue Jays.

We arrived very early to watch practice, snap some pictures, and walk around the stadium some.  When it came time for the game, to start, we enjoyed listening to both National Anthems, first American, then Canadian.  It was cool.

Wash at batting practice

our seats

 Rogers Stadium has a retractable roof, which they had open for the game.  It was neat to look up over the first base side and see the CN Tower high above us.

While the seats were a little more compact than we'd hope for, we enjoyed watching the game and were thrilled to see Yu Darvish pitch and get us the W.

 

 

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