Friday, April 30, 2010

27 Months

Since Eli turned 2 I haven't done his monthly updates. I figured every few months I can do an Eli post and today he just happens be 27 months old! He has grown so much in the past 3 months, physically and developmentally. He has really been going through a growth spurt lately. I have gotten all his summer clothes in 3T. They are a little bit big on him but I didn't want to buy 24 months or 2T and then have him grow out of them before summer was over. It is really fun to see all the different ways he is growing developmentally. His talking is amazing. I can really see this when we around other kids his age or a little older even. I have had many other parents tell me how impressive his talking is, especially for a boy. He says tons of sentences and can repeat everything. He also has an amazing memory. He remembers things that we have told him days or even weeks before. He also remembers the words to so many of his books and can "read" them to us. I love to hear him read his books. He loves to sing and dance. If music is on, he is dancing. There are a few songs that he knows some of the words to. He also sings the little songs that I have made up and sing quite a bit. It is too funny. One song that he sings of mine is "I have 2 boys I have 2 boys, 1 named Elijah and 1 named Jude". I love hearing him walk around singing this :-) Another one is "Baby Jude Baby Jude, I love you, yes I do". :-) We are taking the potty training slow and letting him take the lead. He was very excited when we got the potty, but the excitement of a new potty has worn off. I don't think he is really ready to potty train. He didn't really realize that he had gone the one time he went in the potty. He is still very young so we aren't going to push it. We of course have our not so great moments too. Eli has definitely entered the terrible 2s. He loves to test us and his favorite word has become 'NO!' Grrrr. Timeouts are starting to become more frequent. I am learning what works with his tantrums and what doesn't work. Sometimes it is best for me to just ignore his behavior and other times I can't ignore it, like jumping on the couch. Meal times can also be a struggle. Sometimes he will eat everything on his plate for dinner and then ask for a snack an hour later, and other times he refuses to eat anything. For those time we just wrap up his plate and it becomes his next meal. He can sure be ornery, but we just love him so much!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Let The Potty Training Begin!

We have been talking to Eli about going potty for a little while now. Every once in awhile he would want to sit on the potty but he had never gone. So today we went to Walmart to get him his own potty. I thought maybe if he had his own potty or potty seat he would be more into it. I decided on a potty seat that could also go on the toliet and found the perfect one.
Eli's Potty (isn't it adorable)
He had to try it out right away!
When on the potty the seat turns into a foot rest

Tonight we asked him if he wanted to try to go potty and he said yes. We put the potty in the living room because we figured it was going to take awhile. He sat on his potty and played with toys for a little while but didn't go so we put his diaper back on him. He was still dry an hour later so we asked him if he wanted to try again and he did. He was on the potty for about 10 minutes and got up and said he wanted to play. I went to put his diaper on and noticed that he had gone pee!!!!! YAY!!!! I was so excited!!! I showed him and he said "I made eggs!" I guess he thought it looked like scrambled eggs mixture. :-) Since he went on the potty he got to put a sticker on his sticker chart (which I made earlier today luckily). He also got a special surprise since this was the first time he ever went on the potty. I know this is going to be a long process, but we are just so proud of him! I can't believe he is old enough for potty training!
Putting a sticker on his sticker chart
Getting his special surprise
His new Buzz and Woody!

I am just so so so so so proud of my big boy!

Special Visitor

For the past week and half my neice Olivia has been visiting us!!!! She sent herself in the mail! Her first grade class has been reading Flat Stanly who gets flattened by a bookcase and sends himself in the mail. For a class project they mailed themselves to family. It was too cute. We took Olivia with us to the mall to play and to Barnes and Noble to read some books. We also had lots of fun with Olivia here at home. Here are a few pictures from Olivia's stay with us.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Wonderful Weekend

I was talking to my mom on Thursday afternoon and like always Eli wanted to say hi. He told her the usual hi Grandma, I love you , I miss you, but this time he also said Grandma come visit (he may or may not have been coached). Well it worked. My mom called back a few hours later and asked Eli if he wanted her to come visit and of course he said yes. :-) We had a wonderful weekend with her. On Saturday we went to the mall and she got to see how much fun Eli has at the play place and playing trains at Barnes and Noble. She even got to ride the carousel with him. Eli loves to play with his Grandma. His entire face just lights up and Jude was just his happy self! I am so thankful that she is able to come visit us as often as she does.
The boys had so much fun with Grandma, it was easy to catch big smiles!
I even caught a picture of Jude waving to grandma! (he has been waving for about a week but Mike doesn't believe me)

Thanks Mom for such a wonderful visit! It was just what I needed, I was really starting to get homesick. And of course the boys are always excited to see you. And now that I know having Eli say come visit works the rest of the family better be ready! We miss everyone!

Monday, April 19, 2010

The Diaper Dilema

We are having some diaper issues with Baby Jude. He has started wetting through at night. He usually sleeps 10-11 hours at night but lately has been waking up around 3:00 soaking wet. Normally I just go up to the next size and he no longer wets through but that didn't work this time. He was wearing Huggies size 3 so I got Huggies size 4 and he still leaked through at night. So I switched to Luvs size 4 and he still leaked through. Right now we are trying the Target brand diapers in a size 4, hopefully this will work. If this doesn't work we will try Pampers or a special night time diaper. Right now I am buying 3 different types of diapers; Up and Up size 4 for Jude, Luvs size 5 for Eli during the day, and Huggies Night Time diapers size 6 for Eli at night. I would love to have Eli potty trained soon, but since he has absolutely no interest right now I am not going to push it.

Jude looks cute is anything or nearly nothing!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

A Super Awesome Fun Day!!!!!

Yesterday I didn't have any of the kids I watch so we took full advantage of our free day!! I had a few errands to run so we went out and about in the community! My plan was to hit up story time at 10:00. I knew there was story time at our local library and I thought there was also story time at Barnes and Noble. Since I had a few things to pick up at Target I thought it would be easiest to go to Barnes and Noble since it is in the Mall and so is Target. Oops, Barnes and Noble doesn't have story time. Eli didn't mind though. As soon as we walked in he was asking to play with the trains. So we did!!!
Eli loves the trains!
Jude didn't mind

Eli was starting to lose interest in the trains and I could tell he was looking to run so I took him to the play place inside the mall to play. This is the first time he has ever played at a place like this and he absolutely loved it! He did great climbing up the different toys and going down the slides. He loved to just be able to run around. There was a few times he walked over to the stairs that led out of the play place and I just told him that if he went on the stairs then we would have to leave and he went back to playing. Since we were there right when the mall was opening it wasn't too crowded. Jude slept the majority of the time so I just carried him around in his carseat. After we played for a while it started to get more and more crowded with rough kids whose parents didn't feel the need to watch their children so it was time to go. We ran our few errands and then headed home.

Checking it all out and deciding what to do first
Climbing up
Climbing down
Crawling through the tunnel
Riding the helicopter
Up on top of his favorite slide
Sliding down
He went down this slide over and over!
Climbing on the piano
Inside the ambulance
The ambulance slide
Jude was such a good boy!

We got home and had some lunch and then headed out onto our upstairs deck to play for a little bit before nap time. Eli loves it out there, especially when we can see dogs in our neighbors yards. Reggie and Maggie really like it out there too.
Soaking up the sun
Looking for dogs
Reggie didn't want to come in
I love my boys!

Since it was such a gorgeous day I knew we needed to get outside and play. After nap I got both of the boys covered in sun screen and we headed out back to play. Jude got to sit in the grass for the first time but wasn't a big fan. I don't blame him, it was very dry and itchy. Eli loved being able to run around and play. We had his golf set, bubble mower, and soccer ball so he had a blast! He is such a boys boy! I hope we can get some more things for him to do outside because I know we are going to spend a lot of time outside this summer.
Jude's first time in the grass
checking it out
Not a huge fan
He would rather be standing
Eli ran
jumped
rolled
crawled
played golf
mowed the lawn
and tried to figure out the bubbles
Jude had fun in the exersaucer
Jude started to get a little fussy because he was getting hot and I knew Eli wasn't ready to go inside yet so I asked Eli if he wanted to go for a walk in the wagon. He was very excited wagon the wagon! I was very excited too. Eli got this wagon for his first birthday from my dad. At that time I was about 8 or 9 weeks pregnant with Jude and I remember thinking how wonderful it would be to take both of my babies for walks in this wagon. It was more wonderful than I even imagined. I love to see how Jude looks at Eli. The are so great together!
First wagon ride together :-)
Elijah Kent
Jude Michael
This was an absolutely wonderful day! I went a little picture crazy but I am so glad I was able to capture each and every moment to share with everyone.