Year in Review

A little pictoral recap of our 2011.  For me, it was fun to go back and pick a highlight out for each month of this past year.  But, I'm a little worried I'm stepping over the sappy borderline so I'll spare you too many words and just put this little collage up!

Six Christmases

So we've had a busy few weeks, but who hasn't?  Before Ben and I were married, we decided that we would alternate Thanksgiving/Christmas with our families each year BUT that we would always celebrate Christmas with both families - even if we have to celebrate before or after.  That left us this year with six different celebrations! 

This was Ben's family's year for actual Christmas so we celebrated with my family the weekend prior.  We had a wonderful dinner at Mom and Dad's house and the kids all enjoyed opening gifts and playing together.  Wyatt even cooperated by sitting at the dinner table for forty-five minutes while we all ate (this is VERY a-typical of Wyatt). 

What he didn't want to cooperate with was posing for pictures.

He loves his new tool bench!

We did get ONE family picture.  I think this may have been the only one all Christmas

Then on Sunday, we went to my Grandfather's house and enjoyed lunch with all my  cousins, aunts and uncles.  Again, W didn't really want to pose in this picture of all the great-grandchildren.

Mom and I did take Wyatt down to ride the Pink Pig.  I believe we took him on the Thursday prior to Christmas -- this may not have been the wisest move as we waited in line for about 2 hours.  But hey, its tradition, right?

This was taken before he started crying but he was VERY ill-impressed :(

I called Santa and asked him to come a few days early since we were leaving on Friday to head up to Tennessee.  

Santa obliged.

Wyatt loved all of his new toys and had a few minutes to play with each of them.

However, he was most interested in eating the leftover cookies that Santa didn't eat!

On Friday, we left for Tennessee to celebrate with Ben's family. 

We had dinner with Ben's Aunt Weez and Uncle Bill followed by opening gifts.  (Photog was too busy chasing after Wyatt so sorry for the lack of pics!)

The next morning, we did gifts with Ben's immediate family.

That afternoon, Ben's Aunt Susan and Uncle Al came to town and we had a fantastic dinner with them followed by more gifts.

We relaxed with family Christmas day and Ben and I even got a chance to go out to a movie!  It was a good Christmas and now we're ready for NYE. 

Whew!  Longgest blog post ever?  I'm tired.  Oh and also if you're counting I believe that was more than 6 Christmases, but you get the idea right?

What's in my purse?

About a month ago, I sent out an email to a few friends that I knew had moved within the past year asking for their addresses so that my files would be updated and ready to go when I got around to addressing Christmas cards.  One of them replied "wow, I hope to be as organized as you when I grow up"

I'm not exactly sure what my response was, but I'm guessing it was along the lines of "nope.  totally unorganized but glad I've got at least one person fooled".  (HI STACY!)

So, just to prove that point ... that I am tooootally disorganized I dumped my purse out on my desk and took a picture of the contents.  Its pretty scary!!

I mean.  Geez. I use most of those things, but certainly not on a daily basis.  Its just amazing how things sink into the black hole of my purse.  Maybe one day I'll figure out a better organization system!

Oh and just FYI  that boarding pass?  Is Ben's from our honeymoon.  Over FOUR YEARS ago.  Now that I see that, I remember finding it in a tote bag the other day and just couldn't let myself throw it away so into the black hole it went!!

Weekend Happenings

I think this past weekend marks our first 'busy' weekend of the Christmas season!  Who am I kidding, all of our weekends are usually busy ... Christmastime or not?  Anyway, we were busy.

We kicked off Friday by Lolly coming down to keep Wyatt for the afternoon and evening.  We had been looking for a babysitter all week because we had a party we wanted to attend, and weren't having any luck when out of the blue Lolly emailed us and asked if we happened to have anything coming up for which we might need a sitter.  That's how we roll .... we import sitters from Tennessee!  

Wyatt and his Lolly had a fantastic afternoon -- it was a pretty day so they spent tons of time outside and he even got to go down to the park!  I think they probably wore each other out, and she relaxed at our house while we went to our neighborhood's progressive party.  Wish I had pictures of it, but man, our neighborhood knows how to have a good time.

We went up to a cute little place called Farmhouse in the City on Saturday morning for Ellie's 3rd birthday party!  All the kids had so much fun playing with the toys, dressing up, and painting pottery.

The Birthday Girl!

Ellie and Wyatt holding the Bunny

I'm pretty sure we have a budding artist on our hands.  Here is mini-Monet in action:

The final product?  

This may have turned out prettier if I'd helped him to paint left-handed as opposed to right.  Oops!

Ellie didn't have time to open her gifts at the party, so she did that after she got home.  Here is a picture of her teaching her little brother how to use one of her gifts.  Doesn't EVERY three year old need an i-touch??

After we went home and Wyatt had a nap, he and I went to get his very first haircut!  I've been putting this off for several weeks now, but since we were venturing into mullet territory I decided it was time!  We went to Pigtails and Crewcuts, which was totally out of the way but absolutely worth the drive!  Wyatt loved playing with the train set while we were waiting and then once he got in the stylist's chair he was not so sure.  He started shaking his head "no" when she pulled out the scissors and started working.  I tried to convince him with toys, animal crackers, books and none of that was working so I resorted to giving him a lollipop.  That worked!  (And he ate that thing down to NOTHING and then fought me when i took away the stick)

Here is a (not so good) shot of the mullet

Hair cutting in action

Final product!  He looks so old now ....

We spent the rest of the evening/weekend working on Christmas decorations and getting our house picked up.  We've got a little more Clark Grizzwwald-ing to do to the exterior of our house and I'll show pictures next week maybe.

Oh.  And totally un-related to our weekend.  Wyatt saw the same santa at the same mall both last year and this year.  How is the mileage from the North Pole different from year to year?  (Does that have something to do with the rotation of the earth or did they just miss that tiny detail?)

18 Months!!

Oh my lawd.  How in the world did this little dude go from this:

to this???????? 

Crazy.

Anyway, yeah so 18 months.  Wyatt has completely transformed from a baby into a little boy.  It is fun to see the new things he learns each day and how much he knows already!  He is SUCH  a little busy body -- has zero time to sit still for anything.  Not to get dressed, not to get a diaper change, not to take a picture, not even really to eat.  I am really disappointed in myself for not documenting specifics in the past, so I'm going to try to cover everything with this update.  I'm probably the only person who will want to read this but I know at some point I'll want to look back and see detailed info about what he was doing at 18 months.  You can just look at pictures if that bores you :)

Nevermind the rosy cheeks ... he was cranky and had been crying!

- He now knows everything that we tell him, and follows our commands (if and when he wants to - but it is obvious that he knows the things we are telling/asking him)
- He is VERY good at shaking his head "no" when he doesn't want to do something you ask him to.  I've now learned to re-phrase things that I need him to do. (for instance, instead of "are you ready to get out of the bath?" i say "its time to get out")
- Currently, his favorite thing in the world is playing outside in the leaves.  He loves to stomp on them, collect them in his bucket, look at them, etc.
- He is really becoming a good "helper" and quickly realizes the pattern of chores and pitches in.  I was outside raking leaves the other day, and he kept walking over and putting leaves in the bag for me -- one at a time, but still the point is that he recognized a pattern of behavior and followed it.
- He has a lot of words (more every day) but seems to recognize a lot more than he can actually say.
- If you laugh around him (even if it isn't at him) he will start laughing.  I guess he knows something is funny and wants to be "in" on the joke!
- His favorite word is "NO" ... says it all the time both to us and to things that he knows he isn't supposed to do/touch/play with
- Other words: hey, dog, ball, duck, bagel, mama, dada, no, bite, three, eight, four, ten, elmo (eeeh), airplane, eye, hot (ta)

copycats!

Likes
- playing outside
- leaves (if he sees one on the ground he'll point to it and talk all about it)
- airplanes
- Elmo (he doesn't even watch TV, so he knows him only from books and from his toys, but every time he sees him he'll point and say "eeeehhh")
- counting -- he LOVES when we count with him and its cute when we find him 'counting' by himself.  (he definitley knows how and when to say 'eight' and will sometimes say 'three')
- singing -- he really prefers for us to sing to him, but sometimes after you finish a song he'll sing in response.  (fave songs: ones that say his name, Ba Ba Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle, and ABC's)
- his paci - i dread the day we have to break this habit ....

Thanksgiving 2011

Dislikes
- vacuum cleaner or any other loud (foreign) noise
- washing machine
- being woken up in the mornings
- being told "no" (usually in response he'll either throw something or hit you ... we're working to correct this)

driving the Gator!

Schedule
- on weekdays I have to wake him about 6:30 and he DOES NOT want to get out of bed.  I usually rub his back for a few minutes and get him up and a diaper change.  He'll have his milk and a 'fake' breakfast with me before I turn him over to Ben to get dressed and to school.  He usually eats a 'real' breakfast about 8:30 (on weekends he wakes up on his own at about 7 or 7:15 and we go downstairs and he will slowly eat bits and pieces of his breakfast all morning)
- he eats lunch about 11 or 11:30 am ... and if you happen to miss this window of opportunity he WILL. NOT. EAT.
-  he goes down for nap right after lunch.  on weekdays its usually 12pm on weekends sometimes (if he is cranky) its 11:30 or 11:45
- he usually wakes up from nap about 2 or 2:30.  sometimes when he's super tired, he'll sleep until 3 or so.
- he gets a snack about 3 or so
- by 5:00 he is HUNGRY and if we're downstairs I can't keep him out of the pantry so usually he gets dinner about 5:30 or 5:45.   Again, if you miss this window he'll become too cranky and just won't eat dinner.
- bath happens right after dinner
- he goes down at 7 - and sometimes even that is pushing it (as of late)

Mr. Serious

Food
This is a funny category because his likes/dislikes are constantly changing.  He'll be obsessed with something one day and the next he wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.  This makes grocery-shopping/meal-planning very tough.

Favorites: cheese sticks, yogurt, fruit squeezies, gummies/candy (of course), raspberries, kiwi, banana, cheese/spinach quesadilla, carrot sticks, noodles, bread, waffles, cereal, goldfish

Things he will rarely turn down: cheese sticks, yogurt, crackers, fruit squeezies, gummies, yogurt melts.  (So when we have those nights where he wont' eat anything else, he eats a cheese stick, yogurt, a fruit squeezie, and crackers.)

Dislikes: most meats.  he'll eat ground beef in spaghetti or something and a hamburger patty but generally speaking he's an omnivore.

I've talked about this before, but I am constantly searching for new (nutritious) recipes that I think he'll eat.

Stats
clothes: 18-24 months, and 2T's mostly
shoes: that's a tough one ... some of his are 5's but when buying them these days i go for a 6
diapers: 5
weight: 26 lbs  (50th percentile)
height: 33 inches (70th percentile)