Happy

Teagan does a really good job "reading" to Asher. She knows a lot of books almost word for word. Down By the Bay is one of Asher's favorite books. Teagan is happy to entertain him with it while he uses the potty.


Teagan was lounging on the arm of the couch today with a pretend phone and sandwich. She needed her sunglasses because she said she was "beaching".


Asher started saying a new word today, "happy". Teagan loves to play birthday party and we sing Happy Birthday pretty often. Today, Asher put a birthday hat on and said "happy". Later while Paul was lighting a candle tonight, he said "happy" again. Birthday hats and candles, both things he associates with Happy Birthday. It's so exciting to hear him actually imitating words now.

Locks

Teagan colored this giant Max & Ruby poster and then had me hang it on the pantry door. I tried to convince her to hang it up in her playroom instead, but she much preferred to have it in my kitchen.


Asher is so fascinated whenever Paul has his gun cases out. He loves to climb on top of them and sit on them. He has seen Paul lock the cases, so he went and found some spare keys and tried to work on the locks himself.

All dressed up

Teagan insists on choosing her own clothes and hair style every day. Usually this means lots of hair bows and not necessarily matching, often not seasonally appropriate clothes. Occasionally I try and intervene, but that never goes well. I have to remind myself that it is just clothes. What is the big deal anyway?


Whenever Asher sees the iPad, he definitely wants to play. At times, Teagan can be very patient with him and tries to teach him how to play the various preschool games. Other times, she just wants to watch Betty Crocker Cake Decorating videos on YouTube. Asher is not impressed with that.

Thursday at home

We had a nice day playing at home all day. We normally go to the library story time on Thursdays, but Teagan didn't want to go today. When I asked her why she wanted to stay home since I thought story time was her favorite, she informed me that story time is NOT her favorite. Ice cream is her favorite!


Asher has definitely watched Teagan enough to know how to care for the baby dolls. He loves to snuggle them, give kisses, feed them, and rock the babies.

Chocolate pudding and bunny bedtimes

Teagan doesn't really care for the avocado banana chocolate pudding I make, but Asher generally likes everything I do. He had fun making a huge mess dipping pineapple in his pudding.


Teagan put her bunny in "bunk beds" and then read a bedtime story.

18 month check up

After making a smoothie for breakfast, I poured the leftovers into popsicle molds to freeze. When the kids saw the other smoothie popsicles in the freezer, that is what they wanted to eat for breakfast. I think it might have been Asher's first popsicle. He enjoyed it and it was a mess! After breakfast, they both got a bath before we headed out to Asher's 18 month check up.



Today was Asher's first check up where I was actually not concerned about his eczema! His skin is really clear right now other than a small dry patch on one ankle and little spots behind his knees. We can live with that. When I look back at his pictures, I just can't believe how bad the eczema was.

18 month stats: Length 32 inches (41%) Weight 23.2 lbs (15%).

Rapunzel

Teagan pretty much lives in dress-up clothes. Today was a Rapunzel day. She wore her Rapunzel outfit all day. Even while playing outside. She was pretty cute re-enacting outside the scene from Tangled where Rapunzel first leaves her tower and is rolling around in the grass. Complete with singing the "Finally Free" song.


Asher was really into tricycle riding today. I noticed that he was actually pushing himself around with his feet. I think he must have just learned how to do that. He is also really starting to imitate more words. This morning Teagan kept asking him to say "Hi." She was so proud of him and loved that he kept saying it. She says all the time, "He just said his first word." Today after he was repeating some alphabet letters she was saying, she was excited to tell me, "He just said his first letter!"

Bananas and Birthdays

2.4.12
Paul stayed home with the kids Saturday morning so I could get out with some of my friends for coffee. We have sort of an informal book club and it's been about a year since we last got together to discuss a book. Apparently the kids had fun eating bananas and watching Lion King.



2.5.12
We went to Duncanville today to celebrate my Dad and Marsha's birthday. The kids had a lot of fun making Valentines and they always love playing with all the musical instruments.

First words

2.2.12


Hanging out in bed reading books and watching cartoons, waiting for Mom to get ready.

2.3.12

The boy and his trucks.

Asher seems to actually be starting to say some words now, other than just mama, dada, and animal noises. Yesterday he pointed to the apples on the counter and said "a - buh", which seemed to clearly be an approximation for apple. Today he pointed to bananas and said "nana, nana" asking for a banana.


Snack time!

The other night, Teagan tried to yank a toy out of Asher's hands while he was standing on a little table, pulling him headfirst onto the tile floor. He got quite the bump on his head and we had a talk with Teagan about how dangerous that was and what a serious injury Asher got. Tonight while he was falling asleep I kept having to tell Teagan to stop kissing him because I was afraid she would wake him up. She told me, "I'm just kissing him so he'll know that I still love him after that serious injury I gave him."

Teagan's favorite things

We were watching a cartoon this morning and it was "favorite things day." I asked T what her favorite things were, and she said, "Painting, swimming, and Starbucks cake pops!" I think another favorite thing though is making cranberry sunrise lemonade. She got a kids cookbook for Christmas and we make the lemonade recipe quite often. She loves to follow the recipe and pour all the ingredients into the glass. Since it was about 75 degrees this afternoon, we decided to make lemonade and then take it outside with us while we played.


Asher decided to decorate his face with sidewalk chalk.