One-Year-Old School

November=Thanksgiving

The weather has been really nice (in the 70s) here this month. Every day I think...we need to go to the park today or play outside all day because this could be the last day before it gets really cold...All...month...long... Therefore, I haven't done as good of a job with doing activities with the boys this month. I should have taken more pictures of us playing outside because we did A LOT of that this month. We did do a few Thanksgiving activities:

Sensory Box

We dressed up as Pilgrims and Indians

We talked about the letter T

17 Months-Independence

I'm sure this is the story of our life for the rest of our life but I have really seen James start to become more and more independent this month. He started being able to go up and down the stairs without me fearing for his life so we took down the gate at the bottom of the stairs. Just recently he has decided that he can go upstairs to play in the playroom whenever he wants or just to go up there and get something he knows is up there. I'm not really sure how I feel about this.

As gross as this may sound James is starting to have control over his bladder. He especially likes to make himself pee when he is in the tub and he can watch it!

He now has the urge to climb on (or at least try) anything and everything he can. He can climb into his rocking chair in his room all by himself. Whenever I leave him by himself for a second I come back and he has found some kind of box and turned it into a stool and is on top of it...normally at this point just for the sake of being on top of it. It won't be long and he will be getting into things or crawling on the counters.

That's all I can think of for now...

1-Year-Old School

October=Pumpkins and Leaves

For this month we ended up with two themes. We worked on scooping and filling a bucket. We worked on the letter "L" and it's sound. And we sang some songs.

sensory bucket

"L" craft

jack-o-lantern finger painting

orange play-doh

Mr. Pumpkinhead

songs

I'm a little pumpkin orange and round.

Here is my stem

I grow on the ground.

When I get all cut up don't you shout!

Just open me up and scoop me out.

Happy Halloween

I wanted to think of a Halloween costume that made sense for James and not just something I thought was cute. While looking online at Halloween costumes somehow I thought of "The Man in the Yellow Hat" from Curious George. James loves to carry around his monkey and this was the perfect excuse for him to be dressed up and carry his monkey around with him.

Nursery

More Big News For James:

I have been hesitant to blog about this in case it might jinx us but I finally decided it was time.

James has had a good report in the nursery for the last 4 WEEKS!!! We started putting James in the nursery when he was 3 or 4 months old and he has always cried and been a general pain the whole time he was in there. The first few weeks they called us to come get him then they realized that was just how he was going to be so they would keep him and walk the halls with him and push him in a stroller and many other things to try to help him out. Needless to say, ALL the nursery workers knew James' name. I don't really know what changed but all of a sudden he is going into the nursery (he cries for a few minutes when we hand him over) and playing with the toys and not crying. It is so exciting for Mommy and Daddy.

This week when the man handed James to me at the end he said "James was such a pleasure. He is so easy!" I thanked him and said "sir, you have no idea how exciting it is for me to hear you say that. It has not always been that way." I'm glad the people in the nursery are finally getting to see how sweet our boy can be.

Naps

About a month ago James started struggling a little bit with his two naps so I thought maybe it was time to drop the morning nap. We started by only letting him sleep 30-45 minutes in the morning to help him make it to the afternoon nap time but not be so well rested he couldn't sleep in the afternoon. Eventually he got to a point where he would just sit and play in his crib the whole time and not sleep. We had several days of this so I decided maybe it was time to do away with that nap altogether. The problem is no matter what I did...morning nap or not...he would only sleep 1 hour in the afternoon. James likes/needs his sleep so I was pretty sure this wasn't enough but didn't know how to help him sleep longer. I tried putting him down earlier for the afternoon nap thinking maybe he was over-tired but that just meant we had a longer time between nap and bedtime because he would still only sleep an hour. Very frustrating!! Most days he seemed to cope pretty well on very little nap time. He still slept great at night and was definitely very tired when it was time for sleep but not falling apart too much. This past week we finally started making some progress. He went to 1 hour 15 minutes for several days and then moved to 1 hour 30 minutes for a few days.

THE BIG NEWS!!!

Today he slept for 2 hours for his afternoon nap. I am trying not to get too excited and start thinking that naps will be 2+ hours from now on but I had to blog about it quick while it was still exciting (before tomorrow rolls around and he decides to only sleep 45 minutes-we've had several days like that thrown in). Hopefully, even if he doesn't make this an everyday occurrence immediately, it will mean that he is moving towards better naps in the not too distant future. I'm ready for the long afternoon naps we are supposed to be having!

16 Months

It is amazing all the new things James is learning these days. And, he learns things so quickly. When I want him to learn a new sign I only have to teach him once and he seems to pick it right up. Right now he is signing, please, thank you, eat, drink, and more. He loves to fold his hands to pray before bed or meals. We often have to pray several times throughout a meal. I guess he is very thankful for his food.

He calls his monkey "Bobo". I think this comes from baby. One of my Cabbage Patch Kids is in his playroom and he will give it hugs every now and then. I have been trying to get him to say baby. He started saying bobo and will call pictures of babies and any stuffed animal bobo. I think anything cute and cuddleable is "Bobo". He also says "there it is" when we are putting on his clothes. When his hand or foot appear out the sleeve or pant leg he says "there it is!" He can also say "football" but only if he is holding his foot!

James went to his first FSU game and did the tomahawk chop with the crowd. He has a little football that plays the fight song that we practiced with before the game. He can also give a fist bump.

He has really started playing with Corbin. They often hold hands when we are riding along in the double stroller or give each other high fives or fist bumps. They also randomly give each other hugs. We have started sharing hugs as a way of saying sorry when they upset each other.

The Pumpkin Patch

So, it's a Saturday morning in the middle of October. We decide to go to one of those church yard "pumpkin patches"-it's what we have time for this year. We start at the church we have gone to every year since we got married....they are unloading pumpkins and setting up. At 10am on Saturday in the middle of October? Oh well, we know of another church that has a pumpkin yard so we head there. They are all set up and there is only one other car there! We are excited that we won't have to try to crop out other shoppers from our pumpkin patch pictures. Then we realize that the other car is also someone wanting to buy pumpkins and the person who is running this patch is nowhere to be found. We take lots of pictures with James then decide to go to the Farmer's Market to buy our pumpkin because apparently the churches don't want our business. It was crazy. I would have thought that everyone would be bringing out their kids on a Saturday morning and I felt like we were late getting our pumpkin. Well, we finally did get our pumpkins and had a great day finding one!

First Haircut

James had his first haircut last night. Lee cut his hair. We sat him up on our stool in the kitchen and turned on Scooby Doo. I sat next to James and tried to keep him from climbing off the stool. Lee wanted to cut his hair with the clippers but James wasn't sure about the buzzing sound coming up behind him so we resorted to scissors. It turned out really cute. Lee did a great job!

before

after

FSU

On Saturday we went to the Wake v. FSU football game. Florida State played horribly (we are Florida State fans) so the game wasn't that great but James did great. He enjoyed cheering and eating and playing with people's empty water bottles. I made him some awesome fan gear. We did not get awesome pictures of it but here is the best we got!

you can almost see the FS on his shirt I made

cute fall hat I made to keep the sun and wind off his head

One-Year-Old School

September=Apples

We have done some very simple activities to keep us busy this September. Our theme was apples and my goal was to have the boys identify an apple and maybe say the word apple. We also talked about the letter "A" and the "aaaaa" (short a) sound. We also tried to use as many of our senses as possible with our activities. Here are some of the activities we did:

apple sensory bucket

apple prints (this activity didn't really work and the boys were less than impressed)

finger painting (there was definitely crying at the beginning of this activity but they started to participate after a little bit. I think they will enjoy finger painting with more practice.)

red play-doh

apple fruit leather

apple turnovers

SONGS

Way up high in the apple tree

Two little apples smiled down at me (he wouldn't do this action when I was trying to take pictures, I'll add it later if I can get him to perform!)

I shook that tree as hard as I could

Down came the apples, mmmmm they were good!

Just Cute

Not My Child

Until just recently I have thought James had a lot in common with his mommy as far as his personality, etc. Well, as most of the people who read this blog already know I do not eat "white" stuff like ranch, mayo, etc.

Well the other night I made some chicken nuggets and I thought James might like to dip them in ranch...because little kids like to dip stuff right? Well, he did like to dip.....his FINGER in the ranch and eat it all up. I don't think he really wanted any chicken after he started eating the ranch. Once he licked it all up he whined for more ranch. He is DEFINITELY his father's child!

Pumpkin

Me: Look James it's a pumpkin!

James: BALL

Me: No it's not a ball. It's a pumpkin. Can you say pumpkin?

James: BALL

Me: Pump-Kin

James: Ball-ball

Me: Ok, it's a ball.

Sleepover

James had his first sleepover last week. We had fun playing together and Corbin and James played nicely together while I made dinner which was nice since James normally is very whiny while I am trying to make dinner.

We went to a book signing at Barnes and Noble then went to bed. The next day it was chilly so we stayed in our jammies until lunchtime and spent time inside playing in our tent in the living room. It was so much fun!

15 Months

I can't believe James is already 15 months old. He is looking so big now and not like a baby anymore. Sometimes when I look at him I can see him as a 4 or 5 year old. It's crazy.

James is walking better and better and starting to learn to climb on things. He loves music and cuddling. He also likes to make a mess.

There are several words he can say. Some of them sound exactly like what they should sound like. Some of them are just words he uses consistently for an object but don't sound that much like the word he is meaning to say. I suspect there are other words he can "say" that I just haven't caught onto yet!

The words he says now are:

this (all the time!!)

ball

hi

bye

hot

brush

shoes

done

yes

no

daddy

mama (hardly ever but he can...when I ask him to say mama he normally says DADDY)

boo

moo

woof

vroom

brrr

The Beach

We went to the beach twice this summer. I forgot to write about it the first time we went so I am going to lump both of our trips together.

At the end of July, we went to a wedding in Florida and got to spend a few days at Daytona Beach. This was James' first experience with the beach. He loved it. He ate some sand but he also enjoyed playing with it.

At the beginning of September we went to Topsail Beach for a week. Again James loved it. This time he was a little nervous about the waves going in and out and knocking him over. As the week went on his balance really improved (after walking on many different surfaces and starting to get used to them). By the end of the week he enjoyed chasing the waves as long as Mommy or Daddy were standing nearby.