New things

I feel like I need to constantly update the blog with new things Drew is doing.

Here are some new things.....

New Words said in context:
car - he saw a car drive down the street and said "car" and then we were watching an Office rerun and they were in the car driving, he looked up at the tv and said "car"

flip flop - Drew got some new flip flops a couple of weekends ago and he loves them. He has repeated flip flop for a while, but last night he looked down at my feet and said "flip flop?" and then this morning I was putting his shoes on and asked him if he wanted to wear his blue shoes, he said no and then said "flip flop."

outside - we were at Greg and Kelley's for dinner and Drew kept running to the door and saying "side" (meaning outside). He also heard Mike go out the back door the other night and said "dada side?".

phone - Drew has loved phones for months and months and now he finally says the word when he sees a phone

Other new things:
Drew can look at pictures and point out: both grandmas (he sometimes calls them mama) and both grandpas, Uncle Matt, PopPop, Uncle Greg (Geg), and Aunt Kelley (Telley).

BIG Highlight:
On Saturday night (my birthday) I was putting Drew to bed and he finally repeated "I love you." We've been working on it for a while and he finally said it! It will be even more special when he says it all on his own, but I'll take what I can get right now. He said it over and over on Saturday evening, probably because he loved the reaction he was getting from me. What a super birthday present!

Funny story:
Drew is getting into pretend play. He likes to wave bye bye to us and then walk off into the other room. Tonight he decided to put his play camera in the real camera case. He put the strap on the case over his shoulder and waved bye bye. I waved back and then he said "cool". We have been telling him how cool he is when he wears his sunglasses, so I guess he just thinks he's pretty cool even without the sunglasses.

Silly boy:
Drew has learned that he is one year old and can hold up one finger when asked how old he is. Well we have also been working on counting to three (we are starting small) and now when asked how old he is...he says...."two" (he still holds up one finger). I think he is used to hearing two after one, so when I correct him and tell him he's one, he says two right away. So we aren't going to worry about it too much...he'll be two in about 5 months anyways!

Enjoy the "two" video

Royals Game, Farmstead, and Birthday Celebration

Wearing shorts for the first time this year!

Having his evening milk

The BIG exciting news we've been waiting to share is...Greg & Kelley are having a baby! They are due November 5th. Drew will be a big cousin! We are so excited for them and can't wait to meet their little baby!

So far we've been quite busy this weekend. We went to the Royals game last night with my mom and Bob. We got to see the cool new stadium! Drew had a wonderful time. He loved watching the people and all the things going on, I'm not sure he noticed the baseball game much at all. His favorite part of the evening was watching the crowd hit a beach ball around. He kept saying, "ball ball ball" all night long. Finally the ball came around to our area it was hit right above my head and I grabbed it. I handed it over to Drew and people cheered for him all around us. He loved it! About a minute after he threw it into the crowd we headed out. In Drew's eyes we accomplished what we came for (catching and throwing a beach ball).

My two boys.

Drew & Gma

Gpa, Gma, Drew, and Daddy

This morning I woke up early and met my friend, Kate for a nice long run. I made it 6 miles today! I was a bit surprised by myself...I haven't run that far in a long time. I've been taking it easy to due my plantar fasciitis, but I think it is getting better. Now I have to decided if I can/should try and run the Hospital Hill half marathon on June 6th. We'll see how that plays out!

Later in the morning we met Julie and Celia at Deanna Rose Farmstead for some fun. The kids had fun. We got the wagon out for the first time and Drew wasn't such a trooper. He would sit in there but wouldn't share a seat with Celia. We will be working on that one! He also insisted on walking and then fell and re injured his first skinned knee (he skinned his knee for the first time this past Thursday). I have a feeling he'll be getting a few more scrapes now that he's wearing shorts and walking around outside. So other than not sharing seats and falling down, it was a fun visit to the farmstead!

Petting the goat

Trying to pet the goat

Big boy walking around the farmstead

Drew, Julie, Celia, and I
First skinned knee (poor guy)

Tonight Mike and I are going to try the Fork & Screen. We are going to celebrate my birthday by watching a movie and eating dinner at the same time (pretty cool huh?). It is amazing how birthday celebrations change when you have kids. Mike asked what I wanted to do and I wanted to go on a long run this morning and take Drew to the farmstead. What happened to going out on the town? We are getting old around here, two more years until the BIG 30, yuck!

Language Explosion

I've read in several different books, websites, magazines, etc. that about 18 months your child's language will begin to explode and Drew is surely textbook in this area (not in all areas for sure). We are always talking to him and in the last few weeks he has started repeating about every few words we say. The kid will jibber jabber all the way to daycare each morning, sometimes he's speaking his own language and other times he's just repeating me. We are beginning to think this kid is going to be a nonstop talker the more he learns the more he says again and again. He's been putting two words together in last few weeks as well. He also can answer questions verbally that we would never expect. He said "dada" to me the other day and I said "where is dada?" and he said "work". Now whenever he brings up "dada" I usually tell him he's at work and apparently it stuck.

He also can point out his "bottom", we didn't teach that to him. He was running around diaper free tonight and Mike told him to go lay his bottom on his diaper, he began to run away (he likes being naked). I decided to ask him where his rear is and he pointed right to it. How funny, how did he learn that one?

Oh and here's a funny one that happened a while back, but I just have to document this because it is so darn funny. The three of us were hanging out one day in the family room. Mike vanished upstairs and all of a sudden we here the toilet flush from upstairs. Drew looks up at me and says, "dada." He knew his dad just flushed the toilet...that just cracks me up every time I think about it!

As many of you know he's obsessed with hats (aka "tats"). Tonight he had a hat on and then went to our closet and wanted to get dad's hat down. So I helped him get it, he put it on Mike's head and then he got one of my hats down and I had it on. Mike took all three hats and mixed them up and told him to grab dad's hat and put it on dad and then mom's hat and put it on me. He easily picked out each person's hat. He did struggle to put the hats on our heads so when he got frustrated he put the hats on our hands (he wanted help getting the hats on our head and knew our hands would be able to accomplish this for him). I know this may not seem much to most of you, but he continues to surprise us day after day with these little episodes.

I used to be so sad he was growing up and now I think I just love this age. I love the constant new learning! This summer we'll be working on all kinds of skills since I'll be a stay at home mom (until school starts up again in August).

Oh and more exciting news...we noticed two new teeth coming in. If you remember...he's got six teeth and has had these teeth for quite some time. He's got four on top and two on bottom. Well we see some molars coming in on top on both sides, but there are quite a few teeth that typically come before and there is no sign of those. Our little guy is sprouting teeth on his own schedule!

No new pictures today, I haven't taken any today. Shocker I know!

A Lake Weekend

We ventured to the lake this weekend and had a great time! We left Friday afternoon about the time Drew normally naps, hoping he'd sleep about two hours or so. Our little plan didn't actually fall right into place...Drew stayed awake the WHOLE trip down. By the time we got to the lake it was after 5 so it was too late to try a nap. The ride down wasn't exactly pleasant, but the rest of the weekend was fun.

We went on the boat Saturday morning. Drew was very scared at first, but eventually he was running around the boat and even playing in the little cabin. He enjoyed looking out the window into the water and dragging the cooler around the boat. Fun times for an eighteen month old!

Later that day Drew took a nap while Kelley and I went shopping and the guys went to a car auction. We ended the day at our favorite pizza restaurant.

On Sunday we hung around and made sure Drew got in a nap before we headed home. It was a fun weekend and it sure made me start getting excited for summer. If only the weather would get warm and stay warm.

We also heard some big news over the weekend.  We'll have details to share later!  (teaser)

Here are the pictures from our trip:

18 Months Check Up

Drew and I went to the doc today. He did pretty well, but wasn't too sure about the doctor checking him over. The shots were the worst part though.

Here are the latest stats:
Weight: 23 pounds 4 ounces - 30th percentile
Height: 32.5 inches - 55-60th percentile
Head Circumference: 19 inches - 60th percentile
He's growing up fast!

HAPPY EASTER!

so grown up
We had a great Easter weekend! We headed to church on Saturday evening and then came home and had some delicious ribs that Mike had smoked for us. On Sunday we got up early to see what the Easter bunny had left Drew. He got a golf set, markers (ones that only show up on special paper), a basketball hoop for his bath tub, socks, and his very own camera. He enjoyed searching for eggs and eating the candy he found in the eggs. He tried out some of his new toys and then we got ready and headed over to my mom's for brunch. Both Drew and Celia got some great goodies from Grandma and Grandpa. Drew got an outfit, trucks, bubbles, books, and bunny glasses. Uncle Matt also got Drew some new KU items, and Drew got some fun spring toys from Celia. We also hid some eggs for the two little ones and they found them right away and enjoyed some more candy.

We came back home for a nap and then headed to my aunt's for a quick visit. Drew enjoyed playing with cousin, Kaitlyn. They are 7 weeks apart and played so well together. They found some little decorative eggs in a basket and played with those the whole time. They also played some peekaboo.

We then headed over to Grandma & Grandpa Howell's for another Easter egg hunt. Drew found 24 eggs in no time. He knew exactly what to do and then he opened every single one. He collected some unique coins and some candy of course. He also got a basket from Gma and Gpa, which had some books, a flashlight, and some goldfish crackers. We had dinner and enjoyed a few games of basketball (Drew being the star of course). He ate up the attention!

It was a fun day. Drew is a pro at egg hunting!

taking pictures with his new camera
checking out his goodies from the bunny

wearing mom's flip flops on his arms

playing with new basketball hoop from Uncle Matt

new KU hat
new nightlight

eating candy bright and early in the morning

holding his basket before church
ready for church...one of these days he may be taller than his daddy (he's got a ways to go)

KU hats
playing trains
two big boys playing trains without Drew
sitting with Uncle Matt & Gma
reading to Gpa and daddy (Drew requested they sit next to him, if you look closely you can see daddy isn't paying attention to the story he's playing a game on the Iphone)
sharing an egg with mom

videos: looking for eggs & Playing Ball

18 Months Old!!!

Hurry up and let me color some eggs!

18 months ago today our precious Drew came into this world. We are some of the luckiest parents in the world, our little guy has enhanced our lives more than I can ever express! It is hard to believe how fast the first 18 months have gone by. It also seems like forever ago we were waking him up at night to feed him. I also can't imagine him being 7 pounds...wow has he grown up so fast! We go to the doctor on Thursday so I'll be updating his latest stats then. I love getting him weighed and measured and seeing what percentile he's in. The downfall will be the shots...yuck! That will not be fun!

Last night we did a little egg dying, it was a lot of fun. We only decorated 6 eggs, I thought we'd start small for the first year. I also didn't have any vinegar so we used water and the colors just didn't end up being very bright. Next year we'll have try a little bit harder.

This morning we got Drew's 18 month pictures taken at Target. We won't get our pictures until the 20th, but we got some cute ones. He didn't really smile, but that is typical. He's never been a big smiler when we get pictures taken. He was able to play with some balls and watched Mike blow bubbles, that helped a bit. We got a cute shot of him trying to catch a bubble, it was such perfect timing!

Here are a few pics from our Easter egg dying:

quite proud of himself

looking closely

putting stickers on an egg

mom and drew coloring eggs

Drew and daddy working hard

Finished product...aren't they beautiful!

Video of Drew coloring his eggs