Happy 18 Months!

Mitchell turned 18 months old yesterday!

Here's his monthly chair picture...goofy kid :)

We did not get to celebrate Mitchell's 1st birthday with my Dad and Sherri because we were travelling for the holidays, so we decided to celebrate his half-birthday instead!

Here we are signing him his birthday song....he thinks we're saying 'hat birthday' instead of 'half birthday' so he's signing hat. Maybe we'll be able to blow out our own candles by 2?

We bought some cupcakes to celebrate with and as soon as we set them on the table, Mitchell said "cupcake" over and over again. We've not had them at home before, so they must have them at daycare? We were surprised he knew what they were!

Dad and Sherri got a few presents that he REALLY enjoyed including a Little Tykes golf set and a basketball goal. He has played with one or the other non-stop since he opened them!

Our little golfer

Thanks guys!!!

18 Month check-up

We went to Mitchell's 18 month check-up yesterday. He's still a big boy...growing taller and stronger!

Here are his updated stats:
Height - 34 inches - 90th percentile
Weight - 30 pounds, 8 ounces - 95th percentile

She was impressed with his vocabulary and thought he was doing just great!



Picture in front of our flower bed out front - Summer 2009

Picture in front of our flower bed out front - 2008

He has quickly turned from a baby into a little boy! :)

We're having a mini-half birthday celebration with my Dad and Sherri tomorrow since we're out of town on his actual birthday. I'll post some pics :)

Buckle

I believe I've mentioned before how addicted Mitchell is to buckling his car seat. Literally, it was the very first thing he asked for this morning as I lifted him out of his crib! One of my co-workers suggested getting his old baby carseat out, so that he didn't fuss to spend countless hours in the car in 100 degree weather! Genius! Why didn't I think of that?!?!?

It seems to satisfy him :)

We have our 18 month pediatrician appointment tomorrow, and I know they will ask how many words Mitchell is saying, so I made a little list on the side of the blog. It's more so that I don't lie to them...but I thought you'd like to see what he's saying these days! I was going to estimate 50, so I at least came up with that many. I'm sure I missed a few, he's a babbling machine these days!

Happy Father's Day!

We had a wonderful, relaxing weekend and I think Jacob had a very nice Father's Day!


Mitchell gave him the above Father's Day card...and a few things to go along with it :)



Here's the pair in our driveway.


We made a trip to the pool, which Mitchell LOVED! He even became self-sufficient at climbing up and going down the pool slide....much easier on us :) Tonight we joined Jacob in 9 holes of golf. I pushed Mitchell in the stroller and we walked the course while Jacob golfed. It was actually pretty fun! Mitchell has become very fond of watching golf! We watched some of the US Open today and as soon as one of the golfers would get done swinging, he'd look at Jacob and I and say "more, more, more" as if we had control to tell Tiger to swing again :)

It was about 8:45pm when Jacob teed off the last hole. We asked Mitchell if he was tired, to which he promptly replied "no, no, no" complimented by a firm head shake! He was sound asleep in his stroller at 8:50pm :)

NASCAR driver in the making?

Mitchell is still completely obsessed with playing in the car, to the point where it's often very difficult to get him OUT of the car and indoors. If it were up to him, he'd just play in the garage all day! He enjoys playing with his carseat buckle (when he's NOT in it, of course!) He surprised me the other day by getting all 3 parts buckled the right way! He can not unbuckle yet (thankfully!), so after he gets it buckled he alerts me that he'd like to do "more, more, more", which means I need to unbuckle it for him!

In addition to playing with the buckle in the backseat, he still loves pretending to drive! Only now, he has come to the realizaation that you need keys to start the car. I guess he's watched us enough times and just figured it out. I had the keys sitting in the consol the other day and he picked them up, somehow figured out quickly that it must be the big black key that would start the ignition. He successfully put it IN the ignition. He does not seem to realize that you have to turn it yet....I think we'll try to keep that one a secret for a while :)

Jacob and Mitchell are flying solo at home for a few days, while I'm working in Des Moines at our big summer recruiting event. I'm looking forward to heading home tomorrow afternoon!

Boo Boo

We had a fairly uneventful weekend, except for a near nose-breaking fall on Saturday! I tried to capture the bruised nose above, but honestly it has healed so much faster than we thought it would! This picture was taken about 10 minutes after his big faceplant into our hardwood floors. I gave him a popsicle to try to distract him from the pain and it definitely did the trick! Poor little guy!

If I ask Mitchell to point to his "boo boo" he'll immediately pick one out on his knees/legs. Outta sight, outta mind :)

Otherwise, we had a nice weekend at home with minimal plans. My dad and Sherri volunteered to watch Mitchell on Friday night so that we could attend a work happy hour. Mitchell was treated to Happy Meal and a trip to the park. I don't think he missed us much :)

Super Boy!

Mitchell stepped into a phonebooth and came back out as SUPER BOY...sixpack and all (courtesy of Grandma Bays)!

It even has a detachable cape on the back! I can already see this is bound to be one of Mitchell's favorite jammies.

The Super Boy is working on his super memory lately. He is starting to ask for specific books by remembering something about them from the last time we read them. It's a little guessing game on my part, but we eventually get there.

Here's an example:

Me: "Mitchell, let's read a book."

Mitchell: Nods and heads toward the bookbasket. Starts sifting through the books saying "hot".

Me: Hmmm...what book is hot? We read one last night with a fire in the fireplace and discussed that it would be hot. I find "Goodnight Moon" in the basket and ask "This book with the hot fireplace?"

Mitchell: "Yeah, yeah, yeah" as he crawls up in our comfy reading chair.

He has also asked for "Dada" a few times this week. He will look around and then shrug his shoulders and put his arms in a W and say "Dada"? I explain that he's out of town for work, but will be home late TONIGHT! Yeah!

Folks Family Reunion

Here are some pictures from the Folks Family Reunion in Oklahoma this past weekend. There were probably 35 people there traveling from far and wide, all donned in their Hawaiian themed gear!


Katy (Jacob's sister), David (Jacob's Dad) and Jacob

I'm not sure how fond Mitchell was of his grass skirt, I mean necklace :)

The kids busted open a pinata and the two littlest ones pictured above helped eat the suckers :)
Mitchell's 2nd cousin, Justin, is 10 days older and they had lots of fun playing together!



Overall we had lots of fun and are looking forward the annual event :)

We are equally excited to stay put for a few weeks! We'll be home for 3 whole weekends in a row before heading to Maine for our annual 4th of July trip. We've have had a great spring and are looking to a less travel-hectic summer :)

Pictures from Wisconsin last week

Mitchell had a great visit with Grandma and Grandpa Bays last week! Here his is swimming in his little pool...he is such a fish these days. He does this little belly crawl in the bathtub now too :)




He spent lots of time playing in his little sandbox.

What are you taking pictures of me for?

He "helps" me water the plants at home, so he was using what he's learned on Grandma's flowers.




He was so tuckered out that he fell asleep in his swing.

All in all, he had a GREAT trip! We also had a nice visit to Oklahoma this weekend, I'll post some pics soon :)

Leaving for Oklahoma :)

Although my Jacob and Mitchell free days at home have been a really nice break, I'm really excited to head to Oklahoma to pick them up at the Tusla airport. We're headed to Lake Tenkiller for a reunion with his Dad's side of the family, and can't wait to see everyone, including his Dad and his brother Connor from Maine and his sister, Katy from Oklahoma City. It's a Hawaiian theme and wouldn't you know that Mitchell has TWO hawaiian shirts to choose from!

Looking forward to posting lots of pictures upon our return!

Happy Weeekend to all :)

Play Ball!

We all went to watch Kelli play softball on Monday night, and Mitchell LOVED it! He couldn't quite understand why he couldn't go on the field though :)



Kel gave him an extra ball to play with while we watched, which certainly was entertaining. His favorite activity seemed to be dropping it under the bleachers and then crawling around to find it.

The little guy seems to be having a great time with Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Kel. I flew home yesterday and Jacob is staying downtown Minneapolis until Friday afternoon. It's quiet around the house with both of them gone, but my productivity level sure has increased :) I'm certainly looking forward to picking them both up from the airport on Friday!

Water fun!

Prescott, Wisconsin (where my mom, David and Kel live) is right along the St. Croix river and they have a beach that you can swim in. Let me remind you that late May in Minneapolis is NOT that WARM! We took Mitchell to the beach thinking he'd enjoy playing in the sand and thought we'd DIP his toes into the water while we were there. We did not wear swimmsuits or bring towels.....little did we know our little water baby would demand to fully immerse himself in the water!

He would've kept walking deeper and deeper if I'd have let him! The cold water did not seem to bother him at all! He thought it was really fun to dip himself down into the water....

and then JUMP up and laugh!

We finally dragged him away from the beach, causing many tears and headed home! We sent Jacob to a local store to buy Mitchell a baby pool and improvised with buckets of warm water in the meantime!

He played and played until the luke warm water grew cold and Grandpa helped him towel off his chilly little body. He saw the buckets a few days later and promptly began asking if he could take a 'bath' in them!

More, More, More :)

We are having a great time visiting my family in Minneapolis. Mitchell has been pretty entertaining to say the least! He is a chatterbox, talking non-stop...mostly saying the same words OVER and OVER! One of his recent favorite words is "more". He uses in some conventional ways, as if to tell us that he wants more food, but has more recently started to use it to tell us when he likes things and wants more of them. Some examples:

1. My mom was combing his hair the other morning, and he was just sitting there so nicely enjoying the feeling of the comb going through his hair and rubbing his scalp. As soon as she finished, he promptly turned his head around, looked at her and said and signed "more" to tell her that he wanted her to keep combing! Of course, she complied :)

2. The neighbor boys that are Mitchell's age came down for a quick visit yesterday to play. After their visit , they were leaving the driveway and Mitchell started walking after them saying and signing "more" because he wanted them to stay and play!

3. My sister was mocking one of Mitchell's toys and saying this silly little phrase. Mitchell thought it was really funny and requested that she continue saying it over and over again by saying "more" as soon as she finished.

Jacob and I are both working downtown Minneapolis today, Mitchell is spending the day with Grandma and Grandpa. I have some cute pictures that we've taken this weekend that I'll work on getting uploaded!