23 months- so close to 2!

I can NOT believe Aidric is going to be two years old next month!! Even though I've been saying he's "almost 2" for awhile now when someone asks his age, I'm not ready to say, "he's 2"!

I haven't done a list in awhile, but that's not for a lack of things to love about this amazing kiddo! He has such a great personality- so sweet, funny, loving and yes, ornery!!

At "almost 2", I love...

1. How sweet you are to your sister. She sneezed in the car today, and I heard your little voice say, "bess you dules" almost immediately.

2. That your sense of direction is already better than mine. In the car, you constantly direct me to go "dis way" or "da way" while pointing in the direction that leads us to the closest park.

3. The way you apologize after you've done something wrong. There is something that just melts my heart when you say "dar-ee mom-my" without my even prompting you to.

4. How you share your food with us. Even if you are eating something you absolutely LOVE, you will still give us a bite if we ask.

5. The fact that you have created your very own word. MOOP! Moop is a verb and it means stop; we think you are actually trying to save "move" but you clearly mean "stop". It's hilarious when you tell us to "moop" while holding your arm straight out at us in a "stop in the name of love" kind of motion. We really shouldn't laugh and encourage it, but sometimes, it's just too hard not to.

6. That you put words together to form little sentences. Let's be honest, they are usually commands, but they are still sentences. Ex. "daddy cut it" "A-day hode it" "mommy sit here"

7. The way you say "3-2-1 blast off!!" which is the way you like to swing, play airplane with mommy and go up the stairs with daddy. You get so excited, everything after "tree and two" comes out a mumbled mess of sounds.

8. How you cuddle up so sweet on our shoulder, arm around our neck and sucking your thumb during nighttime routine.

9. The way you request to "Eat" all day long. You can finish a huge lunch and 5 minutes after getting down from your chair, you ask to "eat".

10. This is going to be a long one, but I need to tell a little back story for it to make sense.

One night, you were incessantly saying "more, more, more" over and over again while we were sitting at the table. Daddy said, "what do you say?" and you replied, "please", but IMMEDIATELY after please, you started the "more, more, more" again. Daddy told you that you needed to wait.

We worked on the concept of "wait" the rest of the meal and at other times after this. Sometimes you would continue to beg and we would start with the "what do you say?" You would reply, "please". And then we would say, "And then what do you do?" and you would say, "Wait!"

So, that has evolved. Now whenever you want something and we say, "What do you say honey?" you immediately respond, "PLEASE! WAIT!" like you are replying to your drill sargaent. It cracks us up every time, but we are trying to undo what we've done and teach you that "please" is what you SAY and "wait" is what you DO!

Tractors and School Busses

Pretty much the theme of our week in Indiana. Aidric is obsessed with most forms of transportation, but choo choo trains, busses and tractors rank WAY up on the list. My Aunt Gloria drives a school bus, so Aidric was able to actually get on the bus. He was a little intimidated at first, but that may have been the barking dogs and the fact that it was raining out. When he and I went back out later, he was much more comfortable.

(notice Aidric is wearing a different shirt in all of these pictures- it wasn't just a day of tractors, it was EVERY day...)

Fair Oaks Dairy Farm

This kind of excitement so close to DeMotte didn't even exist when I was growing up. The Dairy Farm has small "museum" type exhibits with information, a simulated video (to which Aidric cried, "all done" during the last half of), a bus ride tour of the farm, a cheese shop, cafe, and outside activities for kids like small tractors, a train and a giant trampoline.

A few pics from our day...

playing with cousin ella

Ella is officially in love with Juliet. She is so gentle and sweet with her- sometimes pretending that Juliet is HER baby, at other times pretending Juliet is just playing right along with her. The other day, I walked into the room to see Juliet surrounded by baby dolls and Ella pronounced, "her playing with me Aunt Staci!".

Love birds in footed jammies

It started with an innocent viewing of backyardigans.


You can see the idea forming...


Going in for the kiss. He may need some work on his moves- she's clearly not sure about this.


Ah well, what's one innocent kiss?


Aidric, Juliet and I are in Indiana now. We flew to Chicago on Wednesday and stayed for two nights in Evanston with the Nords. Had a great time and now, all we hear from Aidric is TRACTOR!!! Within 5 minutes of being at grandma and papa's house, Aidric and I had taken a ride down the driveway in the wagon behind my dad's tractor. He's now in the kitchen (covered in dirt after playing outside with Uncle Scott), baking a cake with grandma. Good times....and many more fun pictures to come!

(pics taken by Gretchen..edited by me)

Easter

First, the cake pops I made to bring to Mollies, inspired by bakerella. If you are Indiana family and you are going to be at my Uncle Nick and Aunt Barb's next weekend, get excited, b/c my mom and I will be making more to bring =).




We dyed a few eggs (very few, we're talking four or so). Aidric colored his eggs and I helped him dip them in the dye.



Chris helped Jules get in on the action.


The cutest little easter bunny EVER.


Chris and I had hid the plastic eggs in the playroom. I put goldfish in most of them and a piece of candy corn like candy in about 4. Here is Aidric finding his first egg, which just happened to have candy:


He approves:


After that, every time he found an egg that had a goldfish, he got this disappointed look on his face and said, "cacker", put the egg back and kept looking for more "cannie". He was soooo excited when he found his Easter basket and toys from Grandma and Grandpa -they were "hiding" in the swing. It was hard to get back on track with the egg hunting after finding the loot! (bouncy ball, sand set, little people set, fruit twists, markers, tennis balls, rubber duckies, etc.)



Jules munching on the outfits in her Easter basket.




Juliet and I getting ready to leave the boys at home.


We had a great Easter and the kids and I are looking forward to being in Indiana next week to see everyone and have another "Easter"!

Painting

I just realized I never posted our Easter pictures! We had a pretty low key day- Aidric woke up with a runny nose and cough, so he and Chris stayed home while Juliet and I went to a cookout at Mollie's.

Anyway.....I'll post some pictures of that soon, but for now, here are a few pictures of Aidric enjoying an item from his Easter basket. (Grandma went a little overboard on the easter basket- pictures of that to come as well!)

This was a small horse ceramic that came with a tiny paint brush and cups. He did a really great job painting it and LOVED doing it.




Painting the horse was fun, but he couldn't resist a little paint on himself too!

It was 90 degrees on Thursday...

and this is what Aidric INSISTED on wearing after finding it in the car. He wore it into the store and then at home while doing water play. Doesn't everyone wear a knit hat for water play??? The way I figure, it's all about choosing your battles, and I just didn't care enough to fight him on this one....






Unfortunately for Aidric, I chose to fight (and won) the "it's time to go inside now" battle.

Poor second child...

I would have never put Aidric in pink!! But, I didn't want to buy new sleep sacks for Juliet until we tested them out to see how she likes them. That was three weeks ago. She likes them. And she's still wearing blue. I just couldn't justify buying new ones just b/c these were blue when we're the only ones who see her in them. (and now all of you....) I'll wait until she needs a lighter weight cotton one and then she'll get pink.

Big helper

Aidric loves to help with Juliet. Actually, Aidric loves almost anything to do with Juliet, but that's another post. (speaking of, I really need to import the video of him saying Juliet, which sounds like "dew-eee-yet" and AJ, which is "A-day").

Back to the helping though- he insists on burping her, pushing her in the swing, and most recently, carrying her in the car seat. When I pick up the carrier, I always bend down, swing my arm under the handle and then stand up- I never just carry it with my hand b/c it's so heavy. I love that Aidric imitates the whole motion perfectly, except when it comes to standing up, he grunts and grunts and finally asks for "alp", which is help.

Spring is definitely here

I couldn't resist sneaking over to the neighbor's the other day during nap time to take some pictures of her gorgeous flowers.

I am going to frame these two next to each other for our room- I know the processing on these is a little weird, but there is just something about the way the flowers look like liquid metal that I really liked, so we're going to go with it.




And this one for a narrow frame I have sitting on the mantle...


Here are a few more: