2014- Updates all around

We are pretty excited about 2014. It will be full of changes, Mark started his MBA, works full time, and teaches the 14-15 year old Sunday School class , Emerson is full-swing in toddlerville now, and Natalie is full time at home and the Mia-Maid advisor in their ward.


We added shutters to the house

 We finished painting all the main areas, and four of the bedrooms
  These aren't the best pictures, maybe someday ill get some up where you can actually see the color

Emersons room is a lovely light grey blue - North Star

 
 



The play room and the office are a great light sage - November Rain

 




We reupholstered our kitchen chairs

Emerson is 15 months old and mr. busy busy busy. He is into everything and his favorite word is "no-no" with sassy finger shake included. He is a great kid and overall a super happy easy child. He is defiantly getting more opinionated on what he wants and when he wants to do things = he knows how to throw a fit. He loves all balls, cars, blocks, and loves loves Curious George. He always dances around and cheers when the theme song comes on, so dang cute. And it lets me hop in the shower and distracts him for 15 minutes :) He still takes two naps a day, on a good day. He has never been a long napper ever and they usually range from 20-40 minutes. He goes to bed at 8 and wakes up about 7-7:30. He still loves his Aiden & Anais blankets that we used to swaddle him when he was a baby. He always sleeps with one of them now, I'm so glad we had a pack of four! He also loves to take all the freshly washed and folded ones from the laundry and pile them up and lay on them :)

Bowling is a huge hit & the arcade is still a favorite.

He loves loves books and wants us to read to him all the time

His favorite place to sit

 Charming his way out of naps

 We went to lunch and they had a mini-table, he loves being able to sit by himself not in a highchair.

We love playing in the snow. He also is a big helper in the snow-shoveling department.

He is  a pretty good eater and generally eats everything. He still won't eat broccoli - I have tried since he was 7 months old and started eating. I still offer it to him every time we eat it but still not a taker. Peas are his favorite veggie and he gobbles those up before he touches anything else on his plate. He has gone through a growth spurt the last 2 weeks and eats like he is a bottomless pit. The other day he ate 2 pieces of pizza and asked for more! We settled on a banana instead of a third piece. He drinks water during the day, he loves water. And he has a bottle with whole milk at night before bed.

A few people have asked how he is such a great eater, mostly I think it is probably just him and we lucked out but we have done a few things which I think help. He has always eaten what we do, no separate "baby" food or  "kid" foods. What is on our plate is on his, which makes me think up healthier meals because I always want whole grains, fruits, and multiple veggies for him. If he doesn't eat it, sorry that's dinner and on 2 occasions he has not eaten his dinner and we haven't offered him anything else.  Also the main thing, no SNACKING. He has one snack a day in the afternoon before his nap. That's it. If he snacks anymore, in between breakfast and lunch or anymore before dinner his pickyness level goes up and his intake at meals drops dramatically. Mark & I both noticed this even if he has a string cheese or even one cracker before dinner that he eats less and wont try new things. Don't know why but it really did make a huge difference having only one designated snack time.

He is talking up a storm and repeats what we say. His pronunciation is not there but he is really getting the syllabus and inflection.
He "says":
Mama
Dada
Grandpa
Grandma
Tom Tom
No-no
Go
Hi
Bye
Thank you
Please
nana ( banana)
breakfast
lunch
dinner
milk
Snack
cheese
cracker
bath
blanket
Geo (curious George)
Elmo
Football
touchdown
Basketball
Amen
and does the animal sounds for sheep, cow, horse, dog, cat, a "fox", a fish, and scary bear (he growls it's hilarious)