An Ari Update

Our little dude is fast approaching 2 years old. He has changed so much in the last few months. It amazes me every day to watch him grow and learn and change. And I feel so lucky to be able to stay at home with him and watch it all happen every day!

I loved my son when he was a baby, but still, he was FUSSY as all get out. And then we went through all the ear infections, and also the intense separation anxiety stage. Although we have moved onto some defiance, hitting, and tantrums - i.e. terrible twos - this job is really just getting easier and easier and more fun as the months go by. He is mostly a happy kid nowadays and he is smart as all get out and learning so many new things. He is super sweet as well, always giving us hugs and kisses and loves. <3

Let's start with his interests and favorite things! Ari loves:

* anything with wheels!

* books / being read to!

* baths and water play!

* playing at the playground and taking walks and generally being outdoors as much as we can!

* food! Some of his favorites: tacos, beans, noodles, most any fruit, cucumbers, chips and salsa. He will still eat most anything we give him which is a blessing!

* spending time with friends and family - he gets very excited about any plans we have to see them!

* music and singing songs and dancing!

* playing with his baby dolls, train sets, and cell phone(s) (anything of the correct size with buttons is a cell phone!). He feeds his dolls, gives them drinks, and lays them on their stomachs to put them down for naps, wherein he pats their backs and sings "rock a baby, rock a baby" to them. :)

* playing anything, any time with Dada!


Ari's newest skills:

* counting! He can reliably count two of anything and is working on going up to five.

* talking! He has been going through a language explosion recently, stringing words together and learning new words just about every day. His newest word of today: "fwip fop" (i.e. flip flops, which he pointed out when I put on my sandals today).

* peeing in the potty! We are starting potty training slowly. He recently started waking up in the morning totally dry! So he pees in the potty in the morning, before nap, and before bath time, and any time in between that he asks to go. So far we haven't offered any reward other than flushing the toilet after we dump his pee into it, which he thinks is pretty cool.

* learning his colors. So far he seems to know blue, red, yellow, green, and purple - and purple appears to be his favorite color right now.

* Last but certainly NOT least, he has been sleeping better and better for months now. He has had some set backs with being sick or teething, but overall we have seen consistent improvement. This week he has been sleeping for 9+ hours straight before waking, then going back to sleep for another 1-2 hours. It is AWESOME and long awaited!

And finally, some pictures from a recent walk to the park. :)

Catching up Part 2

In the last couple weeks we built a dog run. This was a really long time coming and I'm SO glad we finally decided to spend the money and the time to do it. No more dogs digging, pooping, and barking in every corner if the yard - and chewing up any water toys etc that we forget to put away - which should lower Sean's blood pressure considerably. ;) We had the help of Jon, Mary, Mandy, KK, and Camden one weekend for this project, which was much appreciated. Then we were just waiting for the gate to be delivered since the one online cost lots less than the one in Home Depot... and now it's complete and when the dogs are outside, that is their home. They are not super impressed at not having the entire yard at their disposal anymore, but I am giving them treats everyday when I put them in there and also bought them some new chew toys. Aside from them not trashing the yard, it's nice to be able to play in the backyard with Ari without having to move them in and out of the house since he is a bit scared of them and they want to lick his face.





Also back yard related, we drained the pond - er, pool - and Sean mended those persistent rusty spots, acid washed it and repainted it. I should have taken a before picture of the swamp water but I didn't think about it. Now the paint is dry and we are filling it back up, and it should be ready to go in the next few days - in plenty of time for everyone to swim in at the end of the month when Sean's sisters will be in town. :)




Next project: sealing/finishing Ari's platform bed and setting it up in his room, while also dismantling the crib for Renee and Cory to take back to Flagstaff with them at the end of the month!

Playing Catch Up

April and May are pretty busy for me as far as sales and we have had a lot of other stuff happening as well... and now we are very behind on blogging!

Here's a condensed version of some of the happenings of the past couple of months. :)

Cousin Cass visited at the beginning of April and we took her to the zoo. Ari and Cass are good buddies now! Unfortunately she is now stationed in VA, but we look forward to a time when she is hopefully a lot closer and we can see her more often.








We have also been doing a little redecorating. We sold the Cuddler and replaced it with a loveseat. It sold quickly, but I neglected to count the money the girl handed me and she shorted us $40! I emailed her and she said she would mail it - haha. Yeah right. Oh well! We loved the cuddler but it was time to move on. And we got a fantastic deal on the loveseat - it was originally $250 and on clearance for $99 at our Fry's Marketplace. Bye bye ginormous piece of furniture!



Hello new loveseat! (Ok, so this is just a stock photo of a similar one, because I am lazy.)



And Ari has discovered the joy of a train set, thanks to Diane who gave us Daniel's old set. :)





There is more to blog about, but I think that's good for one entry! More to come...