Friends!

A couple of weeks ago we had some friends over for dinner and wii games: my friend Christina, her husband Nate, and their 16 month old Kaden. I made lasagna and they brought wine and brownies, yum! Ari and Kaden like each other; they understand each other I think, because they are both fairly shy. ;) Ari is SO gentle and sweet with Kaden, it is very cute. He pets and strokes Kaden's hair and hands him all of his toys. After the boys played for a bit, I put Ari to bed (which he was not happy about, he kept saying "Kay, Kay, Kay!"). Then we bowled on the wii and Christina kicked our butts. ;) It was a really fun night and I hope we can do it again soon, even though we live on the opposite ends of town.








And a couple more silly ones of my boy (I love these PJs by the way).

Visit from My Sister

Earlier this month my sister was visiting. This is the first time she has met Ari since the one other time she was in town when he was smaller, we were both really sick. Ari had a fun morning at the park with my sister and my mom.

While we waited for them to get there, Ari got brave on the slide. :)







He wasn't sure about bubbles at first...



But he warmed up to them. ;)




Ari talked about Aunt Metri for days after she left, and he still says her name when he plays with the ball she got for him. :) She was a hit as far as he was concerned! Fortunately she is moving back to the west coast so we should be able to see her more often.

Apparently the desert sky had a bad case of dandruff?

On Feb 27th, we woke up to this...









Of course it didn't stick for more than a couple hours. The funny part was that Renee and family were down from Flagstaff, looking forward to some sunny, warm weather... but instead they brought the snow with them... oops! ;)

Phoenix Zoo

We are behind on blogging! So here we go. About a month ago, we went to the Phoenix Zoo with Piper, Mikaela, Mandy, Kaitlin, and Camden. We didn't get to see the whole zoo before lunch and nap time, but the parts we saw were pretty cool. I'm bummed I forgot to take a pic of the wallaby exhibit since that was one of Ari's favorites. Next time I definitely want to see the big cats. It was cold and rainy that day but the kiddos had fun anyway. We stuffed ourselves at lunch at Fajitas afterward. We also picked up some fun new (to us) toys at Piper's (wagon, slide, and car) and hit Ikea on the way home to get Ari's new platform bed.

Sneaky sneaky

A few weeks ago I started sneaking up on Ari, while he was watching me of course. Then we started sneaking up on Cara together. Well just a few days ago he started sneaking up on Cara and I and this is what he turned it in to. He's not very stealthy yet as he's giggling most of the time while sneaking. Usually if Cara and I are in different rooms and I tell him to sneak up on Mom he starts sneaking right away then gets tired and walks half way then starts again. It's pretty cute as Nana Mary and Papa Jon can attest to, he snuck up on them while we were at dinner tonight.

So I have to also mention that this is our 100th blog. A small milestone in our young one's life and our own. Not one that will make the greatest impact on us but something to remember and look back on when we are at out 1000th blog about our family!

Ari's Morning In Photos

After breakfast, he "helped wash dishes" while I loaded the dishwasher.




Then we got dressed (since his jammies were soaked) and went in the back yard, where he likes to sweep among other things.




Swinging came after sweeping.






And finally, lunch. And now he is napping!

Big Shoes

Everyone from time to time thinks they have some big shoes to fill. Ari took it upon himself to try and fill those shoes early in life. This one happens to be Cara's shoe. At least he set his goal reasonably and decided to just work on one shoe. This reminds me of a picture that my Mom has of me in a pair of a friends boots that came all the way up to my diaper when I was just a youngster myself.

Happy Feet

Surprisingly enough this is another post about Ari. Of course that is why we started this blog in the first place. Now that Ari has gotten more confident in his skills he has started what we call "happy feet". He has been doing it for a while now but as usual it's tough to get it on camera. We also recently discovered that these same happy feet can become unhappy feet when he's mad. He threw his first exceptional tantrum the other day at Nana Mary's house when he wanted to go back outside and it was time for dinner. For now though here are some happy "happy feet"!

18 Month Check Up

We really like Ari's new pediatrician. She was very nice and Ari liked her better too and I just overall felt more comfortable with her, right away. She actually commented several times about how well he was doing with her for his age, how this age is usually a tough check up etc. He did do surprisingly well although he still didn't like it when she checked his ears. So Ari was pronounced healthy - and get this - EAR INFECTION FREE! Yep, despite the past two weeks of congestion (just now mostly gone), he does not have an ear infection. WHO NEEDS EAR TUBES???? HA!!!!! So glad I didn't just schedule the surgery as instructed by our (former) pediatrician. (Who also was very patronizing to me and in our last conversation implied that I was being irresponsible and neglectful for not already having the surgery scheduled. Hence, *former* pediatrician. I know what's right for my kid and I don't need someone to shake their finger at me and guilt trip me.)

Anyway, he weighs about 26.5lbs and is 32.25" tall. His head is 49.5cm, holy cow! So that's 60th percentile for weight, 50th for height, and 95th for head circumference, haha. That's about normal for him, he has been hovering around the 50th and 50th and 90th since he was maybe 3-4 months old. I already posted about all the stuff he is doing... He just had a growth spurt as well and outgrew most of his 18 month size clothes. I'm glad I have a friend with a boy who is about 7 months younger who can use the hand me downs!

18 months

Ari turned 18 months old yesterday. I can't believe it. He celebrated by throwing his best toddler tantrum yet in the afternoon at his nana's and papa's house. :-P It was impressive. He was tired though.

Anyway, yes. A year and a half. Things I know and love about my son:

* he loves snuggles and kisses and wakes me up with them every morning.
* he loves music.
* he loves anything with wheels.
* he has really good fine motor skills for his age.
* he loves books.
* he knows what he wants almost always. No wishy washy kid here.
* he loves to be outdoors.
* he loves water (i.e. baths, swimming etc) - also loves to drink water. ;)
* he likes all kinds of different food - fruit, veggies, meat, chicken fajitas and tacos, chili, Asian food, cheese, yogurt, bread, even some unusual things like artichokes.
* he has adorably curly hair.
* he likes to sing and dance.
* he loves his daddy AND his mommy and seems to share his favoritism pretty equally now.
* he is pretty shy BUT also:
* his separation anxiety has improved so much the past couple of months.
* he still loves his mama's milk.

Things he knows and/or can do:

* mimics most things we say, his vocabulary grows almost daily right now, both signs and verbal. I haven't even tried to count his words... he knows around a dozen signs, probably a couple dozen words or more.
* strings words and/or signs together 2-3 at a time (help please mama, more please, etc)
* climbs on everything.
* knows most of his body parts (ears, nose, mouth, cheeks, hair, head, neck, arms, legs, feet, hands, toes, fingers, knees, back, butt....).
* is learning the colors (yellow and red so far).
* takes his socks off.
* can help put his pants on and take them off now while still standing.
* can do a lot of hand games to songs (patty cake, wheels on the bus, itsy bitsy spider, etc).
* can problem solve - i.e., he wants to get on the couch but can't quite do it, so he gets his foot stool and moves it in front of the couch.
* can follow simple directions (please close the door, can you get your baby doll? etc)


I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff because I'm really tired but that's the gist of it. ;) (He is still working on canine #2, I wish all four would come in already so we could maybe get a little more sleep!) I love my little boy, he is so sweet and funny and smart and cute!!