August?!

It's already August!  When/how did that happen?  Life is really flying by now that we have two kids and I'm not really a fan of it.

Little Man will turn TWO on the 20th.  I feel like he should only be turning one.  There's no way he's old enough to be celebrating his second birthday.  But he is.  He can be such a handful sometimes, but I guess that's to be expected when you're an almost two year old boy.  In honor of that, allow me fill you in on my precious, perfect son.

Hubby and I are convinced he must be incredibly intelligent.  I think other people don't always pick up on how smart he is because he still doesn't talk much.  But we see the things he understands and the concepts he puts together and we are amazed sometimes.  He is like a little sponge.  He is so observant and detail oriented.  Hubby laughs and says he's too much like me because he insists on his bed being made perfectly (covers must be all the way pulled up and smoothed out).  If he sees one of the small area rugs messed up, he'll stop what he's doing to go fix it.  Yesterday he was helping me make icing for his birthday cake and he was the best little helper.  I let him pour the powdered sugar into the mixing bowl and some fell on the floor.  Without being asked, he got off his stool, went to the sink, got the wash cloth and came back to thoroughly clean the floor. 

Can you say PERFECT CHILD?!  Jk.  However, to me, he is the absolute perfect little boy.  Even when he's going a billion miles per hour and insisting on trying to do everything himself, he's still perfect in my eyes.  I guess that's the beauty of being a parent.

When I say Little Man doesn't talk, I mean he doesn't put two or more words together to begin forming sentences.  His vocabulary is constantly expanding, but he's just not putting things together like some of his friends.  His favorite words are Firefighter (which he uses for everything firefighter, firetruck, fire station related), Me (I'm starting to hate this word - he wants to do EVERYTHING by himself, which doesn't always work at his age), and No (another one I'm not a big fan of). 

He loves all things related to firefighting.  Let me correct myself, he is OBSESSED with all things fire related.  We've been to two different firestations twice and he watches Fireman Sam over and over and over and over.  His Mimi's (grandmothers) have decked him out with a firefighter coat, hat, and boots.  We are celebrating his birthday next week at the beach and I'm making him a three tier firefighter cake masterpiece.  I'm SO excited for it. Hubby laughs at me, but Little Man actually gets very excited when he sees my cakes, so I want his to be stunning.  I want to find a t-shirt with a firetruck on it and if money grew on trees I'd buy every firetruck book Barnes and Noble has to offer.

I could go on forever about how amazing and awesome my almost two year old baby boy is.  He really is growing into a remarkable little man.  I am so excited to see how he develops in the next year, but it would be ok with me if time slowed down some so that we could savor all these sweet young moments a little longer. 

Don't worry, his sister is pretty stinkin' awesome also.  I'll fill you in on her more next time.  :)

They grow so quickly!

My babies are growing oh so quickly.  It's bittersweet. 

Little Man is at that "terrible two's" stage. He wants to be independent and express himself, but he can't always. He's testing his boundaries. We have good days and BAD days. But thankfully he's still a sweet sweet sweet little boy at heart.  We've forced him to give up the bottle finally.  Which means he won't drink milk at all for now, but I'm hoping after a month or so he'll forget about it and not freak out when I put it in a sippy cup.  We've also made his pacifier something he can only have in bed.  He was not pleased with me the first day, but he's getting used to it now.  Lastly, we are expecting him to talk more.  He's quite the little stinker about refusing to even try, but we seem to be making some progress.

Baby Girl is an angel, but a WILD angel.  She's a pro at crawling and she's getting very quick.  She has also become excellent at pulling herself up to standing.  She tries to get her hands on everything her brother has - especially if it's food.  We have to be much more careful with her around now.  She's full of happy energy.  I've seriously never met a happier baby.  She only cries when she's hungry.  The last few nights she has fallen asleep in my arms while drinking her last bottle.  And I just sit there and hold her for an hour or so.  I know those times are going to be gone before I can even blink my eyes.  I intend to cherish every sweet sleeping baby snuggle I can with her. 

Both pictures are from when we spent the 4th of July at my parents' house.  We visited a farm and Little Man LOVED the tractor.  Baby Girl enjoyed the animals.  The picture of her is after dinner on the 4th - with her dinner all over her sweet little face.  I can't wait for them to be old enough to see the fireworks.  But right now it would be WAAYYY too late to stay up for them.  

Good times

Yesterday was our third anniversary.  It feels like we've been married much longer than that - not in a bad way, but in a "wow, so much has happened in only three years" way.  We celebrated a little early by sending the kids to Hubby's parents house for a long weekend and enjoying four days and four nights all to ourselves.  We thought about going away somewhere, but decided to just stay at home because of budgetting reasons.  I honestly think it was way more relaxing that way.  We did some yard work on the first day and errands/cleaning on the last, but spent most of the time having fun together - yummy dinners on the grill, cajun festival (that cost way too much for nothing at all), wine tasting (again, too much money for a disappointing experience), golfing, spoiling Brady (who celebrated his 4th birthday on Sunday).  This was our first time apart from the kids together and it was FANTASTIC.  We missed the kids by the end, but we were incredibly thankful for our time together. 

In the meantime, Baby Girl has become a pro at going from laying down to sitting up on her own.  Now when she doesn't want to nap she sits up in her crib and yells.  I wouldn't call it a cry, it's really much more of a yell.  What can I say?  She's a diva already.  She has also pulled herself up to standing on occasion.  Her balance is terrible once she gets up (mostly because her feet are crossed underneath her), but I'm sure that will come quickly. 

Little Man is still Little Man.  He won't talk.  I've decided it's not that he can't talk.  It's that he won't talk.  He is stubborn as they come.  I'm pretty sure he's payback for all of my stubborness.  His new favorite thing is taking off his clothes and diapers.  I know one of these days he's going to do it very quietly after his nap and I'm going to open the door to fingerpainted poop all over his bed and/or wall.  It will be nice when he's potty trained, but I don't foresee that happening anytime too soon.  Until then, I just keep praying he keeps his diaper on if it's a messy one.