8 & 20 months

8 & 20 Months

Luke

Feeds Himself: Luke has figured out how to feed himself a bottle.  When in a highchair, he arches his back to tip it up enough to get the last bits.  This just baffles me as we had to teach and teach how to do this with Katelyn and Luke just suddenly started doing it?  Either way it sure makes meal times MUCH easier!
Army Crawling: He is on the move!  He army crawls across the floor to toys he wants (or curtains... those kitchen curtains just enthralls him!  Makes mama a little nervous ;))  He is certainly rocking on all 4s so I wonder if we'll get up and crawling soon or if he'll just be happy with army crawling?
Sleeping: Oh Praise God we are officially finally almost always sleeping through the night!  I think some of it was his excema was itchy, most of it was he wasn't getting enough to eat.  Speaking of which...
Little Mr. piggy!: Holy COW can this child eat!  It boggles my mind how much he can eat!  We're talking more than a grown adult would eat for supper!  Seriously!  His pureed casserole the other night was the size of a bowl of soup, had a bottle and cheerios on top of it!  Goodness boy!
Weaning: I'm only nursing int he mornings and in the late afternoon.  I've found that supply is way down in the evenings so I've given up on that and quite honestly, lunchtime just goes much smoother if I just give him a bottle so we're technically weaning but I think we'll keep up this schedule for a while as I don't mind the free-ness of nursing ;)

Katelyn

Puzzles: Suddenly we are all about puzzles.  She loves working with the alphabet mat letters
Words: "High""Watermelon""peepee" and I'm sure there's more but can't think of them.
Brother-sitting: We LOVE to sit on our brother.  See video.  I was in the breezeway doing laundry and suddenly heard uncontrollable laughter coming from the hallway.  I went to investigate and found her sitting on his bum again (he was on his tummy) and they were both cracking up but I'll never forget the moment they both looked up at me with guilty faces... ha!  Oh boy... These two are going to get into some serious trouble in the future, aren't they?
Jumping: It's hilarious to watch her try to jump!  She doesn't get very far despite a lot of effort!

19 Months & 7 months

7 Months

-He puts his arms straight out and twists his wrists when he's excited
-Sleep training through the night.  He self sooths by taking a small piece of a muslin blanket I cut up and he sucks on it and snuggles his face into it and violently rocks his hips from side to side.
-Holding his own bottle?  I've only tried it a couple of times as I'm still nursing but he can hold his own bottle, get it to his mouth, but needs to learn to tip it up to get the milk
-clapping- he discovered how to clap his hands together already!  Katelyn does a great job of showing him how
-sits up without any wobbling and can reach for things and keep his balance.

19 Months

-Food: Loves pb&j, quesadillas, mac n cheese, eggs, cinnamon rolls, and cereal with milk- anything else is really hard to get her to even try one bite.  (Although she ALWAYS wants to try her brother's pureed veggies... and I don't stop her from it.  Sometimes even thaw an extra cube just for her.  May as well as it's healthy stuff for her too!
-Potty training?  We started!  I posted below just to remind myself how it went in the beginning.  She does GREAT if we remind her/make her go often but she rarely tells us when she has to go if we leave it to her.  If we leave it to her, there are almost always accidents.  She says "uh oh" as soon as she goes.  Trying to decide what to do- keep pushing it or back off?  Hearing lots of people saying to back off but all I research says to never go back to pull-ups or diapers and that it's a skill to learn and consistency is key (and of course try to keep it completely positive).  Seems silly because I'll remind her that we need to go really quick and she'll say "nononono".  I take her to the potty and sit her on it and she pees immediately and gives a HUGE proud smile when she does.  Then after she comes out all proud excited to tell daddy that she went again.  She also gets REALLY excited when she tells me ahead of time and gets to put a sticker on the chart.  BUT she still doesn't tell me ahead of time so I wonder if it's that she doesn't recognize the feeling?  Or is just having too much fun to want to ineterrupt?  Who knows.  This month should be pretty telling.
-LOVING on her little brother- Kate loves to "hold" Luke and snuggle him before bed each night. and boy does she love fetching toys for him, twirling in circles to make him laugh, and doing a fast march in place thing when she's incredibly excited!
Oh, and the mwana mystery?  It means bunny!  It has evolved to bwana so it's a bit closer but now we know what she was saying all that time!
-Sound effects- Kate is all about the sounds things make.  She identifies animals by the sounds they make.  A kitty is a "nooooow", dog is "hmHm" (sounds like a bark with her mouth closed), a hissing sound for a lion, often accompanied with a "paw" strike with her hand, a cow is a "mow", a bird is a high pitched squeak, an elephant is a "brrrr", airplane is a "kshhhh" with her hand in the sky
-New words: pizza, swimsuit (SO cute to hear her say "simsooT" and has started to say "Hi kitty" or "nightnight daddy"