11 & 23 months

Sorry for lack of pictures.  Maybe update another time.

11 & 23 Months

Mimic: Katelyn's two favorite phrases these days are "Whatcha doin' honey?" and "hi baby".  Evidently I use too many pet names for Tyler around her
Accidentally swearing: The words fork and fort don't sound like fork or fort... Both sound like she's dropping the f-bomb!
opposites: "Opeeeeen- cozed.  Opeeeeeeen- cozed"
Play-dough: LOVES to play with playdough.  We made some homemade stuff (super cheap and easy!!) and she plays with it for hours on end.
Books: Still loves her books.  Reading to us, to Lucas, to grammy on the phone, whoever will listen


Luke

First word?: I don't count a first word until it's used in context (not just mamamama or dadadada as they aren't him actually using a word in my opinion).  His first word was "Uh-oh" when things fall off his tray.  I think he learned it from his sister.
Bear Crawling: He often gets up on his feet and hands instead of his knees.
Pants = good day: It's a good day when I can get pants on this kid... Trying to change his diaper and/or clothes is quite the process.  No matter what I give him as a distraction, the kid kicks and rolls and refuses to lay semi-still.  So.. it's a good day when he's wearing pants ;)
Stairs: He's mastered going down stairs now too.  So hilarious as he gets himself "close" (not anywhere near!) and turns his butt around toward the step, then backs himself down.  He does it to ramps too which is completely unnecessary
Pointing: He loves to point
I'm gonna getcha: is by far his favorite game

10 Months & 22.5 months?

2 Months from 1 & 2 ;) 
(it's getting hard to keep track of Kate's months!)

Katelyn:

Words Explosion: Missy miss's vocabulary has exploded this month!  Full sentences, "I want some" is one we hear often, a focus on mommy's, daddy's, and babies (every animal is either a mommy, daddy, or baby and she will not quit asking until we tell her which one is which)
Great Memory: If she asks to read a book but we're on our way out the door, I'll tell her we can read a book together later- definitely right before bed.  I'll forget that I said that, but she won't!  She is set on reminding me "book, mama? nigh nigh?"  I'm impressed!  This girl certainly holds me accountable to my word! (not that I mind when it comes to books!)
"Terrific" Twos: Okay, that's not the name of it, and Kate has certainly found her voice and opinion on... well... everything.  Fits galore, starting to get mad when her brother starts to play with things she's playing with (now that he's crawling, cruising, and climbing anywhere).  She's started to hit.  She has a time-out everytime she hits and someday it'll click ;) But along with these new tantrums, her true sweet self still shows through when she brings her brother his bottle often, even if he doesn't want it, gives Luke toys to play with, often telling me if she thinks it's nap time for Luke (pretty sure she likes having mama all to herself during those times).
Teacher: Maybe I see it because I am a teacher at heart, but this girl seems to follow the same lead.  Tonight as I was vacuuming, daddy was explaining the vacuum to Luke (and her) again and Katelyn then picked up her bunny and started telling her bunny about the vacuum comforting her, and holding her up to "see? see?" the vacuum.  She is constantly teaching her stuffed animals and dolls about the world around them.
Mimic: Everytime I get the kiddos from a nap or in the morning, I always have a special little sing-song way to sing their name as I enter.  Katelyn's is "Katelyn, Katelyn Grace" and Luke's is "Lucas, Lukity Lucas" and Katelyn has picked up on it so much that she now will run ahead of me to go get Luke, and she sings "dee doo, do do de, dee doo" (Dee-doo is how she says Lucas).  Then Luke starts jumping in his bed excited to see her and giggles ensue.  Seriously one of my favorite times of day :)

Luke:

Crawling on all 4's: He's up off his thighs finally!  Up on his knees and is quite fast!
Walking with help: Loves to walk holding both hands.  Even though he's gaining good balance and we try to let go of one hand, as soon as that happens, he gives in and drops down to his knees.  We definitely need to work on confidence (and balance!)
Bananas: Starts breathing really fast in excitement over seeing a banana
Strawberry blonde?: In the sun, I actually see a hint of red highlights in his hair.  I love it!  I think it's SO cute!
Sense of humor: is starting to emerge!  Loves to mimic and laugh.  Our kids' giggle moods are as contagious as yawns in this house.  They just laugh and laugh together.  It's a beautiful sound- often over absolutely nothing!
Turns in circles while sitting with just his feet: Luke sits on his bum, plays with a toy with his hands, and then uses his feet to turn in circles.  It's hilarious!
First haircut: I cut his hair during a garage sale since it was over his ears (actually past his ears).  Goal wasn't to make it look good, just to make it look like it didn't need cut yet ;)
MESSY!: Holy COW this kid is messy!  Food ends up in his hair, between his fingers, on the floor, all over the tray, all over the bib, under the bib, down his shirt, around his body, UNDER his body (how does THAT happen?) EVERYWHERE!  See the picture.  No, he wasn't sweaty nor had he just been given a bath, that's food!

9 & 21.5 Months

9 & 21.5 Months

 

21.5 Months

Words/Phrases: "Thank you mama" (probably my absolute favorite), counting to 3 but often counting "waaanah, teeeeooooo, One!", colors (pink, blue, purple, sometimes red, yellow, green), elk, fly (fwy), butterfly, BUFFALO (see video at the bottom- seriously the cutest thing ever, that girl!), help, see, fun, slide, shoe on
Favorite color: Two years ago, after all my explanations to friends to go for neutral colors when buying clothes for our baby girl since I'm not a pink person... this girl is the girliest girl I've ever seen.  Not only does she LOVE pink, but she points it out EVERYWHERE!  Down to the smallest things on someone's shirt, she has to point out that it's pink!  I guess I had that one coming...
Bugs: Kate has developed a fear of flies?  Not bees, not spiders, not ants (see below), but just flies.  We had a few flies in the car with us on the way to Rapid City... that was fun... Although I think we helped her face her fears a little by naming the flies (one was George McFly...) and she seems to deal a little better with them now.
Ants: So the other day we were playing outside and I saw some ants.  Thinking this will be a fun learning opportunity to learn about other living animals outside, I pointed out an ant to Katelyn.  She runs over, points to it, stands up and steps on it.  Thinking she didn't see where she was walking, I pointed out another- to which she ran over (literally ran over) and immediately stepped on it.  Found another and stepped on another.  I tried explaining to her that outside are the ants' homes and it's okay to leave them alone when they're outside but she just kept finding ants and trampling them!  I don't know where she got that from!  I've always used kleenex and my fingers if I find ants in the house but I guess she just figured they've got to die?
Little mama: Miss Katelyn copies me all the time.  To the point where if I'm trying to vacuum, she has run to get her little popper toy and is less than a step behind me "vacuuming" too.  She holds her ninja turtle toy and hums him to sleep (like I do with Luke).  She often teaches Luke things I teach her.  I often see her sticking her face out in his, eyebrows up, and saying "hm? see?"  Just yesterday, I gave her a puzzled look as I asked her "What are you doing?" and she gave the same look back to me and it was absolutely hilarious!  Tyler immediately said "That was you! That was all you!"
Potty Training: Ah, the joys of having a 100% trained child!... someday I'll know that joy ;)  We gave up for a while.  She knows what to do and when to do it, but she doesn't have much interest right now other than going poop on the toilet so we're in pull-ups and I'm backing off and just talking about whether her pull up is wet or dry and figure either she'll pick it up, or I'll push it later if it takes too long ;)  We went to a wedding out in the middle of the black hills with no bathrooms around so I figured "meh, let's just do pull-ups for a while"

9 Months Luke

Eczema: Is probably the best word to describe this month... It got infinitely worse on his shoulders, back, and then got a diaper rash that despite ridiculous amounts of diaper rash cream every change and changing often, still got worse and worse.  We took him in for allergy testing (blood draw) but he's too chubby to find a good vein and after 5 different labs trying, we had no luck.  So we're waiting for a dermatology appointment and switched him to soy formula and I stopped nursing (which didn't help)
First tooth: JUST cut through the day before he turned 9 months!  And the diaper rash immediately cleared up with NO diaper cream.  Go figure...  That old wives tale has been 100% true.  And the fever thing too.  He had a mild one before that tooth cut.
Pulls up to stand: Two days before he turned 9 months this happened in the bathtub (really?  That's where he finds the most traction?) but continues to do it often in different areas. He also now can get from crawling to sitting and back to crawling again.  But spends most of his time on his tummy
Jumping: He loves to jump while standing if someone is holding him.  He also just in the past few days suddenly gained a lot of stability in his legs when we hold him to walk and such.
Step: He has mastered the step from the kitchen to the family room up and down.
Rolling with blankets: One of his favorite things is to grab a blanket and roll across the room with the blanket in tow.  He laughs when it covers his face and plays peek-a-boo by himself sometimes ;)
Food: grated carrots, cheerios whole now, green beans from a can, chicken spaghetti, lasagna... (but I tried avoiding dairy for a bit to see if that was the issue)
 Sleep: Usually sleeps from 7:30ish-5:00 straight through and wakes to eat, then back to sleep until 7ish.  Naps at 9:00ish often for 1.5 hrs, then again at 1:00 for another 1.5 hrs. Then again at 5 for 40 minutes.  That 5:00 one is often in the car or stroller and cut short but he survives.

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"

Potty Training

This is for me more than anyone else as I refer back to Katelyn's posts for Luke all the time and I'm definitely going to want to remember how I did potty training

Day 1: Awful.  Doing the 3 day potty training where you hole them up in a "safe" area (our kitchen/dining area has linoleum floors) and put them in underwear (actually encouraged to have nothing on the bottom half at all) and put them on the potty at first signs of pee.  During the first half of the day, I wanted to give up completely and was second guessing if she was ready.  She did not seem to be responding to being put on the potty.  10 seconds after getting down from the potty would pee on the floor.  Got a few pees in the toilet but it was all from my making her sit on the potty.  Had her wear underwear most of the day but finally gave it a go to have nothing on for bottoms.  During this time, she was playing with playdough and motioned to her thigh (which is how she normally tells me it's time to poop).  I took her to the toilet and she went #1 and didn't even go #2!  We celebrated like crazy.  After that, still more accidents but now intermixed with telling me she needed to go.  One time, I hear her tapping the potty seat in the bathroom saying "mm?"  Another time she peed a little while sitting in a chair, stopped and directed my attention to her accident, I whisked her away to the potty thinking she'd be peeing all the way- nope, she had stopped and waited until she was on the toilet, then peed.  She's definitely gaining control of her muscles and realizing what it takes to hold it and to let it out.  We do a song when she goes, a couple mini m&ms when she goes on the potty regardless if it was me or her who initiated.  If she initiates, she gets to choose a color of a smiley face and put that on a chart.  End of the day, there are 4 stickers on the chart.  Not too bad! A long way's to go, but today's misery seemed worth it.

Day 2:  SOO much better.  Started the day off with a pee on command.  Then she didn't go for 2 hours although she was drinking and eating.  I guess that makes sense after not drinking all night but it sure made this mama nervous!  She ended up peeing on command so we could go outside.  Went outside and had two accidents within about a half hour but both times it wasn't much and we quickly went inside (as quickly as you can with a 6 month in tow as well) and she went more on the potty.  That was the theme today- tiny accidents where she lets a little out and then holds it until we get to the toilet to go.  She did tell me before having an accident twice but both were when she wasn't playing (was finishing eating) and one of those was a #2, which she's been telling us for ages.  This was a much better day.  We opened up the house so she could roam around outside of just the kitchen (yesterday) since none of her accidents made it past her underwear or pants she was wearing.  I didn't have to clean up any potty today!  Clothes just got tossed in a dirty clothes hamper to be cleaned so  no actual cleaning up needed on my end.  I can handle this :)

Day 3:  Started off great- peed on command when she woke.  Had a tiny accident that was barely there.  Day was going great with her telling me when to go several times.  Until the afternoon.   I decided to just let her tell me when she needed to go instead of trying to remind her or push her.  She was focused on watching the neighbor kids while sitting on the couch and peed on the couch and didn't even seem to notice but she did get up right away.  In the evening, had several successes in the nursery at church, then another accident right after going (must not have gotten it all).  Another few successes at home and another accident.  She's had more successes than accidents though and I need to remember how far she's come in 3 days!  Now it's just cementing it in to the point where she feels that she needs to pee and asks to go. 

What I wish I'd done:  Put a piece of cloth on her diaper for the week leading up to training to help her connect the feeling of needing to pee with the feeling of wetness after (they say kids that are cloth diapered are faster at potty training because they know that when they pee they feel wet).  That may cut down on the misery of day 1 and learning that connection? 

6 & almost 19 months

6 & 19 Months

 

 

 

6 Months- Luke

-Always blowing raspberries.  Middle of the night, bored in his car seat, middle of church...
-Rolling both ways- although I've only seen him roll from back to front once.  That's not something he uses much as we put him on his tummy quite often to get rid of that flat head in the back.
-Tummy sleeping- Now that we're confident in his rolling and neck strength, we put him on his tummy to sleep.  Naps and night.  His method of self-soothing is rolling onto one hip and sticking the other knee out to balance.  Honestly, it reminds me a lot of how I slept pregnant with him every night
-Sleeping.  Yeah.  About that... remember last month when I said he's consistently sleeping all the way through the night?  Well, it had happened 3 days so I called it official.  Oops.  This has been a rough month of sleep.  Up some nights every hour to two hours.  Last night we had a great night. He went down at 8:00pm, didn't wake until 4am to eat, then down again until 8am.  I learned my lesson.  Count it as a huge blessing and never call it as a habit ;)
-Sitting up- Getting the hang of it.  If I'm going to leave the room, I still put a boppy pillow around him so if he falls it won't hurt.  He usually just reaches so hard to reach things that he slowly makes his way onto his tummy.  We probably don't need the pillow there but it makes me feel better.
-Thick.  I think a friend of ours (who is a football player for the Sioux Falls Storm) said it perfectly: "Your boy is Thick!"  (and you know it's true if it's from a football player!)
-Hungry ALL the time.  No matter how much water I drink, I feel like I can't keep up with this child!  Although Kate was big and ate a lot, when she went through growth spurts, I could just sit down and nurse for as long as she wanted to help supply increase.  Yeah... that's not a luxury when you have a toddler and a chunky baby.  We've started to supplement with a bottle here or there.  Usually around nighttime.  It honestly only ends up being 1-2 oz but it makes me happier knowing he's getting all that he wants food-wise.
-Social butterfly- We are very social and giggle when put on tummy time with other babies.  LOVES when Katelyn plays with him.  Katelyn has recently taken to holding his hands and making him dance while she sings. 
-Nothing makes this child happier than pooping.  Once he's let it blow, he has a perma-smile on his face and giggles and giggles.  Just like his daddy. Wait... ok, Tyler isn't quite like that but it seems to be a boy thing ;)
-12 month clothes- Honestly, we skipped 9 month clothes altogether.  I'd rather him be in something a little bit big than to have to deal with something too small or blowing out of everything.  The only issue is that the 12 month clothes that are made for toddlers (the non-onesies aka shirts) are way too big but the baby 12 months fit perfectly.  He even wears some 18 month onesies to bed and I just roll the sleeves up.
-Mr. Wigglesworth- someone has learned to wiggle his way across the room on his back.  Video attached above

19 Months- Katelyn

-At her 18 months appt. she was 25 lbs 35" (meaning Luke is only a few pounds behind her!)
-Talking- lots of it!  New words: Sky, mouth, go go go, "mwana".  No clue what that last one is.  She has said it several times asking for something but when I ask her to show me, she gets frustrated.  That ones still a mystery.  Any guesses?
-Ear infections and tubes- The past few months have been plagued with ear infections after ear infections.  Antibiotics seem to clear up one ear while the other one gets worse.  We finally said enough with the meds already, it's tubes time.  So a week ago, she got tubes in her ears.  She did pretty well other than the typical 30 min. crying afterwards (as it's probably scary and weird to come out of anesthesia).  She seems to be doing MUCH better and we have our happy go lucky little girl back! I've missed this Katelyn very much!
-Hunger whining- If Katelyn is whining, it's a fair bet that she's hungry.  But if you ask if she's hungry, she'll say no.  yet if you put food in front of her, she'll eat it, and then be much happier afterwards.  I guess she still needs to connect the word hungry to the feeling.
-Waking- She still stays in her bed until we get her after naps and in the mornings.  Still treating it like a crib?  
-Potty- It's back!  She's back to going poop on the toilet.  And doing a great job of nodding if we ask if she needs to go poopy.  We've been singing a potty song and giving her a chocolate chip when she goes.  I'm thinking we'll officially potty train come summer once I can be home and consistent with her.  And we can hang out outside lots so accidents can be in the lawn instead of our house ;)  If there are any takers on advice for potty training, feel free to let me know!  I'd love to hear what worked for you and any tips/tricks!

Other Family News

Tyler got ordained!!  I'm so proud of all the hard work he went through to achieve ordination and I'm more than excited that he made the commitment to be in ministry for life.  That this is our calling.  I love him and am so blessed to know that I get to be a part of wherever God calls him!  

(For clarification- We are not planning on moving or taking any other positions as we are confident God has called us right where we're at.  Tyler didn't get ordained in order to go elsewhere- it's  an achievement he has earned that we wanted to make a commitment for the future)