John John at 18 Months!

Hard to believe that my little guy is just a few months away from two!  He is absolute sunshine.  John smiles all day long.  We love that little dude so very much!  

Here's a little of what he's up to:

He says:
- Mow Mil (more milk)
- 'NACK!!!! (snack) always at the top of his lungs.
- mama, dada, mammma (grandma), bampa (grandpa), maremare (for Marin), lele (for emilie)
- "that dog!" when he sees a god.
- "tinky eet!" (stinky feet).  When you change his diaper or get him dressed/undressed, John sticks his feet in your face and smiles and says, "tinky eeet!"

He likes:
- cars and says "ooooooom, ooooom" (zoom zoom) when he pushes them around
- LOVES socks and shoes.  He likes to have socks and shoes on always.  He really likes to put his sisters boots on and walks around in them all the time.  He says, "socks" when we wakes up and then points to the closet where his shoes are, after his socks are on, to tell you that he wants to put those on next.
- loves his paci, and doggie and blanket.  He calls his paci a "nigh, nigh" (night night)
- He loves music class, clapping along and running all over the place.  He specifically loves playing with the instruments during the free play portion.


He knows his nose, head, eyes and mouth.  And he loves to point them out- even on you!

John follows his sisters EVERY move!  Literally every single thing they do, he tries to do, too.  He LOVES them so so much.

His first sentence the other day was, "Dank do, Mama." (thank you, mama) after I put his socks on.

John's Walking!!!!

John took his first steps from my mom to Auntie Molly at his first birthday party.  And he took a lot of little steps in between but once he realized what he was doing, he'd always drop back down on his knees and speed off crawling.  The kid can crawl SO fast!

A week ago he walked across the room outside Emilie's ballet class.  No one even saw him, except this little sister (a two year old) said, "he walking! he walking!" and we all looked up in amazement.  But he didn't really walk much after that.

But today he took off!  He boy is he proud of himself!!!  Now he's walking everyone nonstop.  He's a true walker!!

Emilie's First Day of Preschool!

How is this little lady growing up so quickly?!  She loves school and had a great first day!!  She's so excited to have Mrs. Naughton, who was one of Marin's first teachers as well.

Doing it Herself...

Marin has been interested in holding the spoon while she eats, almost since we began introducing solid food. But lately, she is holding the spoon, and using it correctly. She is so patient and works so diligently to get the food on her fork or spoon.

Here a few pictures of her practicing at dinner last night.

It's the Climb!

As Marin is growing up (tear) her critical thinking skills are really developing. It is so fun to watch her discover how things work. She has recently expressed an interest in climbing up on furniture. Normally, she walks over to the couch or chair, taps it with both hands, smiles at us and makes an "eh, eh" sound, in an effort to charm us into lifting her onto the furniture so she can run around and try to jump off the back. We have been discouraging her from getting up, because obviously the likelihood of her falling off and hurting herself is about 98%.

Yesterday Marin decided to take matters into her own hands. She drug her little stool all the way around the corner, into the family room space, and pushed it over to the couch. Then she climbed up on the stool and onto the couch. VICTORY! She was quite proud of herself and let out a proud, big smiled, "HEEEEEE!" From there, she climbed onto the coffee table.

We watched half in horror of her fearlessness, and half in pride of her ability to problem solve. Then we encouraged her to do it again so I could get photographic evidence for this blog post. I'm positive I'll rue that day.

It is times like these that confirm that Marin is not a baby anymore. And that that little stinker is going to be one heck of a teenager.