Play Doh, Walking the Dog, Bubbles, Swapping Seats and a Lizard!

Sloan has lots of favorite things these days.  One of them is playing with Play Doh.  If Grant does something, she demands to do it too.  She actually does really well with it and only tried to eat it a couple of times.  She also loves to walk the dog.  Now that we don't have a backyard, we have to put a leash on Mason to take him out.  The kids literally fight over who gets to hold the leash.  She also loves to sit in Grant's chair at the dinner table and Grant now likes to sit without a booster seat at all.  So, we play musical chairs some days.  I bought her cups like Grants too so she would stop drinking out of his.  Although some days she gets 2 different cups since the one with handles is really easier for her but her stubbornness forces us to have the other option.

Sloan did something today that I thought was a fluke before but she was right on this time.  She stopped in the middle of the den and pooped....and then came over to me and said "poo poo" and grabbed her diaper.  She is still too young to potty train but it gives me hope that we are going to have an easy time with it.  Grant never did that at her age. 

She can repeat words so well and her enunciation is close to perfect.  She has a pretty big vocabulary these days.....hot dog, cheese, pretzel, outside, sucker, diaper, pancake, waffle, eggs, candy, bubbles, play doh, flower, bowl, spoon, daddy, meow (what she calls her cat that she sleeps with now), paci, etc.  She doesn't have a word for Grant yet but we keep waiting.  She says "mummy" for me and it sounds a bit British so it's funny to hear. 

Grant continues to be obsessed with his Transformers.  He brings them upstairs and downstairs each day.  He stands them up on the floor in the den so they can watch TV with him.  He then lays them down beside his bed so they can sleep too.  He has a pretty good imagination these days.  He needs to be a lawyer or salesman one day because he is constantly bargaining and negotiating to get what he wants.  It's been a little tough on him lately with Sloan getting bigger.  We still don't really discipline her, or at least not like him, and that is confusing for him.  I can tell that he doesn't understand why the rules are different for her still.  He will say "she is not a baby anymore" but I have to explain that she is still very little and doesn't understand yet.  I will say that I have had to pop her on the hand for grabbing Mason so hard a few times. 

Play Doh time!

Luke got me roses for our Anniversary and Sloan just had to have one.....well she ended up picking the petals off of several of them.  She had fun doing it though! 

Playing before breakfast 

Getting ready to go and have her picture taken.  She didn't like having a dress on.  She kept trying to pull it up over her head.  Every time she bent down to pick something up, the dress was in her way. 

Walking the dog... 

Chair swap and her big girl cup 

Bubble fun on the deck and this thing puts out a TON of bubbles 

This is a lizard that Grant spotted and caught.  He grabbed it with one hand......Luke said it was like a cat....he just snatched it right up.  From the picture, you can tell being gentle is not the primary goal, rather making sure he doesn't escape.  The lizard was promptly set free, alive and well.

18 Months and Almost 4 years old - Professional Picture Time!

We took the kids for professional pictures this weekend.  You never know how it will go but they both did really great.  The room at Olan Mills was full of props and Grant spotted a motorcycle bike that he loved.  He asked if he could have his picture taken on the bike.  I am not a huge fan of props but I, of course, gave in on this one.  Sloan's dress is size 12 months, lol! 

Sloan's favorite words this week are...."sucker" and "dog biscuit".  She loves dum dum suckers and feeding Mason biscuits. 



Sloan's 18 month stats

I took Sloan for her 18 month checkup today.  She continues to hate being there and starts to cry as soon as the doctor tries to just listen to her heart beat.  She wants me to hold her the entire time.  She didn't have to get any shots at this visit since she is all caught up.  She will get MMR at her 2 year visit.  The only other ones are Hep A and chicken pox and we will get those in over the next year.  Sloan is still a light weight!  She was 18 pounds (3rd percentile) and that was with a diaper on!  Her height was 30 1/4 inches (30th percentile).
She now says "mommy" but mostly when she wants something or when I walk out of the room.  "Go outside please" is her favorite phrase this week.

Temporary Home, Talking, Walking, Climbing and Growing Up Quick!

We have been super busy the past few weeks with moving. We are now in our transitional rental property which is a very nice 3 story townhouse. We have yet to find our final destination but we are looking hard. We never realized we had so much stuff until we moved....it is crazy how many boxes we filled! A lot of our stuff is actually in storage since we didn't want to move it all multiple times.  The kids have adjusted nicely to their new digs. Grant has the entire basement to himself and Sloan has the second Master bedroom (yes, there are 2 master bedrooms which is a little odd). Grant's favorite new thing is to take showers. There are two master baths and each has a big tub and a shower. He asked if he could take a shower one night instead of a bath and we obliged. He is now hooked. It's cute, he even washes his own hair now. I just took the kids to get new shoes today and Grant's a size 10 now! Sloan is finally a size 4.....she can still wear 3.5 though since a lot of shoes are wide these days.

Sloan is changing more everyday. She now has a molar and is cutting some more. She got another ear infection from all of this teething but is doing good now. Her vocabulary is huge and she is talking in short sentences now. She uses "please" and "thank you" ALL the time and it is super cute. Her words are so much clearer than Grant's were at her age.  Even strangers can understand most of what she says.  She wants everything Grant has no matter what it is. So we have given in and she now gets fruit snacks, suckers and many more things that Grant didn't get until he was older. She continues to be pretty strong willed like Grant but much more of a risk taker than he is.  She is also way more attached to me than he was.  She loves to go "outside please" all the time now.  She is now walking most of the time and only crawling occasionally.  She is very steady now and tries to run but gets tripped up sometimes.  She goes for her 18 month appointment this week so I will post stats soon.

This is how Sloan rides in her carseat!  It's crazy and not the safest....I know.  Every time we strap her in, she wiggles her arms up under the straps so she can lean around and see Grant.  The headrests are in her way evidently, ha ha.  I have tried to tighten the straps as tight as they will go but nothing works.....so I have given up.  She is just so tiny and can maneuver into and out of anything.  Grant will be in a booster seat soon and we will swap her to his carseat and hopefully solve the problem.

At a friend's house...it's a cat tree and Sloan decided she wanted to get to the top!  She made it up to the second level by herself.  Small but mighty!

 Same friend's house.  The hole in the door is for the cats to get to their litter box.  Sloan would look through and say "see kitty in there, hey kitty"

Blue lips after a sucker, guess I should have given her cherry instead!

 She loves to push her baby stroller around but she likes to put Grant's toys in it....like cars, trucks, etc.  Then he steals the stroller and a fight ensues.....ahhh sibling rivalry at its best!



Easter Weekend

Easter Weekend was a lot of fun!  We did a combo event and celebrated Papa Bill's 60th birthday too.  Grant and Sloan both got several new toys from the Easter Bunny.  Grant is into Transformers so he got a few new ones that he wanted.  Uncle Jon bought 2 ducks so the kids had a great time playing with them.  Although Sloan tried to squeeze them to death so we had to keep her hands off of them. 



Grant came home from school with a bunny face...cute!

Sloan hanging out.  She loves to get in chairs.

Checking out the duck right before she squeezed it...the poor duck lost a couple of yellow feathers.

Grant loved holding the ducks.  He looks like he is hurting the duck in this picture but he isn't.

Jon Walter, Grant and Sloan with the ducks.  Jon Walter was so gentle with them and I wish I could say the same for Sloan. 

So much cuter now that she is walking!

Grant seeing his basket for the first time.  I don't think he quite understood the concept of the Easter Bunny until he saw this.  He said "Wow!"



Easter Fun

We pulled out the Easter baskets and eggs.  Sloan immediately wanted to get inside of it and then Grant wanted to do the same thing.  He said "Sloanie was a baby last time she was in here".  I had to stop him from getting in his basket since he would have broken it for sure.  We haven't been to see the Easter Bunny at the mall yet and I honestly don't know if it will happen at this point.  All of this house stuff has taken a lot of my time lately but I am still trying to come up with a way to make it happen.

We have been boxing up the house so we can move in a little over a week.....to a rental temporarily.  This is going to be an interesting few months for sure. 

Sloan is walking all over the place now.  She actually gets going pretty fast too.  She will still drop and crawl sometimes though.  She still looks like a little drunk girl walking around.

 

 Having fun with the basket "grass"

Neighborhood egg hunt with Juliet

Easter bunny fun!



Walking More and STranger Danger!

Sloan is walking more and more by herself and we are loving it!  Grant's favorite thing right now is Transformers.  Luke has him watching the old school Transformer cartoons that Comcast offers On Demand.  He will ask for the "old transformer" shows, pretty funny.

I have been trying to talk to Grant about strangers lately.  He will talk to and go with anyone so I want to make sure he is aware of what to do if someone strange approaches him.  The conversation took an odd twist though.  I told him that strangers are people that we don't know and they could try to hurt him.  And he should never go with anyone even if they offered him fun things like candy, animals, toys, etc.  He looked at me and said "but you are a stranger too because some people don't know you".  His little mind is always working.  I agreed but told him that I didn't try to get other kids to come with me anywhere.  He never ceases to amaze me.

Walking!



Sloan is WALKING!

Sloan is now walking!  She will be 17 months old tomorrow and finally decided that she was going to take some big steps on her own!  She started walking between Luke and I a few days ago and now she will let go of a chair and take a few steps to get to what she wants.  She will still drop and crawl a lot since it is much faster that way.  However, she is walking more and more each day.  I will say that her confidence is off the charts and she tries to run but then falls. Sloan has also had an ear infection (only in one ear) and she is on antibiotics.  Grant has brought home numerous colds this winter from preschool and she seems to catch most of them unfortunately.

Grant has a new bed mate these days!  He has been begging me to let Mason sleep in his bed and I have been saying no for a while.  I wasn't sure that he would actually go to sleep if Mason was in his bed and I also had concerns if Mason would want to do it.  Well, I finally gave in and they are both in heaven now!  It is very funny and sweet.  Mason absolutely loves to sleep in Grant's bed.  And Grant is over the moon excited to have him in his bed.  Now that the time has changed and it is dark in the morning, I am having to wake Grant up for school sometimes.  When I go into his room, they are both sound asleep.

We are closing on our house next week and will most likely be moving to a rental for a little while....until we figure out where our final destination will be.  I have been very behind on blogging for this reason so I apologize.  I have every intention of getting back on track with pictures soon too.

House hunting, Walking Some and SNOW

We have been busy trying to figure out where we are going to move.  We can only see about 3-4 houses at a time since we have the kids with us.....patience is gone after that!  Grant had a meltdown at one house.  The people had children around his age and when we went to the basement...it was full of toys.  He thought he had hit the house jackpot!  He said "I want to live at this house!".  Then I told him he couldn't touch any of the toys and that they don't come with the house.  He did not understand at all.  He continues to tell us that we ARE going to move to that house with the toys.  Funny but not a fun experience!  We are probably going to be renting for a little while until we find exactly what we want.

Funny Grant story:  The bible verse for February was "Love is patient, love is kind..." Each child had a laminated heart that said "Love is ____" and they had to fill in the blank.  When he brought his home, it said "Love is Mama".  I was happy to see this of course and told him how much I loved it.  He gave me a big hug and looked up at me and said, "Now, will you buy me a new toy?".  What a little manipulator, lol!

Sloan is getting more and more interested in walking but she is still not there yet.  She will barely hold one of our hands now....but if you let go, she takes a couple of steps and then drops to crawl.  Her favorite words now include: flower, dog, kitty, blanket, hairbow, juice, apple, fish, puffs, book, elmo, ear, shoes, and many more I can't remember at the moment.  She continues to be very head strong.  Watch out if she doesn't get something she wants.  She wants everything Grant has and he is pretty good about sharing most of the time.  He knows to hide things that he doesn't want her to get to.  She can do an awesome tiger growl now when you ask her what a tiger says....clemson fans would be proud.

It snowed today in Atlanta!  Huge flakes but nothing stuck.  Grant loved it!  His first question though was "Where is Santa Claus?"....I laughed and explained that snow doesn't mean Santa is coming.  I guess that is what happens when you live somewhere it NEVER snows, ha!  He had a great time trying to catch the snow on his tongue.  And Sloan kept trying to catch the flakes.  The sun actually came out when it was still snowing so it was a little warmer.

We finally got Grant's new Powerwheels Jeep.  Santa brought the Dune Buggy and it was broken.  Grant's reaction to the dune buggy was not as exciting as we thought it would be.  So, we swapped it for a Jeep this time but it took forever to come in.  He is over the top excited about this jeep!  It has a shovel on the hood that he can take off and dig with.  It has a tail gate in the back that opens and closes too.  These things are fancy now...it goes in reverse and moves through grass so easy!

Sloan playing happily

 And there's what happens when she wants to hold the camera and I say "no"

 Grant in his jeep

Riding his jeep in the snow flakes

 Grant eating snow flakes

 Trying to catch a snow flake