14 months - BLM

It's official, we've got a wild child on our hands. This boy is insane. Seriously. I used to think Ryan was tough and kind of crazy, but he's got nothing on this lil ball of fire. B definitely keeps us on our toes at ALL times. He basically operates in one mode for life and that is "intense mode." He is running everywhere, screaming at everything, when he wants something, he wants it 5 minutes ago, and he has a temper like you wouldn't believe. I have started noticing these crazy fits he will get himself into and it's not always when he is upset; sometimes it is when he is overly excited or worked up over something. He begins to scream and thrash and pull hair and hit and can't be contained - I really need to try and get one on video. Usually, I can't help but just laugh in complete disbelief that my child is acting possessed.

Anyway, enough of his craziness. Here are some of the more normal things he is up to these days.

*Pointing at everything, but very intently and also in the form of a fake gun (thumb up, pointer finger pointing). Future politician on our hands.

*Words he says now: Mama, Dada, Ball, Buh-bye, Hello, key (because he is so obsessed with our keys), and Ya (we are pretty sure in response to questions) as well as That or Dat.

*He fake eats. Now this is something I have never seen before, but anytime someone witnesses it, they are very confused as to if he really just put something in his mouth. He will walk over to a table or if a hand is out, and use his little pincer grasp, pretend to pick up something, and then put it in his mouth. He thinks it is so funny (and so do we!). Not sure why he does it.

*When he is being held, he always pats our backs. I love it.

*Whenever he comes into the living room in the morning, the first thing he looks for his the remote. It is definitely like a security blanket to him. He also is very proud of himself for learning how to make it work by pointing it at the TV and pressing buttons.

*Has started to enjoy music wand will squat and bounce up and down to beats he likes.
*Loves the song Happy Birthday and seriously tries to mimic us singing it. Sounds like "ap bir day ew."

Funny face

I put him on the scale the other day since he hasn't been to the doctor in a while and he was slightly over 23 lbs. Still appears to be less than 50%, but he seems much bigger to me than he did a few months ago. Plus his head is growing at an alarming rate. All of a sudden, shirts don't fit over his bowling ball of a head anymore. Definitely taking after his older brother in that department. Wearing size 4 diapers, size 5-6 shoes, and 12-18 month clothing. Also has 11 teeth (3 of the 4 year 1 year molars), and this kid is not a great teether. Every single tooth brings him so much pain and fussiness. I will be so happy when he is through all of this.

Thinks he is hot stuff now with the stool

His sleeping habits have remained pretty much the same except for the fact he seems to be turning into more of a night owl. He definitely would prefer to stay up until 8 or 8:30 at night as I have seen him on the monitor not fall asleep until 9pm on numerous occasions. Usually though, he has worn us down by 7:30/7:45, so we put him in bed anyway. He is getting up anywhere between 7-7:30am and still usually taking two naps a day for about 1.5 hours each. He will sometimes take one long nap for 2-3 hours and then not take another one. The problem is, he does that around 10am, which means that he will be up and awake from about 12:30/1pm on for the day. No matter how hard I try to put him back down for a short nap, on those days, he refuses.

Now, onto what may be our biggest accomplishment in the past few weeks. EATING!! I may be getting ahead of myself in saying this because he is by no means a good eater, but he is showing interest that he can, in fact, eat table food. He has been eating Nutrigrain bars, Cheerios, cake, donuts, chips, french fries, meatballs, avocado, and bananas. I know, super healthy foods :) For some reason, he is still not into the texture of most fruits or anything else for that matter, but we are continuing to try. We still supplement a lot of meals with pouches, but are consuming less these days. So, a win in my book (and our bank account).

His favorite things to play these days include: opening and shutting doors, trying to sneak into big bro's room so he can climb up in his bed, playing with Elmo, rummaging through the tupperware drawer and the pantry (pulling out everything he can get his hands on), climbing stairs when we aren't looking, and playing with all things electronics. As I am typing this, I am realizing, he really doesn't play with toys. Every once in a while, I will catch him sitting with Ryan, playing kitchen or cars, etc, but those times are few and far between. He usually is just trying to find anything that can get him into trouble!!!

Proud of himself

 You would think this kid loves to eat all of the time, but no, he would rather just play with the food

LOVES Elmo

Future mechanic

Dinner with his girlfriend, Lucia, right before they moved :(

Lately, it has been hard to entertain him at Ryan's soccer practice because he wants to get up and run around with the big kids. So, I try and occupy him the best I can!

Chick-fil-a French fries

Two of my boys!

Love you B man!

Steamboat 2014

Earlier this month, we took our first big family vacation with both boys to Steamboat Springs, CO. My parents rented an awesome house for the week for our entire family, and we had a wonderful time. It was both boys first time to fly, so we were a little nervous as to how they would handle it. Ryan was pretty excited, as he has seen so many airplanes on TV and kept saying we were zooming like a rocket ship. Bradley, really didn't seem to mind too much. I was worried about take off and landing with the change in pressure, but he was pretty much unphased.

Now, keeping them occupied over the two hours in the air was a tad bit more difficult. Ryan played his LeapPad most of the time, but B did not want to stay in his car seat and take not take a nap either way like we had hoped he would. So, there was quite a bit of whining, but all in all it went pretty well. We arrived Sunday afternoon and there was quite a bit of snow. In fact, it snowed all but one day we were there, and on a few days they got around 10 inches of snow. It was beautiful, but it did limit B's activities outside which ended up resulting with him staying inside quite a bit during the trip.

We all went out to lunch in town once we arrived and the little town was so cute. It had fun restaurants and shops and looked so neat covered in tons and tons of snow. After getting groceries and getting settled in the house, we took the boys out in the snow to play. B was not a fan, so he did not last too long.

 Ryan LOVED the snow and had so much fun throwing snowballs, pushing us into the snow, etc.

 Here is a shot of the house we stayed in. It was so cool and just perfect for all three of our families.

 A shot of the little community of houses

 Two of my boys

 Typical

At this point, B was ready to go inside, so we headed in and got ready for the Super Bowl. Wes skied on Monday and that afternoon came back to pick up Ryan to get his acclimated with the snow, as we had signed him up for ski school later in the week. Here they are all decked out in there gear.

Didn't want to leave out B man.

 Wes snapped a shot of Ryan before taking him up on the gondola ride. He was pretty impressed!!

When Wes and Ryan returned from exploring the mountains, we decided to go play in the snow again while B took a rest. It was hard to find a spot to make snow angels because there was soooo much snow and it was so fresh, that if you plopped down on a 5 ft pile of snow, you would literally fall straight to the ground. So we opted for a 3 inch "pile" on the streets!

Ryan and Poppy's snow angels next to each other!

"cheeeeese"

love this kid

Tuesday, Wes watched the boys and since I can't ski, my mom and I decided to go into the ski village and get massages, walk around, and eat lunch by the mountain. It was so relaxing. Luckily, we were able to get a babysitter for two nights and my parents watched the boys for a few meals so that we could have time together and all go out without kids throughout the week. On Wednesday, we put Ryan in ski school and he was actually pretty excited to go. They take them on bunny hill twice during the day, up to ride the gondola, and just play games. We all met up for lunch to watch him ski. It was too cute!

My lil snow bunny

 Heading up the "magic carpet"

 Getting ready to take off.....

 There he goes

 Stuck the landing

After a long, hard days work, he capped it off with some hot chocolate.

Thursday, I went with my parents into town while Wes watched the boys, to go shopping and have lunch and just walk around the town. A side note: by this point in the trip, B was starting to have a rough time. I think some of his molars were bothering him and he started not sleeping quite as well during the day and at night. With that being said, we had planned a sleigh ride for that afternoon/evening. He took a short nap that morning, but that was it. We had hoped he would sleep on the shuttle ride up there since it was an hour long, but no, that did not happen! He cried most of the way, so we knew it was going to be rough. It then started snowing a ton once we got there, which made it difficult to stay warm, hold onto everything, and actually enjoy the ride! Ryan was tired, B was cranky, and the whole thing lasted a whopping 20 minutes. It was a bust, but oh well :) I snapped a few pics to remember it by!

On our last full day, Wes skied and Ryan went to ski school again. We went up again around lunch time to watch and see his progress!

 Pizza pie!

 French fry!

 a little too wide....

 ....and wipe out!

He had quite a good time going to ski school and now with the Olympics on, he keeps saying that he can do that and comparing himself to the crazy Alpine/downhill/whatever you call it skiers.

When we got back home and I had to take him to school on Monday, he promptly told me that he would much rather go to ski school than his normal school :) I feel ya buddy.

B and Scoot did some bonding over the week as well.

GiGi had bought these cute sweaters for the boys to wear and take pics with in the snow. Unfortunately, it was waaaay too cold to wear only that, so this is the best we could get!

 Cranky B

Saturday morning, we packed up to head home. We had such a fun time on the trip and definitely made memories that we will cherish forever. Ryan just had an absolute blast which made the whole trip worth it. I think he will now want to ski every year :)