July | 2014 | Our family blog

Look at this big kid! It’s hard to believe we have a two-year-old in the house!

We had a busy birthday weekend celebrating a triple holiday — Noah’s birthday, Grace’s baby dedication, and Father’s Day. Grandma and Pop came all the way from NY to help us celebrate!

A quick round-up of Noah at 2:

Likes: Frisbee, running, going to the pool and spray ground, trains, trucks, buses, ambulances, riding bikes with Dad, cheese, cheese quesadillas, grilled cheese, super cheesy mac-n-cheese, fruit, hummus, ice water, books, duplo legos, Thomas Trains, and an old baby Einstein video on YouTube.

Dislikes: Vegetables, playing inside when he wants to go outside, waiting for dinner. 🙂

Noah is talking more and more every day. We stopped counting his words, he repeats everything and says many new words every day. He is also starting to repeat favorite or common phrases from his books and is saying more names…. still working on “Grandma.” :). We love hearing Noah’s short stories, he recently recounted our morning swimming with his friend Emerson (who has a gate in her neighborhood). “Car! Gate! Pool! Snack! Home!” Or a bike ride in the neighborhood, “Dada! Bike! Crocs! Outside! Choo-Choo! Big Truck!”

As I mentioned above, he loves running, riding on Dave’s bike, practicing jumping and just being outside. Somehow he is shockingly good at throwing a small frisbee. Noah has ZERO interest in coloring or anything that involves sitting still, but he plays on his own more these days and will sit still for short videos on the iPad.

We have causally entered the “potty training” world. Noah tells us when he needs to be changed and sometimes asks for “potty”. Not sure it is going to happen anytime soon, but it would be really nice to get one kid out of diapers!! His reward for sitting on the potty is a sticker. He gazes longingly at his cat and dog (goddy) stickers and carefully evaluates the choices before choosing one — it is quite the process.

Happy Birthday Buddy!

“I refuse to smile..but check out my faux hawk!”

All is well in Grace’s world. Very happily there is not too much to report. She continues to eat and sleep like a champ, smiles and chats to us frequently, and expertly fends off the occasional rowdiness from her brother.

We are getting into a good rhythm/routine with Grace’s naps, but on the weekends, she naps on-the-go, so that we can keep Noah busy and get out on some kind of activity. We finally broke her of the swing and as Grace happily naps in her crib, we happily got the swing out of our living room! She’s doing a lot better with the bottle and eagerly takes her little 2 oz. bottle from Dave each evening before getting tucked in around 7:30 p.m. We’ve been inching Grace’s bedtime up and she has completely embraced it … Dave and I even watched TWO episodes of Scandal on Netflix the other night. (Olivia Pope!)

This month we had Grace dedicated at our church, Watershed. It was a crowded stage with 10 other families dedicating their children as well. The same day, Noah moved up to the “spouts” class at Greenhouse (Sunday morning for kids), so now he is with his 2-year-old friends. And Grace started in the “seedlings” class … she’s the newbie so gets lots of attention … and I can actually pay attention to the service now. 🙂