21 Months

Well, Little Man, you are 21 months now and I never even got around to posting about you at 20 months.  You have such a large vocabulary now and try to repeat almost everything we say that it's going to be very difficult to write down all your new words, so I'll just highlight the one's that are especially cute or funny. :)

Some of my fave recent pics of you:

• You are starting to put 3-4 words together now and although it doesn't always make sense, I can usually figure out a loose translation.  
• You've really gotten down "thank you mama" (though you say it more like, "dank du") and the correct timing for it.  However, you haven't differentiated that the "mama" part is only for when you're thanking me, not everyone else!  Daddy took you to his Young Life (high school church group) meeting the other night and he said you were saying "thank you mama" to everyone there.  :)  This is ok with me.  At least you're still being polite!
• You tell full on stories with such energy and excitement in your voice and hand gestures that I REALLY wish I knew what all you were telling me!  I'm sure they're great stories because they always make you giggle as you are telling them!  
• You used to stand up in your high chair when after you were eating and wave your arms around, signaling to us that you were done with your food.  The first few times you did this, Daddy busted up laughing and then you continued to do it, with a smirk and twinkle in your eye, thinking you were just hilarious.  In the last few days, it seems you've grown too much to be able to squeeze out of your chair anymore to stand up.  (Mama's glad).
• You have gotten really good at going to bed over the last few months!  Our routine goes like this: pajamas, brush teeth, read books, hugs and kisses, climb into bed, pray, more kisses, say "night night" to each other, then I blow you a kiss from the door way, walk out and close the door.  And you close your eyes and go right to sleep.  At naptime, we get sweats or shorts on you, climb into bed, hugs and kisses, say good night and I close the door and you either talk or sing to yourself for a few minutes before going to sleep, or just get quiet and go to sleep right away.  This is seriously amazing.  I always hoped this day would come (you going to bed to easily and eagerly) and it's here.  And I am fully loving and embracing it.  Plus, you go to bed early - 7:15/7:30 most often.  Then mama and daddy have the whole evening to ourselves to just hang out and relax. :)
• We made your crib into a toddler bed a couple months ago (after it was too difficult for me to lift you over into your crib anymore, with my growing tummy).  You fell out of bed the first night that you slept in the toddler bed, but you haven't fallen out since!  You love to get out of bed when you wake up (7-7:30 am) and walk into our room to either climb into bed and snuggle with us for a while, or stand at my side of the bed and beg "eat?! eat? EAT!?" until I get out of bed.  (One is more endearing than the other). 
• You got your first pet last week (4 goldfish) and are obsessed with them!  You are always pulling the little toddler chair in your room over to stand on and watch them.  
• You have discovered the little magnet car/block toys that I had when I was little.  I LOVED them and would build with them for hours.  You also love them.  You will sit with them for about an hour and put all 4 wheels in the car, take them all out and set them on the ground in a row, and then put them all back in.  And then take them all back out.  It's amazing how you can (and will) do something so simple over and over and over again.  I'm so glad you love them. :)
• You've started to come around to the idea of sitting on the potty again, like mommy and daddy do.  You've been willing to go and sit several times now, but so far no actual business in the potty... But I'm hopeful that we'll start actual potty training sooner than later. 
• We've started talking to you a lot more about the new baby.  I will talk to you about being a big brother (which you have started to call yourself and hearing you say "broyah" and point to yourself is about the most adorable thing ever.).  I was washing some baby clothes the other day and explaining how your baby brother or sister will be wearing these clothes and asked if you wanted to help me take care of the new baby when he/she arrives, to which you eagerly answered "yesh!"  You seem to be getting excited about the baby.  You still always want to hug and kiss my tummy whenever you can see my stomach bare (which is often because I currently hate having any clothing touching my stomach.).
• You LOVE to sing along with songs.  Your current favorites are Paradise by Coldplay (still your fave), Baby by Justin Bieber (I regret playing that song for you), Barbara Ann by Beach Boys.  You also love a cd that your uncle Logan gave daddy (a folk band), because they do a lot of "la la la" "ba ba ba" and "hey!"'s in them, so you can easily sing along. 
• You will copy just about anything that anyone does, and you crack yourself up while doing it.  We have a lot of face making competitions around here.
• When you wake up in the morning, you love to snuggle with me in bed and you take over my Snoogle.  It's so hard to fight someone so cute and cuddle to get my pillow back.  
• After we feed your fish, you always watch the food floating on top of the water and try to coax the fish to eat the food: "up, up up!"

(Funny) Words You Say

• "broyah" - brother
• "appa" - apple (I love how you say it so cute and sweetly)
• "yes" - I just love the crisp clear way you say yes to everything.  Sometimes I overly ask questions and ask unnecessary/random questions, just to hear you say yes. :)
• "ot dog" - we found some (higher) quality hot dogs (turkey and chicken) at Trader Joes a few weeks ago and you are obsessed with them.  You often ask for a "ot dog" for lunch.  
• "wheeeee-al" - with your favorite magnet car blocks, you always are losing the wheels and coming and asking me to help you find you "wheeee-al's".  SO adorable!

 Little boy, you are growing up so so fast.  I keep just watching you.  Just enjoying who you are and trying to memorize everything you do.  How you lay down in bed and snuggle your puppies.  How your adorable little lips look when you have your mouth stuffed full of food and you are trying hard to chew and keep all the food in your mouth at the same time.  How you love to stomp in puddles with your boots on.  How you will walk around the house and clean up crumbs from the ground and go throw them in the garbage.  How your face lights up when you hear daddy come in the front door and you drop whatever you're doing to go run and greet him. 

I love you so so much and am still having a hard time grasping how in a couple short months I'll have another little being to love.  I'm still not sure how it's possible to love someone other than you as much as I love you, but I know it will happen.  I'm just trying to soak in you and your last bit of baby-ness and the last couple months of time that we have, just you and me.

Love you Zeek Monkey.  You'll still always be my Baby.

Love,
Your Mama K

Lately

Here's another "Lately" catch up to show you that we have still been living and breathing over here. :)

Most of these lately times were captured from my iphone.

Thank goodness for technology, huh?  I know I wouldn't have captured half these photo's without it...

We harvested lots of tomatoes from our garden.

I dehydrated most of them.

Then I harvested the very last out of our garden...

And made and canned 6 quarts of spaghetti sauce.

Zeek and I had a lovely sunny play date at The Gilbert House.

He could play in the train room for hours.

Then my husband cheered for my least contestant ever on DWTS.

Bristol left the show that night.

Serves him right for cheering for her.

Zeek discovered my favorite toy ever from childhood.

Magnet building blocks/cars.

He will put all 4 wheels in very systematically, pull them all off and set them on the ground, and then put them all back in.  And then pull them all back off.  Repeat, repeat.  2 hours later....

Last week, I told daddy I was taking Zeek out for a few hours to give Skyler some quiet study time.

We came home with a new pet (or 4) to surprise daddy with.

It's safe to say that Zeek's obsessed with watching them.

He's always asking me, "mama, blub blub blub EAT?!"

Translation: "Mama, can we feed the fish?" 

Yes. "Blub blub blub" is what he calls fish.

Because it's what noise fish make.  Obv. 

And then he'll pull up his chair to stand and watch them some more...

Last weekend, we had the last West Coast Paintball Series tournament (speedball) for the season!  We still have one more woodsball event next weekend.

We took some photo's to remember all of the hard work and energies we have poured into this series over the last few years!  This tournament series has been with us since a few weeks before our wedding.  It was a bittersweet day.

And then, we had to get one like this:

Because we also took one when I was pregnant with Zeek two years prior...

Also last weekish, I had a friend over for a play date, a MOPS (Moms of Preschooler's) monthly get together, a mom's Bible study, a midwife appointment, and my MIL took me out to the casino for a (very early) birthday date of some buffet and slots!  (Which, btw, is my ultimate favorite birthday present ever which my MIL has given me two years in a row now...and she can go ahead and keep on with the tradition... *hint hint*  I know you're reading this...) :)  

And then today, Zeek and I spent the morning at Chuck E Cheese.

Where there was only 1 other family, with a toddler and an infant.

Eating pizza at 10:30 am.

And one lone middle aged man sitting in a booth by himself for nearly the entire time we were there.

Otherwise, the place was ours!

We had a whole bag of left over tokens from when we took Zeek for his birthday.

And that's what's been up with the Anderson's. :)

Now you can sleep better tonight.

You're welcome.

Love,

K

Quiet.

Hey.

How are you?

:)

I know, it's been pretty quiet over here lately.

When that happens, it's most often because I am so busy working on something that I can't make myself sit still long enough to write anything.

This time, it's two things.

1.  Still cleaning, organizing, purging. 

Slowly going through the whole house.

The closets.  ALL of them.

The window seat storage bench.

The armoire.

My and Skyler's room.

The laundry room.

Zeek's room. 

The bathrooms.

The office.

Pretty much everywhere.

 I feel a little ADD about it though.

I can't force myself to go through one area and be done.

It's going through everything, all at the same time.

The "get rid of" pile in the garage is making me feel good about my work though. :)

(Too bad garage sale season is over...)

2.  I'm spending lots of time working (with my dad) on a super cool present for Zeek for Christmas.

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen this picture...

This is what we started with:

  And oh boy, it looks so different already!

I'm hoping it will be done within the next few weeks, and I'll tell you all about it then. ;)

Anyway, to make up for my lack of posts, I thought I'd leave you with some photos of my cute little monkey.

Kind of a "Happy Monday to You" / peace offering, if you will. :)

Ok.

That's it.

Happy Monday to you. :)

Love,

K

A Name.

Well... we've finally figured it out.  Finally settled on names.

If you've been around this ol' blog long enough, you might remember when we talked about names when I was pregnant with Ezekiel.  We had decided that for a boy, our name would be Ezekiel Pierce (done!) and if it was a girl, we'd name her Ellery Grace.

We threw around some other girl names for this pregnancy, but ultimately landed back on Ellery Grace, which I am thrilled about.  This is what I had said about choosing the name Ellery Grace before:

Ellery Grace: Ellery (English) means A Cheerful Woman; Bringer of Joy.  Grace (Latin) means Having God's Favor; the Personification of Beauty, Charm and Grace.

I found Ellery almost immediately in the Baby Name book and it just fell heavy on me and I knew I wanted a daughter named Ellery. Bringer of Joy.  I knew that surely you would be bringing us years of joy.  I can picture you already - adorable little toddler with wavy brown hair (and daddy's dimple?!), smiling and chattering up a storm with friends, family and strangers alike.  Giggling.  Spreading the laughter.  You will bring joy to those around you.   Your daddy took a little warming up to the name, since it was more unique but once he thought it over, he agreed it was a beautiful name and it will be yours if you are our little lady!  

Grace was chosen as a reminder of God's grace for us but mostly because your great grandmother named Grace is one of the most enjoyable and wonderful women I have ever met in my entire life.  She defines cheer and joy and has the most beautiful soul.  I will be honored to have a daughter named after that amazing woman someday. :)

For the boy name this time, we had a much harder time.  Maybe it isn't even that it was harder, but more like we've had a lot less time to just dwell on this pregnancy (with having a busy toddler running around) verses being childless and pregnant with Ezekiel.  We didn't find many opportunities to talk about baby names.  The few times we did, I tossed around a name a few times to see what Skyler thought about it.  He liked the name and the meaning (which is important to us), but ultimately it was me that decided I wasn't sure if I liked how the first name went with our last name, Anderson.  

I set the name aside and tried on other names for size... None of them sat well with me and I kept going back to our original name.  The morning after our ultrasound, Zeek and I headed to the Riverfront Park for a while to play on the playground.  As we were sitting on a bench and sharing a breakfast burrito, I turned, saw a park sign (which I had never noticed at the park before) and stopped and stared for a minute.  It was the name I had liked and kept going back to.  With our last name.  I snapped a photo and sent it to Skyler, along with the caption, "So, Zeek and I are eating breakfast at the Riverfront Park, and I think I saw a sign from God..."

Here's what I saw: 

 Asher.  Asher Anderson.

I love it.   

So we had settled on a first name, but didn't have a middle name still.  The other day, we finally found some time to sit and think about names again.  I flipped through our baby name book and a name generator online.  Skyler wasn't much help.  He wanted a "strong" name... So he suggested... Stone...  

No thanks, honey.  Chosing a strong name doesn't have to mean chosing a strong substance like a boulder.  

After that, he was full of REALLY good ideas.  He was particularly proud of Asher Smasher.  Cuz' that's even stronger than Stone.  Duh.  (You can read about Skyler's awesome name suggestions for Ezekiel's pregnancy too.) 

I humored him and we kept Stone on the table (though I knew I'd fight against it if we came down to it).  Personally, I kept coming back to Miles or Milo.  I liked the sound of it and I liked the meaning.  We ran out of time to settle on a name that night.

Then I saw "Milo" on my good friend's car that next morning.  (Plus, Milo and Otis was one of my FAVE movies growing up, and that TOTALLY played a huge part in picking the name.... not really.  But I thought I'd throw in that tidbit.)

And I decided that's what it was going to be.    

Asher Milo: Asher (Hebrew) means Filled with happiness.  Milo (German) means One who is merciful / A soldier.

So, in just a couple short months, we will welcome either a son or a daughter.

An Asher Milo Anderson or an Ellery Grace Anderson.

I cannot wait to see who has been residing in me for the last several months. :)

Love,

K

 

 

Organize: Diaper Changing Station

We've never really had a great solution for diaper storage at our house.  When Zeek was born, we used the top of my old sewing desk as his changing table and put all of his diapers/wipes in boxes on the shelves on the side of the desk.

This is how it looked at our old house (which pretty much is how it remained for several months at our new house too):

This worked fine for a while, but it was never that great.  Once I started redoing Zeek's room, I removed and sold the desk.  We started changing Zeek on the floor (using the changing pad still for poopy diapers).  We loved this so much better and tried to figure out the best place to put the diapers.  We tried in the little white cabinet by Zeek's bookshelves:

It worked okay, but was really a bit too small to hold everything.  Then I realized that there was plenty of unused space underneath Zeek's bed.  I started searching for the perfect basket(s) to put under the bed.  While at Ikea with my MIL a couple weeks ago, I found these:

At only $2.50 each, I didn't figure I could go wrong!  Plus, I love the wire basket look.  

I got two for under the bed - one for cloth diapers and one for disposable diapers, wipes and rash cream.

They fit under the bed just perfectly, with enough space for an extra pack of disposable diapers and a step stool for Zeek to be able to climb into his big boy bed.  (Now I just need to make labels!  Ok, I don't "need" to.  But I really "want" to! ;))

Let's take a closer look:

Plenty of space for his cute cloth diapers and inserts.  (We use GDiapers).

Disposable diapers, disposable GDiaper inserts, homemade baby wipes, lotion, Grandma El's diaper ointment and those awesome diaper trash bags.

I love it.  So easy.  So neat.  

Now to just add a few mini diapers in the mix when this new little one arrives.  :)

I also need to make a new bedskirt to hide this diaper storage.  I removed the other one when we changed Zeek's crib to a big boy bed.  I bought material to make a crib skirt for this bed, as well as for a future toddler bed for Zeek once the little one comes (which we will then turn his current bed back into a crib).

I'm excited to use more of these awesome baskets for other things around the house!

One more area organized and off the list!  Check!

Love,

K