Family Fun Week

After Andy's graduation, we had family in town for the week.  Philip made sure to show everyone a good time.

 

Sunday was Mother's Day.  It was the first time that we got to celebrate the day with both of our mothers, plus my sister and Andy's aunt, who is like a mother.  The men cooked us a dinner of grilled steak, twice-baked potatoes, and a salad.  We had a great time!

It was raining on Monday, so we went to the roller skating rink for toddler time.  Everyone brings in a ride-on or push toy and the kids run around the rink.  The kiddos tend to abandon their own toys and try out everyone else's.  It is a great way to try out new toys.

Bath time!

My sister left the next morning, but my parents were still in town.  We went to a local play space for the first time and got to play with trains, basketballs, a bounce house, a tool bench, and much more. 

Serious fun

On Wednesday, we took a break from the kid stuff and went shopping.  Mom and I picked out some gifts for Philip's birthday.  It is getting pretty impossible to go to a toy store or even near the toy aisle of a store without Philip going nuts.  Times are changing!  When we went to the mall, we stopped in at a woman's clothing store.  As soon as we walked in, Philip exclaimed, "Oh no!"  He knew what he was in for!

On Thursday, we went to a local park that has farm animals, plus a great playground.  It was my first time going to this park and it was great to find a new place to go.  Philip loved it, so we will definitely be back.

 

Checking out the new baby chicks

Andy had Friday off of work, so I wanted to do something big.  We went to the science center in Baltimore.  I had gone one time with Philip and some friends, but have been wanting to go again with Andy.  Philip had a blast and we loved watching him play.

 

Of course we pay to go to a nice museum and what is his favorite thing to do?  

Play with the train table.  He loves his Choo Choos!

The water table came in as a close second.

We enjoyed lunch at Cheesecake Factory and then headed home after our big day out.  It was a great week and so fun to share some of Philip's favorite spaces with his grandparents.

22 Months

Philip is coming dangerously close to being a two year old!  

You can tell that he started really cheesing it up for the camera this month!

The "language explosion" has started.  He is picking up new words pretty quickly now.  He mainly repeats words when we ask him to, but there are some words that he will say spontaneously.  Philip has started counting a lot, too.  He can mainly say "two" and "three," but you can tell he is counting before and after those words. We can also recognize the melodies of some of the songs that he sings, even though he mainly makes up his own words.

Helping organize the cabinets

He holds my hand and wants to take me with him anywhere he goes.  Even though this can sometimes be exhausting, I am trying to enjoy this while I have it, because I know one day he will want some distance from me.  He loves trucks and points them out anytime we see one go by on the street.  He also waves to the trucks and strangers, too.

 This little guy loves to eat!  It seems like he is always scrounging for something.

When he is mad at me, he will either splash in the cat's water (usually happens when I bring him inside before he is ready), or climb on the table.  He's even managed to stand up on the table once or twice. 

Philip's serious side

Apparently most of my pictures this month involve food.  Here are some cute ones!

Who needs hands or forks?

 

More stolen food - frozen peaches!

 

He loves making silly faces with orange slices.  Can you tell he likes fruit?

Graduation Day

Andy graduated a few weeks ago.  We had a great time celebrating with family including our parents, Andy's aunt, my sister and niece, and Andy's brother and sister-in-law.

The Baccalaureate Mass was beautiful.  Philip did a pretty good job getting through it, especially considering the short nap he had that day.

Cookies afterwards made everything better

The weather was beautiful on graduation day, which was great because it was outdoors!

My Dad caught Andy in the procession

Cardinal Dolan was the speaker - he was great!

All of the doctoral students had their names called out and they were able to stand on the stage for the last part of the ceremony.  Can you find Andy? Hint:  Look under the red arrow.

After the big graduation, we went to the smaller school ceremony for graduate students.   It was a really beautiful and intimate ceremony.  Each doctoral student had the name of their dissertation read out before receiving their diploma.

First time I saw Andy all day since we arrived.  Philip really liked the tassel on his cap.

My sister and niece - finally time to play!

Andy with his proud Mom...

and proud Dad.

Love this

Here come the family pics:

With my sister and niece

Andy's parents

Andy's aunt

My parents

Afterwards we all came back to our house to party!  We catered food from one of our favorite restaurants and enjoyed hanging out on the deck.

Can you guess what Andy's graduation gift is?  All of our family pitched in to help buy him a new electric guitar - due to arrive sometime mid-June!

The kiddos had fun playing Andy's acoustic

Olivia dove head first into the cookie cake

What is everyone looking at?

It is hard to believe that graduation has already come and gone (and he defended over three months ago)!  We had a great time celebrating with family and also many of our friends who also graduated this year.  God is good!

21 Months

My little boy is 21 months!  He took a lot of bigs steps this month. 

 He put on my tennis shoes, jumped on the bench,

and started flipping the light switches on and off!

He is starting to give kisses to us when asked.  So sweet!  He waves to the cat and sometimes gives him a hug when we are out the door in the morning.  He picked up a few new words.  My favorite word that he learned is Happy!  It is part of a song that is on the boombox he got from his grandparents for Christmas.  Every once in a while when he is playing on his own, he turns on his boombox.  He doesn't sing any part of the song except the word Happy.  What a joy to hear!  He also learned to say Ball and often sounds like he is saying "I don't know." He loves to sing and carry the crucifix.

 

Happy!

He weaned this month with some encouragement from me.  I am amazed we nursed so long - I just wanted to get to 12 months!  I was hoping to have him weaned halfway through my pregnancy, and just when I thought there was no way it would happen, he decided he was done!  Nursing has been replaced by books.  He loves his storytimes before naps and bedtimes.  He will get hooked on certain books for a while, but just because something is his favorite one week, doesn't mean he will like it the next.  When I start reading a book he doesn't want to hear, or even singing him a lullabye that he isn't interested in, he will wave his hand back and forth and say, "No, no." I never expected him to dictate what songs I sang to him! 

I'm in charge around here!

We go on lots of long meandering walks.  He loves to chase birds and the bunny rabbits that hang out around our house.  We spent a lot of time at home this month while we had some repairs done on our basement. Other than one or two "I'm bored" days, he did a really good job of playing happily at home. Amazingly, he did really well with having strangers coming in and out of our house for three weeks and hearing all sorts of strange noises coming from our basement.  Our little boy is getting bigger and braver each day!

Corn on the Cob - a new favorite

 

Time for some spring planting

Mischief of the Month:

He stole a bag of bagels when I was unloading the groceries, ran into the living room with them, and sat on the couch.  He bit through the bag and ate a good hunk out of them.  This is now his go-to spot when he "steals" food.