My New Shoe Cupboard

First of all, here's the latest picture of our little 14 month old. The way his hair lies on the top of his head makes him look like he had a faux-hawk sometimes. He's made quite the mess of himself with tonight's dinner.This is a cabinet that my friend gave me years ago, when we first moved into our Capitol Hill house. It has had many uses...dishes, kitchen gadgets, games, and now, shoes. This week, I found a nice liner & decided to try it out in the kitchen for shoes. Sure, I could just use a regular shoe rack, but Tyler will grab the shoes and play with them, chew on them, scatter them all over the house...I needed doors that I could childproof. Here's a close up of the liner. Pretty. Thank you, Target.

Tyler Update

This week, Tyler turned 14 months old (yesterday, to be exact). I haven't taken pictures in a couple of weeks, but here are some from the last month...

He has 4 teeth. The hair is starting to curl a little in the back. He's still sucking his thumb, especially when he's tired, nervous, or bored.

He fits nicely in a Kelty backpack & enjoys it.

Snores when he sleeps...loudly, too. When he falls asleep in the car, he is now difficult to transfer into his crib. Sometimes, he won't go back to sleep. Bummer.

Loves playing with water. He will move stools around in the house to get up to any sink he sees to play with water. Washing his hands is not easy, as he'd rather splash around than get clean.

At 14 months, Tyler:

*still nurses about 3 times a day

*understands so much, in English & Chinese. Directions he responds well to include "sit down," "put away," "put inside," "do you need to poop?", "kiss," "bedtime," & "eat." I'm sure there are more, but that's what I can think of right now. And, most of all this is in Chinese.

*signs a couple of things (in his own "words")...more, bye, thank you, want, all done. Bye & thank you are the same thing, which is waving.

*loves the cats & is learning to pet them gently, though not really

*loves being outside

*enjoys watching me cook dinner. He pulls on my legs for me to pick him up to see what I'm making, but gets upset when I need to put him down. Sometimes I have to put him in the Ergo on my back to cut vegetables and such.

*can poop in the toilet

*take 2 naps a day, but is starting show signs of only needing 1

*LOVES to play

*claps his hands

*is starting to dance; will turn around in circles. When we have music on and start dancing around, he likes me to pick him up and dance with him

*doesn't really enjoy drinking cow's milk

*loves noodles of all shapes, grains, sizes, & preparations

*plays peek-a-boo by covering his eyes

*requests a certain song by gesturing parts of the hand movements in the song

*when he sleeps, he likes to suck his thumb while touching the tag on the side of one of his sleep sacks. The other ones don't have a tag, so I try to give him his "Nu Nu" that has a tag but he just tosses it aside; happens daily

I can go on and on, but it's way past my bedtime, & David's snoring softly...I'm outta here!

Catchin' Up

Kissy, kissy. Tyler has been a kissing machine these days. He understands when you ask him for a kiss in Mandarin. He really gets into it. He grabs my face, opens his mouth, and slobbers. I actually took this picture myself, holding the camera up with one hand. I think it came out so nicely.

On a trip to Ikea last weekend, we stopped at Burger King for the boys to play (and eat lunch). While at Ikea, Vincent spent time in the Kids Zone daycare for the first time. He was really excited about hanging out in there. Of course, when David picked him up, he was sitting in the "movie room." Oh well. Here's an action shot of Vincent coming down the Burger King slide.

We picked up a bookcase while at Ikea, and luckily the boxes fit in the car; right in between two passed out boys.

At home, Tyler doodles a little bit on the art easle.

The boys and I stopped in at the Franz bread outlet for the first time this week. Vincent picked out this bus of alphabet cookies. When he sings the song, "The Wheels on the Bus..." Tyler waves his arms for the wheels going "round and round."

We took a mini trip to the mall downtown, to kill time before naps, and got free balloons at Nordstrom. I love it when the boys sit down for a snack together.

And, finally, for the past few weeks, we have been putting Tyler on the toilet for pooping. He has been doing a really good job with it. He will do his business, and waves his arms around (sometimes) when he is done. We're not potty training, but since he poops so infrequently, we thought we'd try this out. So cute to see him on a giant toilet!

Dessert

I made dessert yesterday and served it for dinner tonight. Go see it on the Family Meal blog!

Here are the boys enjoying it. That's apple juice that fancy-pants Vincent got to have with his dinner and dessert (in his pj's).

Shortribs, Easter and Meatballs

One night last week, I made ramen & Korean shortribs. Note-to-self, the fresh ramen noodles do make MUCH more than expected. At least the whole family loves them. We figured out that Tyler loves to nosh on the bones. Vincent insisted on eating his shortribs with his cow crown. No, I don't think he gets the connections of beef and cow.

Easter this year was pretty low key, and a bit anti-climatic. The boys woke around the same time & we presented them their baskets. Tyler didn't understand it, of course, and Vincent seemed only sort of excited about the stuff inside. After they played with and ate a little of the stuff in the baskets, we moved on to the egg hunt. Eggs were hidden in the kitchen and the living room.

And, finally, Tyler met the Easter Bunny for the first time. Vincent met this same one last year, so he was thrilled to see him again. As you can see, Tyler freaked. Poor baby.

Check out the food blog for David's Easter meatballs & pasta dinner!