My boy is 10 months old!

Happy 10 Months Sweet Boy!



He makes me so happy! He has the most infectious, sweet, hardy laugh - I love it!
At 10 months William is:

*Laughing constantly--especially with/at his sister.
* Constantly babbling--mamama, gagaga...
* Prefers me. When daddy takes him, he turns to me and holds on tighter. (Sorry daddy!)
* Loves to snuggle when I nurse him during the night
* Is becoming quite proficient at army crawling. He's fast and definitely gets where he wants
to go. I never had to chase Ella, but I definitely have to chase after him!
* Loves to chase after Ella and be wherever she is, playing with whatever she's playing with.
* Likes to crawl into strange places, such as underneath his exersaucer, under the table,
under the train table.
* Will grab anything put in front of him.
* Still would rather chew the books and flip pages himself than be read to. :/
* Eats finger foods, but still occasionally coughs on it and acts generally disgusted with it.
* Has in the past month become much pickier in what he eats.
* Loves to spray his food out of his mouth.
* Drinks from both a straw cup and sippy cup really well, and has for at least two months or so.
* Sleeps about 11 hours at night, typically 7:30pm-6:30am
* Loves to sleep on his tummy, and especially bury his face in the mattress.
* Naps usually 1-1 1/2 hrs in the morning and 1 hour in the afternoon.
* Still nurses, but is now supplementing with some formula and takes it without any problems.
* Motorboats all the time. At the dinner table, in church, everywhere.
* Loves baths. He's always enjoyed the water and splashing around.
* Is very even tempered. Nothing much seems to bother him. Ella will splash him in the bath and
get water in his eyes, but it doesn't bother him. (It bothers Ella when it happens to her
though!)
* Has five teeth that are poked through his gums (two on the top, three on the bottom), with a
sixth tooth pushing through on the top.
* Makes friends wherever we go. A very friendly man at Applebee's a few weeks ago talked to
him almost through our entire meal. He even got a kiss on the head from the stranger!
* Loves people watching.
* Has been doing this cute little thing with his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth all the time!
* Has such a sweet little personality.

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but this basically sums up William at 10 months old. He is (and Ella is) the light of my life!

Letter G Activities

Ella had some fun doing some new activities centered around the letter G.

She and I worked on a numbers connect the dot.

And she did her first Color By Number sheet and colored this cute gumball machine.

She also worked on some pre-math skills by doing this cute patterning activity, also taken from here. Ella's been getting into patterns a little bit lately, so this was a lot of fun for her. After we finished she asked for more! So I'll definitely be making up some more manipulatives that we can use for making patterns.

:)

G is for Giraffe

Ella was much more interested in making this giraffe than decorating her letter G. :) It was quick and easy and she had a lot of fun!

I was surprised that she was ok with getting her finger in paint. She is usually very anti messy fingers! She doesn't typically like glue or syrup (hah) or paint on her hands.

Instead of putting spots on the giraffe, she enjoyed painting with her finger more instead.

He's still cute nonetheless!

Glittery & Gold letter G

We tried to do the letter G today, but Ella wasn't feeling it at all. She loves gluing things down and I think this just wasn't specific enough for her. I mixed water, glue and gold glitter and she was to paint her G. She swiped her brush around for about 10 seconds and then was done.

I added more so it didn't look so bare.

Oh well..we'll keep trying!

Swimming we go!

Ella's really just starting to get into Barbie's, so we don't have a lot of "accessories," so we use our imagination. :)

Yes, we had to take all their clothes off so they could go swimming. We pretended they had bathing suits on!

This keeps Ella (and I---she insists I must play with her!) busy for a good 25 minutes or so.

The barbies were taking a break from the pool and enjoying the sun. They had a great time swimming.

Ella makes me smile...

Ella pulling her weight

We put Ella to work tonight.


Why haven't we had Ella feed her brother earlier? Clearly it entertained both of them. : )

What wonderful laughs! Music to my ears!!!

Sink Fun

William gets four little mini baths a day now thanks to this diaper rash...so we try to make it fun!




More of this in about 30 mins after William wakes from his nap!

Paper bag Elephant

Ella and I have been having fun with the letter E and lots of elephant activities. Today we made this cute paper bag elephant I got from here. I cut the pieces out and showed we figured out together where they went.

As you can see, Ella loved this, and I had to "make it talk" for a good 10 minutes after finishing him. :)

:)

Little Cuties

I feel like life has been so crazy and busy lately. Everyone being sick, cranky, and not sleeping well. (And now William's being treated for a horrible diaper rash.) It's been a rough past couple weeks. I've hardly taken my camera out to get any pictures lately, so here are my little cuties with a couple pics I did manage to get today.

After dinner.... William's appetite seems to have diminished with his cold. He's wearing his food now more than eating it.

Ella in her zombie state. She doesn't watch tv, but loves to play on sesame street.org.

I ran out to pick up William's creme for his rash tonight and on the way out Ella said, "Mommy, make sure you drive safely!" Aww... she is my little mimic, as I tell this same thing to daddy most mornings on his way out the door.

Ella also pretends to take pills as she sees me take my vitamins every day. It's so funny! She pulls up her shirt to nurse "Pink Baby," and does a wonderful job changing Pink Baby's diaper -- complete with using diaper wipes and balmex. She is just amazing!

E is for Elephant!

Ella and I worked on an elephant today.

First she painted gray paint onto the letter E.

Then she decided to take my suggestion and use a crumpled up newspaper to paint it. She had fun doing this and it made neat marks!

After finally drying I was able to cut it out, and Ella glued on the ear and trunk. She also insisted on have TWO googly eyes!

Cute!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Though we all have an awful cold we can't seem to get rid of, and William has an ear infection, we're truly enjoying our Valentine's weekend together as a family.

Ella loves to draw. She especially loves to make happy and sad faces.


Isn't that adorable? She's also trying to write her name, I'll post that soon. It's pretty darn good for a 2 year old I'll say!

Valentine Brownies

Ella's been asking to make cookies, so we made....brownies today! The cookie recipe I wanted to do called for more eggs than I had, so we made do with brownies.

Ella added the water and oil, but her main job was playing with the chocolatey, gooey goodness, er, rather, stirring.. :)



They baked while the kiddies were napping (amen for naps at last!) and I cut the brownies out in the shape of hearts and added a little frosting and pink sprinkles to be festive!

Ella got one after her nap and her response was "oooh!!! Cookie!!" She was so excited.



So sweet!

Valentine's Card

Ella and William (and daddy and I) have been sick with awful colds all this week. It's traveled nicely through the family... William has been a non-sleeping crying mess thanks to the cold plus an ear infection. :( But Ella managed to make daddy his valentine's card today.

I cut up a bunch of different colored and different sized hearts and she glued them on. (Gluing really makes her happy!)


She worked hard! I hope daddy loves it!

Love Bird

Ella decorated (see the little marker marks on the wing?) and helped me put together this Valentine's day love bird. Not really a two year old craft, but it looks adorable hanging from our kitchen light. :)

William loves to look at it during meal time. He's in awe at the bird. ;)

D is for .... Dinosaur!?

Ella and I have been reading a few dinosaur books (over, and over, and over, and over...) lately, so when we worked on our letter D today, it was only fitting that we make a dinosaur.

We have really enjoyed these books!


Letter D!

What do you think? Does it resemble a dinosaur at all? :) Ella didn't put the horns on his head the way I had intended, so instead they look like hair. :) But, he's cute nonetheless, and Ella knows what he's supposed to be!

D is for Dino!

Valentine's Day Mini Garland

We also made this spontaneous heart garland today. Mini-sized!

Ella loved gluing tons of little hearts all over it.

Have I mentioned she LOVES glue!? She tends to go a little crazy with it if I don't watch her! :)

Finished garland.

Next year we'll have to make a bigger one to string around the kitchen!

Heart Butterfly

Ella and I had fun making this really simple heart butterfly.

She added some extra color by sponge painting hearts (although it doesn't quite look like hearts!) all over the wings.

Ella's finished butterfly.

He's big and beautiful and hanging on our refrigerator!

C is for Caterpillar!

We're working on getting back on track with our letters.

Ella had fun with these dobbers. She thoroughly enjoyed slamming these all over the paper.

I had to help her with the glue (so it didn't end up everywhere) so I couldn't get too many pictures. She picked the color caterpillar and glued the pom poms down. (I put the glue drops down!) You might also notice his eyes are different sizes...she specifically wanted it that way! :)

I think he came out pretty cute!