New Things

Bud just keeps surprising us with new things! Last week we were playing with his wooden stacking rings and when he pulled the yellow one off he said "purple." Everytime BV and him play with the rings BV tells him what color each ring is, and it's starting to stick in his brain that the colors have names. Also, one night I showed him how he can stack one block on top of another and he did it himself!

He's walking almost full time now and is getting so comfortable with it that he carries stuff around. One day he carried his Fisher Price school bus down the hall and into the kitchen. We bought a package of diapers last night and I set them on the floor at the end of the hallway and he picked them up and carried them all the way down the hall and into his room, then carried them back to the kitchen! When we visited Zach & Nicole last weekend they had a disposable camera that Bud was walking around with and he would put it up to his eye (while walking) and pretend to take pictures. Bud and Colin play really well together now (Bud doesn't hit Colin near as much as he used to). It's really cute because Colin follows Bud around everywhere he goes and watches him very closely.

The best new thing of all happened this morning; I was leaving for work and told Bud goodbye and said I love you - and he said I love you back to me! We've been trying to get him to say love you for awhile now but he doesn't say "l" words very often. He repeats what we say often and I hope this one sticks in his vocabulary! Another of his new words is "pretty;" I had my socks off the other day and my toenails are painted and Bud pointed at my toes and said "pretty." We visited my parents last weekend and my Mom keeps trying to get Bud to say Grandma. Then we asked him to say Grandma T and he now calls her "ah T", like ma T without the "m" sound.

We're also finding it difficult to get Bud to stop doing something that we don't want him to do. We tell him "don't pull Mommy's hair" or "don't touch the VCR" (we have it barricaded but he's tall enough now he can reach it) but he keeps going back to whatever it is we don't want him to do. When we get mad at him he just laughs, which either then makes us more mad or we just chill out because it's hard to take him seriously. One day Bud was resisting his nap and was just chatting away in bed. BV went in and said, "Shhhh!" and Bud just scrunched up his nose and said "Shhhh!" right back at him. We think Bud knows what things he's not supposed to do because as he's reaching for something he'll say, "No, no, no." We try not to use "no" a lot but obviously we said it too many times that he learned the meaning.

I think I have given enough of an update for now. Happy Thanksgiving!

New Discoveries

Yesterday BV and Bud were playing with an empty veggie puffs container (tall cylindrical shape). BV started putting some toys in the container and took them out. Bud was very interested in this and started putting toys in and taking them out. BV said Bud kept trying different shapes and sizes of things to see what would fit. He even figured out that the giraffe could only go in one way. This went on for 1/2 an hour. Once Bud learns something new he wants to master it right away; he's so determined. He also learned yesterday that he can put Cheerios down the vent :( And he figured out how to open the laundry/furnace room door (a bi-fold door on a track) :( Now we need to find a lock for the door. It was a major day of learning and discovery for him! At bedtime I started picking Bud's toys up and asked him to put his stuffed animals back in their crate - and he actually did it! Of course he had to take some out and practice putting them in a few times and ultimately I had to put them in the crate, but it's a step in the right direction.

He's definitely getting taller and heavier and should be 20.5 pounds by now, so it's time to turn the car seat around, yippee! Hopefully this will make long car rides more enjoyable for all of us :)

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet...

We had a good time trick-or-treating with Aunt Nicole, Uncle Zach and Colin the Hershey Kiss! We went to Uncle Andy and Aunt Jess' house and got to play with Maggie and eat yummy candy. Then we went to BV's Uncle Leon and Aunt Mary's house and Uncle Don, Aunt Shirley, Chad, Linda, Morgan, Harrison, Scott, Melissa, & Jack showed up, too! Morgan was Spiderman, Harrison was Superman, and Jack was a cowboy (how fitting since Bud was a bull calf). The kids were all very cute and we got a picture of all of them together but I've yet to obtain a copy.
BV shared a sucker with Bud later that night and Bud giggled after every taste he got - soo cute.

Earlier that day BV and I joined Christ the King Lutheran church here in Iowa City - we're so glad to finally have a church community to attend regularly. We hope to have Bud baptized around Christmas time when our families will (hopefully!) be around.

We plan to go to Guttenberg this weekend to help Ben's parents put a new roof on the porch and we'll definitely be at the Thanksgiving/Christmas get-together for JoAnn's side of the family on Thanksgiving day.

Talk to you all soon!

KV :D