Monday, November 2, 2009

Big Boy Bed

I'm a little behind in posting this, but Huston has made the transition to his big boy bed! It went sooo much smoother than I anticipated, and he's loving his new room and bed. He slept in it for the first time on October 15th and went to bed just fine, but woke up screaming in the middle of the night. I think he was just confused and disoriented because that was the only time he has had any issue at night. The next day we tried nap for the first time and it was not successful. He ran out of the room several times and kept opening and closing the door. It was pretty hilarious, though, because he would always run back in his room and shut the door when he heard me coming to investigate. We finally had a successful nap on probably the third day of trying, and it's been great ever since. Although sometimes I do have to go in his room to remind him that he's supposed to be sleeping, because I'll hear him talking and discover that he's gotten about twenty books out and they're all spread across his bed.
Almost every morning when he wakes up and I walk in his room to get him, he says "all done seep-sing (sleeping) big boy bed." He always refers to it as his "big boy bed" - I guess because that's what I always call it.

Some randomness:

Huston has been really interested in his little storybook Bible lately. He asks to read his "Bible book" and last night he wanted to do it "all by self" (as has been his frequent request lately). I asked him to read it to me and he said "Jesus God's son, Noah build it big boat, Noah get two." I'm assuming the last part meant two of every animal. Pretty adorable.

"Elmo's World" has been replaced by "Barney" as Huston's favorite TV show. He especially loves the "Wild West Adventure" episode, which he refers to as "Barney clock in it" because there's a clock that rings at the end of the episode when it's time for the "showdown." (He is extremely obsessed with clocks). He almost always asks to watch this episode as soon as he wakes up.

He loves for me to sing the Barney song before he goes to sleep, and also likes to sing it himself. His version goes "I wuv you...fweet wuv me...we happy family...wuv me too." The other night I had asked him to say hi to baby Arden in my belly, which he did, and then he later came back and rubbed my belly and sang baby Arden the Barney song.

Huston has also discovered "The Dick Van Dyke Show" - a Rogers' family staple. He loves the theme song and gets really into the physical comedy and the dancing and singing on it.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Who built the ark?

In my last post I wrote about how much fun Huston had helping Clarke build the bookcases for his new room. He still asks to play with the screwdrivers every single day. Well, he went to "nursery" today while I had my women's Bible study and for the first 5 weeks they were learning that God made the animals. He was so cute when I would ask "Who made birds?" and he'd say "God... teet teet teets" (for some reason he still makes a tweeting sound instead of saying bird). Today he came home with new papers saying that they're going to be learning about Noah, and he had a little picture with scraps of paper glued to Noah's boat. I was talking to him about it and asking questions, and finally I asked "What did Noah build, Huston?" My sweet boy replied "Noah.... build.... bookcases!" I guess we'll be reading that Bible story over the next few weeks...

Monday, October 12, 2009

Cutting with screwdrivers

We're still working on getting Huston's big boy room ready for him, and last week Clarke put together two bookcases I bought at Target for toy storage. Huston had the greatest time "helping" his daddy make them.


He quickly took charge of all three screwdrivers and told us he was "cutting." He has a book called Daddy and Me where the daddy uses a saw to cut wood, so we think he has just generalized that all tools are for cutting. Every day since Clarke put those bookcases together, Huston has asked for his tools. He insists upon having all three screwdrivers at one time - the red one, the blue one, and the yellow one. I'm terrified he's going to poke his eye out so I watch him carefully, but it's pretty adorable to see him work.

On a super sweet note, when I was putting Huston to bed Saturday night, he asked me for a kiss for the first time. I had already kissed him multiple times, but as I was laying him down he said "other one kiss, mommy." It was so sweet! Then he said it two more times, so of course I covered him with kisses. *sigh* He is so adorable. I can't believe I'm going to get another beautiful baby to love in just a few short weeks. More on that later...

Monday, October 5, 2009

Showered!

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Just a quick post to share some pictures from a shower that my sweet friends, Ashlee and Abby, threw for me to celebrate the upcoming arrival of our baby girl.  The shower had a “nest” theme because we’re adding to our nest.  Isn’t that darling?  I loved the adorable bird and nest decorations!

Incidentally, we’ve decided on a name and we’ve also decided to go ahead and share it now, so for those of you who don’t know, our baby girl will be named Arden Ruth.  Ruth was my maternal grandmother’s name and I wanted to honor her sweet memory.  Arden was Clarke’s idea, and though I liked it from the beginning, it took me awhile to decide that it was the perfect name.  We like original names and Arden isn’t even in the top thousand of most common names, which we loved.IMG_5998

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I felt beyond blessed to be surrounded by great friends and wonderful family and to receive so many beautiful (pink!) gifts for Arden.  My heart goes pitter-patter every time I look at the tiny clothes or blankets or decorations intended for her.  I can hardly believe that my due date is only 5 weeks away! 

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Recent Favorites

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a post on Huston’s favorite things and recent developments.  I watch him grow and change every day and try to treasure every little thing, but of course I know I will forget most of them.  So here are a few things I’d like to remember about Huston at 2 years and a month!

Huston has been really into reading books lately.  He will ask me to read the same one over and over again, and as bored as I can get doing that, I must admit that I love to have him snuggled up in the chair with me.  He’s been so into his books that he’ll even go into his room by himself and “read” alone sometimes.  It’s so cute to listen to him!  Just this week, two of his favorite books have been “Baby Mickey’s Nap” and “The Going to Bed Book” (which he calls “rock, rock, sleep” because the animals rock to sleep at the end). 

He still loves opening doors (I’m wondering if this love with ever fade) and ringing the doorbell.  He loves watching Elmo, eating gummy fruit snacks (“gummies”), and jumping with both feet (a skill which he suddenly developed on September 2nd after watching an older boy at Gymboree jumping with both feet and trying to imitate him).  He loves playing with balls and currently has 5 balls made out of clay that his Mimi gave him that he likes to throw around.  He also likes to instruct his daddy to throw them “high off the wall,” “up high,” “on the chairs,” and to “hit the fan” with them.  He always wants to know where all five balls are and at any minute of the day can suddenly yell “BLUE ONE!” or “WHITE ONE!” which means we must immediately search the house until the missing ball is located.

Here are a few pictures of his new red ball (a present from our friends, Ryan and Abby).  He loves this ball and, while he’s quite good at sharing most of the time, does not like for other people to touch it without permission.  The first day he had it, he insisted on holding it in his lap the entire way to the airport to pick up Clarke and the entire way home.  All I could see in the rearview mirror was a giant red ball with a tuft of hair on top!

Huston is talking so much these days that it’s hard for me to keep up.  He’s stringing together 5 and 6 words at a time and picking up new words constantly.  A few funny words that he still says are “yaya” for later, “day day” for another day, “teet teet teet” for birds, “fah-see” for sorry, and “eee up” for look up and wake up.  He also likes to add the word “one” after colors words.  Like he’ll say “white one car” or “yellow one ball.”  He loves to play with our deodorant, for some reason, and can frequently be heard saying “daddy’s blue one be-de-bent” (the deodorant Clarke uses) and “Huston’s green one be-de-bent” (the one he’s allowed to play with).

He has hated taking a bath recently and is deathly afraid of having water poured on his hair to rinse out his shampoo.  We’re still working through that.  He’s also not gotten used to going to the nursery since my bible study has started again, but I’m hoping he’ll get over that soon.  He hates singing happy birthday or even hearing the words “happy birthday” and ever since Clarke’s birthday party has been saying “all done singing Mimi’s house” because, apparently, hearing us all sing happy birthday to Clarke was quite traumatic.

I am very, very afraid that Huston’s days of napping are coming to an end soon.  Yesterday and today he refused to take a nap and he has consistently been going a day or two a week without a nap for several weeks now.  Add to that the fact that both Clarke and his mom gave up napping at age 2, and I don’t know that I have a chance.  Today I tried twice to put him down, and both times (when it was obvious he wasn’t going to sleep), I went back in to get him and said something like “hey – why aren’t you taking a nap?”  The rest of the day he kept saying to me: “Heeeey – ni-night time?” (in a voice meant to imitate me) followed by “Me” and then giddy laughter.  It’s as if he was repeating what I said to him and then saying that he laughed when I said it because it was so hilarious.  He is a definite crack-up.

Friday, September 11, 2009

More Birthday Pictures

Here are some more pictures from Huston's birthday (courtesy of the family photographer - my wonderful father-in-law). I was playing around with a new way to display pictures - I'll have to look at it more when I have more time...it seems like fun.


Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Birthday Boy

We've had a busy and eventful week since we got back from vacation. Huston turned 2 on Friday and also decided to give up his pacifier that same day! Believe me, I was not planning on taking his beloved pacifier away on his birthday, but it all just sort of fell into place. He wasn't falling asleep for his nap that afternoon, so I went in to get him back up and he was swiping at his tongue and making a disgusted face while he held his pacifier. I asked him if his pacifiers tasted yucky and he said "yes," (not surprising since they were incredibly old and dirty) so I asked if he wanted to throw them away in the trash can and he said "yes" again. I put both the blue and the white pacifiers in a plastic bag first (just in case we needed to retrieve them later) and he threw them away. Nap time later that day and on Saturday didn't go so well. He basically cried for over an hour each day and only slept for 30 minutes when he finally did fall asleep. He never asked for his pacifier, though. He just cried "mommy" over and over. He didn't have any trouble going to sleep at bedtime without them. Sunday we were with friends in Dallas and he didn't take a nap, and then yesterday, he only cried a tiny bit on and off for 15 minutes or so, and then took a good 2 hour nap. Hallelujah!! As I write this, he is again taking a good nap after only a few minutes of crying. I was really dreading taking away his pacifiers and was thinking I was going to buy a balloon and we'd tie them to the balloon and send them away in the sky, or something dramatic like that, but it turns out that wasn't necessary. I am so thankful that it wasn't nearly as difficult as I had imagined!

We had a lot of fun at his birthday party Saturday afternoon - Huston enjoyed playing with his presents, eating cake, seeing all of his favorite people, and playing with Uncle Ben's dog, Pup. He did not, however, like anyone to say "party" or "happy birthday" to him. We didn't even sing happy birthday when he blew out his candle, because he screamed when we tried to. When Clarke and I woke him up on his actual birthday, he was all smiles until we said "happy birthday!" and then he threw himself down screaming and burying his face in his bed. For some reason, those words just really set him off. After everyone left, I asked if he had fun at his party (which he obviously did) and he grunted "ehhh" and said "all done." He's such a funny guy."Walking" Uncle Ben's Dog, Pup

Playing Golf


Huston's awesome new piano, which he calls his "Pi-O"


Mr. Serious-Face (exploring his new globe toy)


On Monday, Huston had his 2 year check up and measured 36 inches (90th percentile for height - you better believe his daddy is proud of that) and 27.4 pounds (75th percentile for weight). We knew he was getting taller because a few days before his birthday he discovered that he's tall enough to reach the doorbell by himself. We were playing outside and he had walked over to the front door alone and came running back to me yelling "Deh dah! Deh dah!" (his doorbell sound). You have never seen a child so happy to ring a doorbell. It has become his new obsession and multiple times a day he'll suddenly come running to me and yell "Ring! Ring!" so we can go outside and ring the doorbell. He also says "felf" (which means self) because he can do it all by himself. He's so grown up these days!