Terrific Two

Despite my denial and crazy "mommy" emotions, Crew turned two a few weeks ago. I've known it was coming, tried to avoid it and then had to rush like crazy to get things in place to celebrate it.

He is truly an amazing boy and such a sweet, calming influence for me and our home.

Things I Want to Remember About This Age:

Transportation
My lil guy is clued into every bike, car, train or plain within a site or earshoot.
He loves to point to planes in the sky and remind me that Mimi and Grandpa come to visit him on planes.
He loves to point to each car and tell me who it belongs to (Mommy's car vs. Daddy's car)
He is insistent on taking his bike outside daily, even if he loses interest almost immediately.

What Crew Wants, Crew Gets
But really, he'll say my name over and over and if I'm not responding immediately, he will come grab my pointer finger and direct me to what he wants to show me.

He's very generous with hugs, kisses, patting both sides of my face and check to check. If in doubt about getting his way, he pulls out the big guns. I am, of course, a softy.

He's so Smart

Ever since we got him in a front facing car seat, this boy is a talkin the entire ride. If we pass Taco Bell, he says "Taco!", if we pass Pizzeria Lemone, he says "Pizza!" and just to convince you we aren't totally food obsessed, he as says "Church" when we pass the ward building and "Temple" when we pass any remotely white building with architecture.

Books

This kid loves books. We start and end our day with several and even throughout the day, he'll try to drag me a handful. Current favorites are anything with Elmo, dogs, planes, mommy or daddy and any scrapbooks with pictures of himself. Farm animals are a big hit too.


Helping
He is still obsessed with all things related to our kitchen. He wants to help me pour, mix and anything involving the buttons on the microwave. Wow. It takes some patience on my part but he is sooo cute about it!

Talking
I've long since given up on trying to keep track of all the words and phrases he's using. Some of my favorite are "Jesus is at the temple," "Mimi and Grandpa on the airplane," "Puppies taking a nap?" and "uh-oh spaghetti-o's."


Big Boy Bed
After a few weeks of finding Crew in all sorts of scary phases of trying to crawl out of bed, we bit the bullet and put on the converter. No complaints, the lil man has been great at staying in his bed. Plus, when he's ready for us to come get him, his little knocks on the door are so sweet.


Growing Boy
Height: 32.52 in.
Weight:25.04 lbs.
Head: 18.9 in.

Jumping in the Leaves

or at least trying.

As part of our ode to fall, I really wanted to play in the leaves with Crew. Lucky for me, both our trees decided to drop all their leaves over night last week. Talk about a leaf-filled playland!

Crew wasn't sure he wanted anything to do with it.


So I jumped in to show him how much fun leaf crunching can be.

Throwing the leaves did end up being a crowd favorite...

Along with waving at any and all passing cars.

But before you know it, he's on to the next thing.

Love you, lil guy!

Fall Family Fun List

This week I found the most inspiring list of Fall Family Fun To-do's on one of my very favorite blogs. It was just the "kick in the butt" I needed to get started on enjoying my favorite season.

(http://www.bowerpowerblog.com/2011/10/totally-self-explanatory/)

I'm committing to many of them, including our recently-been-done task of visiting a pumpkin patch.

My sister and I took the kiddos up to the Pack Farm in Farmington. We loved the mini hay bale maze, scare crows and dormant tractors just waiting to be explored by the little guys.

We also managed to come home with a few rockin' goodies. Pumpkins are great, but don't you love all the weird gourds? They're definitely my favorite.


A few additions I'll be making to the list include:

Soup Dinner with homemade Sourdough Bread
Halloween costume making
Halloween Pictures
Drive one of the "Utah Fall Tours"
Hunting down the perfect pair of boots

Any other ideas for the list?

18 Months

Every time I blink, I feel like Crew discovers something new or shows us more of his rapidly developing personality.

Things I really want to remember about this stage:

Crew LOVES dogs. He signs puppy when he hears one bark, sees one on the Dr's calendar and especially when we arrive at the babysitter's house.


Expressing Emotions. When Crew is frustrated, he isn't afraid to hit, grab or whine about it. Luckily, he is quickly learning the meaning of the words "soft and gentle." Because we are first-timers and don't know how else to do it, we all (including Crew) stroke our checks slowly while saying soft, gentle. Most of the time, it stops any physical outbursts. :)

Watch out, Crew and his cars are under foot! Just this week, he connected the dots about pushing things with wheels. He will mostly push around "Chuck, the dump truck," the singing school bus (below) and the carrier for all his wooden blocks.


Our little soloist. In addition to the constant babbling, Crew does his fair share of singing to me. I mostly notice it when we are driving in the car. Call me sentimental, but I wish I could bottle up his little, unidentified songs and keep them for when he's 16 and driving me crazy.

So Helpful. Crew can be distracted with any opportunity to be helpful. We get things out and put things away together. He loves to bring me items I often use. I can't help but laugh when I see him trying to drag my purse or his full size backpack across the room to me. LOVE it!

(Crew with a giant spoon and our unmatched socks basket)

Growing Boy
Stats from the Dr's
Head: 18.4 inches (22%)
Length: 30.51 inches (6%)
Weight: 20.92 (2%)

He's still pretty small for his age so we've officially started Project:Pack on the Pounds. More to come on that as I figure out how to reverse everything I've ever done to try and loose weight. :)

Adventures in the life...

My sister, Nicole, was on Spring Break for work so we got to tag along on a few adventures with her and Nixsen this week. On Monday, we took the kids to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum. Need I say more? Crew loved it. He spent two perfectly content hours splashing in water, gardening, coming down the slide and building with giant blocks.

His eyes were as big as doughnut holes as he watched all the older kids run around. For a kid who is most speedy as a crawler, he was much more interested in me helping him walk from display to display. I think he definitely felt some peer pressure to be walking.

Cousin Nixsen felt like a pro at the museum and did such a good job of showing Crew just how everything worked!

And....totally unrelated to the information above, I got tired of our usual lunch fare this week and decided to feed Crew some pasta and marinara sauce. About two bites in, I realized what a messy lunch this would be. Yes, I had to mop and wipe everything within four square feet of his plate....but look at that smile! He was sick of my sandwiches, too.

Boot Schooching Boogy

Despite the lack of blog posts to prove it, we are keeping busy at the Lansford house. Most recently, I finished up a big tradeshow for work and then spent a week (sick) trying to recover from it. :)


The biggest news around here is that Crew is crawling like it's nobody's business. After two weeks of attempting to barricade the stairs with a loveseat, we finally broke down and bought a few baby gates. Not the most attractive looking home decor, but I feel more confident letting him run around now.




And then there's nothing like your baby's first birthday to get your butt in gear to finished up a few much needed home projects. On the docket this weekend, kitchen back splash.

A Name and a Blessing

On Sunday May 30, 2010 we were able to officially give Crew a name and a blessing in our ward. Because of my sister's wedding the day before, we were able to benefit from the blessing of extra family in town for the special weekend.

Cole gave Crew a beautiful and simple blessing, encouraging him to learn the teachings of the gospel, courageously surround himself with good influences and look for opportunities to serve the Lord.

Following the blessing, we had the gang over for some food and family time. Thanks to my talented friend, Jarad, we have some awesome pictures of the festivities.

The first order of business was to document both sides of the family. In addition to everyone who lives in Utah, I was lucky enough to also have my sister Alyssa and brother Bryan in town from Arizona and Oregon. It felt wonderful to have so much of the family together.


We were also blessed that Wes and Stacy were able to join us from Texas. Here is a pic of the Lansford clan.

Because we were a little anxious to get the grill up and going we missed official photos of the Tipps and Richins, who were also wonderful enough to join us for the party.

Grill, did you say grill? Yes, my friends. Cole finally got his grill. This has been a desired purchase since the day we went under contract for our beautiful patio-less backyard.


I warn you. The man makes a killer kabob.



Don't you love how fancy photography can make regular food look special? :)





We love our friends (here and here).


Katie, how did we not get a cute picture together?


Such a fun day.


Yes, he got stuck and wasn't sure how to get back down.



Nothing like a little weekend sunbathing.



Last but not least. My little guy was such a champ. Between his Binky, a quick nap before the BBQ and all the "loves" from his favorite people, Crew was such a good little boy.

Couldn't you just eat him up?