Happy Halloween and 14 Months!

Morning reading on the ground!

Looking for Brian, JJ seems to think he's just hiding from him behind every door : (

JJ's bumblebee girlfriend

I swear he was happier than he looks in this photo!

Dragon on the move . . .

Mr. Dinosaur, meet Mr. Dragon

Shirtless Dragon showing off his upper body for his Bumblebee girlfriend (actually, his costume didn't fit in the stroller!)

JJ seemed to enjoy Halloween yesterday. We went to a carnival put on by our friend's church. Their daughter is JJ's age and it's always fun to get together with them and watch the kids interact. When they first saw each other, JJ just kept trying to hug/tackle her! I guess JJ is just like his Daddy, wanting to be around the pretty girl ; ) There were LOTS of people at the carnival, so it was fun to see all the kids in costumes, but a nightmare to keep our two kids wrangled! There weren't really that many "age appropriate" things for our kids to do, but they were able to go in the petting zoo and JJ loved it! He literally made the round of petting each animal, harassing a few, then went to the gate and let himself out! One of the animals he harassed . . . the sheep! He likes to make the sheep noise, aka "baaaaa" but he can't make the "b" sound, so instead he kept going up to the poor sheep and yelling "aaaaaaaaaaa" in her face!!!!! After the petting zoo, the kids had dinner, ran around for awhile, then when Bumblebee and Dragon started on complete meltdown, we left. All in all, a good start to the holiday season.

JJ turned 14 months today. This might not seem like a big milestone to you, but for me, it has caused much anxiety. According to JJ's pediatrician, he needed to be "off the bottle" by 14 months, and . . . we made it! About 2 weeks ago, I decided we were done. I knew that he could physically drink out of both a sippy cup and a straw but was just choosing not to. He will still only drink water out of one type of cup and milk out of another, but at least he's still getting liquids : ) My dad pointed out that the sippy cup JJ drinks his milk out of does look an awful lot like a bottle, but at least it's blue and has handles!

On JJ's side, not a lot has really changed in the last month. He has a million teeth now and "talks" all the time. He still doesn't sleep and has now become a "European" eater with a medium size breakfast, HUGE lunch, big afternoon snack, then small dinner. He's been "saying" lots of words that I'm sure I'm the only one that understands them, here is the list . . .

ball

book

nana, aka banana

JJ

momma

dadda

milk

mwow, aka cat

crrgr, aka Charger, his daycare lady's dog

trnstn, aka Tristan

night, night

There might be more, but I can't think right now! I'm sure his verbal development will be huge in the next few months and I'm really looking forwarding to him not having to just point and say "awww" at stuff that he wants! He is also doing lots of animal noises and I will post a video of his funny noises soon.