My little guy is repeating everything I am saying now!  A few of his favourite things to say are cheese both when he wants it and when I am taking a picture of him.  He LOVES to say books and Mommeeee peas.  He loves to give kisses and hugs and twirl around and around in circles until he is so dizzy he falls down

He had a great time for Halloween.  We went to 2 halloween parties and he even kept his costume on!  He didn’t want to wear the mouse ears.  He was mickey mouse.  This is actually something both my brother and I dressed up as at his age (well…I was minnie).  I couldn’t resist with his cute little button nose and chubby everything.

It is hard to believe that he is already 18 months (well almost 19 months) .

He is getting CHALLENGING.  That is a nice word to use right? We have officially entered into the mild tempertantrumstage, complete with arching of the back, holding his breath, wailing and collapsing to the ground.  NOT FUN and even less fun when out, or perhaps in the middle of the parking lot for the swimming pool.  To be honest though as much as these moments are frustrating and tiring, I am finding everything he does so amazing.  His pure fascination with little things is grounding.

We have recently had to move him out of his crib as he was taking it upon himself to remove himself from the crib when he saw fit.  Unfortunately it mostly involved loud thumps and crying in the middle of the night. Needless to say NOT SAFE. So one night right before bedtime, Alex took apart his crib and we put his mattress on the ground.  It has not been going well.  I think he has really taken comfort in having the barriers around him.  He is quite an active sleeper and we found him in a different place every night no matter where we put him in.  He was also always leaning up against one of the crib sides and usually had his feet up in the air resting against one of the bars. So I imagine that having nothing around him is quite unsettling.  So after many nights of us sitting beside him we had to go with the crying it out solution surprisingly we found it only took about 1 min to stop crying and go to sleep.   Although it seems to be getting worse as the days pass.  One night  was particularly bad and we heard a ” Mommeeee DOWN, daddeeee down” coming from his room.  We gave in and went into his room and found him in his change table so needless to say he has nothing but a mattress, a garbage can and the baby monitor in his room now.   QUITE SCARY.

Matthew has finally had another tooth come in.  It’s been a few days in the making, he’s been running a fever and  alternating between grumpy and clingy.  Also, he’s been biting down on his hard plastic toys.  His face would go bright red and he’d shake his head like a dog attacking a chew toy.  Then he’d scream.  So it’s been a trying few days for him.  But now that it’s erupted, I hope he’ll feel better soon.

The new tooth is on the same side as his other side tooth, so now he has all four front teeth, and two extra on his right side.  That’s my genetics causing the weird dental issues.

Today we went to White Pine beach with a group of moms and their babies.  I guess I need to say toddlers now that they are all over a year.  We all had so much fun! There was sand in every single crevice on Matthew’s body. But he didn’t care!  He dove into the water a few times and took in some water but recovered nicely after I swooped and saved him.   He got a little more timid around the water after those few times. The funniest part of the day was when he strolled up to some bikini wearing teenagers and started dancing to their music and then just stood there and stared at them. I couldn’t figure out what was going on and then I discovered he was jonesing for their french fries. Lets just say my son is not SKINNY.  Although he is starting to thin out from all the exercise he does.   He keeps us both SO busy!  Here are some pictures

These are a few pictures from our camping trip up to NOrth Bend with Erik and Jodi.

Matthew making his first smore!!

enjoying his first smore!

THis is from Father’s day

At the water park at Rocky Point

One Year Prenatal Reunion