February Insta 1

Diesel got to hang out in a library!

For a Throwback Thursday on Instagram, I posted this photo of Sutton when he was a baby. I have this photo printed as a 16x20 hanging on a wall in his room.

Sutton's cousin Breegan came to hang out with us one night. We watched a movie and ate carrot cake.

We went over to our friends' Ryan and Melinda's house to watch the Superbowl. Here's Melinda and Val and I taking photos instead of watching the game. :)



Val's about to pop any second (she's due with their first baby Monday!) and so we decided she needed a KissCam photo.

Sutton wrote his first on-purpose letter the night of the Superbowl (February 3)! Here it is. He said it was an M, though the orientation it was to him would've been a W. He's been writing a lot of squiggly letters lately and then calling out "It's a M!!" or "It's a S!" I'm not sure if he accidentally makes an M or S shaped squiggle and then recognizes it, or if he actually has control over what he's drawing. :)

One day we were working on playing alone. The down side of being/having an only child is that Mommy is the only one to play with, and he's used to having ALL of my attention ALL of the time. Learn independence, Child!

That same day, I told him to go play outside and left the sliding door to the back open. He took a basket of cars out into the sun room. Close enough.



Just an Instagram photo from the same day I took those 2 year 7ish month photos.

Playing in his cousins' fort. Peeeeeeeek!

Adam cooked us this chicken/onion/sweet potato medley the other night. I ate leftovers for lunch for a couple days afterwards. It was so good. I love sweet potatoes.

Okay, do you see this dessert?? 1,780 calories. I kid you not. I didn't know this til I ate over a third of it at Applebee's with my boys one evening. I did TWO workouts that day and barely broke even on calories. So dumb.

Sutton and I went on a walk one afternoon and it was a bit too chilly so it ended up being a short walk. Giraffey kept us company.

Me and my best buddy.

Last Friday, we went to go see cousin Bailey play basketball. Her freshman season is almost over and we hadn't seen her play yet. She's a rockstar!

The cousins after the game.

I saw this photo online and it made me want to cry.

They were just talking to each other on their phones one night.

Sometimes we all watch movies together in our bed. This is my view. I'm a lucky lady.

We ate at Pei Wei recently, and Sutton saw me put my napkin on my lap so he had to do the same.

I also took him to dinner at Cinnamon's Deli one evening when it was just the two of us. He always tells me "No salad! I don't wike salad!" (lettuce) on his sandwich.

One of my Instagram friends started posting these photos of her and her friends that she'd made on an app called imadeface. So I downloaded it and made an Adam:

And a Gina:



My parents got a new car and brought it over Sunday evening to show us. Sutton was IN LOVE. He had to sit here on my dad's lap for about 15 minutes "driving." Any time I asked him if he was ready to go inside, he'd say "Not yet." He pressed all the buttons and ran into a cow. A pretend cow. He kept telling us he needed keys to start it and we told him we didn't have them. So then when we finally convinced him to go inside, he ran and found an old set of our house keys and went back outside and tried to use them on Papa's car.

I've recently gotten into Jamberry. It's kinda frivolous but fun. 

I made some sweet potato, spinach, banana, oatmeal, vanilla, chocolate chip cookies that you cook like pancakes one day this week. Sutton downed 1.5 of them, but was afterwards uninterested in eating any more. I'm TRYING to get this kid off his diet of mac n cheese and chicken. He needs veggies! I liked them a lot though!

Cute boy in a bath.

A week or so after he wrote his first M, then he wrote his first S!

We started a new small group last summer and made some good friends, but with Adam getting his masters degree and a few other things going on in our lives, we just weren't able to give it our all, so we stopped meeting at the beginning of this year. Earlier this week, the gals and I met up at Chic-fil-a for lunch. Here's Hudson and Sutton taking a break from the play place to eat lunch.

Baby Hunter sacked out on his mama Shae's shoulder. Oh, how that brings back memories.



Sutton got a cow hat while we were there, and he kept yelling "MOO!" and trying to scare me on the way home.

                     

One evening, he was playing in the kitchen drawers and found these candles from Adam's birthday back in November. He insisted on lighting them and singing Happy Birthday to each of us, including himself.

Dipping grapes in Ranch...?

Sutton had his first "real" hot dog this week! He's eaten them cut up on his tray before, but never in a bun like this. 

Wednesday night, Daddy was working late, so we went to Barnes & Noble to pass the time. He played with the train table there for a long time and made a little blonde girl friend. He keeps referring to Barnes & Noble, and it's always different. BarnNo. Bar-a-Nono. Barn-na-Nodo.

Sutton's cousin Aubrynn won this fleece blanket at her school and decided that it would be perfect for Sutton. So she very generously gave it to him. He loves it. He carries it everywhere and even sleeps with it. Here, he's calling it his baby and patting it.

(Poor guy got a scrape on his face while at the auto parts store when an oil filter box fell on him.)

My high school BFFs at our graduation party back in 2003. I posted this for a Throwback Thursday.



Sutton made me a Valentine at school this week. It's hanging on our fridge.

After his school on Thursday where they did Valentine's and played so hard, he couldn't keep his eyes open on the way home. His nap started in the car that day. :)

                        

On Valentine's Day, Adam banished me to the basement while he made dinner. Once it was ready, he told me to come upstairs and have my camera ready. This is what I saw:

My two handsome men dressed in ties and dinner on the table, including Dr Pepper and chocolate. YUM. After dinner, we introduced Sutton to the movie Cars, and then after his bedtime, we watched a movie of our own. Low key, but nice.

Yesterday, I tried to sneak cauliflower into Sutton's mac n cheese. It was a no go, how in the world did he pick out those tiny pieces?!

I gave him some Conversation Hearts, but he was more interested in building towers than eating them.

Then we played trains a little bit. :)

Weekend in KC

Another weekend, another road trip. :)

This weekend, we headed up to Kansas City on Friday after Adam got home from work. Here are my two road trip buddies.

We got to Matt and Rachael's house with just enough time to set up Sutton's bed and put him down for the night. The next morning, when he and Rowan woke up, they played together for awhile in their jammies. It was cute because mostly Rowan would just stare at Sutton while he played.

The two kids finally got to exchange Christmas presents since this was the first time we'd been together since well before the holidays. Rowan gave Sutton a glow-in-the-dark Thomas the Train book, and Sutton gave Rowan this cute little purse. He picked it out for her all by himself. He was very adamant that he wanted to get her a purse. :)

Rachael, Sutton, and I left at one point to go get coffee, and we came back to Matt and Adam playing Nintendo 64. This is how Matt was playing. :)

Part of the reason we went up to visit was to celebrate Matt's new job. We had a celebratory lunch on Saturday of Dr Pepper ribs. I'm pretty sure this was the first time I've ever had ribs, so I needed a tutorial. And we all got messy.

I love hanging out with this lil gal. She's the sweetest baby EVER, and her face just makes me melt every time I look at it.

We had to make funny faces for one picture.

We got in lots of playing and cuddling during Sutton's nap.



Rowan has just started eating baby food. She loves her veggies and was eating carrots and avocado like a champ. Then Adam came over with his big scary beard and got right in her face and made her cry. Poor little lady.

But she was quickly happy again when she saw her mommy.



When Sutton woke up, we loaded up and said our goodbyes and went over to Ryan and Risa's new loft in downtown KC. They've lived in Wichita since we met them, but moved up to KC at the beginning of the year for Ryan's new job. We were so excited to see their super fun loft apartment! I was trying to take a photo of the apartment, but Sutton thought I needed to take one of him first.

After a quick photo with Risa for Instagram purposes, we went over to a nearby restaurant called Cafe al Dente for pizza and calzones. It was really good! But way over our calorie limit for the day, ha!

After dinner, we said a quick goodbye and got on the road to come home. Sutton watched shows on the iPad for a lot of the trip, and then slept for the last part.

And I just thought this was funny...on Friday before we left, Sutton and I took Diesel to my parents' house to stay with them for the weekend. Their house is about 30 minutes away, and we were past Sutton's nap time on the way home. He fell asleep about 2 seconds after we got on the highway, and slept for most of the drive in the position of the second photo. :)

Sutton {2 Years & 7ish Months}

It seems like Sutton is doing all kinds of new and fun things, so I've been writing them down, intending to do a post about them for quite awhile. I just didn't ever have the photos to accompany it. So today I finally grabbed my camera while we were outside in the driveway playing cars on this gorgeous February day.

*He likes to emphasize certain words. Common examples include:
       "I do ALL by myself."
       "I eat breakfast AND cutie."
       "I sleep WIF-OUT my puppy." (Credit to Ginger for that one.)

*He often tells us "I'm just a little guy. When I get BIG, I do it."



*If we tell him we can't do something, like fixing a toy or something, he says "Let's try. Let's just try."

*He's not very independent when it comes to playing, and I hear this about 3,472 times per day: "Mommy, play me? Play cars me?" The 'with' is implied. :)

*A lot of times he says "My" when the correct pronoun would be "I." Such as "My read this book now."

*Hands down favorite song right now is "I like to move it move it" from Madagascar.

*Speaking of Madagascar...that's the current favorite movie. He's watched the first one about 35 times because we own it, and we rented the 2nd and 3rd ones for him, and he had to play them on repeat.

*Sometimes if he says something I don't understand, I'll ask him to repeat it, but instead of repeating it, he'll say "What am I saying?" The way he says it makes it sound like he doesn't even know what he's saying, ha.

*A couple of things he's started saying make him seem very grown up. He'll often ask me to play with him and I'll tell him I need to get coffee first, or use the restroom first. He'll say "Go ahead. Go ahead Mommy."

*Another grown up phrase he's started using is "Nevermind." He'll say something that I don't hear or can't understand, and then he'll smile and say "Nevermind!"

*Little stinker is a smartiepants. He can sing all his ABCs quite clearly. But he usually does it best when he's not paying attention to what he's saying or when he wasn't asked to say them on command.

*He knows A, B, H, M, O, S, W, X, and Y by sight. He'll often point them out when he sees them on signs. One day he saw an airplane leave smoke in the shape of a Y in the sky and yelled "Look Mommy! Y!" His first letter to recognize was S...since his name starts with that, we have several things with his initial in his bedroom.

*He wrote his very first on-purpose letter last night...an M! He wrote it upside down, but it was definitely an M! (Or W, I suppose...). He's done it a couple times since then.

*He finally started singing songs on his own without me having to sing with him. Lately, when we're driving, he'll sing a weird combination of ABCs and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (which he just calls Twinkle Star). It goes on and on. And on and on and on.





*As mentioned in past posts, he's been getting up way earlier than usual. He's been good about staying in bed or staying in his room until it's light out or until we come get him. When I go in there to get him in the mornings, he's usually sitting on the floor with his pacifier and blankies, playing cars. He looks at me when I walk in and says "I just waiting you Mommy." Sometimes he leaves out unnecessary words. :)

*Lately whenever I pick him up from KidsZone at the Y, or at school where he's been coloring, he runs over to me and gives me his picture and YELLS "It's for YOU!!! I made for YOU!" It's really cute, but he continues to yell it until I acknowledge this statement.

*He's very into planning ahead lately. Each morning as he's eating breakfast, he asks me "What we do next after breakfast?" And then if we're out on errands, he keeps asking "What's next?" until I've told him the plan of every place we're going to stop before we go home. He always remembers things exactly and tells me where to go once we get back in the car.

*He's too smart, and has started using the 'sharing' concept to his advantage. Whenever we get something to eat that looks appetizing, he always comes over and says sweetly "Let's share it!" and just assumes that we will.

                         

*He likes to copy words he hears, especially big words because he knows they get a reaction out of us. This morning I had an eye appointment, and the assistant asked me about macular degeneration. Sutton yells out from the corner where he's playing "Mac-lar?"

*He's going to preschool next year (what?!) and he can't wait. We toured his new school last month and he still talks about it all the time. The ladies there were very impressed with how articulate he is, which was very exciting to hear since I really have nothing to compare him to. He knows all of his shapes, colors, and several letters, and he loves to point them out unprompted...which is what makes me think he'll be ready this fall.

*Last but not least, he's at a very interesting age where he wants everything to be explained. He'll often throw tantrums because he doesn't want to do something we ask him to, but then if we explain why we asked him to do it, he is good to go. It's very weird but nice to be able to reason with him and for him to be able to understand concepts and abstract things as opposed to only what he can see and touch.

I'm sure I'll remember more things the second I hit Publish, but at least that covers most of it. :)