15 months

This past month Spencer has been doing big things!

*He started taking steps a few days after he turned 14 months.  He would be standing with his back against the couch and just walk away from it.  One of his biggest obstacles quickly became his laughing; as soon as he realized he was walking he would get excited and laugh and double over and fall.  It was so cute!  Several times I found him walking in alone in a room.  It was as if he liked practicing on his own :)  Now he can walk all over.  It is so exciting and makes him seem like such a little man!

*His toilet obsession continues, and he has now learned to flush the toilet.  We have been much better about making sure the bathroom doors are always closed; hopefully this will help him forget how fun the toilet is to play with.

*He has officially dropped his morning nap!  For some reason I thought this would be a much more difficult transition, but the only difficult thing about it was I tried to make him take a morning nap for 2 weeks after he stopped needing one.  It really just seemed like he never fell asleep one day for his morning nap and just never went back.  It has actually proven to be nice and allowed for more flexibility with errands, but makes his one nap super special (because we only have one shot at napping per day).

*Spencer really likes to pat other people's heads, especially other kids.  It's pretty cute :)

*He has gotten engrossed with books.  Mainly an animal book that has flaps for each animal you could think of, and a "Things That Go" book that has pictures of bikes, boats, trains etc.  He loves making the animal noises.

lion/tiger - roar
bee - zzzzz
penguin - waddle motion
polar bear - brrr
dolphin - eeeeee
fish - fish face

* Words he is consistent with are: hi, buh bye, mama, dada, ba bas (for bath, outside, and bubbles)
He also went through a phase of saying: eiei for eieio with Old MacDonald.

*When he is in the stroller he points like crazy at everything; dogs, trees, shadows etc.

Tim n Anni and Jacob were up at Tree Farm the beginning of May.  Brian was able to switch his schedule around and we drove out for the weekend.  We did some nice working time, sailing, and softball.  We sure love those people :)

Spencer patting Jacobs head; he seemed to do it any chance he got.  

Mother's Day: I think this is the first year I felt like a real mom.  Maybe because last year I had only had Spencer for two months and I hadn't felt like I had earned my Mother's Day yet.  Anyhow, I really enjoyed this year's Mother's Day and really appreciated the praise for women's roles as nurturers.  It is the most important thing I will ever do with my life; I really believe that.  

Mother's Day 2015

We had a little goodbye BBQ with our best friends here.  It was so fun and the burger and smores were detectible! We will miss them!

We have begun the moving process.  It is daunting.  Brian is working in the ICU right now and doing nights on the weekends so the packing has been slow.  I have been worried about being able to do everything without Brian, mainly because I also have Spencer with me all the time.  This past week I went to pick up bike boxes from a bike store to pack our bikes in.  I had clearly forgotten how big they were and it was rather tricky fitting them in our car.  A woman walked by and offered to help me.  We got them in the car and she said the boxes were pretty far over into the driver's seat.  Knowing my options were limited, I told her I lived close so it would be fine.  She offered to drive the boxes to my house.  I was tempted to say "that is very sweet, but I will be fine", but then thought it would be much safer and she had offered.  I moved the boxes into her much larger car's trunk and she followed me home.  I prayed the whole way home thanking God for sending her to help me.  It is a seemingly small thing; stopping to help someone, and driving boxes to their home 2 miles away.  It only took about 15 minutes of her day.  But it touched me, softened me, and reminded me just how much God loves each of us and knows our needs and struggles.