15 Months Old

Reed is growing like a weed and had his 15 month check up earlier this week. He is healthy and the Doc said everything was great. He got a couple of shots and a flu shot and took it all pretty well. He weighed ## lbs (##%) and was ## in long (##%).



What is Reed up too...

He acts like a dog when ever he sees any animal or letter

He now howls like a wolf when we ask him to


He can say ball, dad, mom, bubble, his version of blueberries and a form of outside and backpack.


He is still pooping on the potty regularly and pees on the potty about 5 times a day. We don't carry the diaper bag anymore which is GREAT!

He can open all the doors in the house so nothing is safe from him.

He listens very well and will pretty much follow any order you give him.



He is completely silly and makes crazy faces all the time. Mostly at Millie, he loves to make her laugh.

He screams "Dad" whenever we are out and he sees a white truck. After he yells "Dad", he will make his truck driving sound we labeled early on in his life as his Motor Boat sound.

He likes to drink V8 juice.

He now has 8 teeth.

He laughs every time he burps.

He laughs every time anyone burps.

Sibling Love

Since it was Halloween, we had to let the sugar rush run off so we let Millie watch a little bit of a movie before she went to bed. Reed was getting tired and instead of getting fussy when he is tired, he just gets snugly. He decided Millie looked comfy so he crawled up on the couch to snuggle in with her.

Halloween

Halloween is not on the top of the list as one of my favorite Holidays (take a deep breath Katie, I mean no harm) but now that Millie is 4, it is hard to pass it by without her noticing. Although my mom did a great job making awesome costumes for us when we were little, the thrill was just not there. We had to get in the car with our winter coats because it was always freezing and then we drove to...3 houses. Thinking back, my mom was really cool about it. Of course, we did not appreciate the hand made costumes at the time, ungrateful me always longed for the plastic costumes at Target that all the other cool kids got to buy. But now my mom has the neatest dress up box at her house with about any kind of accessory you could imagine.

I would like to say I carried on this tradition of high quality costumes for my kids but I didn't. Millie wore a Spider Man costume we got her for Christmas last year and Reed wore a hand-me-down Manning jersey that was Millie's that she wore when the Colts played in and won the Super Bowl a few years ago. I did think ahead enough and we got Millie a can of silly string so she could web all the people after they gave her candy.

Sorry kids, I am just not as cool as your grandma is...but I guess that is why they like her better than me anyway :-)

Got My New Lens...Finally

I know, I have been talking about it forever but I finally broke down and got another lens for my camera.


Look at the detail in that snot, it is FANTASTIC! And that is zoomed in and at night. Love it! Thanks Kelly for your assistance in this purchase, you will always be my favorite camera adviser.

Baseball

Millie had her last ball game last night. We have a party on Sunday where she will get her trophy and of course...pizza! I was surprised how well Reed behaved during her games. I can only hope he is as well behaved during her basketball games which start tonight.

The New Old Tractor

I never thought I would see the day. So many things are off about this latest purchase of my dad's. 1) He doesn't spend money (I get it honestly) 2) Our farm has nothing but Ford a.k.a. New Holland tractors...always has and I thought, always would 3) Dad just bought a new tractor last year.


So, when he called to tell me he bought a 1962ish 35 Massey Ferguson I was a little surprised. He bought it from his Uncle's auction so that did make a little more since, it was a memory for him but it was still a Massey. I guess it will go well with our 1962 Ford from back in the time when Fords were red.


When I went up last week with the kids, we went out to take a look at it. It was in one of the buildings so it was a little dark. Reed was hilarious, as soon as we went in, he started making motor sounds when he saw all the tractors.


Reed liked the Massey well enough but he was much more interested in the big New Holland behind him. Millie liked it but she too wanted to sit on the New Holland. I raised my kids right, they know their tractors.

Volcano

Millie has been working very hard on her reading skills. She has earned her second reward for learning her next set of flash card words, a volcano. She has been very interested in them lately and I found this kit at the local school supply school.

She got it all ready...

She mixed the plaster...


She filled the form with the plaster. My engineering skills kicked in and I taught her about slump and making sure to fill in lifts and we even used a 'rod' to help get the air out. There will be no spalling on this creation!

She took her time painting it, she had a specific color pattern we had to follow and we mixed colors together to get the colors she needed.


Ready for the explosion...


I was sure she was going to be disappointed because she kept talking about blowing the roof off and us all dying if the hot lava got us.

I was relieved when she was excited during the explosion. She had a blast and even some of our neighbors came over to watch the big show.

Reed was there but he didn't seem impressed. I think he just wanted something to eat.


We are working on our third set of words right now and at this rate, she will be through them in about 1 week. Unless a word is really spelled in an odd way, she can look at the word and figure it out really quick. Once she sees the word once, she nearly always remembers it. I enjoy sitting with her and having her read a book to me. I still have to help once in a while with a word but she can pretty much read any level 1 reader we give her.

Mr. Alligator

Please refer to this post because it still cracks me up. I wanted to resurrect it just in case anyone of you had not seen it.

Zoo Trip

We usually make it to the zoo several times a year but this is the first time we have been since Millie turned 3 and Reed was 1 month old. Reed did really well and Millie always has fun when she is with her friends. It is amazing how big they are all getting. Millie and I have been meeting with these kiddos since they turned 1!


Reed enjoyed picking flowers and chasing after the animals.




Millie and Lindsey had fun paling around for the morning. What cuties!

Millie's Word Train

We have been working on Millie's reading skills and we have run out of flash card words. She discovered yesterday that in her number flash cards that they have the number name written out on some of them...one through twenty. So while I was working and Reed was napping, she got out the cards and put them in order across the room by reading the number. I was very impressed because she only knew 2 number words, two and six because they were in her other set of flash cards. Once in a while she would get to one she could not sound out so she put it aside and when she was done, she looked at where she had spaces and by process of elimination, she figured out where they went.



When she was finished with that, she began building sheds for her trains.