Whew!  We have had a busy week and Andy turning 19 months kind of blew right past us.  We spent the past week sitting on the floor of our kitchen and porch potty training Andy.  He did a REALLY great job, much better than Ben and I thought he would do.  He can hold it for a really long time but goes almost every time that he is on the potty.  He tells us when he needs to go potty if we haven’t checked with him in a while and tonight he peed and pooped while we were out to eat.  He has been dry after his naps this week, although I think he wet his pull-up a bit while we were at the grocery store.

Andy is getting more and more talkative as the days go by.  He is in to labeling everything/everyone right now so he will walk around the room pointing and naming things.  He LOVES the two younger kids (Ellana and Gavin) and gets really excited when he sees them.  He’s pretty sweet with them although he wants to hug them all the time and his hugs aren’t always very gentle.

He’s just very much a boy.  He loves his cars and trucks, wants to play in the mud and dirt and likes to eat.  He is very busy during the day and we have to keep an eye on him constantly.  Andy still has his snuggly side which is nice.  He loves to be a burrito: wrapped up in his blanket and cuddled.  And you can pretty much always count on him for a good hug and kiss.

This is a picture of Andy holding our neighbor’s baby.  He was very sweet and loved holding her.

We’ve recently added a bunch of new pictures. We just got Andy’s 18 month pictures and they are really cute but there are 190 of them, so we only posted a few.  I’ll try to post some more over the next few days as I have time to look at them some more.  Enjoy!

I cannot believe that Andy is so old!  He has been sick and had a fever today and fell asleep in my arms and I just looked at him, shocked that he has grown so fast.  He is very active and is talking a lot these days.  He climbs on everything, is trying to jump, runs like crazy and is suddenly very independent.  He no longer wants to be fed, but isn’t quite coordinated enough to do it himself.  It makes for some tears at mealtime, but we’ve found that if we put food on his fork or spoon and let him put it in his mouth he is much happier.

He has taken to calling people by the last syllable of their name so now Sonak is “Nak” and Rahab is “Hab”.  He thinks it’s very funny.  I’m amazed at how many people he can call by name.  I tried to count and came up with over 20.  He loves playing with the other kids here (Gavin who just turned 1, and Ellana who is a couple of months younger than Andy).  He gets very excited when he sees them and bends down and screams, “HI ELLANA!!” or “HI GAVIN!!” right in their faces.  His newest word is ‘dude’ which he picked up from me saying it to Ben.  He has also started calling Ben ‘Ben’ instead of Daddy and cracks himself up when he does it.

Andy still loves vehicles and has a big collection of toy cars and trucks now.  He still loves to snuggle and likes to get in his bed and curl up with his twigas and blankie any chance he gets.  He will go in to his room and bang on the zipper end of his bed yelling, “Open!” until someone goes in and unzips it for him.  He would sit in his seat and watch movies all day so we’ve had to start putting the dvd player up so that he can’t see it.  He’s figured out which button makes the movies play, so if we forget to put it up we often find him sitting on the table watching movies that he started by himself.

We had his 18 month pictures taken today by our friend Chrissie, Gavin’s mom, and will post them when we see them.  He did a really good job and wasn’t too smiley but didn’t cry or make a stink.

Andy is growing up way too fast.  He is getting quite independent and adventuresome in his old age.  He loves to “wrestle” with Eden and Ben and enjoys playing outside.  He has started squealing a lot which is hard on the ears, but it’s squeals of joy so it’s still pretty cute. Andy is very funny about being told “no”.  He hates it and it starts a complete meltdown when he can’t do something he wants to do.  However, he normally sits on the floor crying for a few seconds, then comes running over to Ben or me for hugs.  He is still a good snuggler and has gotten much better about the hitting.  He really loves his Twiga and carries it around with him so that he can quickly curl up with it on the floor when he needs a little love.  🙂

I recently took the kids down to the IU office to weigh them.  Andy weighed about 30 lbs and Eden weighed about 28!  I can barely carry the two of them together anymore, even though they both still want picked up a lot.  We had to move a chair in to Andy’s room for bedtime because he is too heavy to hold while we sing and pray with him.

Andy’s favorite toys right now are cars and trucks.  He can find a car or truck in pretty much any book and then just wants to stare at the picture.  He loves to drive his Tonka cars through their little garage and has a couple of big trucks that he pushes all around the house.  He also likes to spot them when we’re out driving so most of our car rides are filled with Andy yelling from his carseat, “Car!  Truck!  Bus!”.  He is still very happy and easy going and we’re enjoying this fun stage.

Our baby boy is quickly disappearing and being replaced by a toddler!  Andy is into everything these days and is definitely all boy.  He constantly wants to push buttons, play with wheels, and climb on everything.  He’s figured out how to climb up on to the dining room chairs and help himself to any food that happens to be laying on the table.  He runs every place and really likes to play in the dirt and mud, which there is plenty of here.

Andy has entered a destructive stage which I’m hoping ends quickly.  Poor Rahab (our house help) has to keep the doors closed after she cleans or Andy will make a complete wreck in the room within moments.  While Mom, Dad and Colin were here, Mom started comparing him to Dennis the Menace and I’m sad to say that there are a lot of similarities.  He still has brief moments of sweetness where he will run up and give you a hug or a kiss, but those are usually followed immediately with a quick slap to the face or a pinch on the lips.

He is talking a lot and says more than 20 words consistently.  We hear a lot of “No no no!” and “Up please.” Yesterday we clipped the end of his baa (pacifier) in an effort to end the habit.  He still tries to suck on it but ends up just holding it in his hand.  We’re planning to give it a week or so and then get rid of it all together.  Last night he went down without a fuss and slept until 5am.  He cried a couple of times between 5-6 but then slept until 8:15.  We’re counting it a successful first night without a paci!