18 Months!

Our boy is 18 months!

The essential data:

Height: 30.75 inches (6.13%)

Weight: 23 lb, 3oz (36.12% - woo hoo!  That's up from the 3rd percentile a year ago)

Head Circumference: 48.3

Parker was a super-trooper at his Dr's appointment this morning.  

He even got one shot and didn't even cry!

His height/weight comparison now explains why all his shirts barely fit over his belly and all his pants are 4 inches too long.

Parker continues to be the sweetest, happiest baby ever (except for those few days a week ago).  He loves to laugh and tickle and run everywhere.

Parker has been working on his vocabulary lately, he can say: Mommy, Daddy, Darcy, doggie, woof woof, yeah, no, binky, blankey, rub rub, cheese, crak-kah (cracker), cheese, appy (that's applesauce), shoe, socks, help, uh-oh, and a few more I can't think of at the moment.  He also knows the signs for please, thank you, more, and food (you'll notice that the majority of Parker's words revolve around food, that's no accident, this kid loves his food).

In the past few weeks, Parker has perfected the sign for "thank you":

He has also been working on blowing kisses, which looks notably similar to "thank you" with the addition of a kissing sound ("mmmMAH").  He tends to get the two confused, so often, when I ask him to say "thank you", I get a blown kiss instead.  More recently, when his hands are full, he has started to just say "mmmMAH" in-place of the "thank you" sign.  At least he's got the concept down anyway.

Parker's first word this morning, when I went to get him up was "Daddy!".  Just one word, but what he meant was, "Mama, it's Sunday, Daddy's supposed to come get me!"  This boy loves his weekends with Daddy!  Mama's a pretty big fan too.

Parker has recently discovered the swivel chair in the office.  He could spin on that thing all day!  I usually have to stop before he wants to because just watching him is making me sick!

He also has become addicted to his blankey.  Blankey now goes nearly everywhere with us, it's a constant struggle to keep blankey out of Parker's hand long enough for him to eat a meal!  I'm just glad that he chose something that we already have multiples of and I can always make more.  It's pretty cute to see him wad the thing up and give it a big hug, if it makes him happy, then that's fine by me.

Our boy loves his food.  I've still never found any food that he consistently rejects, except for Macaroni & Cheese.  He also greatly prefers to eat with grown-up utensils, that's a soup spoon he's using with his chili.  They say that kid's appetites tend to decrease around this age, Parker so far hasn't gotten the memo, there are days that he eats as much as I do.

Parker also loves drinking from a cup.  But his version of drinking more closely resembles drowning, so he's only allowed a drop at a time.

We are so grateful to have such a fantastic kid in our family.  He is constantly cracking us up with the new & crazy things he comes up with.

Daddy's Project

This weekend, we had one of those insanely busy weekends.  I spent all afternoon/evening on Saturday helping prepare for our Church's spaghetti feed and gym night.  Sunday we hosted the Newcomers lunch for church, and Sunday evening we had the Need family over for dinner.  Add in the fact that I ran out of my nausea pills on Friday night and it made for one sick, tired Mama by the end of the evening on Sunday.  But, it was totally worth it.  We got to spend time with a ton of our friends, as well as make a few new ones, and I have enough left-overs to get us through the next week.

But, that's not what this post is about.  In addition to all the above (and keeping Parker busy while I cooked), Keith had several projects for the weekend.  His biggest was making a railing on the stairs, just for Parker. 

This brilliant idea was all-Keith, I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before, but what a great idea.  Parker LOVES the stairs and these make it just a little easier for him.  (and it was a great chance for Keith to play with his new drill-press)

They're right at the perfect height, too!

Parker also loved watching Daddy put the railings up.

In addition, Keith installed Parker's baby swing in the basement, so now we can swing without going outside in the freezing weather.  This was also a HIT.  At one point, I was working upstairs and all I could hear was hysterical laughter coming from both boys downstairs.

Nice work Daddy!

Fire Trucks!

Our MOPS table met at the Shoreline Children's Fire Safety Center this morning for a playdate.

It's a great place for kids to dress-up as Firemen and learn about fire safety. I think they have some fire-safety lessons they do for the bigger kids.  

Since our kids were all so small, they mostly played with the toy fire trucks, then climbed on the big fire truck and slid down the fire pole.

Parker had a BLAST!

He got to look at all the dials, push buttons, and climb up into the cab of the fire truck.

Believe me, Daddy is JEALOUS.

He loved driving the truck, almost as much as climbing the stairs for the fire pole.

Okay, I might have over-done it on the photos, but seriously, isn't he the cutest thing EVER?

This was the closest I could get to a shot of him wearing the hat.

Such a fun visit!  I already have visions of a Dad's playdate for Parker's birthday.

I'm helping Mama!

Parker loves to help with the laundry.  He never touches the un-folded laundry, but once it's folded, he loves moving it to wherever he thinks is appropriate.

Often, that location is down the hall, in-front of the spare bedroom, this time, he actually when for the laundry basket.

Then, once all the diapers were in the laundry basket, he took all the nicely folded laundry out of the one basket, and threw them in on-top of the diapers.

Thanks for your help, little guy! 

Then, he took the jeans (the dry, folded jeans, of course), and hung them back up on the drying rack.

What a helper!

And a couple shots of Parker putting on his own sweatshirt:

Mama had to help out a little on that.

Cheese!

I've come to accept that for this stage in life, the bulk of Parker's photos will show him with this look on his face.  I can't seem to get him to stop "cheese"-ing whenever he sees the camera.