Sesame Street Live

We took Elliott to Sesame Street Live on Sunday at the Sprint Center.  He enjoyed the first 38 minutes, but did not want to sit still after intermission so we ended up leaving a little early.  Apparently Cars is the only thing that will grab his attention for that long. :)

Wow!! That's Elmo! 

We picked Daddy up from work before the show.
Elliott thought he would teach Dad a thing or two about building bridges. 

21 Months

Elliott LOVES the movie Cars.  Oh. My. Gosh.  I have never seen a kid watch a movie so intently.  I used to dream of something that would keep my child busy for just 10 minutes so I could finish dinner, blow dry my hair, or go to the bathroom in peace.  I finally found it.  This kid could honestly watch the whole 2 hour movie if I let him.  I hate to admit it, but I will turn it on in the mornings if I am not done getting ready yet.  The other morning he got up at 6am so I set him in front of the t.v. and went upstairs to finish getting ready.  I came back down 45 minutes later and he hadn't moved.

Elliott is in super learning mode. His word count has skyrocketed and he is learning new words every day.  Take that pediatrician. :)  He knows the color blue and is pretty proud of himself when he can pick a blue crayon out of the box. 

Knock on wood, but his sleep habits are probably the best they have EVER been; minus the occasional 5:30 am wake time.  He gets in bed at 7:30, gives us a hug and kiss good night, lays his head down on the pillow and falls right to sleep.  His nap is pretty consistent from 12:30 - 2:30. 

No matter how hard I try, this kid will not look at the camera.

 

50 degree Weather At Last

After some brutal cold days last week, we finally got to see the sun and some 50 degree weather this weekend.  Elliott was itching to get outside when we got home from church.  I think Mom was just excited after getting cabin fever last weekend.

Motherhood

http://vimeo.com/66058153

One of my best friends sent this video to me the other day and I thought it was extremely adorable and worth sharing.  I share a lot of the same feelings as these moms, especially the patience.  I know Elliott isn't old enough to talk like the children in this video, but when I picked him up today he greeted me with his usual hug and kiss and I realized that I was actually doing something right after all!  The video also made me think about my own mother.  Now that I'm grown and have a family of my own, I find myself appreciating my mom so much more. :)  Love you, Mom!

Another Merry Christmas In the Books

This year we had 5 Christmas gatherings in just 9 days. Yes, FIVE! The Christmas madness included the following: 1) Lageschulte's in Storm Lake 2) Mark, Angie and Elliott's in Kansas City 3) Currie's in Odebolt 4) Lorenzen's in Ida Grove and 5) Scheonherr's in Ida Grove.  We had an amazing time seeing all the family and we can now successfully mark another great Christmas in the books!

 

Lageschulte Christmas 

Sharing apples...kind of

Coloring with Pops

Family Picture

Someone loved their book

Bedtime reading

 

Family Christmas

We decided to start our own family Christmas tradition this year.  We went to our church's Christmas Eve service for the first time since we have lived in Kansas City.  It was amazing and surprisingly Elliott sat relatively quiet through the service.  We picked up Chinese on our way home, of which Elliott ate only two bites so we ended up giving him cereal.  So much for our idea of creating a family tradition of Chinese food on Christmas Eve.  We made cookies for Santa, Elliott opened his Christmas jammies, and then he was off to bed.  Apparently Elliott knew Santa was coming and just couldn't wait to open gifts, so down the stairs we went at 5:30am!  After opening presents we were of to Iowa again.

 

Peanut butter cookies, because that's the only recipe Mom had all the ingredients for

Someone was pretty excited for his Christmas jammies

Cookies and milk for Santa

Taking inventory of all his loot

 

Currie Christmas

 

Reading his new "Harvest Book" that Grandma made for him

Playing guitar with Uncle David

The boys got out their old farm set and Elliott was in heaven 

I sure hope he gets the Currie music gene

 

Reading with Great Grandma Olympia....Priceless!

Schoenherr Christmas

Classic...Addison mad because Elliott won't sit still

Monkey See Monkey Do

Someone got a lot of trucks and tractors for Christmas

 

Friends' Christmas

The girls all came over for a little Christmas gathering and brought their families this year.  It was a fun, crazy time with two toddlers running around the house all night.  No longer can we sit down, sip our wine, and talk about what's going on in our lives at that time.  It's interrupted with diaper changes, food throwing, and crying because someone took their toy.  Holy cow...our lives have changed so much!  But I love my girlfriends so much.  They keep me sane and give me an outlet when I need some time away from busy life of being a working mom. 

 

Umm excuse me...you have your own veggie sticks

Loved having everyone together...the only one we were missing was Megan's boyfriend, Zach

Angie, Leigh, Laura (and baby Bentsen due to arrive in April), Jamie, Megan

The boys spent most of the night in the toy room

19 and 20 months

I realize that I forgot to do a 19 month post so I'm going to cheat and do 19 and 20 months together.  Mark and I went from saying "I could take this age forever" to "Holy Crap, I want to pull my hair out." Elliott started to comprehend more things which was really fun for a while.  But as his comprehension grew so did his frustrations when he didn't get his way.  Maybe this is just the terrible two's early?  On top of that we went through an almost 8 week sleep regression which brought about 2 hour stints of being wide awake in the middle of the night.  YIKES!  But, the light is at the end of the tunnel.  Elliott is now over the sleep regression and now that he's getting more sleep the whining has subsided, at least a little. :) 

Aside from all that, Elliott continues to amaze us every day.  His list of words continues to grow.  He now says mom, dad, ball, up, hot, bottle, baby, duh-ah (tractor, or really just any vehicle), more, hat, apple, doh (go), no, wow, duck, and bat. We also found out this week that Elliott can point out most of the objects in his color book when asked.  This really amazed us because just last week he wouldn't even point to the basketball on the page.   

Love to read!

Eating a whole 6 inch sub. Yes, the whole 6 inches!

One of many wrestling matches with cousin Addison

Story time with some of my coworker's kids