Bubble!

I would say this is the first really clear and intentional word Aiden's said. I picked him up from daycare and there's was a bottle of bubbles on the counter. Aiden pointed at them and said bubble. It was so clear but I thought surely it was a fluke. When I looked at him he continued to point and say bubble. When we left the room he tried to go back to the classroom, saying bubble the whole time. He continued to repeat it on the way home, so of course when we got there we got out the bubbles. He even said it on the phone for Andrew. It was so AWESOME! He is also trying to blow the bubbles himself in this video. 

The Beginnings of 2014

He just starting stacking his toy one night before bed, out of no where...

It's the simple things...

Despite being home for two weeks, kitty has been completely dropped from his (rudimentary) vocabulary. The kitties are dogs now. At least he's learned to pet them very nicely.

Aiden has moved up to the Toddler Room at day care. Luckily his best friend has made the transition with him. He still loves it and now there are a few more kids in the room to play with. He came home with his first busted lip. From falling off a table you ask? Surprisingly, no. Falling out of his chair. Oh, the irony.

Nina came over to visit and watch the start of the playoffs.

Aiden is no longer sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Andrew and I converted his crib to the toddler bed. This is giving us back some very valuable floor space in his room for toys and playing.

 We've slowly been starting some easy projects around the house. We're getting rid of our living room curtains. Since we've already replaced almost all the wood trim in the house with white trim, we wanted to paint the wood window trim before the new shades arrived.

Unfortunately, the white window trim did not look as good as we'd anticipated. It just made the windows look unfinished. It only took me one evening to paint so I spent the next evening repainting to match the walls (there was no easy way to un-paint the trim, so this seemed like the most subtle solution).

The new shades arrived and we are so much happier (Our walls are a deeper orange/red than these pictures show).

 I had started repainting the stair rails and trim back in November. I knew it would be a slow process with limited time and tedious painting around carpet and lots of rails. I typically work on it in the evenings. At this point I have almost the entire staircase primed with a few complete sections. In the picture below the left is only primed the right of the stairs is finished. To cover the wood it takes 1 coat of primer + 3 coats of gloss trim paint. It makes such a difference, so well worth it.

Zombicide Organized...

Andrew and I have been playing Zombicide, a Kickstarter co-op board game, over last the year introduced to us by Debbie and Gabe. There was a second Kickstarter with game expansions which we got shortly before Christmas. It's hard to play often because the games are different each time and can be long, BUT it also take a while to setup and sort through all the pieces. After looking at a few ideas of Zombicide storage online we've come up with a solution that keeps everything organized and hopefully makes it easier to play (not to mention now we store this single box instead of 3 boxes each the same size as this one).

We ordered this box online from Hobby Lobby. We removed the palette and frame that come inside.

We bought wood to cut extra dividers for the two trays. We did not use the two removable dividers in the base that came with the box.

Our zombies and tiles went in the bottom of the box. We sorted the zombies by walkers, runners, fatties and dogs. Since our Zombies aren't painted it's easy enough to pick out the Toxic (green) and Berserker (brown) zombies even though they're mixed in with the regulars.

All the other smaller pieces were sorted into the top removable tray.

 In the slots holding the tiles and survivor cards I glued ribbon to one edge on the bottom to make it easier to remove them. Since they fit perfectly there was no easy way to remove them once we dropped them in place.

Now maybe we'll be a little more motivated to play more often.

A Belated Indiana Christmas

We traveled to Indiana on December 27th. After last year's fiasco I was NOT traveling during the actual Christmas holiday. Everything went very smoothly this time. Aiden wasn't too happy about sitting still but that was manageable. We booked all our flights during his normal awake hours in hopes of avoiding meltdowns and we were successful. We let him run around during layovers to waste energy and he slept for 1 of the 2 flights each way.

Right before we left with his extra time off work, Andrew took Aiden to see Santa. 

He didn't hate it, he didn't love it.

At the Hampton's, Aiden would run off and we'd find him playing in the dog kennel. 

  

We began our trip at the Hampton after arriving in Indy at 10pm. Aiden was ready to party so we let him stay up while he was happy to play and wind down. He ended going to bed at 1am! We visited with Andrew's cousins and their kiddos the next day and Papo and Karen drove up to see us. 

The kids were so patient every time Aiden would destroy their block creations. I think they are used to having siblings around. Aiden loved running around with other kids and he even had a playmate his own age.

After a day with the Hampton's we went north to my parents new house. Aiden and I had seen it while it was still a model home back in February and this was Andrew's first time there. My friend Lauren came over to visit with us for a while. We went to a holiday party at Aynie and Jammie's house with my family. Aiden and Pearl ran around together, although she preferred he not play with the toys in her room. Pearl always referred to him as "baby" and not his name, "baby fell down" and "sorry baby"... so cute. She would take his hand and lead him around the house.

Andrew AND Aiden both pet a chicken for the first time! They already had a few chickens but Pearl got these fluffy Silkie's for Christmas. They were so soft and adorable.

My parents took Aiden to the Indianapolis Children's Museum for the first time. He couldn't get enough! I think we were tired before he was.

Our first stop was Playscape.

Andrew, Aiden and DziaDzia went down the slide from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor.

Then we visited the dinosaurs!

Snacks with DziaDzia.

Opening doors, oh my! He figured this out at my parents house. 

I'm so glad be have door knobs and not levers.

After a few days with my parents we headed back down to the Hampton's. Kellye, Aaron, Trash and Jason came down for New Year's Eve so we got to spend a little time catching up and playing Cards Against Humanity.

Cooking breakfast with Pa.... mmmm, bacon!

Awesome Aunties! (that is a super mischievous face on the right)

Aiden got very comfortable with the dogs and we even convinced him that they were in fact dogs and not large kitties. So he quit calling them kitty (ky) and said dog (da).

He is very good at pretending to share, but then quickly pulling it away.

We got to see Papo and Karen again one evening.

He enjoyed looking through his new books all on his own.