22 Month Recap

I can't believe my baby is 2 weeks away from being 2 years old! Time to recap his 22nd month of life. Can you tell our training for this year's Philadelphia Broad Street 10 Miler race has started? My precious 1-2 hrs every night after Nolan goes to sleep has been spent training the past few weeks so I'm backlogged with a bunch of posts again. Hopefully I can try to catch up this weekend.

Nolan Lucas - 22 Months Old

Signs of Spring are (FINALLY) showing. We thought we already had a ton of snow this winter, and then February happened. This winter is now ranked third in most snow EVER since they started recording things. So... lots more snow days and time indoors to be found in this recap!

Yeah... so THIS happened in February. I swear we had some furniture out here...

He really loves shoveling ;)

Winter wonderland on my drive to work (yes I did work a few days in February...)

Some activities during the snow days...

Nolan decided to "re-organize" our tupperware cabinet

Ah yes. This is much better!

BUSTED!

See, now that it's empty, it works much better as a hideout!

Snow day breakfast

Snack time!

I've lost count of how many snow days we had this winter, but I believe there was maybe only 1 week in February that I worked a full week in the office. There was one particularly bad storm that came with a lot of ice/heavy snow that knocked a lot of power lines out for many days. We luckily did not lose power, but Nolan's daycare had to shut down for two days straight while they waited for power to be restored. GSK was operating under backup power as well. Mother nature was not kind to us this winter!

Hanging out at the library one of Nolan's power outage days. He loved all the extra mommy time (but did not love story time and would rather run around instead!)

Found his favorite books! Especially "Hat".

To battle some of the cabin fever (for me just as much as him!) we took two trips to the  "Please Touch" museum in Philly. Our season passes have easily paid for themselves by now! The 2nd trip was particularly crowded as many parents had the same idea to burn off their kids' energy!

Nolan in the Alice in Wonderland section of the museum

Painting roses in Alice in Wonderland

Heading into a tunnel in the forest

Still loves the carousel! 

Trip #2 - changing out the tires on the cars

Giving daddy a "High Five" after fixing the tires

I love photos like these. My boys!! <3

Nolan Stats 22 Months

Language - I read recently that toddlers at this age can learn up to 10 new words a day. I'm not surprised. Every day he amazes me with what he knows, and I can't get enough of his toddler pronunciations.

Favorite toddler pronunciations:
Dinosaur - Die-nore
Thomas - Dandy
Heavy - Hab-bee
Oven - Oben
Upstairs OR Downstairs - Downdare
Outside - Oaud-dare
Snow - Nobe
Blue - Boo
Elephant - El-bent (he even brings his arm to his nose and makes an elephant noise!)
Bird - Bur
Monkey - Ooh Ooh Ahh Ahh
Diapers/Poop/Trash/Litter - Boom Boom
Nolan - Nanu
Carter - Darder
Pouch (food) - Pow
Bagel - Burger 

So much to say. Where to start.

Two word phrases:
Cold OUT (almost every time we leave the house)
Heat OFF (when the heat is on full blast when I pre-heat the car)
Dean WALK (extra emphasis on the "K" sound)
Mommy Night-Nights (says this every night because he always wants me (not daddy) to put him to bed)
OLD Milk - pointing to his dirty cups
Odda "insert almost anything here" (ie milk/cup/shoes/pouch/shirt, etc) - Nolan loves wanting the opposite of what he is given :) - I'm sure this will be a theme throughout life!

"Nanu Outdare" There was literally ONE DAY that the snow melted in Feb before we got a big snowstorm the next day.

Singing/Rhyming. A lot of last month's updates are still relevant. Nolan is singing more and more. He now spontaneously starts singing a song on his own. We've caught him singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "Elmo's world" to himself now. My favorite is that he turned the "Elmo's World" theme words into "Bumbee Bee" (ie Bumbee Bee. Bumbee Bee. Bumbee Bumbee beee!) I think this is from learning "Baby bumblebee in Daycare". He also loves singing "Yo Gabba Gabba!" since they listen to that CD in daycare as well. He still loves the "En my casa" Spanish CD in the car as well and refers to it as "Bum Bum Bum". He's still rhyming away to books and definitely loves reading "Cat in the Hat" most before bed. He can fill in almost any word I stop and let him!

Sleep. Sleeping has been absolutely amazing this month! Nolan has consistently slept until I wake him up on the weekdays (I have everything ready to go and car warmed up and zoom upstairs to change him and give him breakfast in the car around 8:15am). On the weekends he has reliably slept until 9-10am and several times we woke him up at 10am just so he would still take a nap later in the day! I could definitely get used to this :)

Nolan and his pouch

When one sippy cup just isn't enough.

Food. Food is more of the same as well. This kid is a pasta monster, and it's still the easiest food to get him to eat. He will eat veggies if they are mixed in with pasta/rice. For school lunches, I alternate between pasta/rice with veggies, cold cut pinwheels/sandwiches with cheese, and black/pinto/edamame beans with rice/quinoa. Sides consist of applesauce, yogurt, sliced fruit, or a pouch/squeezer. He gets pizza at school on Fridays. Could be worse! At least he loves to drink his daily vitamins (with fluoride!)

Nolan snacking on grapes. Dean snacking on his bone.

Sometimes when I snack, I like to dump the entire box on the floor. Especially right before company arrives.

Snack selfies

Bath. Nolan and the bath have had a long and complicated relationship over the years. Currently he has decided that he HATES the bath again. Makes for fun times every 2-3 nights. May be time to get some new toys to make bathtime fun again. At least we get to see his curly hair afterwards (pic below)!

Nolan's hair post-bath. He's not amused.

Best Buds. I'm sure it's already apparent on the blog, but Nolan and Dean are often times inseparable. Especially in the cabin-fever filled snow days of February. I love seeing them together - both Nolan being gentle, and Dean being so patient. So proud of my boys!

"Dean Walk!"

Only a week until SPRING! It's been fun to have all the extra time home with my guys, but we're ready to say good bye to winter and HELLO to sunshine again. Hopefully there will be more outdoor photos in next month's recap!