19 Months and a lot of catching up!!!

Obviously, this post is long overdue! So....here we go! I must warn you....it's a long one!

Wes is 19 months now! At his 18 month check up he weighed in at over 28 pounds and measured inches! He has been weaned of his paci for about 4 months! Yahoo! He has two blankees that he adores and calls, "beebees!" His vocabulary increases on a daily basis! He's mastered lots of two word sentence phrases, a couple of my favorites are "Hold you" (which means he wants you to hold him) and "No poopies" (always said right after he poops). The 3 word phrases we hear a lot these days are "I hold this", "I see ___", "Here you go" and "I need more"

Wes's favorite things are trucks, balls, tractors and trains! We take field trips to a near by contstruction site almost on a daily basis to visit the tractors. We run outside very time we hear an airplane and every Monday and Thursday we sit outside and watch the trash trucks drive back and forth. He can name all kind of variations of trucks and vehicles from tow truck to dump truck to fire truck! Oh, the things a mom of a boy learns to do for fun!

He loves to be read to. The kid will sit and let you read books to him forever. He has memorized several of them and he can insert words along as you go -- adorable! Some favorites being, "Mama Llama Red Pajama", "Very Hungry Caterpillar", "Goodnight Moon" and several others. He loves to sing songs with you. He can insert lots of words into the songs as we sing along. The songs that I've caught him singing all by himself are, "Happy birthday to you" (sounds like, "Hap Ber To You" over and over again), the Clean up song, "Kee-buh, Kee-buh" and his ABC's (this one he can say a few of the chunks of letters and they get put into a sort of mixed up version of the song. He also LOVES to sing "The Wheels on the Bus!" He loves to count things, however sometimes a little out of order, "one, two, four, six!" He also loves to do somersaults and has figured out how to do them all by himself!

"Mine!" has been a common word in Wes's vocabulary recently. I've invested a ton of effort teaching and modeling sharing and he has definitely improved and the word is being heard less often now, but I would say that Wes has officially entered toddlerhood! :)

Every Sunday Wes gets so excited to go to "Cass" (class) and carry his "Bah-ble" (Bible) sing songs and put his money in the tray.

I could go on and on and on about all the little things that make up our sweet Wes! But, I'll stop and just get to the pictures!

The Holidays!

In Fresno...

The guys cooking the Thanksgiving turkey...we went deep fried this year!

Opening gifts ...whew! What a whirlwind! :)

The Foster grandkiddos! They are all sporting their new basketballs (to play with Papa's new basketball hoop) and their new PJ's from Papa and Gigi (an annual Foster family tradition to receive new PJ's on Christmas Eve -- grown ups included, although we'll spare you a group photo of that!) :)

Baking cookies with Gigi! Wes LOVED this! I'm sure we'll be finding those sugar sprinkles all over the kitchen for months to come as this was Wes's favorite part!

Best we could do in an attempt to get all 6 kids to sit still for a photo with the Great-Grandparents!

In Antioch...

Sporting his Christmas Sunday outfit at Nana's house.

Christmas morning!!!!
The smiles say it all...

Wes got these rain boots for Christmas and they have become his new favorite shoes! He had to wear them every day for weeks!

Relaxing in his new recliner from Santa!

Baking cookies with Nana! He loved choosing which cookie cutter to use!

Daily life with our little man...

Wes loves to build tall towers with his blocks, but in typical boy fashion, his most favorite part is to then knock the whole thing over and yell, "Crash!"

Wes and his best bud, Corbin (or as Wes calls him, "Cor-bye")

Digging at the park!

Learning how to work the digger with Daddy!

The swing never gets old!

One of Wes's favorite things these days are trains. He lines up all of cars and trucks and then proudly proclaims, "Teen!"

Wes acting like mommy...sunglasses, bag (or a pumpkin works, too!) and holding a cell phone up to his year! Scary!
Now here's Wes being daddy in his shirt and shoes! He found them in our room and was determined to wear them! Amazing how observant little ones are!

There are those boots again...rain or shine, day or night, he LOVES these boots!

One of the things Wes loves about these boots is that he can get them on and off all by himself!

Silly boy!

Working on using a fork...such a big boy!

A little duet!

Wes has recently taken to feeding his milk to his stuffed animals!

Wes LOVES books! He loves to read them alone and he loves to be read to for as long as you will sit still and read them! He is getting really good at filling in the words to some stories and telling back the stories by telling me what he sees in the picture. It's adorable and makes this teacher/mom's heart melt! These glasses just happen to be one of his favorite toys to just wear around the house all day!

Bubble beard!

Being goofy with Aunt Tali and props from Gigi's dress-up box!

Wes loves to color (or as Wes says, "Coh-go")!

Valentine's Day!

Wes passing his valentine's out to his friends at the church valentine party.

Opening his valentine's from all of his friends!

Playing with playdough...

Frosting cookies...

Enough with all these crafts...Check out this tractor!

Showing off his Valentine's gift from mommy and daddy. "Tah-dos" as Wes calls them!

Sweet boy!

And, although most of you already know....we would like to introduce the newest member of our family, Wes's little brother due in June! We are overjoyed to become a family of 4!!

These are a couple of ultrasound photos taken at 18 weeks...

22 weeks! (I'm currently 26 weeks, but have been less diligent this time around about taking belly pics!)

Whew! What a post! Hopefully I'll get one more in before the new baby comes! Here's hoping...:)