15 Months Old!

Matthew:
Learned how to play "How Big is Matthew?" compliments of Karen Vlieg in the church nursery.

Has started to ask questions with hands, especially to ask, "where is it?".  He sometimes does it out of context though, which is pretty cute.

Is great at walking while only holding onto your one finger.  He's getting better at walking unassisted...but not quite there yet.

Loves playing with my rice cooker.  He especially loves it when he pulls the bowl out and can push up and down on the spring.

Loves being tickled.

Really dislikes have to eat ground beef.  He'll eat everything else, but will spit out ground beef.

Still chokes on food every now and then.

Is very hesitant to get dirty.  It takes him some time to get into the sandbox.

Knows his bedtime routine inside out!

Knows where his belly button is.

Absolutely LOVES playing with the ball popper.

Has gotten over his obsession with pressing buttons on the DVD player - finally!

Is tough.  It takes a lot to make him cry when he's being disciplined.  If he's not emotionally hurt by my method he'll just look at you and intentionally do whatever he was doing, as if to say "Ha!  What are you going to do now?"


Kayla:
Has learned how to throw things in the garbage can.  It's great...I can hand her anything and ask her to bring it to the garbage and she'll either throw it in the bathroom or kitchen garbage cans.  So far she's been really good at only throwing garbage in the garbage cans.

Learned how to climb onto our kitchen chairs.

Loves stuffed animals.  We went to the Kids for Kabala garage sale at Surrey Christian a few weeks back and she went nuts when she saw the boxes of stuffed animals.  I let her choose (with my guidance) one for herself (a small pink elephant) and one for Matthew (a small brown monkey).  Whenever she wants to play with her elephant she'll find the monkey as well and will bring it to Matthew.  When she wants to walk behind a walker at my parents' house she'll bring Matthew a walker as well.  (No wonder Matthew isn't walking yet - he doesn't have to!).

Loves eating frozen peas and frozen blueberries.

Isn't a huge fan of cake and cookies.  She much prefers candies.

Calls Matthew "Ma"...not all the time, but she definitely calls him that.

Loves playing in dirt or water.  She always manages to find some.

Knows her bedtime routine inside out!

Can stack two objects on top of each other.

Knows where her hair, belly button, ears, and toes are.

Loves looking at and touching flowers.  She recently played "he loves me, he loves me not" on my chrysanthemum.  I was not pleased.

Is stubborn.  I can get mad at her and slap her hand and she'll continue to do whatever she was doing, with big tears rolling down her cheeks.

Still tries to carry as many toys at a time as she can.

Now notices airplanes in the sky.  You don't realize how many fly above you until you have someone pointing them out.

Sitting in Silence

As I sit here on the couch, contemplating whether or not I should get up and do some housework, Matthew and Kayla are slowing emptying out my book "basket"...looking at each one as they pull it out.  It's pretty cute.  And it's quiet.  And it's now a big mess for me to clean up :)

Taking Steps

The past couple weeks we've definitely seen a new confidence in Matthew: he is now okay if we only hold one of his hands when walking.  The past few days I've been 'removing' my hand from his while walking, leaving him to take a couple steps on his own before he got to his destination.

When we got to my parents' tonight I set Matthew down and started him on his way to see Candice.  He took a few steps on his own...and then luckily Candice started moving backwards because he KEPT GOING!  He took 10 steps!

We 'practiced' with him a little later, and he did 14 steps!  This is quite exciting!  My little boy (who can't even stand on his own!) is learning to walk!  YAY!