18 Months for Joey!

I seriously can't believe that my baby Joe is 18 months old. Not only does 18 months sound old, but suddenly he is starting to LOOK so old to me! But then again, he is still my little baby!! I suppose I need to get used to it, though, because once the currently cooking bun makes her debut, I know now, from much experience that Joey is going to suddenly look HUGE and will no longer be the baby. So I'm savoring every moment of his baby-ness. I just can't get enough of his cute little face. I mean, can you blame me? Look at that face!

He is doing some pretty stinking cute things right now. First of all, there is this hat thing. He LOVES hats. He loves putting them on himself, or having assistance. Either way, he will walk all around taking a hat on and off. But what is great is how he absolutely insists on the hat being LOW. If the bill is in the front, he pulls it all the way down so that he can barely see. He gets mad if you try to pull it up. And as you can see in these pictures, even with the back in front, it has to be encroaching upon his vision. But he could see enough to know I was holding a camera and boy does he love the camera.

 He is adding words every day and it is so fun and cute. But one he is quite a pro at is "cheese." In all of these pictures, you might have noticed his "cheesy" smiles. That is because he is, in fact, saying "cheese" in all of these. It doesn't take much to get him say cheese to the camera. The video below is proof.

 His first real word (besides "no") was apple. He first said apple after we decorated the Christmas tree. He went over to the red ornaments and started saying "apple." He also says, "thank you," "night, night," "stuck," and "car."

Some of my other favorite things about Joey right now:

• Joey doesn't eat crayons, he chews them. Mikey ate a few crayons, most kids do, but he got over it. Luke actually never really tried them. Joey has eaten very few crayons. But CHEW them? Oh it's countless. It's like he thinks they are his own personal supply of gum. When he gets a hold of one, he will walk around chopping down on it. When I find him with it, there will be a little stub left and when I put my hand in front of his mouth, he just spits it all out as a crumbly, saliva-filled mass of crayon. He really NEVER swallows them. And if I don't discover him, he will find me when he's done, and start spitting them out in front of me until I assist in the clean up. 
• He does NOT like me doing dishes. If he sees the dishwasher open, he runs over and slams it shut. I seriously cannot do dishes with him in the room. In fact, even if the dishwasher is closed, if I am standing at the sink, he comes and pushes me away. 
• He is absolutely obsessed with shoes. He will put on any shoe he finds. If he has shoes on and comes across more shoes, he will do all he can to get the second pair on over the first (which actually works sometimes if he has on his own small shoes and comes across Mikey's shoes or any of ours.) He actually also really feels strongly about me having my shoes on. When he finds my shoes, he will come and find me and try to put them on my feet. Then he'll yell until I comply and help him accomplish the task. The cutest, though, is when he finds shoes he wants on and can't get them on, he brings them to me, hands them to me and then plops down on the floor and sticks his feet straight out in front of me. It's so cute. 
• And my all time favorite thing is how he insists on your attention when he's on your lap and trying to talk to you. If I am holding him and he is trying "to talk" (in his Joey babble) and I am not looking at him, he will put both hands on my cheeks and turn my head to look directly at him and hold it there until he is satisfied. And the other day, he did that just to give me lots of kisses. Oh, it is so cute. 

Love, love, LOVE him!!!

Merry Christmas!

Here is our beautiful, Christmas-ie house :)  I LOVE Christmas lights and, luckily, Lance LOVES putting them up ;)  Okay, maybe he doesn't LOVE it. But at least he loves the results (and me :) enough to do it. But this year it was a particularly sacrificing act of love.

He got the first line of blue lights up on a warm day just before Thanksgiving. (The roof line has a line of blue light and then a light of white icicle lights.) Then two days after Thanksgiving, as he went out to finish with the icicle lights, the whole cat-stuck-in-the-drain-and-Lance-sacrificing-his-fingers-to-save-it thing happened. (See most recent bloody post) After enduring those torturous first days after that event, we weren't sure if he was going to be able to finish. But two weeks later, he got out there and (carefully) did it, broken fingers and all!  Thanks, baby, for making our house so beautiful! :) (I should note that the pictures really don't do it justice, but that's to be expected when trying to take pictures of lights.)