Tony's 2yr old personality!

My 2 year old is still small enough to bathe in the kitchen sink! I only do it because he asks so nicely "bath in sink!" well he isn't really asking, but more or less telling me that is what he wants. How can I say no to this cute face? I also used this picture to enter him in the Regis and Kelly Beautiful baby contest. The voting starts March 1, so don't forget to go vote for him.When we were in Cabo he loved the beach. He'd say "beach" relentlessly until I agreed to take him. He wasn't fond of the ocean so we played in the sand a good ways from the water, and he would tell me to go get water in his bucket and bring it back to him, only to have him dump it immediately and say "more water!"
The pool was fun, of course who wouldn't love a pool that was 92 degrees? I'm thinking swimming lessons at the Y might be a good idea.
I rarely get a good shot of him, he tends to turn away from the camera now days, but this time I think it worked to my advantage. I love this picture.
Reading is one of his favorite things to do. He tends to pick the same ones and read them to death though. We have a book case with about 75 books and we read the same 10 over and over again. In this picture he is reading with his cousin Taylor.

This picture cracks me up, because he is wearing his dad's shoes, on the wrong feet, eating ice cream in his pj's. That ice cream I swear was spiked with something, cause he did not sleep well that night, up laughing and playing in bed with Grandma until the wee hours of the morning. Finally Mom and Dad had to step in and MAKE him go to sleep, he put up the biggest fight I've ever seen, demanding various things to distract us. Finally around 2 am he fell asleep. That was our last night in Cabo.
He became fast friends with his cousin Taylor, who conveniently lives just down the road from us. I see many play dates in our future. Although he did start to hit and push her a bit, so he will have to outgrow that or she wont want to come around him.
He loves his little sister Bella. He likes to try to pick her up and lay on top of her. Most the time she is a good sport about it, so long as she doesn't get hurt.
Here is Tony "going to the side". His Aunties taught him this, all you have to do is say, "Tony, go to the side" and he starts walking sideways. It always makes us laugh.
Again, refusing to look at the camera. He does it on purpose too, he's a very smart boy and he likes to play games.
Eating breakfast in the window in his favorite pj's.
Other things about Tony that I don't want to forget.

He talks in almost complete sentences now, minus the occasional pronoun, or adverb.

He refers to himself in the third person, which is so funny. Today he told me "Tony drive" when we were getting in the car. While we were in Mexico we didn't have a car seat for him, so now that we are back, he puts up a fight every time we go somewhere.

I do believe he now understands everything, well 90% of what I tell him. Yesterday we were at the store and I said we were going home to eat lunch and then take a nap. So I asked him what he wanted for lunch. I mentioned about 10 different things, pizza, grilled cheese, nutella, yogurt, peanuts etc. everything was answered with an affirmative "NO!" so then I started offering him things I knew he couldn't say no to; chocolate cake, ice cream and still "NO!" So then I said, "okay then, I guess we wont eat lunch and just go to bed for a nap" he replied with "cereal." Now that's what I call a smart boy. I think he honestly thought if he skipped the lunch we'd never get to the nap, since I said, lunch and then nap.

He finally eats better, to say good would be a stretch, but there are a few more things he will eat now, like peanut butter, scrambled eggs, and grilled cheese. The sweet tooth is still strong as ever, and chocolate cake is at the top of his list. He was just shy of 24 pounds at his 2 yr check up, putting him in the 8th %.

He likes to tell us what to do. Mama sit. Dada wake up. Mama come here. Mama don't do that. Bella No. Brewster No.

He also likes to tell us what he wants to do: See KK (aka his cousin Kristen), ride penny horse, go grandma. And he is persistent too. I think he got his stubbornness from his dad. Mama watch Barny on Farm.

Speaking of Barny, here is Tony watching it in the El Paso airport which we were stuck in for several hours.

And yes that would be Todd and Tony playing on the airport floor! Yes, we were that sleep deprived and frustrated to even care that it was an airport floor.



And last but not least, his famous words are "Too tight" and that is his response to ANYTHING he doesn't want to do, eat, or wear.

Lovin Cabo

Bella can pull herself up now. And thanks to my blog archives I can tell you that she did this one month sooner than her brother did.

Sunrise at the villa.

We've been in Cabo for 2 days now and I am loving the place were staying at. It is a house with a pool overlooking the ocean. The ocean is just a short walk down the driveway and your on the beach. The waves are too rough to actually get in the ocean, but we've been down to play in the sand. We were told there is a cove with calm waters for swimming just a few minute walk away, but we haven't explored that far yet.

The pool was nice and warm when we got here the first day, and the next morning it was BRRR cold, so the boys figured out that the heater was on a timer (probably to save the owners money) and they turned the timer off and turned the heat up. By the end of the day yesterday the pool was 95 degrees! It was so nice, but I made them turn it back down just a bit. We decided on 91.

At the end of the pool they have a "kiddie pool" which is really a hot tub with the heat off. We specifically asked if it was a hot tub and they said no, so we are guessing we aren't supposed to crank up the heat, but leave it to the boys to figure it out, we got that part up to 99 degrees.

They have a chef here that you can hire to come into the villa and cook for you but the prices are high so we planned on doing most of the cooking ourselves, but after the first trip to the groccery store and eating grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for our first dinner here, we decided we might want that cook after all. It also just so happens to be low season here, although I don't know why, it's perfect weather, but we haven't seen hardly anyone around, the beach is empty, it's like our own private vacation. So the good part of that is that we were able to work a good price out with the Chefs, and our second dinner her was way better, we had beef fajita's, fried rice, beans, fresh guacamole, and homemade salsa, (and they even made me a special vegetable stirfry without the meat). In Jamaica where I've been before and we have a cook, we buy the groceries and they cook the food. Here, they bring it all with them. It was really nice and stress free and so good. Way better then going to a restraraunt with 3 babies.

The kids are having fun, Bella and Tony are getting along with Taylor. They play together in the house with the very few toys we brought along. They all seem to like the tractors the best of all the toys, they usually fight for it. As for all the books we brought, they all seem to want the same book, a book that Taylor brought called "My little word book". They all 3 want to read it. So one book and a few tractors would have been suffice on the toys. Outside they are usually attached to an adult, but they all love the water.

Time change still hasn't kicked in yet, Bella starts our day at 6:30 and Taylor shortly follows, then Tony hears the two of them and wakes up too, and before long the whole house is up. We are usually done with breakfast and on the deck by 8:30. It's not bad though, cause it gets dark here early, usually by 6 the sun is set.

Anyway, speaking of Bella, she is sleeping in the laundry room, poor girl, but we have a 3 bedroom house, and Todd's mom came along to help with the kids so her and Tony are in one room, Brett and Jen and Taylor in another, and Todd and I were supposed to sleep with Bella, but Todd got the bright idea to stick her in the laudry room. Which actually is a good idea, but it kinda smells like detergent. Todd claims babies don't have a sense of smell like adults do so it wont bother her. I don't know if I believe that, but it is nice having her sleep there. His theory is based on the fact that they don't complain about a stinky diaper. So now it's a 3 bedroom villa with a bonus room!

Well I hear babies stirring so I better wrap this up. I hope you all appreciate the effort to blog, once you quit doing it, it's so much work!

Here are a few pictures, it takes a long time to upload them, so I just picked a few.

Bella
Tony's waterlogged toes.
Tony and Nana playing in the sand.
Taylor
Todd in the "kiddie" pool with Tony and Bella.
Tony lovin on Bella at the hotel in Chicago the night before we left.