He just keeps learning!

Alton now signs "I love you". He does it so emphatically that our hearts melt every time. He will also blow his own nose when he needs to. He just walks up to a kleenex box, grabs a tissue, and blows.

He is also asking to pray when he is ready to eat. My brother Bryan did the same thing at this age. My parents would put food on my brother's high chair try after praying, and he would eat all the meat right away. Then he would "assume the position" for prayer and "pray" for meat. I think it is so funny that Alton does the same kind of thing.

New signs and other stuff

Alton is learning new things every day. We have prayed with him every day since he was born, and this week he learned how to fold his hands and bow his head for prayer. He does it every time we pray and it is sooooo sweet to see.

We are still nursing and every morning when we nurse, we sit in the recliner in his room and I cover both of us with a blanket to keep warm. This morning Daddy got him out of bed and I was sitting the living room. Alton came in and started to play with his toys. After a few minutes, he decided he was ready to nurse, so he went into his room and got down the quilt that was hanging on the side of his crib and brought it into the living room and climbed into my lap with it. He pointed to me and signed milk.

I showed him the sign for diaper once, and now he uses it to tell us when his diaper is dirty. I know this is one of the signs for potty training readiness, what are the others? Does anyone know of a GOOD potty training book?

He is still obsessed with Santa Claus and points him out wherever he sees him. He carries a Santa Claus Christmas card around the house with him.

Christmas Fun!

Alton hates having his diaper changed. We made the mistake of trying to change him next to his brand new fire truck on Christmas... you can see how successful we were.
While we were watching Alton drive his fire truck buck naked, Travis's cousin Kate said to him, "You know Alton, Robert Downey Jr. got arrested for that." We thought it was pretty funny.

I used the Ziggle Designs kit Reindeer Games for this kit.

Merry Christmas! Santa has some competition...

I have spent months trying to teach Alton new words and phrases. My sister watches Alton for one afternoon, and she taught him to say, Ho Ho Ho! and he recognizes Santa Claus.

Bad Mommy! A Few Choice Words

I haven't been posting about Alton lately. I have been consumed by getting ready for Christmas and the fact that I am ill. That is much better excuse than the truth, which is digital scrapbooking has taken over my life and I feel badly because I let myself compare my child to other children. Which is something we should never ever do as mothers.

Alton still isn't talking much. A few of his peers speak way more than he does, and I have let that embarrass me; thinking that he is behind or I should be doing more, like reading to him EVEN more or doing flash cards or something.... In reality he is right where he should be. His pediatrician is very impressed with his motor skills, both fine and large. He is ahead on some of his physical skills, and she told me that sometimes kids just race ahead in one area, and then catch up on the others later.

Since his 18 month appointment, he was learned even more new words, and some new signs. He is still using Daddy, doggie, duckie, and dirty. At his appointment, he used Mama. Which he had learned the sign for already.

My sister was watching Alton while I went to the doctor, and she was trying to get him to say Mama. He kept signing "Mama" at her, and she called me and asked, "What does it mean when he sticks his hand out like a turkey and keeps banging his chin with it?" I told her, "Mama." She swore and said, "You need to stop teaching him sign language. He is never going to learn to talk if he keeps this up!" I am going to refrain from further comments about that at this time.

Any way, he learned the sign for "Mama" and I am trying to teach him, "I love you". I use the sign and the words, so I am hoping he will pick up both.

As far as words go, he has said his first sentence! My dad and I were at Disneyland and were walking past the Rivers of America. We asked Alton, "Do you see duckies?" He repeated back to us quite clearly, "I see duckies!" This leads me to believe that he has the capacity to say a lot more than he actually does.

This isn't the first time he has taken his sweet time to do something. He started cruising at 6 months. We were convinced that he would start walking by nine months. But, he did not walk unassisted until 11 months. But once he did walk, he did it well right away. None of this stumbling and taking only 2 or 3 steps. He was crossing rooms as soon as he walked unassisted.

So his word repertoire now includes the following: Daddy, doggie, donkey, dirty, ducky, mama, yeah, no, and all done.
His signing repertoire includes, "Mama", "diaper", "please", "thank you", "more", and "all done".

This weekend he started telling us when his diaper was dirty and demanded a changed diaper. :) He has done it every day since Saturday. We bought him a potty today. I am not sure what I am going to do about potty training. I don't want to rush him, but it would nice to not have wash diapers as often....

Trimming the Tree

I decided to make a few tweaks to this page. Here is the "new" one:


This was the original.
I wanted the lightbulbs to look more like they were glowing, so I fiddled with those and moved things around a little.


Alton "helped" us trim the tree last weekend. He had so much fun hindering Daddy's progress to light the tree. :)

I used the Pixie Keepsakes kit, Christmas Tan for this layout.

The Lorakeet Exhibit

Janelle is a friend of Alton's from our home group. They have sooooo much fun together and spend a lot of time chasing each other. They even give each other a hug and kiss goodbye when they part.
We took them to the Long Beach aquarium last month and they were so cute there.

I used the Stolen Moments kit, Painter's Quilt for this page.

Busy Busy Boy!

I have been a scrapping machine. This is today's page:


My little brother Robert is in the Air Force. He is visiting for "Christmas" from Texas with his girlfriend Robin before he is sent on a mission to Venezuela. So we took Alton and my nephew to Disneyland today.

Alton is at a difficult stage. He can walk; heck, he can run! But he doesn't understand (or simply chooses to ignore our directives) that he need to walk where mommy and daddy want him to walk. So we spend 75% of our time chasing and re-directing. And when we get tired of doing that, we have to deal with a temper tantrum when we try to put him in his stroller. He is such a fun age! (If there was such a thing on Blogger, I would so insert an eye-rolling smiley here.)

I used the Ellie Lash kit, Merry and Bright for this layout.

LA Zoo

I took Alton to the zoo for first time in September. Here is a page from that day.

In the top photo, Alton was supposed to be napping. You can see how well that went with him peeking out the back of the stroller. Also, I have NO idea, what kind of animal that is in the top right photo....

I used the Ziggle Designs kit, Gathering Leaves for the paper, leaves, and alpha. The frame around the giraffe is from the Lliella Designs kit, Fall Folly.
My journaling font is Pea Charmaine, and the other text is Pea Sarah Cute.

I have an embarrasing confession...

Alton learned how to turn on the TV two weeks ago. Since he learned how to turn it on, he watches it. Eeek! He loves the Shrek movies and the Toy Story movies. He didn't care for Cars though, which odd. But my guess is that it is because there aren't any people or animals. He LOVES Donkey in the Shrek movies and will just laugh and laugh at Donkey.
I guess collecting Disney movies for the last 10 years will finally payoff now!

My Twilight Board got recognized....

I know it's totally silly, but I thought this was kind of cool. :) Go here.

Happy (ahem) Halloween!

So, bad mommy! I never posted pictures of Alton trick or treating.

Here is Alton with his two cousins, John John and Elayna. Trying to get all three kids to look at the camera was IMPOSSIBLE. We started the evening out here, and dined on El Pollo Loco's finest. My Grandmother is a creature of habit.


Then we went Trick or Treating at Grandma Vicki's house. Grandma Vicki's dog Noel, has tasty toys.
At least Alton thought so anyway.

Here Alton is trick or treating with Daddy. He did not "get" it. But there was one house that he really liked, (which is odd, because it is planned community and they all look the same) and he kept going back to that neighbor's house.

Daddy had to broadcast the football game that night, and he was late because of his trick or treating duties. His co-host made sure to announce that on air when Travis got to the game.

A little side note; see the green bowl in the right side of the picture? That is the same Tupperware bowl my parents made my sister, brothers and me dump our Halloween candy into when I was kid. They said it was so that the four of us would share our candy, and not make ourselves sick eating it all at once. In reality, this enabled them to cherry pick the mini snickers, reese's peanut butter cups and special darks after we went to bed. Mom, you can still have my special darks, I will send them to you.

Alton's trick or treating highlight? Meeting Oprah. Seriously, Oprah!













The neighbor's dog Oprah. Decked out in her Petco bumblebee costume.

The end of a long satisfying night of begging from Grandma's neighbors.

"Mommy, where did my Reese's peanut butter cups go?"
"Mommy?"

The "All done" Video

Alton has FINALLY learned the sign for "all done"! But here is a video with the sign and the pointing to the belly button. :)

He is so stinkin cute!

Alton learned how to sign "please". It is the cutest thing! He still won't use the sign for all done, but when he is done eating, Alton now lifts his shirt and points to his belly button, or Bee-bo. It is so stinking cute! I am going to try to get it on video at dinner tonight.

I have a new blog!

So I decided that I needed to take back my family blog and return the focus to Alton and being his mommy. All of my monthly desktops and other freebies are going to be on my new Digi-scrapping blog:

Graham Like the Cracker!

I moved the most recent posts already, and I will slowly be moving the others. :)

I got picked to be on a Creative Team!!!!

Charmaine started me digi-scrapping at the end of July. And today is my first day as a member of the Creative Team for Amber and Stolen Moments. I am so excited!

The layout below is from the new kit, He's Late For Class. I have to say I enjoy the first aspect of being on a creative team, I can get a whole new kit in one day. :)

I took Alton to the Long Beach Aquarium with our friends from church, Dina and her daugher Janelle. Alton loved the aquarium and would say, "Fishy! Fishy!" at each new tank.

Twilight Blinkies (Round two)

I moved my freebies to their own blog!

Graham Like the Cracker

He's Signing!

So as a lot of you know, we have been TRYING to teach Alton some basic signs to make life easier for all concerned. He learned the sign for milk when he was six months old. He still slept with us or in his crib next to us and I can still remember him waking me up and flexing his little fists at me.

When he was a little older and started solids, I began trying to teach him the sign for "all done". Here we are, about a year later, and he has still decided not to use the sign for "all done".

Undeterred, I decided to try to teach him other signs; "more" was the next logical step. It took a couple of months, but he FINALLY learned to sign "more". When he learned "more", he stopped using the sign for "milk".

Now he signs "more" all the time. He signs "more" when he is tired. He signs "more" when he wants more food. He signs "more" when he is all done. We waste a lot of food this way.

I have been trying to teach him the signs for "please" and "thank you". When I ask him to "ask nicely please", he simply signs "more" at me. Le sigh. At least it's better than whining right?

We have a baby signs board book that Alton likes me to read to him and as we read it, I make each of the signs at him. My dad (Alton's pop pop) has decided that it is his job to keep Alton supplied in Costco's oatmeal raisin cookies. You can see where this is going right? As I was reading Alton the signs book, I made the sign for "cookie" at him. He looked me in the eye, and repeated the sign back at me. So Alton got a cookie and a kiss from mommy.

Still no sign of "all done"....

So yesterday Pop Pop, Alton and I were at Costco in the deli section. Alton could see the bakery section and signed "cookie" at Pop Pop. So we went over to the cookie section and procured a box of Costco's finest. Alton started to whine as soon as the cookies touched the cart.
I told him, "If you ask mommy nicely and sign "cookie", you can have one." He looked at me like I was speaking Gibberish and whined again.
"Alton, you need to ask mommy nicely, we don't whine when we want something."
Again with the blank stare followed by the whine.
"If you don't ask mommy nicely, she doesn't understand what you want."

He looked me right in the eye and said aloud, clear as day, "Cookie."

Well that's better than the sign! He got his cookie.

So back at home today, I was trying to clean up the kitchen to start cooking dinner. Alton walked right up to me and signed "please"! Then he pointed and whined at the snack cupboard. So he got some graham cracker gold fish and craisins. Then when Daddy came home from work, I turned off the TV and put some music on. Alton noticed the TV was off (which it normally is) and looked at Travis and signed "please"!

He has also used thank you sporadically. I am hoping that any day now he is going to use the sign for "all done". Any day now....

November Desktop

My freebies have a new home!

Graham Like the Cracker

Twilight Desktop

I moved my freebies to their own blog!

Graham Like the Cracker

Our First Family Trip to the Mountains

I used the Backyard Crawlies kit by Iliella Designs for these pages. I LOVE this kit!

Welcome to the World Nina!

My good friend Lynn just had her second baby girl. She is a whole pound smaller than Alton was when he was born, and she is just itty bitty!

I used Amber's Sugar and Spice kit, and the fonts MA Sexy and Pea Sarah Cute :)

Alton versus Mommy: The Hat and the Hose

I made this page with the kit Cottage By The Sea from Stolen Moments.

Twilight Blinkies!!!

I moved my freebies to their own blog!

http://grahamlikethecracker.blogspot.com/2008/11/twilight-blinkies.html

Alton the Artist!

This year we skipped the hulabaloo of the large city pumpkin patch and simply bought two pumpkins at Trader Joes.

Yesterday, I took Alton over to Rose's house so that Alton could paint pumpkins with her son Harrison.

Rose had a great selection of acrylic paint colors and brushes ready for us, and suggested that due to Alton's tender age (he is 16 months) that maybe he should use Tempra paint, because it washes out easily. But you have to seal it to make it shiney and I am LAZY.
I poo poohed the idea and, "We'll be watching him the whole time, he'll be fine with the acrylic!"


We start out with a clean pumpkin, a clean face, and a bowl of red acrylic paint.

Oops, gotta little red paint on the boy. 'Sokay, I am sure a little red paint won't stain his white blonde eye brows.



A few minutes later, we watched him the whole time as he very carefully got HUGE blobs of turquoise acrylic paint in his WHITE BLONDE HAIR!!!

Rose decided we needed a picture to commemorate the event. Too bad Alton did not get the memo and wanted to get down and play with Harrison's train table.




Thankfully, after a good soaking and multiple combings in the shower with daddy, we got all the red and blue paint off of him. The moral here is, listen to mothers with more parenting wisdom than you have! Rose was great and never once said "I told you so!" as we cleaned paint off of every available surface! I think she is still finding paint.

Rose takes much better pictures than I do.... check out her version of what happened at her Harrison, blog The Pierce Toddler Project

Our Third Anniversary

Auntie LaLa and Uncle Larry were thoughtful enough to watch Alton for us while we went out to dinner. Alton was not amused by our decision to leave him with well meaning relatives. They ate his cookies. Here we are trying to leave. Alton's not buying it.
Here we are at the restaurant; The Depot. The chef is getting his own Food Network special soon.
The food was really good. They have this really fantastic pesto butter that comes with the bread basket. the bread basket itself came with banana bread. They use the same recipe I do. So it was yummy!
We had a great time and I would love to go back there again!

Alton poses for the camera!

During dinner tonight, I was showing Travis pictures of my friend Lynn's new baby girl. Alton saw the camera and made his "look at me!" noise.

I looked over and him, and he was smiling away and posing with his dinner dirtied face. Wow, can black beans and taco meat make a mess!
He wasn't happy with just one photo either, he insisted on me taking another one. Here is a close up of the devastation that black beans and taco meat can produce when mixed with a toddler:

He was so cute after the photo taking, because he insisted on seeing his picture after I was done taking the photos.

A picture a day....

On my playgroup board, they have a photography challenge where you take a picture of your child every day. The 365 challenge is what it is called in fact. I joined 1/2 way through and since I was a little behind (cough cough) in keeping up with posting, I would share the last week of photos with you guys.

It is his bedtime, but Alton is W I D E awake!

193/365

I got him right at bedtime this day. Goodness, he has pretty eyes!




I swear he doesn't sleep with the sippy!




Hiking in the Angeles Crest Forest




In the Lorakeet Habitat at the Long Beach Aquarium




Kicking it in the kitchen with cranberry pumpkin bread.




On the sofa with Mrs. C.




In the water play area in California Adventure.

Our Latest Trip to Disneyland

Alton LOVES the watering hole in the Bug's Life area. It is his favorite part of the whole resort!


At the head of Main Street in front of the Mickey O'Lantern.


Alton in Frontier Land.

They had a GLOWING orange tree with Jack O'Lanterns It looked pretty cool up close. :)

October Desktop

A blank one for you!


So I know it is 6 days late, but here it is. :) Let me know if you want it customized for you. Or click on it to download it and customize it yourself. :)

This is from the Apple Fest kit from http://twoboyz00.blogspot.com/

Quick update

We went to the mountains together on Saturday. I will post pictures later.

Today we went to the zoo with some of Alton's friends and their mommies. It started to rain while we were there. :)

Alton learned a new word today, but I am so tired that I forgot what it is. Bad mommy! His little friend Jenelle learned his name today. It was so cute to hear her say Alton, Alton in her little 18 month old voice. :)

I'm back!

I listed some of Alton's old clothes on E-bay today and some other stuff that I had that still had tags on it. Go check out my auctions! I have a link in my sidebar. :)

I am on an internet hiatus!

At least until I finish reading Twilight! I just started reading it today and I finally understand what all the fuss is about!!!

Does anyone know for sure, is the author Mormon? Her book bio says that she has a degree in English from BYU.....

New Obsessions!

He is OBSESSED with washing his hands and turning light switches on and off. Repeatedly. If you turn on ANY sink in our house, you will soon hear the thundering hoof beats of Alton as he rounds the corner into any room you are in. He screeches, he reaches and points to the sink. When you lift him up, he will immediately dive bomb into the sink and grab the soap pump. After you tear him away from the sink, he lunges for the light switch. Which must be flipped up and down at least 5 times. (Or his family will die.)

His love for trucks continues. He now will go running into the front room to look out the window as soon as he hears the trash, fire or UPS trucks lumbering down out street.

I had to buy him his own Swiffer. He would pitch a fit if I wouldn't let him do it, and he isn't as thorough as mommy, (don't tell him that though!) so we bought him his own (with a couple of pole sections removed) so he can swiffer alongside mommy.

Smallish update

Things are going better than they were. I am calmer, but my goodness the boy can still make a mess faster than your can say Bob's your uncle! (Bob is Alton's uncle, but that is beside the point.)

Here are some photos from Alton's first gymboree class. He LOVES going to class and I am trying to figure out how to keep him going. It's $74 a month, but worth every penny.

"My Grace is sufficient

So Travis was gone this whole weekend at our church's men's retreat. Which meant there was a lot of mommy/Alton time without any breaks. Alton has a cold, so he has been a little bear and he was VERY clingy and whiny. It was not a good time. So on Saturday night, I went to church. There were VERY few people there and I ended up sitting next to a wonderful woman of God. Marie has FIVE sons. The oldest three are married and doing all kinds of wonderful things for the Kingdom of God. She has to be an awesome mother right?
So I asked her, how do you do it? I can't cope with the ONE I have. She laughed and told me that it was through the grace of God. She said that God shared this verse with her and it made all the difference for her with one of her more difficult children.

But he said to me,
"My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness."
2nd Corinthians 12:9a

God uses our weaknesses (and I have legion!) to draw us closer to Him. I need to remember that instead of despairing when times are tough and I am at the end of my rope!

The Drama Llama has left the building!

So you can ignore my previous post about why I was sad. Kate and I have made up. You can now go back to the previous cuteness and adorableness that is Alton.

Just out of curiousity, who is reading? Please post a "Hey I am here and I read your blog."

Thanks!

Alton's First Gymboree Class

Travis and I took Alton to his first Gymboree class on Saturday. He had a REALLY good time, and like his mama, he is not a fan of structure in learning. He had an awesome time playing on all of the climbing equipment though and I thought I would share this video of him on the "noisy bridge".

Alton Meets Minnie Mouse!

We went to Disneyland last week for my aunt's birthday and we had a character dinner. Alton is okay with people characters, but the animal characters still make him flip out. I wonder when he will outgrow this fear?

Why I have been sad lately

As many of you already know, or might have guessed. A dear friend of mine and I "broke up". We spent some time together "in real life" and even planned an out of state trip together with our boys. Unfortunately, her husband became ill and we weren't able to go together.

We had several things in common, a desire for natural child birth (lucky girl got to have her baby the way she wanted), breast feeding, cloth diapering, and other similar parenting decisions. We also have the same need to feel loved, and and a ferocity for those we care about. While we did have many things in common, we also had several differences. At the time, we rose above our religious and political differences and saw each other as more than just a conservative Christian and open-minded liberal. We loved each other any way, and I for one enjoyed the fact that we could both see beyond the labels and spend time together.

I could sense at times that I was being kept at arms length, but I thought that was just her way. I loved watching her with her son. She is much more patient than I am, and I always learned to appreciate my son a little more watching this momma interact with her son. She has such an enthusiastic and genuine love for her son as well as a desire to do everything she can to make him an exceptional adult.

My friend and I were a part of a message board for mommies who had babies in the month that Alton was born. We were in fact leaders of the board. For the most part, I have always kept my topics on topic about our children. Previously when I had expressed my religious or political views, it started a fire storm of debate that I did not like to take part in. But as it is an election year, that is all anyone is talking about and I felt free to post my opinions political and religious.

Travis and I are conservative Christians. He is actually much more conservative than I am; I tend to be more moderate about certain things, but we agree on most of the same points. I realize that it is not a popular view, but we believe that the Bible is the word of God. Because the Bible is very clear that homosexuality is wrong, this is the stance we take as well. We believe that marriage is a sacred thing, and it was designed by God to bring a man and woman closer together towards Him. (I know that not everyone has this opinion.) We plan to teach Alton that every person should be treated with respect and courtesy regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, or race. But, we do not support gay marriage. We believe that marriage should be reserved for one man and one female.

This is where it gets sticky. I do not claim to know if homosexuality is something that someone chooses, or if they are born that way. People far more intelligent than I have debated this point for years. I do understand that people want equal rights for everyone, but I can't go against God's word. My relationship with God is just as much a part of me as the fact that I am a woman and mother.

When Alton is old enough to understand that people have different views of topics like these, we plan to teach him that he needs to respect people and their views, but we believe differently. To my friend, this is not good enough. It saddens me to no end that this is true, but it is. I can not continue to work with this person knowing that she finds my beliefs so distasteful, that she is unwilling to spend time with me. It was shocking to me that she felt this way, because I have always found her to be a very open minded person, and I have always thought that tolerance should include both religious and world views. Personally, I have no issues with her beliefs, I just respect her decision to believe what she does. At no time have I tried to persuade her to change her mind or make her feel badly that she feels differently.

I would still love to be friends with this person, but as she is unwilling to accept my Judeo-Christian values, I don't see it happening. It is very sad because I really look up to her as an excellent mother and I loved learning from her. If you are reading this, I miss you. I hope we can work through this.

Happy Birthday Auntie LaLa!

We went to Disneyland on Wednesday to celebrate Aunt Laurel's birthday.

I used the Birthday Bash kit I got from the Faith Sisters digital scrapping web site.

Labor Day Weekend In Glorious Technicolor!

Here we are in all of our vacation glory. The views, the lions, the pool, and the little boy who is the star of the show!

I used Vicki's new kit, Summer Cocktail. It is available on her website located in my sidebar.