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.