Matthew's 13th Month

This month, Matthew has spent most of his energy focused on WALKING. He is bound and determined to do it! Consequently, he is now quite proficient. Not that he walks all the time or that he never crawls when he falls down. And he's quite wobbly when he does walk. But most of the time, he's walking. It's fun to watch him walk because he's such a little guy and because he gets a huge smile on his face.

Here's the phone!

Look at me go!

Another development for Matthew this month is that we got him tested for allergies. We were planning on getting him tested after he was a year. We ended up making a special appointment with the pediatrician to expedite it after he threw up due to something he ate (maybe Megan's milk). Later that same week, he threw up again after definitely getting Megan's milk. We're all for sharing around here with the exception of that! Anyhow, he did great getting his blood drawn (yes, he screamed a lot--that's expected, right?) and we got the results a few days later. Of the 20 allergens they tested for, he was allergic to four--soy (very low level), egg white (they didn't test egg yolk), cow's milk (we had that one figured out!) and peanut. None of his levels were really high although we do now have an EpiPen for him. We are avoiding milk products and peanuts completely at this point and aren't going to be eating tofu or quiche anytime soon, although it's ok if he gets a little soy and egg baked in things. It's amazing how much stuff has some form of milk in it. It's definitely helping us cook from scratch more.

Matthew had his 12 month appointment the end of January (so it was really more like 13 months--we'd had to reschedule due to illness.)  He's doing really well overall. I had a bizillion questions about the allergy stuff and the immune system  and diet and so we got a referral to an allergist/immunologist. (The pediatrician said that I had a lot more technical questions than most parents. Go figure!) Anyhow, here are his stats:

Weight: 17 lb 13 oz (3.5%)

Length: 29 inches (9%)

Head circumference: 18.5 inches (70%)

He still has his daddy's head!

Matthew is still our snuggly, smiley little guy who loves to give kisses. He has added "please" and "thank you" to the signs that he does. He is really flexible and loves to be folded in half. We joke that he'll be able to stay rear facing in his car seat for a really long time because he often has his legs pulled up. When he goes down the slide, he'll often have his legs up as well--it makes him look a bit like a frog. It makes him a bit unstable and I worry he'll flip backwards, but he hasn't so far.

He likes playing with Thomas

Enjoying a trip to the park--he really enjoys going

Playing with his favorite Legos--the flowers:)

Cute picture! (Matthew is in this position a lot. It makes it very convenient to stand.)

Big Benny

Today, we went to visit Big Benny. Who is Big Benny, you ask?  Let me show you:

Big Benny is the largest land-based crane in the world and has been working on the new Intel factory for the last couple of months. It's huge--pretty much everywhere you drive these days, if you are looking in the direction of Intel, you see Big Benny.  Here are a few facts about our friend: His maximum lifting capacity is 4000 tons. He has a 10 million pound counter weight. The main hook block weighs 116 tons. Fuel consumption under full operation is 100 gallons/hour. His birthday is March 20th and he'll turn one this year. Big Benny is also expensive: it's rumored to cost $100,000/day for rental.

For Intel Family Day, we were able to go visit. It's pretty impressive to see up close! The kids all got yellow construction hats (really quite flimsy--I'm sure they don't meet current safety criteria) and lots of stickers to put on them. They also took our photo with him.

The family with Big Benny

Sarah holding a sample of the 2-inch wire that controls the crane. There are over 5.2 miles of it and it weighs 25 lbs/ft.

There were also had a lot of other construction trucks around that we could look at.

Pretty cool!

Sarah's family night

A few weeks ago, Sarah wanted to be in charge of family night. There were three stations: first, we sat on the couch while she told us gratitude and talked about Jesus and how we should be thankful for Him. We then were supposed to think about this for a few minutes (her idea). Second, we drew pictures of what we were thankful for. Finally, we were supposed to write a letter to someone telling them about it.

Here are a few photos of the second station

And the pictures:

Sarah's letter and picture:

To Luke and Andrew: From, Sarah

This is Jeses, the Temple,my house, a beaoutaful day,and a smiley face.I hope you like my picter.

Megan's (with Sarah helping with the writing)

Matthew's

Mine

U's

Fun at Science Center

Last weekend we went to the Arizona Science Center. We didn't know it, but it was member weekend, which meant that they had special things for members like a scavenger hunt and free tickets to climb the rock wall. Sarah enjoyed participating in these activities. She was the only one of us who could do the rock wall so she got to do it twice which she thought was great. They actually told us initially she couldn't climb because of her age (needed to be at least 8). However, they decided to let her try and were impressed with how quickly and easily she climbed up it. Megan and Matthew enjoyed playing in the toddler heart (basically a small ball pool with a really bad description of the heart--it says blue balls represent blood carrying oxygen to the body and red ones are carrying carbon dioxide to lungs. Really?) and in the house play area.

Sarah climbing rock wall

Megan playing in house play area

Matthew making some dinner

My Recommendations

My first recommendation is to not have a child with allergies. If you ignore that recommendation, my second recommendation is to not have another child the same age who can hand them their allergy in a cup. (Not that I would trade any of my kids for anything! But it does make things challenging!)

Matthew is throwing up due to allergies for the second time this week, this time almost certainly because he got Megan's milk cup. Poor kid! I can't wait to get back his allergy screen results so we know what all we need to avoid.

Memorable Day

I don't know how many times I have been thrown up on today, but it's been significant.

Thomas

Thomas is a very popular guy these days. All three kids love playing with him. Sarah pushes Megan, Matthew and herself on him, Megan and Matthew walk around pushing him, he gets stood on and lots of toys get a turn riding on him.

Megan's 15th and 16th Months

Toddler: It is fun to see Megan as she develops into a toddler. The single biggest thing that has helped with this development is that she now toddles. Yes, Megan is a walker. She started taking steps regularly on her own in November, although she'd still crawl most of the time. She gradually walked more and more of the time until now when she walks virtually all the time. Even if she falls down, she stands right back up and keeps on trucking. She also likes carrying things with her while she walks. Sometimes she'll pick up pretty large objects, like a box or a popcorn tin. She does like walking!

Carrying Spunky (her dog) and Patches (Matthew's dog)

Eating: Megan is our neat eater. She feeds herself virtually all of her own food--cereal, soup and yogurt included. She is quite good at using utensils. Even if we put some food on her spoon for her, she likes to then dip it in her bowl like she's the one getting it on there. But really, we don't put food on her utensils very often. It's especially nice that she's neat since she has so much hair that doesn't get dirty most of the time. One funny thing about Megan eating is that she has food storage, or at least we figure that's what she thinks. She will take food and stick it down on the side of her booster seat. We will think all her food is gone and then she'll pull something up onto her tray. She's also started putting things down her shirt, although the retrieval process doesn't work so well on this.

Helper: Megan is a helper. For example, the other day, one of the baby gates was left open. Megan was going to go through it when I told her to not go through it. Not only did she listen to me, but she shut the gate as well. Another time when the gate was open and I didn't know about it, she went over to it and shut it. WOW! She has helped me unload the dishwasher by taking dishes out one at a time and handing them to me, she takes trash over by the cabinet with the garbage can in it, she helps pick up food on the floor. If she wants her water bottle, she often makes sure that Matthew gets his, too. She is doing all these things of her own accord (with lots of praise from mom and dad for her actions, of course). It's amazing to me! And I'm certainly going to do everything I can to encourage her to continue:)

Playing: Megan likes pushing toys around. A favorite is Sarah's baby stroller. It doesn't even need to have a baby doll in it, although it often does.

She also enjoys playing with Duplos. She got some for Christmas and has been stacking and unstacking them ever since. She is often seen carrying around a huge stack of them.

She's also started cuddling toys a fair bit. One favorite is her dog Spunky. She also likes baby dolls. In this picture, she's holding Sarah's; she got her own for Christmas.

Other tid bits:  Megan has started clapping. It's fun to sing songs that encourage both her and Matthew to clap along. She also folds her arms for prayers. Megan would like to point out that she thinks getting molars is really painful. She doesn't seem to like it one bit. Poor kid!

15 Month Stats (12/6/2011):

Weight: 22 lb 6 oz (67%)

Length: 31 inches (67%)

Head Circumference: 18 inches (52%)

Cuddling Cat-R-Pillar

Standing on Thomas looking at her mail

Two Wheeler

About the middle of December, Sarah decided that she wanted to ride her bike without training wheels. U took them off and they went around the block once. In the rain. Because of course she would decide she wanted to do this on one of the only days that it rains here. After a little more help from dad and grandpa and a lot of help (and LONG rides) from grandma (who ran after Sarah for a few hours--thanks!), she is officially off! And she's getting better all the time.

She can even ride with her eyes shut!