Aaron.... where are you?!

One of Aaron's favorite things to do while I am preparing dinner is to dig all of the pots and pans out of the cupboard, get in, and close the doors. He sits in there and giggles and giggles (and sometimes will say "Mommy are you?" until I say, "Aaron, where are you?" The cupboard doors have childproof latches, so he can't get out until I open the doors for him! So cute. :)

Shoveling helpers....

We got a ton of snow here in Chicago, which meant that someone needed to get out there and get things cleaned up. Aaron and Connor always want to plow through the snow and we have to hide the shovels and brooms in the garage unless we want Aaron playing with them every time he sees them, so I figured they were just the guys to help me out! At 35 weeks pregnant, getting 2 toddlers dressed and ready to head out the door was just about enough for me, but nonetheless, we headed out in the snow! The boys had a great time and I was able to get some darling photos AND get the sidewalks, stairs, and deck shoveled!


Aaron and Connor were practicing their 'snow angel' technique on the kitchen floor!




Connor brought over his big sand shovel and it worked great in the snow!






Aaron needs to use a REAL shovel and isn't interested in things that aren't full sized!

Aaron at 20 months!

I've been meaning to do a post about what Aaron is up to these days for a couple of months now. The Speech Pathologist in me really wanted to be able to do a word inventory and I started trying to write down all of Aaron's words when he turned 18 months old. I got to 170 + words, realized that I still hadn't gotten them all and at that point, I just gave up!

I'm guessing that Aaron's vocabulary is at least 300 words at this point- he's saying several new words each day. He saying 2 and 3 word combinations (bye bye mommy, two cars, new shoes, sit down baby, etc.) and telling 'stories' with anywhere from 3-6 single words. One of his favorites comes from the holidays when we were visiting my family in Iowa. My mom and I took Aaron outside to play in the snow and Nanny accidentally hit Aaron in the face with some snow when she was throwing a snowball. He's been talking about it for months and the story goes like this, "Nanny, snow, face, YaYa (Aaron)." Hilarious!!

Aaron has gotten really interested in counting and singing the ABC's in the past month or so. He can usually count up to 10 (occasionally skipping 7) and is even understanding the concept of 1:1 correspondence. He will get two books and say "two books" and line up 3 cars and tell you that there are "three cars". He sings A, B, C, and then will fill in some of the letters as you sing the rest of the song. He definitely doesn't know all of the letters yet, but is picking up on them pretty quickly. It's amazing all of the things that kids learn without you realizing it! (Typical development is SO amazing, isn't it?!)

He loves to read books and is starting to 'read' some of his favorite books with us. You can start reading and pause where a word is supposed to be and he'll fill in that word.

Aaron is becoming fiercely independent and will tell you "self. YaYa (Aaron)" or "I do it" several hundred times a day! He wants to get his own toothbrush, put the toothpaste on, peel his own bananas and tangerines, put the straw in his own juice box, open packages on this own.... you name it, he wants to do it for himself! It's really cute and funny, except when you're trying to get things done quickly!

He tries to talk his way out of anything and everything these days and is starting to throw some fits when he can't get what he wants. If he wakes up in the middle of the night, he tries everything he can to get us to take him into our bed! Thankfully, he's usually a good sleeper, but when he gets sick or we go away from home, we'll get into some bad habits and he will think that he should be able to keep those habits going! Kids are smart like that!

We have started taking a class at My Gym on Saturday mornings where he gets to run, jump, swing, do gymnastics and trapeze skills, sing, dance, and just work off a lot of energy! He loves it and we've really enjoyed taking him. Aaron continues to be very, very active and is really great at running, jumping, and climbing.

He has started to watch some videos and loves Elmo's World the most! Aaron loves trains and has had a great time with his Thomas set that he got from Great Grandma Avis for Christmas. He's really into playing with his tools and tool bench, continues to love his baby, and does a lot of pretending with his baby and teddy bears (pretending to feed them, put them to sleep, etc). He sleeps with his monkey (Ah Ah), softie, and usually his teddy bear TC, sometimes his teddy bear Stripe, and at times his baby Emma.

We are enjoying the last 7 weeks of having only one child and are looking forward to Aaron meeting his sibling in March!

Sharing some photos from the holidays

I figured out how to get some of my sister's pictures on my blog, so I'll share a few from the holidays.

Enjoy!

Oh no... I can't find my camera!

Just a quick post to let you know why I've not blogged for SO long. I can't find my camera. :( I'm devastated about it and can't figure out where it could have gone?! I didn't have it for Christmas, but thankfully my mom and sister took lots of photos.

I'm going to look everywhere for my camera and then probably head out to buy a new one soon!

Happy 2010!

Holiday updates

Lots of new posts tonight- guess you can see that I'm a little behind on my December updating!


Hamming it up in his santa hat!



Trying on Mommy's boots!



Aaron has discovered the love of opening gifts! We got him a couple of big things that we didn't really want to haul all the way to Iowa and back again, so Aaron got to open some presents early. Here his is opening his new table and chairs and easel. Looks like the 'toy area' is full now! :)












Opening the fun gifts that Auntie Karen and Uncle Steve sent from England!

Still love the train

Trains are definitely the new obsession in the Coenen household. Here are a few shots of some morning train time with Daddy on a weekend!

Family date night

Sharing some photos of a recent Friday night family date night. We have a membership at the Chicago Children's Museum at Navy Pier and spent a recent Friday night having dinner and attending an open house for one of their new exhibits called "Play It Safe". In the exhibit there is a fire truck that the kids can climb on, hoses, hats, coats, boots to play with, 'fires' to put out, and even a fire pole to slide down. Aaron loved it! My 2 favorite boys also had a great time 'building' a nice lean-to in the construction exhibit! We watched the fireworks over the lake and had a great dinner at Bubba Gump's. Yay for family date night!!! :)

Big boots to fill....

Ok, I realize that I shot these little videos in the wrong orientation, but they are much too cute not to share! Aaron loves to put on shoes and boots that belong to other people and are much too big for him. In these videos he pulled out my big, tall, rain boots and wanted me to help him put them on. He was definitely bothered that he couldn't walk in them!! So funny.

Train...

We decorated the house for Christmas this past weekend and I wanted to share Aaron's new object of affection. Aunt Beth passed along a Christmas train that belonged to Aaron's great grandpa, Papa Coenen, before he passed away. Aaron is in LOVE with the train and talks about it constantly! If he had his way, we would run the train every minute of every day, but some boundaries have had to be set. The train is now "resting" in the closet during the day and when Daddy gets home from work, he and Aaron get to start it up! This seems to be working pretty well, aside from the fact that Aaron is still talking about the train most of the day! He's added some new words to his vocabulary with the introduction of the train and can now be heard saying "engine, coal car, caboose, and tracks"! Here are a couple of shots of the beloved train.