4th of July!

We had a nice relaxing 4th of July attending my aunt and uncle's annual party. Callum was able to go swimming for the first time this summer. He wasn't too sure of the idea of swimming at first, I think because the water was still a bit cool, as you can see.


After a few minutes, though, he warmed up to it and loved it.


Hopefully we'll have a chance to swim a couple more times this summer.

Summer!

It's been a fun summer so far in the Green house. We've been busy the last few weeks trying to organize and slowly get ready for kiddo #2. Hopefully he/she doesn't come very early because we have a lot to do still to get ready, it seems. On the plus side, we have managed to move the furniture around and the new nursery is now painted, so it's definitely coming along.

Since I've been extra neglectful to the blog lately, I thought I would do a snapshot of Callum at 20 months, so here goes.
Loves:
-Trains--every time he hears one at home, we have to go outside to watch, which is great except the trains that go past are usually really long and slow.
-Books--he's always been a reader, and this has not changed as he's gotten older. He loves to stall for naps/nighttime by insisting on more books.
Sometimes he likes to find unusual places to read.

-Comics--he loves all books, but he especially loves the comics section of the newspaper. This is how I found him one morning as I was trying to clean up the kitchen.

-Talking--he will talk to anyone and everyone and is definitely not shy about people. He has an extensive vocabulary, which can sometimes be both a good and bad thing at the same time. It's great when he can say what he wants, but it's not so great when he says it over and over again.
-Eating--he especially loves bananas (he usually asks for one the first couple of minutes of waking up every morning), crackers, cheese, green beans, spinach, pasta, pizza, and beans. He's generally a great eater and we can't complain about most of his choices.
-Drawing--he loves to use pencils/pens/crayons, and whatever other writing utensils he can get his hands on. He likes to color, but he also likes when we write down letters and he points them out. He can recognize several of them, including A, C, F, G, O, S, T, W, X, Y, Z. Colors--now that's a different story.

Callum's pretty easygoing usually, so there are definitely a lot of loves on his list right now! I'll try to update again soon with the not-as-fun dislikes :).

18 months!

The 18-month mark has quickly come and gone, which is about how Callum moves these days, so it seems fitting. He had his check-up last week, and the doctor said he was perfect. We mostly agree, but we also know he has his share of faults. As soon as the doctor came in, he was showing her a giraffe puzzle piece and saying "giraffe." We laughed when she then asked if he was saying at least 10-20 words since he usually says that many words in a two minute time span. He also weighed 25 lbs., 12 oz. and is 31" long, so he's growing quite normally.

Getting a good picture with Hey Hey was almost impossible, but it is an accurate representation of Callum's current adventures.

We spent Easter with the Green family, and were able to get a few good pictures of the weekend and his Easter festivities at home.

In other news, we've slowly started preparing for Callum's little brother or sister to arrive at the end of August. We just got a double stroller that Callum loves to climb in and out of, and we may have finally settled on a paint color for the walls in kiddo #2's room. Everything has been going well with the pregnancy so far, and other than trying to survive the last few weeks of school and having extra allergy problems, I've been feeling well.

Here's our official sharing of the news:
Callum obviously approves of the new stroller:

I do it!

For the last couple of weeks, Callum's favorite phrase has been, "I do it!" He usually says it most often during mealtimes and teeth brushing, which is then followed by an ordeal of him trying to do it himself and being a disaster in the process. The last few days, he has taken to saying it about ten times in a row whenever he wants to do something himself.
He says a lot of other words and phrases, and knows most animal sounds. He also takes to repeating some of what we say. Some of the funnier ones he says are "How 'bout?" and when he matter-of-factly says, "Nope." He's also been on a kick of saying, "Hi" to everyone, especially Lola when he gets up from his nap.
Callum has been so active lately it's been hard to get good pictures of him. Hopefully I can get some good ones in the next few days. I tried over spring break this past week, but every time I get the camera out, he then has to go find his camera and pretend to take pictures. These are from a couple of weeks ago.
Bath time is still a favorite, and he loves sticking his head under flowing water.
I went to pick Callum up one day after school, and this is what he was wearing. It was quite a sight to see since the pants are actually pj pants and say sleep tight around the elastic.
I had the last week off with Callum for break, and it was nice just to hang out and relax. He definitely has changed my attitude of spring break, though. It used to be I could work on some house projects and do some good cleaning, but I'll take reading a lot of books and chasing him around the house over that any day. Although, he's been having one font tooth and two bottom molars coming through, so I could have used a bit more down time with naps, but he has still been pretty happy even with dealing with that. We also met Scott for lunch one day, so that was fun.
Hopefully more pictures will come soon!

It's finally warming up!

Now that the ice and snow is finally melting, it makes me a bit more energetic to get things accomplished instead of huddling on the couch to keep warm. It's been a pretty basic winter for us, and Callum is definitely keeping us busy. He's been walking steadily for over a month now--once he realized he could walk faster than he could crawl, he decided it was worthwhile. Now he tries to run lots of places, although that means his top half and bottom half don't always coordinate so he runs into things like he's a bit tipsy. Last weekend was his first big injury from it--he ran and tripped headfirst into the corner of the couch and had a nice knot on his head the rest of the day, but it was gone by the next day and now he just has a light bruise.
I realized I haven't updated since Christmas, so just for the sake of keeping this sort-of accurate, here are a few pictures. It already seems so long ago!
Here is Christmas at my parents. Callum was definitely overwhelmed after a few presents, but he was a trooper and made it through Chrsitmas there and at my grandparents' house.


Next up was Christmas at home. Callum was so pooped out from all of the other festivities, we waited a few days. Notice the large blank space in the background? That's where our Christmas tree was, but by the time we recovered enough to have yet another Christmas, we had already put the tree away. Callum didn't seem to care, though.

We used some Christmas money to get Callum his very own chair since he was always trying to sit in his travel high chair. So far he loves it, and he will entertain himself for ages by taking books to it and reading in it.
He's definitely gotten more fearless as he's become more mobile. Apparently, climbing into the bottom shelf was just too easy.
We're not doing a picture every month for an update, but here's his 15-month picture with Hey Hey. The Foot Book had to make it in the picture too. It was a favorite for quite a while, but has decreased on the popularity a bit in the last few days.

Long Overdue Update

Where has November and December gone? Clearly I am a slacker at updating--I decided once Callum turned one, we didn't need the monthly Hey Hey picture, but I may have to reinstate it just to make sure I update regularly. I'd like to say we have been too busy jet-setting around the world, or something else equally exciting, but it seems like the mundane of cleaning, work, and taking care of a rugrat have gotten the best of us these days.
So without further ado, here's a picture montage of our recent few weeks.
With all the snow, I had to get Callum a hat and mittens. They were a big hit when I tried them on him.
He did get to go out and enjoy the snow a bit.
Climbing on everything is also a new favorite activity, and we've been working on teaching him how to vacuum since he loves to play with it. Unfortunately Callum's a bit too short to be able to push it back and forth. Not to mention the front of the vacuum is way cooler than the back, which makes it harder to use.
The Christmas tree lights have been on more often this year than years past. Whenever Callum wakes up, he automatically asks for "tee" when coming into the living room, and he loves pointing out all the ornaments.

Callum has already celebrated the Green Christmas, and has been thoroughly enjoying his presents. He did a great job with opening his gifts, and even scoped out his cousins' gifts for them.
All of them looking up--not an easy feat!


Here's what we've been up to on our time off this week:
Climbing into cabinets, and playing with the salad spinner, which is always a hit. If only he'd organize cabinets as he climbs into them.
Building snowmen--well, I built the snowman (don't make too much fun of it, and yes, I did cheat and just make it on the deck), and Callum got to enjoy it.
Lola's obviously a fan as well.
Merry Christmas to everyone!

Party #2 and Trick-or-treat

(Sorry in advance for the wonky font sizes--Blogger has not cooperated with me the last couple of nights and I finally give up.)
On the weekend after his birthday, Callum got to experience his second birthday party to be able to celebrate with my side of the family. Not that our families don't get along, but our house just isn't big enough to accommodate both sides at once. I don't think Callum was upset, though, since it meant more partying with presents and cake!
He definitely was more alert this time with opening his presents. I guess he just needed to practice first to get the hang of it, although his favorites were definitely the cards people gave him.

This time we did cake instead of cupcakes, and he was definitely more curious with it, but not much made it into his mouth. Apparently eating cake is so last week and all the cool kids squish it instead.
Obviously there was no shortage of people to take pictures of him eating cake!
One of his favorite presents was the Weeble treehouse Grammy and Grandpa got him--he shrieked any time someone would turn the crank for the Weebles to slide. Now he's learned how to get the noises to go just by pressing the button, so he does that to find a song to dance to.

Enjoying Papaw time at the party.

Hmm. Maybe the bat and ball set Uncle Andy D. got him wasn't such a good idea after all. Wonder if the set comes with a new flat screen if needed then?

In keeping with the theme, Callum went as an elephant for Halloween and we visited a few houses. He didn't get any candy, but we sure enjoyed it! He did get some animal crackers and a book to enjoy, though.


For his one-year stats, he is 29.5" long and 21 lbs., 11 0z. Still a smaller peanut, but growing healthy and steadily. We'll definitely take it considering he's been extremely healthy in his first year and generally quite happy. He's also added one more tooth, putting him at a whopping total of five. Not bad considering two months ago he didn't have any, and we've been fortunate he has been pleasant overall in dealing with them. Today he got his latest round of vaccines and took them like a champ. It was sad to have him screaming in my lap for them, but I think for me it was more painful to watch him later this evening yank off three of the Band-aids without remotely flinching--I wish I had that willpower when it came to ripping them off!
We also took some time to enjoy the nice weather before it fast becomes winter!