Landon is TWO AND A HALF!
He now stands 3'0.5" tall (68th percentile) (which, according to legend, will make him 6'1" at full height), and he weighs 30lb 3.5oz (56th percentile).
Landon celebrated his half birthday this month - 2.5 years old! He ate halved things with candles all day and had a dance party to celebrate. He even got a hat from our favorite garbage truck driver on his half birthday (unrelated, but the timing worked out well). He still really enjoys trash days and now chases the trucks down the street.
We're working hard on potty training. He has done great so far, but we've still got a ways to 'go'.
Landon knows almost all of the 50 U.S. states. (Early on while potty training I was trying to think of the longest songs I knew to keep him entertained enough to stay sitting on the potty, and "Fifty Nifty" was one that came to mind. Let's just say we've spent our fair share of time sitting and singing lately...enough for him to memorize most of the 50 states in alphabetical order.) ;-) My favorites are North and South Kadota. https://youtu.be/Ni4Ctfo9qP0
His favorite things are puzzles, music, reading, Thomas the Train, Sunday Movie Night, role playing, snacks, going to "Jacob's house," baking, construction vehicles, his little sister's toys, Addison Rogers, looking at pictures and videos, decorations, pretending to drive, dessert, science experiments, putting black olives on his fingers and out-of-the-house-adventures.
She began eating finger foods this month.
Her 2 bottom teeth popped through!
She pulls herself up to stand and now cruises while holding on to furniture...and just recently figured out how to sit back down from a standing position.
Our little girl crawls all over the place.
She even climbs up the stairs.
She can say Mama now. She doesn't...but she can. She really only says it when she is in desperation for food or being picked up.
Brooklyn still thinks Landon is the best and funniest person around...and he adores her now as well.
She loves looking in mirrors and at pictures of people, being held upside-down, bath time, following her big brother around, standing up, finger foods, being tickled, being held or in the front pack and the outdoors.
We started out the month with Babcia and Papou in town to visit.
We even made it out to the beach one day. This was Brooklyn's first time in the ocean and first experience of freedom in the sand. Landon is certainly not a beach bum - the waves are scary and the sand is dirty...understandable. But Brooklyn seemed to enjoy everything about it, especially the dirty sand (although there isn't photographic evidence of it, she had a blast)!
We started going to a Messy Play class for our little guy who loves art. It's been a lot of fun for him! Since the class happens to be right by the Harveston Lake, we've been eating lunch after class next to the lake then feeding the ducks. All of the morning hullabaloo makes for good naps that afternoon. ;-)
We attended the annual Greek Festival in Old Town Temecula. This year Peter, Amber, Jacob and Zoe joined us for the festivities. The highlight for us was watching the Landon and Zoe duo dance act. While watching the Greek dance school kids perform Landon kept asking Daniel if it was his turn yet. Both Landon and his little cousin have a great love for music and dancing, and it was really fun for us to see them enjoy themselves on the dancefloor in between the 'real' Greek dancers.
We have really enjoyed this month of pumpkins! We took a couple of trips to pumpkin patches, which was a lot of fun, especially for Landon! His favorite parts of pumpkin patching were "driving" the tractors (just like last year) and the petting zoo. Brooklyn seemed to enjoy the pumpkin stems the most...and shade.
Every day that our Halloween decorations were out Landon asked, "Mama, is it Halloween?" I felt so bad saying, "No, not for another 28 days." that we often celebrated pretend Halloween by putting blankets over our heads and pretending to be ghosts. He seems to love all of the décor. In fact, when I started unloading the decoration bin Landon climbed up to the counter and saw 3 orange and black tin pails and immediately exclaimed, "Thank you, Mama! Thank you for my buckets!" I started to say, "Uhhhh, you're welcome?" How could I say no to that? So from that moment on they were his. He got better use out of them than I would have anyway. They housed his Halloween bears, carried toys from room to room and acted as pretend brownie mixing bowls & cooking pans.
He seemed to be pretty spooked yet intrigued by Halloween sounds and creatures. Once he heard/saw something and was expecting it he would request the spooky sound or to see the skeleton/ghost/etc..
I got to go on a girls' weekend in Newport Beach while Brooklyn stayed with Grammie & Papa and Landon & Dada enjoyed a boys' weekend. We all had a great time - I was able to relax with good friends, Brooklyn had some 1 on 2 bonding time with Grammie & Papa and Landon & Daniel had a blast. The boys went to the botanical gardens in Escondido, BBQ'd with friends, went to "the fountain" and did some manly bonding.
We had pumpkin carving night with the other Temecula Kelepouris' (Daniel's brother and fam). Landon and Jacob's pumpkins came out great, although Brooklyn's was my favorite.
This was Brooklyn's first time Trick or Treating, and Landon had a much better understanding of what was going on than in past years. But before we headed out to beg neighbors for chocolate with our big group of kiddos and friends, we had some festive fun at our house.
Landon's first fear in life was ghosts. We don't know where it came from (about 8 months ago), but for about 6 months he claimed there were ghosts in different rooms of our house. After different failed tactics to resolve this fear, I decided to introduce myself to our friendly ghosts and shake their hands. We were so pleased that Landon joined in on the fun and did the same. We didn't anticipate, however, that he would want to dress as a ghost for his Halloween costume. He did, though, and was stuck on this once he made up his mind. We looked at images of "cute toddler ghost costumes" for inspiration, and the one he set his sights on was the scariest and ugliest masked ghost (which he named "the roar ghost" because of the face that looked like it was roaring). Luckily he didn't put up too much of a fight when I said I couldn't find that mask. Halloween morning I strapped a cape on him for fun, and he decided that he wanted to be Dracula instead of a ghost. We already had everything to turn him into Dracula, so that was easy. When asked what Dracula says, he would respond with his deep Dracula voice, "I vant to suck your blood!" Brooklyn was dressed as a pumpkin, wearing the costume I wore for my first Halloween.
At the end of the night Daniel played mad scientist with the leftover dry ice from the party. We had a great time with the fun experiments!
See you next month!
October Bloopers:
He now stands 3'0.5" tall (68th percentile) (which, according to legend, will make him 6'1" at full height), and he weighs 30lb 3.5oz (56th percentile).
Landon celebrated his half birthday this month - 2.5 years old! He ate halved things with candles all day and had a dance party to celebrate. He even got a hat from our favorite garbage truck driver on his half birthday (unrelated, but the timing worked out well). He still really enjoys trash days and now chases the trucks down the street.
We're working hard on potty training. He has done great so far, but we've still got a ways to 'go'.
Landon knows almost all of the 50 U.S. states. (Early on while potty training I was trying to think of the longest songs I knew to keep him entertained enough to stay sitting on the potty, and "Fifty Nifty" was one that came to mind. Let's just say we've spent our fair share of time sitting and singing lately...enough for him to memorize most of the 50 states in alphabetical order.) ;-) My favorites are North and South Kadota. https://youtu.be/Ni4Ctfo9qP0
His favorite things are puzzles, music, reading, Thomas the Train, Sunday Movie Night, role playing, snacks, going to "Jacob's house," baking, construction vehicles, his little sister's toys, Addison Rogers, looking at pictures and videos, decorations, pretending to drive, dessert, science experiments, putting black olives on his fingers and out-of-the-house-adventures.
Brooklyn is 9 months old, and she is 28.25" long (75th percentile) and weighs 18lb 9.5oz (58th percentile).
She began eating finger foods this month.
Her 2 bottom teeth popped through!
She pulls herself up to stand and now cruises while holding on to furniture...and just recently figured out how to sit back down from a standing position.
Our little girl crawls all over the place.
She even climbs up the stairs.
She can say Mama now. She doesn't...but she can. She really only says it when she is in desperation for food or being picked up.
Brooklyn still thinks Landon is the best and funniest person around...and he adores her now as well.
She loves looking in mirrors and at pictures of people, being held upside-down, bath time, following her big brother around, standing up, finger foods, being tickled, being held or in the front pack and the outdoors.
We started out the month with Babcia and Papou in town to visit.
We even made it out to the beach one day. This was Brooklyn's first time in the ocean and first experience of freedom in the sand. Landon is certainly not a beach bum - the waves are scary and the sand is dirty...understandable. But Brooklyn seemed to enjoy everything about it, especially the dirty sand (although there isn't photographic evidence of it, she had a blast)!
I took the kids to the library the day they had a fire station event. We snuck in to see the firemen and truck because Landon loves fire trucks! He really liked it from afar but had a bit of nerves when he got up on the big truck by himself so that I could snap a picture.
We started going to a Messy Play class for our little guy who loves art. It's been a lot of fun for him! Since the class happens to be right by the Harveston Lake, we've been eating lunch after class next to the lake then feeding the ducks. All of the morning hullabaloo makes for good naps that afternoon. ;-)
We attended the annual Greek Festival in Old Town Temecula. This year Peter, Amber, Jacob and Zoe joined us for the festivities. The highlight for us was watching the Landon and Zoe duo dance act. While watching the Greek dance school kids perform Landon kept asking Daniel if it was his turn yet. Both Landon and his little cousin have a great love for music and dancing, and it was really fun for us to see them enjoy themselves on the dancefloor in between the 'real' Greek dancers.
We have really enjoyed this month of pumpkins! We took a couple of trips to pumpkin patches, which was a lot of fun, especially for Landon! His favorite parts of pumpkin patching were "driving" the tractors (just like last year) and the petting zoo. Brooklyn seemed to enjoy the pumpkin stems the most...and shade.
Every day that our Halloween decorations were out Landon asked, "Mama, is it Halloween?" I felt so bad saying, "No, not for another 28 days." that we often celebrated pretend Halloween by putting blankets over our heads and pretending to be ghosts. He seems to love all of the décor. In fact, when I started unloading the decoration bin Landon climbed up to the counter and saw 3 orange and black tin pails and immediately exclaimed, "Thank you, Mama! Thank you for my buckets!" I started to say, "Uhhhh, you're welcome?" How could I say no to that? So from that moment on they were his. He got better use out of them than I would have anyway. They housed his Halloween bears, carried toys from room to room and acted as pretend brownie mixing bowls & cooking pans.
 |
| Pretending to be a witch with Brooklyn's Trick or Treating bucket as a hat and a toy barbell as his broomstick |
I got to go on a girls' weekend in Newport Beach while Brooklyn stayed with Grammie & Papa and Landon & Dada enjoyed a boys' weekend. We all had a great time - I was able to relax with good friends, Brooklyn had some 1 on 2 bonding time with Grammie & Papa and Landon & Daniel had a blast. The boys went to the botanical gardens in Escondido, BBQ'd with friends, went to "the fountain" and did some manly bonding.
We had pumpkin carving night with the other Temecula Kelepouris' (Daniel's brother and fam). Landon and Jacob's pumpkins came out great, although Brooklyn's was my favorite.
This was Brooklyn's first time Trick or Treating, and Landon had a much better understanding of what was going on than in past years. But before we headed out to beg neighbors for chocolate with our big group of kiddos and friends, we had some festive fun at our house.
Landon's first fear in life was ghosts. We don't know where it came from (about 8 months ago), but for about 6 months he claimed there were ghosts in different rooms of our house. After different failed tactics to resolve this fear, I decided to introduce myself to our friendly ghosts and shake their hands. We were so pleased that Landon joined in on the fun and did the same. We didn't anticipate, however, that he would want to dress as a ghost for his Halloween costume. He did, though, and was stuck on this once he made up his mind. We looked at images of "cute toddler ghost costumes" for inspiration, and the one he set his sights on was the scariest and ugliest masked ghost (which he named "the roar ghost" because of the face that looked like it was roaring). Luckily he didn't put up too much of a fight when I said I couldn't find that mask. Halloween morning I strapped a cape on him for fun, and he decided that he wanted to be Dracula instead of a ghost. We already had everything to turn him into Dracula, so that was easy. When asked what Dracula says, he would respond with his deep Dracula voice, "I vant to suck your blood!" Brooklyn was dressed as a pumpkin, wearing the costume I wore for my first Halloween.
At the end of the night Daniel played mad scientist with the leftover dry ice from the party. We had a great time with the fun experiments!
See you next month!
October Bloopers:
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| "I'm not so sure I like the taste of this." |
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| Picture taken post-grocery-store-floor-angel-tantrum, army crawling out the door. Why? Because I wouldn't buy him a ball |
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| So bad. |
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| "I hate pictures!" |
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