1.28.2011

16 Months Too Old

Is it possible to feel like 16 months is too old? Well, that is how we feel about Dean. He is just so smart and seemingly smarter and more able to do big boy things everyday. Here are a few of the recent things he's been doing that are such big adventures for all of us.

One of the new things we've been trying to teach him is how to walk to us when we ask him to, so that we don't have to carry him everywhere. For example, Brittany is 6 months+ pregnant and has to drop James off at work and school every MWF, which includes carrying and then getting Dean in and out of his carseat several times. This is quite the test for a little guy who is mostly trapped inside our small apartment all day long! Notice his attempted-escape turned slip-in-the-snow pictures that were taken this Monday while mommy was attempting the aforementioned walking lesson.

Singing is also a new and exciting thing for Dean. He can sing his ABC's all the way through on a good day, and is actually pretty intelligible for a 16 month old. We love hearing him try to sing along to all his favorite songs and then clap when done.


 Reading his books. He has systematically memorized his favorite sounds and words in all of his books. We read them to him often, but mostly when he says, "story?" Lately, however, he has learned that he can grab them off of the window-sill in his room himself and then will proceed to read them, particularly his favorite pages in each. It's pretty cool to see how much he remembers and what things he associates with on each page. We are so glad he loves to read!

Now that his toddler bed has been set up in his room, we have endeavored to get him to take naps in it during the day. We thought it would be much harder than it is. He has taken to it quite well.

Praying. He now knows to fold his arms when he sees us folding ours in preparation for prayer, and can say "Heavenly Father" and "Namen" at the appropriate times. We have even had some success in getting him to repeat short prayers. He never repeats "in the name of Jesus Christ" though, whenever we say that, he just automatically says "Namen!" because he knows that's how you end a prayer. It brings us so much joy to see him learning to do this.

Lastly, dancing and trying to play Dad's french horn have brought smiles to our faces within these past few days. Whenever he hears music he will bob his head, squat and jump up, and wave his arms around, especially if mommy and daddy are doing it to. And of course when Dad got out the french horn to practice he had to say "do do doo!" into the mouthpiece.

Well, we hope you enjoy these little updates, since it's so hard to relate all the cute and wonderful things he does everyday to make ordinary life into such an adventure.

Love,

The James Anderson Family

2 comments:

  1. Love these new pictures so much! Thanks so much for putting this site together so that I can feel more like I'm there with you guys! Love it, love it, love it!

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  2. We're so glad you can enjoy it with us; the blog is a success if that's true! LOVE YOU!

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