Up, Up and Away! We're Past the Month of May!

Hooray!  Atticus is a year and a half old today!   

We'll get my least favorite part of the month out of the way- Atticus got his first molar toward the beginning of May.  It was basically like being sick for a good week.  After finally experiencing a couple weeks of great sleep, I felt like we were starting from scratch. It was definitely a downer.  

But, thank goodness, the tooth is through, so it's all over.  For now... ;)

Other than that ridiculousness, we've had a pretty darn good month.  

Here he is in Grandpa Bob's new tent.  

And we were able to celebrate Memorial Day with the Maes family just a few days ago.  Atticus made us proud with his patriotic fervor.

Holy cow, you'd never know it had taken him so long to start walking.  This little boy is all over the place!-  He's not running yet, but he can definitely speed walk.

Here are a few videos of him, early on...

This video was the first time I was able to catch him walking- it was a week after his first time.  We were at a music class they were offering at our church and I think he just saw the kids and wanted to participate more.

 

And here he is in those early walking days from the front.  Is there anything more adorable than the old man shuffle?
  
He'll still hold our hands on really unpredictable surfaces, but he already likes to let go as much as possible.  It makes me just a teensy bit sad.

We do have to watch him on the slides- he still likes to go head first and did a face plant a few weeks ago.  The brave little tike didn't even cry, but he did have a few cuts on his upper lip!

    

As much as I want him to stay a baby, this stage is SO MUCH FUN!


He can actually get up close and personal with the animals at Farm Country...

 We even got to work in his great-grandparents' garden without having to worry about him eating all the fertilizer in sight.  I know walking makes life a little more complicated and we've already had one skinned knee, but we are LOVING it!

The only thing that's possibly more exciting than all this walking is his increasing ability to communicate.  I can ask him to do simple tasks (throw this away, close/open that, etc.)  It is just mind-blowing for me.  And we love his growing vocabulary!  His two favorite words are "Up" and "Out":

He's also meowing for cats (this is new) and is learning how to blow kisses (we.still have to work on the blowing part.)

Ah, we seriously love this age!  He is always making us laugh.

He walks around in circles like a drunken sailor- he has all sorts of errands he has to run (putting a shoe on dad's pillow, putting pens in the dishwasher).  He'll chase after us with his dinosaur, roaring all the way.  He loves to attack us, especially if we're laying on the ground.  We just love this wrestle-snuggling, as we've come to call it.

Here he is, trying to blow bubbles (he can't ever just watch us blow them!- he has to try to blow them himself, which often involves chewing on the wand...)

 Here he is on a self-inflicted time out?  He seemed perfectly content to just be sitting there.

He loves the few family pictures we have in frames and brings them to me and sets them up with his toys.  Here we can see my sister Trace's kids.  Maybe they're his playmates?

Trying to figure out his Momma's hat. :)

 So this is one of the naughtiest things he does- he loves to pull out the oven drawer so that he can climb up and see what's cooking.  We're trying to break him of this, but it can be tough when I turn my back for a second and then catch him sneaking some onion.  All I could do was laugh and scramble to find my camera.

 Whenever he holds a phone, he puts it right up to his forehead.  He'll walk around with it, bringing it up and down to his forehead and chatting away.  I can't help wondering if this is how we look to our kids- totally oblivious to things around us with the phone up to our heads.  Makes me feel a little guilty for all the time I spend...

We also try to "play the piano" just about every day.  It's fun to see him going from just pounding and climbing the piano all the time to actually playing individual notes every so often.  I especially love his bouncing legs.  :)

We love that he'll still play peek-a-boo with us and walking makes it all the more interesting.  He runs into a closet and closes and opens the sliding doors, peeking his head out of each side.  So much fun! 

Oh, how we live for this laugh.