Thomas 16 months & other updates

I opened up my camera's SD card to get the Christmas Eve and Day photos off and discovered I hadn't edited photos since Halloween, so Thomas's 16 month photos were on there along with some thanksgiving, Christmas tree, Christmas PJs, and Isaac's birthday photos. So I added those photos to these blogs and am tossing this one in the mix a little late.

Isaac's Birthday block photos

Extra photos on Thanksgiving weekend

Christmas PJ photos on Nov 30th


So these are Thomas's 16 month photos but I'll share what he's been up to lately at almost 18 months :-) I'll try to get 18 month photos and add them to this blog next week.











As you can see he is super adorable!!! Oh I just want to squeeze him all the time, lol. At the beginning of December I hosted a holiday party for my MoMs group (mothers of multiples) and we had rearranged the kids play room and kitchen, when we put everything back we left off the high chair in the kitchen so now Thomas is in a BIG KID CHAIR! He loves it! He had been sitting in the other ones for a while, but now he has an official spot. We kept the high chair in the dining room because sometimes it's nice to strap him in. But it is super sad for me because it means my baby is growing up. It's crazy how little he seems at this point compared to when we were at this point with Isaac he seemed like such a big boy and I embraced the change and growth. Maybe since this is our last baby it's just a little harder to soak in.

Food! Thomas LOVES food!! And he's not picky, he would eat constantly if we let him, well he basically does. He understands a lot even though he doesn't speak much. He says dad, mom, ball, book. We even heard him say Isaac the other day. This past week when it snow/slushed I asked the kids if they wanted to go outside with me while I shoveled. He ran over and grabbed his shoes ready to put them on.

He is obsessed with my phone, the kids ipads, or the remote. He gets pretty upset when we take them away after he's worked so hard to get to them. The kids ipads are only a problem if they leave them out and low at a level he can find them in our room. They just get them in the AM while I workout and are suppose to put them away in the basket. Thomas will run into my room after we get him out of bed looking for them to see if anyone forgot to put it away.

He loves bath-time and a new year resolution is to give him more baths so he can play. He loves dumping the water out and filling the cups. As for toys he just loves playing with his big siblings things. Isaac got a little track for his birthday that Thomas loves to play with. He also likes cars/trucks, of course books, and BALLS! He loves balls, throwing them and running after them. Before long he'll be playing catch with Isaac. His favorite book is a sesame street Easter board book and a jungle touch and feel book. Last year for Christmas we got him a box of board books, he's loved that set and will sit and take them in and out of the box over and over. He also likes to cook in the play kitchen. He pretends to eat the things the girls make him and he makes a little cappuccino and pretends to drink it. So cute.

He's got 8 teeth (I think). And seems to constantly be fighting a cold. Must be tat immune system boosting up. He had his first bout of throw up sickness just after Thanksgiving. Caught something from the children's museum. We all steered clear of it until the following week when we went back to the children's museum and Mary caught it. Then it made it's rounds in the family. Glad that's out of the way.

He is such joy and I can't believe how fast he's growing up!

Sky Zone, Grinch heads, & Thomas time

Last Friday we attended the Sky Zone Tot time. They had a little special Holiday session. We hadn't been to sky zone in forever, well like 3 years. Isaac was super bummed to miss, but he wouldn't have been able to do tot time anyway (it's for five and under) and it's ridiculously expensive when it's not tot time. But due to some technical errors and having to stand in line for 30 minutes we did get two free 60 minute passes so now we can hopefully take Isaac soon. 

Thomas liked the trampolines but was more enthralled with the balls. Just like his big brother, I think he's going to be into sports. 

The girls loved jumping around. 

Friday morning I had noticed Thomas's eye was all goobered up. It got worse throughout the day Friday and this is what it looked like Saturday when he got up. I had to work so I didn't get to see him that morning, but Kyle sent me this photo, at least he's happy:

Saturday after work I ran to Costco to load up on groceries for the winter break. And we made Grinch heads for dessert. The kids were huge fans!

I worked on Sunday as well. Sunday evening bath-time, just had to capture Thomas's cuteness. They aren't little for long and it feels like this time is just flying by! I can't believe he's already almost 18 months old. And being baby number four baths are few and far in between, lol. We need to do it more often cuz he loves baths. But by the time evening comes it's been a long day and he's exhausted and ready to sleep.

His eye is clearing up. Oddly enough he only had one day of gooey drainage the rest of the time it's just been red on the outside. It's pretty well cleared up now, but you can still see it here on day 3.

Monday morning was nice to all be home as a family, with Kyle off work Monday and Tuesday and me coming off a weekend of working, it was like our weekend.

I had to capture this moment to document it. When one of us goes to the basement, usually to leave since the garage is down there, Thomas will wave through the cat door on the basement door. LOL. If it's me and he's upset it's not a happy wave or peek through, but I think here Kyle had just gone down to grab something so he was checking it out. OH actually Kyle and Isaac were leaving to get Isaac's haircut so he was waving by to them.

And we usually don't put him in footie PJs, but I wanted to put these Christmas ones to use. He reminds me of Mary because she wore these. Funny how we used sleep sacks a lot with Isaac. The girls were mainly in footie PJs and we use sleep sacks with Thomas as well. We are hoping the sleep sack will deter any climbing out of the pack and play. The girls ended up climbing out of their cribs at sometime around this age ::gasp:: I sure hope that doesn't happy with Thomas. We were lucky that Isaac never climbed out. Isaac got his big boy bed shortly after he turned 2 (in preparation for the twins). Man I can't even fathom that with Thomas he just seems so little and I want to keep him that way forever. When Isaac was this age he seemed so big. Crazy how birth order is so different and each one is a completely different experience. 

Kyle's Birthday (& Thomas's ECFE)

Kyle's birthday was Monday. Isaac had an idea to make him a scavenger hunt that morning before he left for school. I was excited and did some research online for various ideas. When Isaac got home I asked if he was ready to make it, he asked "Well didn't you make it while I was at school?" hahaha. "Nope! It was your idea!" 

So we sat down and made about ten clues. When I first asked how many clues we should start with he said "The number of years daddy is". LOL, no again, lets start with 7 or so. 

We ended up with 9 or 10 I think. We both had a lot of funny making it and setting the clues out. Isaac was so excited for daddy to get home. We all hid in the closet as the first clue led him up to the bedroom. 

Deciphering the next clue:

Onto number 6:

Then finished with a handmade card hid behind the TV. :-)

We didn't really have much else planned so it was a great last minute idea from Isaac as a way to show Kyle how special he is to us.

Hanging out before bed. Thomas being cute pretending a calculator is a phone.

Tuesday night that week we made a fire. Sure is a fun way to make it feel like Christmas. And I'm glad I got all the kids stockings finished to hang together this year. Now I'm thinking about making one for Kyle and I so we can have all six stockings hanging.

Wednesday mornings Thomas has ECFE. So fun to do this for him as well. I did it with Isaac and the girls.

Just relaxing, sippin' on bubble juice, LOL!

Thursday night we had plans to celebrate Kyle's birthday. We were going to hit up a book tour at the art museum. I had actually attended it with my book club a few weeks before but wanted to do it again with Kyle. Our sitter was late arriving so we would have been 45 minutes late to the tour so we decided to skip it. Instead we went early to our dinner reservation. So glad they could seat us 1.5 hours before we were scheduled to arrive. AMAZING place: Italian Eatery. My BSF leader had talked about it and we wanted to try it out. Then I realized that on my latest birthday we were IN ITALY and for Kyle's birthday we stuck with the Italian theme. Had to get some Sicilian wine.

The food was amazing and we had a wonderful surprise. My BSF leader had called in a favor for them to bring us dessert! (Turns out she is really good friends with the owners). Such a fun surprise! 

Mailing Letters to Santa

At the start of December I was getting some groceries at Lunds & Byerlys and saw they had a mailbox for Santa letters. I picked up a few of the sheets they provided for the kids so they could write their letters. After a few weeks we made it back to drop them off, on December 16th. Christmas day I checked the mail from the previous day and each of the kids had received a letter back from Santa! Good timing. They also got a coupon for a free cookie next time we go to the grocery store. 

We're getting use out of our inneractive membership. Made a quick visit there Monday for lunch (packed a lunch). 

December Odds and Ends

Thomas got bumped up in his BSF class. This was the Tuesday of Isaac's birthday. He was playing so cute I had to capture him. Then when he saw me through the window he melted down. 

Isaac learning about dreidels at school. His teacher sent out these photos:

One Saturday morning I saw the most prettiest cardinal perched out on this tree during my morning workout.

Last Sunday we took the kids to the art Museum (Minneapolis Institute of Arts) it's been a LOOONG time since we'd been there. We had taken Isaac when he was a baby. They enjoyed it and did well, so I think we can return :-) It was family day which made it nice because there were other kids running around. They were super excited to go with the name of a museum because they love the children's museum and the science museum. So we had to educate them a bit that this was a different kind of museum and they couldn't touch anything. It helped they had a kid art activity set up in one of the rooms for the girls to do.

The girls stayed outside to play one day when they came off the bus from preschool since they already had all their snow gear on. They love sliding down this little 'hill', haha.

We made rice crispy snowmen one day after school. Not quite the pinterst quality but they had fun making them and eating them. Used up the brown rice crispy cereal they refused to eat.

Even though we sprayed hands with oil, Thomas was not a fan of the stickiness. 

Thomas has quite the running nose this week, but he's still super cute!!

Kyle had to work late everyday this past week and I was getting so tired of long evenings so Thursday night we went over to InnerActive, which is an indoor play area. Decided to just get a membership for the month since it's so pricey with one admission for four kids. If we go at least twice in a month it pays for itself so we'll try to get a LOT of use out of it the next month. Good timing with Christmas break coming up.

Games with the girls on Friday after Thomas was down for a nap and before Isaac gets home from school. Making the most of the tiny bits of time. No mama time for herself but I'll have enough of that in 20 years, right?

This was a couple weekends ago when I was at work and Kyle had to get some shoveling done. Took all the kids out to play in the snow. 

Oh and doing lice checks at home. A couple friends of Isaac's had a reported case so we did through checks again (and a few days to follow to be sure) No lice for us! A pain to do the thorough checks but will be worth it to not have a big infestation again. I'm getting faster and more effective at the checks.