Morning light

Mac loves his mornings and he loves the backyard. It is fun to be with him as the sun rises. 

Reminds me of early dawn walks with KR when she was a little one. 

I think he spotted the setting moon...

Good night, good night, construction site

Mac'a newfound love of trucks extends to books about trucks, such as Good Night Construction Site. In the book, one of the trucks goes to sleep with a lovey on its head. 

Today Mac received an amazing cement mixer from Tia. After playing with it for quite a while he and the truck apparently got tired. 

He put his favorite lovey on the truck's 'head' and gave it his paci while

He was at it. 

(His sweetness kills me!!!)

Cozy mornings

Here's a post from early November that didn't load properly. 

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New collection of footie PJs is making for cozier mornings. 

Our days are still way too hot and sunny to be "autumn" so it's still shortsleeve weather in the daytime!

Breaking dawn

Mac has a new habit of getting up at 5:29am on the nose. 

He wants a bottle and a book and will not be convinced to do anything else, even though it's pitch black outside.  

While I would greatly appreciate an additional 30 minutes of sleep, I also love getting an extra bit of quieter, cozier time with this little man. 

He's so much fun to play with *and* he understands my need for coffee. I press the button on the machine and he says "coffee!"

Lately he's been giving lots of love to our collection of babies. We might have to ask Santa to bring Mac a baby of his own. 

He's feeding big doll Cheerios this morning. 

And giving baby a toy. 

Have a seat

Out takes from yesterday's photo shoot. Which ended up being all out takes, no keepers. 

But with these two, even the out takes aren't too bad. 

Morning

Just a little quiet time this morning before the rest of the family woke up.

No matter what he's doing, he'll always stop to wave at a passing airplane. 

Time for breakfast. (I made him waffles and banana chunks but he preferred to gnaw on my dry Ezekiel bread.)

He settled on a hybrid of both. 

His cheek "boo boo" is getting so much better, don't you think? No matter what, he is my handsome little man.  

ps: his vocab is growing by the day.  In addition to all the old standards, he says pumpkin (in a way that only his family recognizes - sounds more like pika), noise/noisy, uppy, "all done!", down!, night-night, baby, broom, and bravo...plus on occasion birdie, apple, and many other words he will hear and then repeat if he so chooses.

Plus, he understands so much!  If you ask him to "go give the book to daddy" he will take the book into the study and hand it to Matt.  Today he told me "poo poo" and pointed to his diaper.  I said, "Let's go change diaper, Mackie!" so he walked happily with me to his room and pulled out a wipe from the wipe-holder, and handed it to me.  What a helper!!!

Bubbler

Good times continue at the water table. 

Agua mania

Mac's Tia gave him an amazing gift yesterday -- a water table to indulge his great love of AGUA!

He has played with it non stop and it never fails to delight. 

The biggest challenges are getting him to stop drinking the water (gross!) ...

and actually getting him to leave the table at all!

He is such a big boy!!

Splash

This little man LOVES playing in the water. Aka Aqua!!

Other words he says now:

Apple

eee-os (Cheerios)

Niño (child in Spanish)

Vaca (cow)

Owee (when he gets a scrape)

Hola

Mas or more

Mana (his word for banana)

Up

Down

And the old standards Ball, Mama, Dada, no-no (now often accompanied by a finger wag)... And his own words for Katie Ray and dog, plus he calls his best friends by name: arkin, and te-seeta (theresita)

Bath time can be a struggle in our house because he loves water so much. He insists on the hand spray and the tub filler going. And shrieks if they aren't. And stands up and turns them on himself!!

It definitely helps if he has the happy distraction of his fave big girl to Keep him company!

License to drive

Mac-isms

There are so many cute things my little Mac does that I'm afraid time will erase in my memory, so I'm jotting them down here, even if I don't have corresponding pics. 

Mac adores his sister. She can turn his tears to laughter and he is transfixed by her.  He has a name for Katie Ray that sounds like Deeda. I think it's "sister" but I can't be sure, might be his version of Katie Ray. 

He also adores Champ and tries to sneak him food from his own plate (less 'sneak,' more 'get dog's attention then start dropping tons of food into his mouth') and has a word for him and all other dogs. 

He loves to wave. When he hears an airplane or motorcycle, he always looks for the source of the noise and then waves. Even if we are inside and it's clear the source is not nearby!  

He also waves goodnight to everyone. I just went in to check on him (11pm) and he looked up from the crib, lifted himself up, waved at me, then plopped back down. Eeek, even thinking about the cuteness is too much for me!

Hallelujah, he FINALLY says "mama"!!! He probably started saying it on occasion a week ago and now he says it often. Nowhere near on the scale of how often (and often randomly) he says Dada, but I am just so happy to hear my name!!

He really understands language now. Last week I asked him to put something on his head and he did it. Today we were in his room and he was playing with Katie Ray's huge (practically his own size) teddy bear and I said "do you want bear to sleep in the crib?" He started to laugh and dragged the bear over to the crib, and with great effort pulled the bear into the crib. Then (with my help) he pulled him out, kissed his nose several times, then went and pulled out a new wipe and started cleaning the bear.  Adorable. 

Last but not least for tonight, his love of the cleaning tools (brooms, rags, mops, rakes, brushes) has not diminished.