23 months

Well, here we are. Hunter's last month of being a one year old!

While I am floored about how fast time has gone by since he was born, I really love the stage that he's at right now. He is just so much fun and such a happy little guy. He does things that make us laugh all of the time and it's just amazing how big of a sponge his little brain is.

We celebrated his 23 month birthday by taking him to Chuck E. Cheese for the first time and he LOVED it. He mostly wanted to play basketball but did run around and do some other things as well. He ate one piece of pizza and then threw the crust down and said "all done" because he wanted to get up and play. He cried when we left but luckily it didn't last too long. I forgot to take pictures....bad mommy.

The other day, he was playing in the drawer where all of the cookie sheets are and pulled out a muffin tin and started saying "muffin". He's never seen me make muffins so I couldn't believe that he knew what it was! He also said "Skype" when we were Skyping with Mimi a few days ago, which he's just picked up by hearing us talk about it, I assume, because I always ask him if he wants to talk to Mimi on the computer rather than using the actual word Skype.

Now that the weather is nice, we are spending a lot of time outside. He asks to go outside from the minute he wakes up in the morning. It has been a little chilly in the mornings so we usually wait until the afternoon, but he is happy as a clam just running around in our backyard. He also enjoys the playground and loves to play on the slide.

He's quite the helper these days and loves to be included in whatever I am doing. He's been helping with the laundry for some time now and runs in there to help whenever he sees me heading that direction. He helps me put the wet clothes into the dryer and gather up the clean clothes to go fold. He also helps me make the bed by giving me the pillows. Never too soon to get him excited about bed making, I suppose!

He's becoming very independent and is learning to walk down stairs by holding on to the railing. He's still a little timid and wants to hold your hand most of the time, but he can do it by himself if he wants to. He wants to do everything by himself - "Hunter do it", he says.

He's doing great at feeding himself with utensils. I can give him some applesauce or yogurt and let him feed himself with a spoon with minimal mess. When it comes to food, he's also my little vegetarian baby because he's not big on meats at the moment. He'll eat some brisket (although is picky about what kind of brisket...) but if I order him a cheeseburger he'll just pick the cheese off and leave the meat. There isn't a veggie that he doesn't like, thank goodness! His favorite food right now is probably mac and cheese (his typical answer whenever you ask him what he wants to eat).

In addition to his letters and numbers, he now knows 4 shapes - circle, square, triangle, and heart. He loves pointing all of these out whenever he sees them. He floored me the other day when we were driving and saw a school bus...he loves to look for school buses. He said "school bus", and then "two school buses". I couldn't believe that he knows to put the plural form of the word when talking about more than one! He does this for balls, cars, etc. but buses just seems harder to me. So fun. :)