21 Months

Time is flying!  It seems I neglected to actually post these pictures of my handsome little man...and now he is almost 22 months!

Judah contintues to be a lot of fun! We have definitely entered the establishing independence and testing boundaries phase, which is not fun...but it is amazing to visibly see little ones learning!

Judah continues to learn new words every day and is regularly putting multiple words together.

 

Again less than thrilled to be taking pictures

A book distraction.  Current favorites include: the Carl books, a Pumpkin Prayer, and Go Dogs Go

He continues to be fascinated by the trash truck and moving the trash cans out to the street and back.  His fascination is expanding to include all things that move...especially airplanes, helicopters, buses, big trucks, and motorcycles. Oh and trains...he and daddy like to go to Hermann park and ride the train that goes all around the park when mommy works on the weekends.  Recently we got to visit some of Daddy's work friends who had horses and a tractor!

He continues to grow taller and taller! 

Over the past couple months he has developed an "attachment" to a furry sleeping companion "Puppy" who more often now is also needing to travel with us various places. Its pretty cute.

Other favorite activities include: jumping and crashing on the couch or bed, being outside/going on walks.

He continues to enjoy music class (especially drums and lately has been interested in Mr. Jonathan's violin); and he and Miss Jamie have started going to the library story hour weekly.

 

Judah and mommy have also been doing some baking together recently.  Judah seems to really enjoy cooking :)  Thankfully he continues to be a good eater!

 

Most recently, Judah went for his first official haircut last weekend because Daddy said his hair was too long.  Mommy was so sad to see the curls go, but hopefully they will grow back soon!

St Louis

We have been blessed to take two trips to St. Louis this year to visit Jake's brother and his family.  As I prepared a post about our more recent trip I realize I never shared cute pictures from our first trip...so I will combine them now.

Trip 1- April 2013

To meet our new niece Cora!

 Daddy Jonathan rocking and singing to Baby Cora

 Uncle Jonathan and Judah

 Cute little cousins!

Judah 15 months, Cora almost 1 month

Trip 2- July 2013

This time to celebrate Papa's 60th Birthday!

A family trip to the zoo

Judah enjoying some blueberries in Baby Cora's Bumbo

Daddy cuddling pretty Baby Cora.  I think Judah must have been napping or he would have been jealous and in Daddy's lap too!

Here we are singing "Happy Birthday" to Papa!

Unfortunately, this time around we failed to take a picture of the little cousins together :(

the benefits of the bulk head seats on the airplane...more room for little ones to wonder and space to create an extra seat for reading entertainment :)

18 Months

I am late in posting this, but here are pictures of an 18 month old Judah!  Growing bigger and maturing ALL the time!  Definitely not a baby anymore...

Sadly just before we took these pictures he took a spill and crashed into the floor, resulting in a purple fat lip! Our first real ouchie :( But he took it like a tough guy and it healed up in a couple days.

Judah is very tall!  His 18 Month Growth Stats:

Weight: 23 lbs 14.5 oz (45%)

Height: 34 1/4 inches (93%!!!)

Head: 18 1/2 inches (39%)

Judah is also quite verbal for his age and picks up several new words everyday and is starting to regularly put words together now.  He continues to love books, knows most of his body parts, with special interest in eyes, knees and "bows" (elbows).

Judah's favorite interest currently is TRASH!

He loves to put things in the trash, quickly spots and points out all the trash cans wherever we go, and likes to watch the garbage trucks pick up the trash.  Who knew how exciting trash could be?!?

Other favorite activities include playing with play dough, swinging and playing outside, going for walks, music and dancing, baths and showers, helping with house tasks and typing on the "puter."  He also really likes the dogs, still referring to Battlecat as "Bat," but starting to say "Kelsey."  He especially likes to help feed them and to give them treats.  He also likes to tell them to be "quiet" when they are barking.  We had a fun time with music class this summer...and Judah has started to develop an interested in trains, as one of the songs was about a train.  He also likes to play with drums, the piano and the guitar  or "tar."
Favorite foods include: charro beans, cheese, berries, marinara sauce, veggies and "butter" (peanut butter).  He also seems to prefer his meats a little spicy.

My handsome little boy :)

Other Fun Summer Activities

We have found many fun things to do together over the past few months, here are some of our favorite:

 

Judah's 1st trip to the Museum of Natural Science to see the Dinosaurs!

Judah enjoyed himself, but Daddy was definitely more excited than Judah...he's sure that will all change in the future though :)

Picking strawberries at the local Froberg Farm.  Judah thought is was quite exciting to put the berries into the bucket and get to carry it around

Brazos Bend State Park- to see the alligators and do some hiking.  We saw many alligators hiding in the waters and even saw one jump in the water.

Galveston for Judah's 1st trip to the beach.  Our friends the Green's invited us to visit them one day at the beach house they were staying in.  Judah likes water and thought the waves coming in were pretty interesting and was willing to wade pretty deep. 

Jake even tried surfing!  Unfortunately no pictures of that as they primarily did this while I was putting J down for a nap.

The Houston Zoo: on our most recent trip the Chimps were very interactive

We have also been doing Baby and Mommy/Daddy swimming lessons.  Here Judah is learning to climb out on the side of the pool.

Finally, Judah has become very interested in music.  Almost as soon as he wakes up in the morning he says "song" and runs out to the music player and repeatedly requests the music.  When he's not outside, he can be found inside dancing to the music and exploring the piano or guitar.  He also requests "song" upon getting in the car. 

Given the improved 2nd year schedule, Judah and I were able to sign up for a music class together this summer.  The songs are fun and we have been enjoying it.  They also have a cute mini grand piano in the play room that Judah likes to play on.

Judah LOVES to be outside

Despite the Houston heat, which has been much less humid than normal, Judah prefers to spend most of his time outside and is loving having a large yard to play in.
Some of the activities he enjoys are:

Painting the patio with water

Playing with his water table

Playing in his pool

Going for walks--in the stoller, in the backpack and walking/running himself

Climbing, Sliding and Playing on the play house at our friend's house. 
He particularly likes to try to climb up slides!

The dogs don't mind being outside either...and enjoy chasing the squirrels that run along the fence, so much so that poor Kelsey often has developed a limp from jumping on the fence

 

Bcat has always been a big fan of soaking up the sun

And swinging
This is at Grandma's house where he is surprisingly very good at the big boy swing
But while we were away, Daddy hung a swing for Judah at home too!

I should also mention that Judah LOVES playing with bubbles, I just don't have a picture of it :)

The sudden return of blogging is brought to you by being a 2nd year fellow...now with time to breath and do other things too!

Judah Likes to Help

Whatever task we happen to be doing lately, Judah likes to "help" and do it too :)

He's definitely at a fun age!

And he's recently discovered my stethoscope and likes to walk around wearing it

Vigil Family Reunion

Judah and I were able to make a special trip to Utah at the end of June for a Vigil family reunion.

We began our time in SLC with a trip to the Hogle Zoo with Grandma, Abuelita and Elliana.

We were able to see Grandma's favorite, the elephants...and caught mommy and baby nuzzling

Posing with Mommy's favorite

Judah and Elli in front of the bears

video of the really cool polar bear

Then Papa Joe came for a visit before we headed out to Duchesne/Vernal

Then we spent two days on the lake, first Starvation and then Red Fleet

Judah was so excited about the water he could just NOT wait to touch it...so I hung him over the side of the boat and put his feet in :)

He also enjoyed driving the boat with his cousin Ayden

Cousins

He also really liked playing in the mud and water

All the Vigil cousins, who haven't been together in years and years!!!

All the cousins with their babies :)  It was so fun to have everyone together, especially all the babies!

We ended our time at the lake by taking Judah and Ayden on a gentle tube ride.  Ayden fell asleep and Judah kept saying "more, more"

All in all this little sailor very much enjoyed his time at the lake!

It was also my first time traveling alone with Judah, and he did a pretty good job. He is an active toddler though and 5 minutes after we had gotten onto the last plane, the man sitting in front of  us turned around and said "stop touching my seat."  This is not going to go well I thought, as one of Judah's favorite activities on a plane is taking everything out of the seatback pocket and putting it back in, over and over again!  I knew Judah was tired, so I picked him up and said "Do you want to go night-night?"  Amazingly, he laid his head on my chest and went to sleep and slept the entire flight!!!  Judah never goes to sleep that easily, so that was definitely God's grace to me!

Here he is enjoying a snack while we wait for our luggage

Once the suitcase was emptied I guess he thought it would make a good seat
He tried to buckle himself in with the straps :)
And I see all these picture show well that his legs are very long!