23 Months

So, about a week after Leif's 22 month mark, I realized that I hadn't done a post on him. I decided it was too late to try to catch up and decided to just wait until 23 months. Leif is a funny little fellow. While he is getting much more comfortable with other people, he likes to make sure I'm there and paying plenty of attention when I am with him. Many times throughout the day he says "Hey, Mom" and waits for me to say "Hey, Leif". If he is close enough to me when he says it, he will pat me softly. Its so sweet. He also likes to come up to me and put his arm around my legs or back (if we are on the same level) and lean his head up against me. He does it to Austin too, but not quite as much. He is such a little love bug.
Leif continues to love to cook. We have a big ordeal on our hands if I won't let him sit up by the stove and do whatever I'm doing while I make dinner. He is happy if I just give him and empty pot and spoon to stir while I'm cutting and preparing food, but once I actually start cooking he has to be involved too. We have been really harsh about telling him how hot it is and that he is not allowed to touch it, but it still scares me a bit to have him there, especially when he and Asher start arguing about who gets to sit where and with which spoon.
Leif's favorite book of late is "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" which he just calls "Two Fish". We have to read it every naptime and bedtime and he almost always wants me to read it over and over, but I just tell him no. One time is usually my limit, sometime two. I like the book, but it gets a little repetitive. Austin hates the book and won't ever read it. Yesterday I got out "Where the Wild Things Are" just for something new to read and it has become an immediate favorite. In the last 24 hours I have read it no fewer than 20 times. He also likes to carry it around and "read" it to himself. I caught some pictures of him doing that this morning. Please note that the book is upside down :) Even when I turned it around for him, he turned it back.

Something I think is quite peculiar, but Austin thinks is normal, is that Leif insists that Asher's name is Leif too. I've asked him to say Asher so I know he can say it pretty clearly, but whenever he refers to Asher he calls him Leif. He has a funny thing he likes to do if Asher leaves his dinner uneaten (which is about 95% of the time) even if Leif hasn't eaten all of his dinner he says "I eat Leif's food all gone" and runs over to Asher's chair to eat his food. Sometimes this spurs Asher to run over and eat his own food, but not always. Leif is very fond of bossing Asher around or telling him he can't do something. Asher usually gets all upset and says "Leif said I can't . . ." and I have to remind him that Leif isn't in charge and just because Leif said he couldn't do something doesn't stop him from doing it.
Leif has now reached the age that Austin likes the very best. He can communicate (even though he doesn't always use that skill) and he is super fun. He and Asher love to get into all kinds of trouble together and we love being the parents of these silly boys. Here are the rest pictures I got of the two little trouble-makers together checking out their jack-o-lanterns.

Halloween Themed Sleepover

Its been months since we had Paul and Ben over for a sleepover, so we decided it was time. Amanda came over for the first few hours too, but she isn't quite old enough for a sleepover yet. We started the fun out with sugar cookie decorating. Amanda was part of that, but preferred to wander around the kitchen instead of sitting up to the table. She didn't really want to decorate either, but just told me what she wanted. Asher helped me make cookies the night before and wanted to make a special cookie for Amanda. First he wanted to make a monster truck or something like that, but I asked him to think of things that Amanda liked and he came up with Olaf (the snowman from the movie Frozen) so Austin helped him make a special snowman cookie and I helped Amanda decorate it. Her only real stipulation for any of her cookies was that they were purple and on a purple or pink plate. The three older boys actually put frosting on their cookies and got bored of the project after about 30 minutes. Leif spent most of the time just painting the plate with different colors of frosting (he may have gotten a little onto a cookie or two) and he was the one that lasted the longest at the project. He stayed and worked by himself for about 15 minutes after everyone else had run off to play somewhere else. Leif just loves to cook and I'm sure that was a delight for him.

 After cookies we had a scavenger hunt with all the clues on little paper pumpkins. The original idea was to have the scavenger hunt in the dark with flashlights, but it was still light outside when we were ready for a new activity, so we just did it without flashlights. Of course Paul and Ben were way ahead of all the other kids and we had to keep reminding them to wait for everyone, but the younger three got bored of it after a few clues anyway, so they just finished it off themselves. The prize at the end was the Peanuts Halloween movie (which, by the way, wasn't nearly as good as I remember it, although all the kids seemed enthralled) a bag of popcorn, and a bag of Halloween M&Ms. I wanted the kids to eat something besides sugar though, so I said they had to have some pizza before any more treats. Austin conducted a few rounds of Halloween Bingo while I cooked the pizzas and we tried to force everyone except Ben and Lief (who have always been known as the good eaters) to eat at least three bites. Then we moved into the living room for our movie and treats. The rule was supposed to be that the kids stay on the blanket on the floor to have their snacks, but you can see how well that worked.(as a side note, Paul isn't wearing his shirt just because he got frosting all over it and Asher isn't wearing his clothes just because he enjoys running around in his underwear as much as possible.)

After the movie, Renee and Justin came to pick up Amanda and after quite a bit of reading and singing, I finally convinced Leif to go to bed in his crib. The other boys ran around with Austin doing who knows what for an hour or so then they wanted to watch another movie, so we got them all settled for sleeping and let them watch the Curious George Halloween  movie and we went upstairs. Austin is always up later than I am so he went an turned the movie off for them and everyone slept soundly as far as I know. Asher slept in the living room with his cousins for the first time and did very well. In the morning everyone was sleeping as I got ready to go running. Asher woke up just as I was leaving so I sent him upstairs to play with Austin for awhile so his cousins could sleep. When I got back half an hour later everyone was up and eating bacon and running around. When I got back from the shower everyone had had a healthy dose of whipped cream sprayed straight into their mouths. We made crepes for breakfast and Austin judged the boys' crazy jumping contest, assigning random amounts of points to each boy as he jumped from the couch to the love sack. All in all it was pretty fun and quite exhausting. I was a bit of a grouchy monster in the morning because my lower back has been hurting and got really bad after my run. Good thing Austin was there to be the fun uncle, even if he teases way too much.