I haven't written in a long time about what Ian's been up to, so here it goes!

He's been talking a LOT. Two word sentences have turned into, 3, 4, 5, and now 6 word sentences! The longest sentence he's said I'm pretty sure he said the other day. I was showing him pictures on my phone of what a sloth looks like, and we came across a baby sloth that was posed in a coffee mug. He said "oh-no! Baby sloth come out coffee cup!" (As you can tell, he likes things in order and if anything is not in place it's "uh-oh! come out! man clean up!").

He still only says "uh huh" for yes. I think it's so cute. "Ian, are you having fun?"..... "uh-huh!!"

He used to say "dicka dicka" for motorcycle for the longest time. He just started saying "motorcycle"... I'm going to miss the dicka dicka days.

I can't remember if I already said this in another post, but everything all day long is: "Ian do it!" or "Do it self!" This kid wants to do it all on his own, all the time. Which is tiring and makes things take way longer, but he's gaining his independence which I know is good. An example is that he MUST climb into the car seat every time by himself. Starting from the car floor, up and around and sitting down in his seat. The good news is, he's gotten much faster at this so it no longer puts us back 5 minutes from going anywhere.

The other day (actually twice now), I've talked to him about getting my coffee in the morning, and once he said "mommy's teeth hurt" (like it's my medicine aka when his teeth hurt he gets medicine), and the other time he said, "mommy sick". I don't know why but seeing him correlate these thoughts in his head and speak them is so funny to me.

Ever since we've been telling him we are having a baby, he's been OBSESSED with his little baby doll. He brings him everywhere. He tells me baby needs a diaper change, baby hungry, take baby's jammies off, baby this baby that. He loves this little baby doll. It's funny cause my mom got it for him a while ago, and ordered the Hispanic version of the baby online, and when it arrived it's skin was SO much darker than in the pictures online! So people always mention how he has a diverse baby doll. Ha!

He's learned the art of stalling, and I have no idea how he just knows how to do this. He asks for water before bedtime, tries asking for one more book, takes forever to brush his teeth. He tries to be a little negotiator. I have to constantly think of ways to expedite the process without giving in and causing melt downs. :)

He's challenging us more and more, so we've had to start laying down the law which has been an interesting transition. He was liking timeouts so much, he was pushing Maddox over and over and over again just to get a timeout. So I stopped timeouts and gave him LOTS of positive praise for good behavior, and just corrected the bad behavior, and he got better. He's since challenged us many times again now, so I've been experimenting different forms of punishment. I'm trying to find a version of timeout that he doesn't like, and works for us. I'm also reading up on child discipline which makes me feel better to educate myself and find what works best for our family.

Overall, he is SUCH a good kid. Even when he fights things, it's usually not for very long. I'm able to calm him down, distract him, and he goes along with the program. He gives lots of hugs and kisses which I eat up every time. Sometimes he just randomly comes up and hugs me in the middle of the day and says in his little sweet voice "mama!"... I'm so lucky to be his mom. I know people say that a lot about their kids, but it's just so true.

Here are some recent pics, my mom's in town helping with Danika so we've been seeing a lot of Nana and Maddox!

Nana came to music class with us last week -

Wade helped our neighbors put their new TV together the other night, and Ian got to take home a prize - a BIG piece of styrofoam which he loved!!

He's become very good on his bike, and enjoys bombing it down the hill to our house. Here's a tiny clip, I need to get a better one...