So much to be thankful for

Parker turned 22 months old at the beginning of this month. He continues to love to dance, and when he hears music on tv, he will stop what he is doing and start bouncing and swaying to the music! He also started singing on his own. He was sitting in the high chair waiting for me to clean him up and just starts singing. After a few minutes I thought I recognized his tune and started singing "Happy Birthday" along with him. When he started smiling I knew I had the right song! (The sitter's birthday was a few days prior). We practiced that song for a few days so he could sing it for his cousin Mia at her second birthday party! He also sings ABC's and Wheels on the Bus. He mostly just does the motions for the various versus, but finishes it up with me by singing "towwwwn".

All of a sudden we are tolerating dress up clothes. This started when he asked to wear Daddy's sweatshirt, and a few days later, my vest. I bought a ton of costumes after Halloween so we have a bin full of dress of clothes. Now he mostly plays with the (broken) fireman hat, green star sunglasses, and his trick or treat bag...which he walks around the house saying "trick or treat" and asks us to place things in his bag!

The words are continuing to come and each day there is more and more. I am better able to identify his sound errors and I think that helps so I am able to understand more of his words. He loves to use his name when we talk about things (who's is this? or who wants a bite?). Since his sounds are a bit mixed up, his name comes out as "TI-per". But it's so adorable we make him say it all the time!! His favorite color is blue and he can correctly identify when something is blue. But he also tries to call every color blue, and even seems to get mad when I tell him it's not blue or we don't have one in blue! His favorite number is also two, which will be great when he turns two in just over a month!

We spent another weekend at the Dells and again, had a wonderful time. This time we visited with Mike, Missy and the girls, Joel & Jenna and Kasey and a friend came down as well.

Parker is 100% boy and lately he prefers to play with his trucks and tractors and the play food is finally taking a back seat to the cars. He also loves trains and we occasionally go out for breakfast at a restaurant in McHenry, where the food is delivered by train. He is so entertained by the train, and will even stand up in his high chair shouting "All aboard!" as the train starts its route. I kept looking for a small train to put around our Christmas tree and Nana found one that wasn't too expensive. Parker played choo-choo all night long! We weren't allowed to turn the train off and he would just sit there and watch the train for 10-15 minutes at a time! He even went to bed cradling the remote!