My Favorite Monkeys

Dear, dear. It's been a while. Sorry about that. If you're not too mad then I'd love to fill you in on a little of what we've been up to here in Johnsonland.

Walter is the sweetest little thing. This is a picture of him eating an apple. He has seven teeth now, the top two are really far apart. We're hoping he grows into them eventually. He can eat a lot of stuff, but not apples. He just sucks on them and gets really sticky. Still cute though. He's such a happy little guy. True, he's going through the separation anxiety phase and yes, the past few weeks he's been teething so that has had a negative impact on his mood, but in general he's sort of an independent little chap. He doesn't get upset about much. I might be a little obsessed with him.

This is Milo and Walter in their carseats. On this day Milo had used the potty for the first time so I took him straight to the grocery store to pick out a cupcake. He chose a box of chocolate cupcakes with butterfly rings on top of each one. I found it adorable. He passed over the spiderman and spongebob options and went for the butterflies. I'm pretty sure it's because he was proud of himself for recognizing what they were. He has not yet been introduced to spiderman or spongebob. He calls butterflies "uh-er-fies." Again, obsessed. (By the way, the interest in learning to potty only lasted a couple of weeks. We're back to the old system of him pretending he doesn't need to be changed and that "Walter's poopy!" - his go-to phrase whenever he wishes to be left alone)

Milo and Walter get along pretty well. They are adorable when they play together and make each other laugh. But sometimes Milo gets a teensy bit jealous of the privileges Walter enjoys on account of his still being a baby and all. For example, bottles of milk instead of milk in big boy cups. The picture above is our compromise on that situation. See? Now they're both babies.

Thomas the Tank Engine = The best thing that ever happened to Milo

We just love trains in general.

I included this picture because it perfectly captures Milo when he's in his "I'm not taking any crap from you so don't even try it" mood. He throws tantrums like all toddlers, but he also does this cold disdainful what-the-heck-is-wrong-with-you-mommy thing that is pretty amusing.

He's still very, VERY addicted to the corkies.

This is me and DragonMilo on Halloween. Matt put up a tire swing several months ago and we have already gotten a ton of miles out of that thing. If you are considering putting up a tire swing yourself, may I suggest you use a big old truck tire? It is perfect for little guys because they can sit inside the actual lining of the tire. And two people can fit at the same time. I love that little dragon.

I made Walter into a porcupine for Halloween. I guess it's hard to tell from this picture. But it was pretty cute.

Trip to the pumpkin patch in October.

Can I just tell you, Walter can climb up on absolutely anything? The kid has crazy good balance and a ridiculous amount of bravery. It's a problem. He frequently gets stuck in a plank position between the piano bench and the piano. What twelve month old does that? He flies up and down the stairs in our house like it's nothing. I am counting down the days till I can put this kid in sports. Would this summer be too soon?

DragonMilo on the swing set. He really loves his dragon suit. He often wants to wear it just for fun.

Walter turned one on November 13. We didn't do anything too exciting - just a family party, but I did make sure there was an abundance of balloons to play with. I got this idea off the ubiquitous pintrest site: Put up the Pack 'n Play and fill it with ball pit balls! You can buy a pack of 150 balls at Target or Walmart for about fifteen bucks. This wasn't near enough to fill up the pack 'n play so we made up the difference in balloons. It was perfect! The boys were playing and laughing for a solid twenty minutes (which is, for your information, a really long time for a couple of toddler boys). It was awesome. I highly recommend it.

See how much fun they were having? It was megacuteness over here. I made Walter a big ball cake and he opened presents and had his picture taken like thirteen hundred times.

In other news: We went to Minneapolis for Thanksgiving. It was really fun to see everybody and eat good food and just hang out. Matt acquired a taste for toy helicopters while we were there and Walter started walking! I was nervous about this but so far it hasn't been a problem. He still prefers crawling so not much has changed. He's just exercising his right not to walk. Fine by me. It will not come as a shock to hear that Matt is still working like crazy. We are all hoping he gets a little bit of a break during Christmas. Cross your fingers for us!

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas! I'll try to check back in soon! ~Emily