14 months going on 14 years

Anderson has lately decided that he is a grown up. Or, at least a teenager. He meets all of the requirements: desire for independence, a teeny bit of selfishness, random tantrums...Seriously, he no longer sees himself as a baby. This is sadness for me because he is, of course, my baby.

An example of his grown upness is the fact that he has recently become addicted to belts. He will spend minutes (this is huge) trying to get it on. Sometimes he will let us help him, but usually he wants to do it himself. I find myself carrying a belt in my purse, just in case we need a distraction.Making a fort with a sheet & a chair!Free pancakes at IHOP day! This is our tradition with the Futcher family & we are excited because next year he will get his own stack! Please notice that I am not even sitting next to him & those aren't even my pancakes he is eating.

A couple of things with this picture: first, he has dumped out an entire tea bag & is playing in it, second, the patch is in the middle of it and third, that is a plastic skunk in his hand! What kind of cruel joke...

To celebrate the grown up, Jessica, in typical Jessica style, brought Anderson the cutest pirate themed birthday gift! It was so great to see her & loves his goodies.

A Lady Admiral basketball game- just another outing with the other high school students. GG & Jpa decided to join us for a little fun. Just another reason why I have the best family. At pretty much every game, my parents, Brandon & Anderson or they are there to support me. Cheerleading is a pretty big part of my life & it is so great when people recognize that & take the time to come hang out! GG even dressed the part in the navy shirt.

A little fuzzy, but this is when Brandon was leaving with A & it was maybe the cutest thing I've ever seen. He really thinks he is a grown up.

He is precious because he can do stuff if we ask him to. We hand him something & tell him to throw it away & he does, he helps me carry the clothes to the washing machine, he tries to help take his clothes off for his bath, he gets a wipe & tries to clean Chloe off when she comes in from outside. If only I could direct that desire to some hard core cleaning & folding of the laundry. Possibly, some cooking? In this picture he was trying to clean Chloe & I kept telling her to "sit!" and, of course, she wasn't obeying. When Anderson walked in, he sat immediately. It was so cute. And, kind of sad that my toddler is better behaved than my 7 year old, obedient school trained dog.

Things that we are loving right now...

1.Shoes/belts of any kind. Pumped when he sees them.

2. Munchkin sippy cups. He LOVES milk in this thing. And, what is great, is 2 months ago I was terrified at just going cold turkey & ripping away the bottle. Another lesson in the fact that kids are way more flexible than adults.

3. Truman monkey & Blue blanket. He would sleep forever if we let him have his blanket, but he always wraps it around his head so we can't. I will go check on him & Truman will either be over his head or wrapped around the back of his neck. I have been tempted the last few nights to give him his blanket because he keeps waking up in the middle of the night but I fight the urge.

4. Being a picky eater. I know that this is normal for a toddler but it is still odd/worrisome. Some days he will literally eat a half a cracker the entire day. We brought back some baby food because he decided he liked that again. So baby food, cereal bars & yogurt are 3 pretty big staples right now. He used to love blueberries & cheese, but not this week. I am not a fan of this eating stage.

5. Hide & seek, balls, being outside, climbing onto anything he can...

5. Words! He can say ba (ball), da or da-dee (dad), bop (bop), ba ba ba (mom), ee ee (gg), ot (hot!), dite (light), du (duck), dack (quack), bye bye (frantic waving)

This is just a 2 second video of him dancing at halftime again. I didn't get my camera out until he was almost done because I was laughing, but it it is still pretty cute.