Some favorite toys

Here's some pics of Ansel with some of his favorite toys!

This first toy was his souvenir Daddy got him from Mexico.. he loves it. It's kind of like a top, only to get it to spin you wrap this string around it and then drop it just right! He gets pretty excited about it.

I thought this picture turned out pretty funny... looks like he's doing some fancy trick with it.. really he just threw it and that's how it turned out in mid air!

Stacking funnels is also apparently a really fun thing to do

And of course, we can't forget the screwdrivers!!!

One for each hand even!

An idea from Parents As Teachers... take an empty can, cut a slit in the top, and gather a bunch of frozen juice tops! )
And last, but not least, cupboards... any and every cupboard! This is actually dual play time here, as he also has a hold of the mop. He likes things with long handles that he can drag around.

Play date

We had lunch with my friends Jovi and Samantha and their cute kids... I thought some of these pictures were cute! We used to meet up every Friday, but it's not quite that often anymore.

Wyatt, the youngest there, just turned 3 months old!

Sam and Amaree... (Amaree's 6 months old)

Tatum, Ansel, Eliza, and Carson

Things Ansel likes to do

Ansel loves dancing.. any time any music is on!
He claps and waves a lot.
He loves to brush his teeth... and believe it or not.. he loves FLOSSING! (If he sees me flossing, he hurries over for his turn!)
He likes to throw away his dirty diapers.
He likes to play with screwdrivers.. (yikes.. under close supervison!)
He likes putting movies into the vcr (DVD CASE AND ALL!).. oh, and might I mention pens, pacifiers, and anything else that will fit in there!
He loves to say the word "cracker", and I think officially uses it more than any other word, even ma ma and da da!
He loves to flip light switches on and off (and pull on ceiling fan chains).
He likes to put small objects into other objects.. (ex. pens into a bottle of water!)
Unfortunatley he still loves throwing his dinner on to the floor when he's done eating!
He loves reading and playing the piano.
He likes to play with animals (although we found out he's allergic to cats)
He likes bath time/ showers, rain, etc. (and we have to work at keeping him from splashing in the toilet water.. gross, I know)
He likes to play in the cabinets and is getting too good at hiding things! (I was looking for something the other day and finally found it when I went to to make dinner....in the pan drawer under the stove!)
He likes trying to figure things out.. right now he's trying to put a cassette tape back into it's case and get it closed right.. I think he's getting a little frustrated on that one! He has a good attention span though.. he'll work and work on something.
He likes to snuggle with his white(well, once white) blanket. When I go to get him after he wakes up from a nap or in the morning, he hurries around and gathers his binky and blanket before he'll let me pick him up.
He also likes to eat his cereal with milk now. He's working on using a spoon and has done a lot better with it this week!
He likes to brush his hair, and mine!
He's good at finding his belly button.
Oh yes, and he likes to bite.. legs, shoulders, toes, etc..another thing we're trying to work on!!!

Failure to Thrive

Well, we had Ansel's 18 month appt. for immunizations... and he was still only 18lbs. 15oz.!! (and only 28" long) We seriously thought that surely he'd reached 20lbs by now.. (He was 18lbs. 14 oz. well over a month ago, and almost 17lbs at his birthday in December!) So, he's falling off the charts pretty much, even for adjusted age, and his growth rate has REALLY slowed. We've obviously noticed that, he's been wearing the same clothes for over 6months now (and still in size 2 shoes!).. not typical at this age. So the plan is to up the formula calories again.. (He grew great up until December when he was moved off the preemie high calorie formula to a regular toddler formula.) It will still be the toddler formula, but we were given a recipe to make it 22 calories. HOPEFULLY that will do the trick and he won't need anything extra!!

I guess there's other things, like some growth hormones, etc, that are sometimes given to preemies, but it's best if they get them before they're two. His pediatrician said it's sometimes hard to get it approved by the endocrinologists.. but she said she'll look into that too... so we'll see. (and sometimes there are other reasons for Failure to Thrive.. which he'd probably have to have a scope in order to determine that.. )
Anyway, everything else developmentally is going great, so that's good. He's doing lots of fun stuff, like dancing.. (he bounces up and down everytime he hears any music.. so cute!)

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's day!

Ansel helped pick out some cookies for Daddy... hmm.. wonder why?

We got Cody a new wedding ring (same style as before).. since he lost his in Mexico!

Speaking of Mexico.. how cute are my boys in their guayabera's?! (their mexican shirts)

A love of reading

It's pretty cute how Ansel loves to read. He will flip through the pages and "talk" away. We have the Fox in Socks book, which is kind of a tongue twister book. I'll read it too him pretty quick, then he'll look at it and jibber jabber away for quite awhile. Here's a little video I got of it!

Car seat

Yeah!!! We FINALLY turned the carseat around!!! Ansel loves it, and I like it much better too. It's so much easier traveling with him facing forward.

After we first turned him around, he just smiled and looked around the whole time!

Our trip to Cancun!!!

We had a great trip this past week. It was busy, we saw and did a lot of things! (Needless to say, I've added about 5 posts, just of our vacation!) I love the color of blue the water is there!

Cody and I went to the beach at night.. (I got my hair braided the day after I got there.. it was so nice not having to do anything with it all week, and having it already fixed whenever I was done swimming, etc!)

We saw a lot iguanas all over the place.. (Nearly as frequent as seeing squirrels here!)
The flowers and plants were so pretty.
One day we took a ferry ride to Isla Mujeres..

Have you ever seen a circle rainbow!!!!??? I thought it was pretty neat, although hard to capture with the sun being in the middle. (We saw that while we were on the ferry ride)
We had good weather most of the time, but it rained a lot the day before we left! We went swimming at the beach for awhile anyway.. had some good waves that day! It's amazing what a beautiful blue the water still is, despite the gloomy sky!

Xcaret

We went to a tourist spot called Xcaret on one of the days.It was beautiful. There were lots of different animals, a beach, snorkeling (outside and in caves), reinactments of different cultures, etc. There was definitely a lot to do and see there. I loved snorkeling,except for the part where Cody lost his wedding ring in the cold water :(















One of the parrots let Cody hold him. It was a little nicer than the one sitting next to him!

There were also tortoises of all sizes..

tiny ones

and really huge, older ones.

This animal is a tapir. It's one of the endangered species. I'd didn't know much about them, so I had to read up on it a little. It looks part pig, part anteater, but I guess it's actually in the same family as horses and rhinos. Cody got to feed it some leaves.

Chichen Itza

We got to visit Chichen Itza!! I thought it was pretty amazing.. and it's amazing to think about all the knowledge the Mayan people had. You're no longer able to climb up it like before, but it was still great to see. Chichen Itza is one of the finalists in the new seven wonders of the world.

This is the observatory at Chichen Itza.

Cody and I in front of the pyramid

After (and often during) the tour, the little Mayan kids would run up to you to try and sell you souvenirs.

Cody and I with the souvenir they tried to sell us on the bus.. a bottle of tequilla with our picture and a picture of the pyramid on it. Yeah, we didn't get it..

On the way to Chichen Itza, our tour bus stopped at this gorgeous cenote (a fresh water, limestone sinkhole) I loved the way the vines hung down.

A view from above, of everyone swimming in it.

The Mayan Palace

Thought we'd throw in a few pictures of the resort we stayed in, called the Mayan Palace. It was huge and gorgeous, but we didn't really spend a lot of time there because we were out traveling so much.

The pool was HUGE! It was all connected together, but it went all different directions.

We did get up really early one morning to watch the sunrise at the beach.

It started to get real pretty...

... but the clouds kept following the sun all the way up. By the time the sun finally got out from behind the clouds, all those gorgeous colors were gone; so it was pretty, but anticlimatic.