Archer at 21 months

25 Jan 2012

Archer is growing up at light speed! We weaned this month. The first few days were way more emotionally difficult for me than I imagined. Still almost a month after the fact Archer is occasionally asking to nurse. The majority of the time he can be immediately distracted with yogurt milk or Yo-Gabba-Gabba. A month out for me and my eyes will water if I catch sight of a nursing mom.

I’ve gotten into the very bad habit of getting Archer a donut every time we go to the grocery store. He definitely associates one with the other now. The picture above is after I braved giving him the sprinkle donut.

At 21 months Archer says his first three word sentence “Violet play now”. I think he was trying to say he wanted to play with Violet at that moment. He said it as I was carrying him into his room to put him down for the night. A couple of weeks later and he said a second three word phrase. This time he was “bright light car” while seeing a video of a police car with flashing lights.

Archer is also learning letters. I have no idea how but he solidly recognizes the letter Q. He can identify A and often sees it in “the wild” like the A-frame of our new swingset. He was playing with his alphabet puzzle and picked out the “I” and called it mommy’s bed. Our bed does have a huge head and foot board come to think of it.

One day I caught Archer making this face while looking at Macaulay Culkin’s on the cover of our Home Alone DVD.

He recently had some ear (or maybe teething?) pain. He kept asking for a band-aid for his ear so I obliged. Then he wanted it off and it didn’t come off easily and he cried. I don’t think it helped. I was taking Archer to the allergy doctor and was prepping for the visit. Every time I said “doctor” Archer would make a sad face (see picture above) and say “head” in a sad voice while patting his head. I had no idea what he was talking about. A couple of nights later we read “No More Monkeys Jumping in the Bed” and I finally put two and two together. At the doctor visit Archer tested positive for peanut, cat, egg, soy, cantaloupe, apple, and pea allergies.

On a whim the other day I asked Archer to jump. My heart nearly burst when I saw his effort. I love it! He is growing up way too fast.

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2 Responses to “Archer at 21 months”

  1. **Cousin Neet** says:

    YAAAY! Another little Indian!! Palwesh will be so proud!

    Love the jumping! I remember you at that age, Bessie… soooo cute!!

    Love y’all!

  2. jill says:

    Yo Gabba Gabba fixes all things in our house, too. Jordan gets a cookie everytime we go to Publix. She starts asking for it in the parking lot and points to the bakery and says “momma cookie” the whole time we’re in the produce section directly across from the bakery. Smart kids.

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The jeep wasn’t the only thing Archer begged to ride 24/7. He also loved zipping around in this old golf cart.

And he had a blast playing in the dirt. This trip I introduced the kids to ant lions.

We were in Bushnell for Thanksgiving at my aunt, uncle, and cousin Katie’s house. We missed you D.J.! I don’t usually get pictures like these of hum drum every day stuff so I thought I’d share. Violet and Ben snuck away and were laying on a pile of inflatable mattresses playing a computer game.

Katie was WONDERFUL with Archer. By the time we left they had even developed some inside jokes. It was a wonderful visit altogether. Besides being able to spend time catching up, we also got to enjoy the new disco hot tub (lights, music, waterfall?!), outdoor movie watching, and my favorite cat in the world, Toby.

Violet really took to this dune buggy frame.

In addition to target practicing (this year with a bow and arrow), it has become a tradition to take family Christmas pictures while at my aunt and uncle’s. Here is the whole gang. My brother is standing behind my soon-to-be sister-in-law Julie!

Mom and Dad

BBV&A in Florida.

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After Disney we headed south to spend Thanksgiving with Bethany’s family.

Violet with Aunt Becca and Uncle Chris. Aunt Becca is pregnant with Violet and Archer’s first cousin!

For some reason we got on the subject of coconuts before our trip to Florida. I have childhood memories of working for hours trying to crack a coconut so I told Violet we’d look for one while we were there. I have no idea if there are coconut seasons or not but I was thrilled to see coconuts galore streaming out of some unknown person’s curbside yard trash. I deftly snatched two for Violet; one for cracking open and one to keep.

Here’s a little video Ben made, edited, and added music to all on his phone. Violet got to show the video to her class along with the coconut she brought back.

Picking oranges is one thing Violet strongly associates with visiting Grandma and Grandaddy. She thoroughly enjoys this annual tradition with Grandaddy.

My parents got this jeep a few weeks before our visit. This isn’t the best picture but I feel it just screams sheer joy!

Still loving it.

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2 Responses to “Seeing Family in Florida, Part 1”

  1. **Cousin Neet** says:

    YAY!! Sooooo cute!! So, did Archer think he was helping by peddling his side of the jeep??

  2. Grandma Nobles says:

    We enjoyed your visit so much! Can’t wait to see you again in May for the wedding and maybe March for the birth!

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Falling Leaves

02 Jan 2012

Towards the end of December the leaves finally started falling. Violet had a friend over the two girls came up with the idea to rake leaves on their own for fun. I must say I had fun too watching them do all the work.

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2 Responses to “Falling Leaves”

  1. Tootie says:

    Hehe, me too! I guess her mom didn’t sign the release to be featured on your website. ;-)

  2. **Cousin Neet** says:

    how fun!! (I have to say I chuckled at the anonymity of the little girl!)

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Advent 2011

31 Dec 2011


I LOVE doing Christmas advent activities! This year I made a calendar that had daily envelopes holding two chocolates and a slip of paper that told us our activity of the day. Here is what we did this year:

12/1 Celebrate Violetiversary!

Violet chose to go to Din Ho for dinner with a bubble tea in tow. After that we headed to the photo booth. We watched Violet videos, shared memories of our first day together, and said a special prayer for her Taiwanese family.

12/2 Cut out paper snowflakes


Probably Violet’s favorite of the activities. You can find Archer’s on the far left.

12/3 Set up the nativity
12/4 Buy special 2011 ornaments


Violet chose a chicken ornament and Archer found a sparkly truck to hang on the tree.

12/5 Decorate the tree to Christmas music

12/6 Enjoy a candy cane
12/7 Have hot chocolate
12/8 Feed the birds. It’s Christmas for them too!


Something I once read that St. Francis did to celebrate the birth of the Creator. Unfortunately Archer was asleep however I think these birds would have trampled him!

12/9 Have dinner in front of the Christmas tree
Poppy spent the night with us this night and joined us for chili dinner under the lights. Archer wasn’t quite ready for this one yet.

12/10 Make apple pie
12/11 Make a gingerbread house

12/12 Have a family Christmas sing-a-long


My favorite activity!

12/13 Make presents for classmates

Found lots of ideas on pinterest. Violet chose to make snow globe soaps.

12/14 Wrap the presents
12/15 School Christmas Party!
Snowman themed party with almost one parent there for every kid. Pretty crazy but lots of fun.
12/16 Sleep under the Christmas tree
12/17 Plant some Christmas strawberry and onion plants?
(okay so this wasn’t on a slip of paper but this is what we did that day. I think we missed the real activity).
12/18 Find some toys to donate.
12/19 Make Christmas playdough
12/20 Get presents for family
12/21 Wrap presents for family
12/22 Watch a special Christmas movie
12/23 Make Haystacks with Grammy
12/24 Go to a Christmas service, take a drive to see Christmas lights, Read The Night Before Christmas
12/25 It’s Christmas!!

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2 Responses to “Advent 2011”

  1. Stephanie says:

    I love, love it! I’m jealous of your creative mommy-ness. Will you be my mom?

  2. Aunt Becca says:

    Ya’ll have stayed busy this December! Miss you guys!

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