14 months

Oliver turned 14 months old last week. He is walking like a pro and even running now. He doesn't crawl much at all anymore. He has added a few more words (hop, ball, "there you go") and signs (waves "hi" and "bye", points, shakes head "no") to his repertoire and is able to demonstrate he understands so much these days. He still loves books. He'll follow simple requests such as, "get another book". In fact, taking books off the shelves is a favorite activity too. He dances anytime he hears music and has some pretty good moves. He knows the word "no" quite well and when we say it he shakes his head no and usually stops what he is doing. It's pretty incredible how quickly he's learning. And probably the biggest development of this month - he is now falling asleep on his own and sleeping through the night. Happy 14 months Oli!

Boo

Quality of this video: poor. Quality of Oliver's laugh: great.

Oliver's First Year, in 7 minutes

Oliver's First Year from Chris Bock on Vimeo.

sleep

Last night Oliver slept in his crib from 8:00 pm until 6:45 am! It has been a long time coming (one year, one month, and two weeks, but who's counting?) He is also putting himself to sleep for naps. Oh sweet sleep! We are feeling rested and happy over here. Hope you are too!

Weekend with Family

My sister and her family came to stay with us this weekend and we had a great time! Oliver loved playing with his cousins Izzy and Bodie, and they were great with him. One of their favorite things was all taking a bath together. The next day Bodie kept asking for another "baf wif Oli." Too cute. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the cousin bath. Based on their response, I'm guessing there will be more cousin baths in the future.

cousins watching cartoons

On Saturday we went to the Minnesota Children's Museum. Shell got an annual family pass so we all got to go for free which was amazing (thanks Shell!). It was Oliver's first time and I think he had a really good time. Being a weekend, it was pretty busy, but we all enjoyed ourselves (until being overwhelmed by kids, kids, and more kids).

Sunday we had really nice weather so we went to Izzy's Ice Cream and then to the Como Zoo. The zoo was closing early so we only had about an hour to look around. After that we hung out on the grass and played and goofed off for another hour. That hour turned out to be one of the most fun things we did. It's the little things in life, right?

goofy sister pic

leaves!

And lastly, a few videos of Oliver walking and Izzy and Bodie trying to make him laugh.
Oliver, 13 months, walking from Melanie Ayres on Vimeo.

Cousins Playing from Melanie Ayres on Vimeo.

Thanks for coming to see us Ayres-Wilhelms!

13 months

In the last month, Oliver has become an expert walker. We used to encourage or prompt him to try walking, but now he does it all on his own and seems to prefer it to crawling.

His sleep has continued about the same this month, although ease of getting him down for a nap fluctuates from day to day. Chris is the one who helps him get to sleep each day for his naps since I'm either at work or working from home.

Oli is a growing boy, about 26 pounds now. He is still a pretty good eater. His favorites are apples, crackers, raisins, cucumbers and pickles, and tomatoes. Yesterday he had some bites of a croissant from a new french bakery that opened up near us and seemed to love it (as did we).

He's still a happy and social guy and loves to play with and watch other kids. In new situations or around new people he can get overwhelmed at first, but once he calms down, he seems pretty happy to be amidst other people.

His language is continuing to develop as well. Words he says now include mama, dada, hi, night-night, more, and oh no. We are also teaching him baby signs and he signs all done, brush teeth, and hat. I guess that means his vocab is about 10 words total. It will be fun to see how this increases in the coming months.

Happy 13 months to our little guy!

Then and Now

Chris is continuing to take a photo of Oliver every day and post them over at Oliver Daily. I love looking back at these photos and I thought it would be cool to highlight some of them to show much he has changed. From baby to toddler...

First day of life and first birthday, September 20:

And a few other photo pairs from the same day in 2011 and 2012.

September 24:

September 29:

October 9:

October 11:

October 12:

Sometimes I miss that tiny little baby, but I am also loving this active, funny, energetic toddler!