tot school & an accomplishment:)

Noah is 12 months old.

Though I had planned on continuing our farm theme from last week, and initially began the week that way, I began to run out of ideas for a child Noah's age. I know there are a TON of farm ideas out there, but Noah just doesn't get them or won't stay focused long enough to complete them. So the week ended up just being a plain, themeless Tot School week overall, but things still were great:)

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To finish up some of the farm things we did do this week, Noah made a pumpkin patch with foam stickers. He did much better with foam stickers than regular ones...he could hold them better, and they didn't stick to his fingers so much:)

Be aware that Noah didn't place these pumpkins so neatly on his own! ha! I still need to guide him on placement...otherwise there would be one big stack of pumpkins all in one place. I did the leaves for him...they were too small and apparently looked rather tasty:) I also helped him draw in the vines...but he is getting much better with crayons too!

Conveniently enough, Noah got several farm-themed toys at his birthday party last weekend, so I especially made sure he played with those this week. He received the LeapFrog Fridge Farm set and loved playing with it! He already has the Fridge Wash-N-Go Vehicle set, so he knew how this worked. And he spent lots of time fitting in the various pieces and dancing along to the music:)

Noah also got a farm-themed See And Say. He has a bit more trouble with this one independently as the pull arm is harder for him to pull, but he still really likes it.

Lastly, Noah read through all of the farm books I mentioned last week and added a few new ones (he really likes the John Deere themed books!). I would have liked to have done some more activities, but I know we'll redo the farm theme again in the future when he's older and can understand things better.

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The rest of the week was spent playing with some more of his new birthday gifts, like the entire Little People Zoo collection...this will be great for animal sounds/recognition!

And this Touch and Teach Turtle seems to be a great learning tool for letters, numbers, shapes, and more...

There were also many games of peek-a-boo with Daddy..

...and Noah learned how to do Patty Cake on his own this week. He looks so sweet "patting and rolling" :)

Noah worked on sorting food this week - cereal and raisins...and he did really well until he got hungry:)

And Noah is continuing to practice using a spoon. He does well putting small solids, like the cereal and raisins, on the spoon and eating them, but I haven't tried anything runny just yet. Noah also likes to stir and transfer with his spoons..

One last thing I tried late in the week is something I'm so glad I've started! I'm going to create a "color of the day" to post on the refrigerator, and make it a point to find objects that are that color throughout the day. At the end of the day, I want to pull all of those items together (if possible) and review...our first color was blue.

At this point, I'm thinking we will keep one color for several days since Noah is so young and just starting out. But I hope this will be a good activity for color recognition!

To go along with the color of the day, I first made sure to dress Noah in the appropriate colors:) Then we did some activities incorporating blue....

sorting pompoms

finding some blue objects (like this lid)

recognizing the blue train

and finally discussing size/lining up several blue trains

Noah seemed to really enjoy all of these activities, and Jimmy and I both made a point to show Noah blue things both inside and outside of our house. And while I know that right now Noah doesn't really "get" it, I know that early exposure is important!

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And one last BIG accomplishment Noah did this week was....WALKING!!! Saturday evening while visiting my mom, she finally got him to take some real independent steps!! Previously, the most he had taken at once was only two or three at a time. But on Saturday, he walked almost all the way down her long hallway...probably fifteen or more steps at once! He was quite proud of himself:)

And don't you know, I had no camera of any kind since I was at my mom's house. Ugh! But I'm sure that I'll have plenty of opportunities to capture this milestone:) So now I'm guess I need to finish securing all valuables...he's so tall he can already reach our kitchen countertops!

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Well..we're off for a family day in the mountains today:) I hope you all are having a great weekend! And be sure to check out what others are doing for Tot School and share you own ideas too at 1+1+1=1!!

leaps and bounds

When I think back about all of the milestones that Noah has reached so far, it seems like they come all bunched together. It really is like he grows in leaps and bounds....like he'll stay the same for a couple of weeks, then all of a sudden, here he is pulling up and standing on his own...

This was the BIG surprise I got while I was changing our sheets yesterday. I sat Noah in his crib to play while I did that (so at least we use the crib for something, since he still refuses to sleep in it!), and when I came back in, there he was STANDING all on his own!

He's been trying to do this for a while, but kept face-planting into the bars (which did not result in smiles!). I guess he finally realized that you hold onto those bars instead of the bumpers, which are much too short and flimsy..

I was absolutely amazed:) I cannot believe how much he can do...and he's still four days shy of 8 months!

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Crawling, on the other hand, is still not going all that well. He continues to just kind of drag himself across the floor on his belly. But it works, so whatever:) He also likes to scoot on his bottom. 

Noah has also gotten very good at climbing into laps. When I'm sitting in the floor with him, he'll drag himself over and pull himself into my lap. So sweet:)

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I wanted to try and get a picture of his two little teeth, too. I'm not sure how well you can see them, but here they are:)

He tried his first chewable food last night too...HappyBaby Apple Puffs. He was a little unsure at first, but he's been imitating chewing for weeks now, so I thought I'd give them a try. He did really great with them! I broke them into smaller pieces last night, but he ate whole ones this morning. He won't feed himself yet...the thumb-index finger grip isn't so developed, but I know he'll get there. In the meantime, I don't mind feeding him....I know the day when he won't need me for that is fast-approaching!

Will someone please tell me when my baby boy decided to grow up so much??