A Few Things About Tommy

Tommy has been doing so many cute things lately I feel like I need to keep a record of all these fun stories before I forget them. He had his 18-month checkup with the doctor today and he again blew the doctor away with how big he his. The doctor seemed proud to state that Tommy is the size of an average 3 1/2 year-old. He weighed in at almost 33 pounds and measured almost 37 inches tall. Good job, little guy.

He learns a new word almost daily. Lately he has been saying "No" a lot. At least it wasn't his first word! He is pretty good at saying "No, don't touch". He learned how to nod his head "Yes" just yesterday. It's kind of a whole body thing right now. He's been shaking his head "No" for months so it's nice that he can finally give me some positive affirmation, too.

Tommy's favorite video is our wedding video. He loves to see Mommy and Daddy on the big screen. He also loves to watch videos of himself and to look at past blog posts. His favorite songs are currently "Itsy-Bitsy Spider," "Once There Was a Snowman," "Popcorn Popping," and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." He does the actions to let us know which song he wants to sing.

One of our new Sunday morning rituals is perusing the newspaper together for pictures of cars. He loves to get his hands on the "Cars" section of the newspaper, find a comfortable place to sit, and browse the cars and trucks listed. Sometimes we even cut out the pictures and paste them on another piece of paper for him to carry around.
The weather here has been amazing lately! I think it was over 80 degrees today. We spend a lot of time outside in the backyard and at the park. Yesterday I was doing some weeding and raking to get the garden ready for planting in February. Tommy thought it was fun to put dirt on the cement and then help Daddy sweep it away. Then he got bored with that and put the dirt on his head. Needless to say, he got a bath after that:)
Another one of Tommy's favorite games is with the blocks you see pictured below. Sometimes he stacks them, more often he throws them, but lately he has pretended to eat them. This all started last week when he found a picture of some gum balls in the newspaper. He put his mouth on them and drooled and I laughed so hard he did it again and again. Pretty soon he was pretending to eat all of the pictures. Then I did it with the blocks because some of them have pictures of food on them. Now he indiscriminately eats whatever picture he wants to on the blocks and makes loud smacking noises with his mouth while he "chews". Don't worry, he shares with Wrinkles.
Ben and I went on a morning date yesterday since he had the day off. We went to a little place in downtown Phoenix called Matt's Big Breakfast and it was amazing. We both agree it was the best dining experience we have had since being married. The place is a little hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop restaurant where we had to wait 30 minutes just to get seated (at 9:00am). The wait was well worth it. The food was incredible. I hope to go again soon.