Another day another fort

It’s well documented how much we love to build forts around our house. I loved building forts as a kid, and with Eli and now Matea we take every opportunity to try and make forts EVERYWHERE.  On this particular day a few weeks ago the where was on Mommy and Daddy’s bed (yes, the Christmas bedspread was still on, we extend the holidays into February around here . . . and even March, but that’s another story).  It took some clever engineering to make it big enough and strong enough with just pillows and a sheet, but we came up with a design that worked. Eli and Matea had a flashlight and a fort and each other, and that was all they needed to have some fun!

All I see is feet . . .

There they are!

Favorite Chair

Eli’s giant football beanbag chair is both Eli and Matea’s favorite seat in the house. They usually don’t share it well, but on this particular afternoon a few weeks ago they did, which made Mommy proud. :)

Snack for one, games on the camera for the other.

Eli even showed Matea his games. What a nice big brother!

This made it a little harder to play, but Eli didn’t complain.

You must be hungry after playing, Eli. Here, I’ll share my snack!

She’s mine alright

More proof that Matea is definitely my child . . . I was grinding coffee beans in the kitchen when I spilled half the bag all over the counter and floor. I was cleaning them up when Matea ran over, grabbed a handful of beans and shoved them in her mouth. I quickly tried to open her mouth and get them out, which I didn’t think would be a problem since they don’t taste good. Right?! Except Matea got a huge smile on her face, clamped her lips shut tight and said, “Mmmmmmmmm.” She loved them!

I did get them out, but she kept begging for beans as I finished grinding more up. A 20 month old who likes coffee beans . . . must be my daughter! :)

Clean or dirty?

Are these kids clean or dirty? They’re in my hamper but I just can’t tell . . . ;)

Something’s lurking in my hamper  . . . and it’s alive! Peek-a-boo! Wait, there’s two in there!?! It’s getting a little crowded now . . . So we got a hamper for each of them (but Matea insisted on being in the bigger hamper) Playing the drums and keeping brother in hiding. :)

Little Chatterbox

I’m a proud little mama because in the last week Matea has  started saying all kinds of new words. Before that she had a vocabulary of maybe 8-10 words. We are part of the Connections program from the Child and Family Resource Council in our county, and they send out evaluations to be filled out every couple months to help track your child’s progress physically, mentally, verbally, etc. Well, at 15 months Matea was far below average verbally, but she at 18 months she just met their standards for verbal communication (she had 5 other words besides mama and dada).  I wasn’t worried and knew that she would begin talking more someday. But it is definitely a different experience than Eli, who was so far ahead in verbal communication!

Well, in the last week Matea has added more than 30 words to her vocabulary!!!! It started out with “turtle” (which is the cutest thing you will ever hear in your life and I have no idea how she learned). And here’s the list of the others that I can remember:

- diaper, on, off, football, up, all done, hot, dip, cup, nook, book (it does sound different than nook too), bowl, sticker, hamper, trash, apple, duck, e-a-go(for Diego), Dora, wash, water, zipper, go, bowl, pretzel, snow, jaguar (very cute this one), hippo, sock.

And I can’t forget the two words that cousin Noah taught her – taco and mammal. She has no idea what they mean but she loves to repeat them and make Noah laugh. It’s adorable. Our little girl is quickly becoming a chatterbox!