Thanksgiving at Grandma Pfeffer's

 On Thanksgiving day, we drove down to Lakeside to visit with Grandpa and Grandma Pfeffer.  Andrew was a trooper on the way down in the car, but didn't want to sit still for the rest of the day!

 rocking in the bear chair that Dave built when he was in junior high

 riding Grandpa's tractor with Daddy

 Dave's cousin and daughter, Mike and Alba, came over for dinner.  The kids loved chasing each other around the dining room table with the ball and Alba loves Reese!

ASB CADA

I haven't written a real blog in well over a month and a half, but school is out for Christmas break, and I'm going to get caught up! In chronological order, I'll start back in November for Thanksgiving week.  Although I technically had the whole week off, I spent Monday and Tuesday at the ASB CADA conference in Anaheim. 

One of the reasons I've been non-existent on the blog this school year is because of ASB.  Officially, I am a freshman class advisor (along with Mr. Diaz), however, the responsibility has grown as I've accepted more responsibility in order to help Arlington and these hard working kids.  I love getting to work with the student and teaching/modeling good leadership skills, but it is a HUGE time commitment.  Most recently, we have been prepping for Midwinter (the formal dance of the year + spirit week + pep rally) and I've been leading the girls on the dance committee.

Anyway, for the CADA conference, we left AHS at 6 am and arrived at Disneyland Hotel around 10:30.  We attended the CADA conference together (all 38 students and 5 advisers) and then explored the Disneyland hotel area.  Dinner together and more exploring ended the night with 10:30 pm bed checks.  Bright and early the next morning (6:00 am) we went to Disneyland with early admission.

Ivette (junior class advisor and my buddy) and I were expecting to be ignored, but these group of girls decided we were cool enough to hang out with all day! 

We arrived back at AHS and all the kids were picked up by 11:30 pm!

A long, but worthwhile, two days!

Andrew's 15-19 Month Book is done!!

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Photo Book

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Family Pictures

 Brenda came over and took photos of the Bennett's for my parents Christmas card--I won't share the "one," but here are some of the other great ones!

19 Months Old

New Developmental Milestones this Month: Here are the new developmental things that he started doing this month:

• Physical: He's mastered most of the gross and fine motor skills for the 18-24 month time period (running, pushing/pulling large objects, carries large items while walking, comes down stairs, seats himself on chairs, builds towers of 4-6 things, places rings on spindle, turns pages individually, turns knobs).  Still working on using utensils, but not great.
• Teeth: no new teeth this month, but the canine teeth are close.

• Cognitive/Language: very into stacking objects onto other objects (pretty much obsessed at this point), enjoys coloring/scribbling and actually stays on the page, points to fifteen body parts on command, enjoys reading stories and intently pays attention to the pictures, started vocalizing poo-poo and pee-pee needs (gotta love daycare!).
• Vocabulary/Words: I've lost track of the new words that he says these days!  It seems like every day there is something else coming out of his mouth again.  Just today, he's said up and hello for the first time. The funniest thing that he does is stand at the back door yelling, 'out bun, out bun.' I'm assuming this means, "I want to go outside to see the bunnies."

Potty training: Daycare has started the 'potty training' process with Andrew.  Basically every three hours when they would normally check his diaper, they put him on the mini-toilets in the room.  They started this on his 18 month birthday, on October 30th, he peed on the toilet for the first time and he has continued to do it several times a day.  Last weekend, he told me poo-poo and I sat him on the toilet at home and he did and then he did it again in the bath yesterday in front of Grandma.  I know that this is totally TMI, but I seriously am shocked.  I censored the picture for you and avoided the picture of the actual poo-poo :)

Psychosocial: beginning to move around the house without supervision and without too many issues, mimics mommy and daddy, beginning to understand the concept of 'playing with' instead of just 'playing alongside' us and friends at school, temper tantrums galore.

We continued to play with the cardboard house in the living room!

Physical Growth this Month/Doctors:  we've had an entire month of wellness!  It's hard to believe, but October and early November was a good for his health.  Our well-baby visit is Tuesday for 18th month appointment.  

Sleeping: (same as 18 months) We're a loving sleeping family! Bedtime is around 7:30 and he's sleeping until we wake him up for school at 7:00 am.
Eating:  (same as 18 months) Loves to eat. Currently his favorites are fruit (still), sugar free organic fruit snacks, ground turkey, anything with tomato sauce.

We spent a lot of time at AHS Football games! Our little lion was very into the atmostsphere, the cheerleaders, and the actual game!  He loved cheering for the players too!

Diapers: (same as 18 months) Size 4s (1188 used) during the day and night.
Clothing: We moved up to a size 6W shoe this month (we've been a 5.5 since June).  Clothes are a 9-12 month in shirts and 12-18 months for pants (that MUST have adjustable waist--thanks Osh Gosh)... I'm really, really tired of them (still)... it's been SO warm we're mostly in shorts anyway.
Favorite Toys: anything that he can stack, unstack, put a lid on, take a lid off, place inside something, etc and BOOKS!  He's started reading books to me, along with YELLING parts of the story to me.

 Andrew has a bit of a cold that we're trying to prevent turning into more, so we are doing breathing treatments at night--our big boy can do it himself.

And because no post would be complete without tears!

 

Halloween!

 On Halloween, I dressed up as Minnie Mouse and Dave dressed up as Charlie Brown for work, while Andrew wore his orange PJs to school (his costume day was Friday).

 We started trick-or-treating at 5:15 with a trip to Noma's and Beverly's house (our elderly neighbors). 

 Instead of candy, Noma gave Andrew a Cars pillow pet.

 After a short stop to pick up Melissa and eat at Taco Bell, we headed to the Webster's for a trick or treating.  We were greeted by the Avengers (Captian America and Iron Man) and a very shy elephant.

 Andrew and Sam are the only ones that wanted to pose, but my gosh, they are cute!

 Ivy, the very shy elephant

 Nathan, the non-smiling Iron Man

 Melissa, cinderella, joined the fun.

 Andrew loved trick or treating.  At each door, he waited for the door to open and when it did, he would say 'hi' and wait for the candy to appear.  He took the candy from the person and put it into his own bucket (they weren't allowed to do it). At most houses he would say thank you (well, sign thank you) and give them a huge smile.  At several houses, he tried to go INSIDE their house... that was awkward, but kind of funny.

 He held onto his candy bucket quite possessively.

Andrew did not want to stop trick or treating, nor go home--we had tears!

We were home and in bed by 8 pm.



18 Month Photos

 We finally went to take Andrew's eighteen month photos at JCPennys.  I called and made an appointment with Lupita (the photographer who gets all the great shots), but when we got there at 4 pm today, she was on her way out.  I tried not to show my frustration, but the quality of our shots aren't nearly as good as normal.  The above picture is the only one that he has a real smile, but you can see all the marks in the floor and couldn't zoom in as much as I did for these screenshots.  Needless to say, I bought very very few.

 he tried to "blow" over the blocks

 Andrew is currently obsessed with Go, Dog, Go! so I brought it for his pictures.

 He made a lot of funny faces!