23 months old! Birthday parties, WI-style!

We've taken many pictures since arriving in WI last Thursday. Where to begin? How about a few showing how we celebrated Si's 2nd birthday, one month early. The top photo is from Si's dance party with Drew's family on Saturday.

The next day, we did it all over again with my side of the family. Silas got to help Grandma make his cake.

Drew and I decorated it (see the first picture)
...and Silas got to blow out his birthday candles for the second time in two days. Lucky boy.

Never fear, I'll post more pictures soon.

22 Months Old!

Silas is sitting on what remains of our eucalyptus tree, which fell a few weeks ago right next to our house and narrowly missed hitting the sheep cote.

Silas is awesome at turning just about anything into guitars, including sticks:
And, chillin' inside:
Giving pointers to Buddha:
Silas combines words all of the time now and occasionally makes something resembling a complete sentence. If I had hours to write, I could go on and on describing in great detail the strides Silas is making with language lately. Since I only have a few minutes...I'll just describe a few instances that stand out in memory.

Instance #1: About a week ago, Silas woke up, climbed over us and got out of bed. It's pretty standard for him to say things like "up, up. light. on. power. on. coffee. up, up, up" until we finally oblige him and get up and turn the light on. That particular morning, he said "turn on light!" I laughed and told him how funny it was that his first complete sentence was a command. He replied by saying "Please!"

Instance #2: Tonight before bedtime, we were playing together on the bed. I was kneeling and he was running around doing bellyflops onto the bed. He misscalculated and flopped down too close to me, slamming his cheek into my knee. After many tears and kisses to make it better, he had calmed down and was ready for "mom milk," as he calls it. He climbed into bed, looked at me, and said in a sad little voice, "Mommy's knee hurt Silas." "Oh, poor baby!" I said, "but excellent language usage!" I comforted him some more, but not before running out to the kitchen to tell Drew what he'd said.

We are SO close to having him speak full sentences as a matter of course!

21 months old! --Art reception

Our handsome 21 month old had a blast at his Dad's art reception on Sunday. There were grapes and crackers aplenty, so he was happy.
Despite the unusually harsh weather, we still got a decent turnout for the event, though a few friends coming from farther away had to cancel.
Here's Shannon, hanging out with Silas near the food. Silas stood as close as he could get to the grape bowl for much of the evening, yelling "grate grate!" (no matter how many times I enunciate the "p" sound, he insists on referring to them as "grates").
Drew and I both caught Si's cold, so sniffing, sneezing and coughing are the themes of the week. Hopefully, we will all feel better for next week's festivities.

20 months old --a boy and his doll

Our big guy is 20 months old today. Only 4 more months till his 2nd birthday... I've wanted to make Silas a simple baby doll ever since he was born. He seemed to be gravitating towards toys like cars and balls and I kept putting the project off. A few things have occurred recently that made me get a move-on on the doll-making front. One thing he started to do was lay a diaper out on the bed (where we change him) and line up a few of his stuffed animals for diaper changes, saying "diapa, diapa." He likes to watch me put diapers on his bear, for instance. He is also very loving with his stuffed toys, and will hold them to him and pat them lovingly.
The event that finally led me to break out the crochet hook, however, took place at a store downtown. I had taken Silas to the toy isle and was intent on buying him a small wooden car. He loved the cars, of course, but then his eyes caught site of a cheap little baby doll. He picked her up and did not want to put her down. He seemed utterly transfixed. So, I promised him that I'd make him a doll. Thus, Silas' dolly was born.
He picked up the word "dolly" right away and does seem to like her. Like many other objects (remote controls, cars, knitting needles), he often holds her up to his ear and pretends she's a phone, saying "hi. mom. mom. mom. bye." He will hug her, and line her up for diaper changes. But, let's be frank: his favorite thing to do is to pull her by her hair and stretch her head as far as he can. Thankfully, I crocheted her in one piece, so it's unlikely that he'll actually be able to pull her head off.
Dolly will most likely have a complete wardrobe of handknit clothes someday. Not sure if Silas will like to change her clothes, but I will :)

19 Months Old

Silas is 19 months old, as of yesterday...
All of these pictures were taken during a little photo shoot I did last weekend.

Believe it or not, there are a few more pictures and details of the sweater/hat set that I knit, which you can see here.
Clearly, he's not afraid of the sheep anymore:
He's truly a toddler, but still my little baby. Love you Silas!

18 Months Old

Si turned 18 months old yesterday. These pictures were taken by Drew about a week ago.

Caught, purple handed:

An artist at work. Medium of choice: crayon.

Do NOT take my blueberries away from me. Do NOT! You will find out just how loud I can be.
Still haven't posted any pictures of the grandparents. It will happen eventually.

Enjoy being a year and a half, Silas. It's a good age.

17 Months Old!

Just a few pictures that I snapped today in honor of Silas turning 17 months old...

The three above were taken on the steps of Shannon and Patrick's porch. And the image below shows Silas picking strawberries from our berry patch. We have a native variety of strawberries growing in our yard. They are tiny, delicious and bountiful! Naturally, Silas loves them. We are working on teaching him the difference between ripe and unripe berries, but obviously for now, he has to be closely watched to make sure he only eats ripe ones. These strawberries are one of many kinds of berries we have growing in the yard. The nice thing about them is that they keep producing fruit throughout the summer, giving Silas plenty of opportunity to enjoy them!

Miss you, Daddy!

Drew left this morning to go to his 20th high school reunion in Wisconsin. That means that I'm in single parent mode until his return on Sunday. This is the first time Drew has ever been away from Silas overnight, so it will be interesting to see how Si (and I) deal with it.

We already miss you, Drew/Daddy, so these videos, are for you:

I call this one Things just aren't quite right without my daddy so I'm gonna keep cr--hey, what's that in my ear?


Aren't you glad there's no sound?

After that, Silas was feeling better. --So much so that he was ready to show a big person who's boss. Since Drew wasn't there, I was the target.

I call this one, Toddler Attack.


One more thing: I usually do a monthly shout out when Si turns another month older. Forgot this time... Yesterday, the 16th, he turned 16 months! Woo-hoo!

15 Months Old

I decided Silas needed a giraffe sweater in honor of him turning 15 months old, so I made this little number for him. He likes to point to the giraffe and it seems to make him smile. You are welcome to check out a few more pictures and info on the making of this sweater on my knitting blog, here.
Silas is a pretty slim guy, but he still has those chubby baby legs that just make me melt.
And this is a pretty common view we have a Silas now-a-days. I think it's safe to say that he can run now as well as walk.
Silas has gotten to the point where he is starting to make up signs. For instance, I asked him to say "hat" and he put both hands on his head. He's been doing that consistently ever since, even though we never taught him how to say that word. We've also noticed that he sometimes babbles not only vocally, but with his hands as well.

I blogged several times over the weekend, so if you are not an obsessive Planet Silas reader and you haven't stopped by in a while, be sure to read on.

14 months old!

It's hard to believe that we were celebrating Si's first birthday 2 months ago already!

I've been wanting to write a post updating you on what's going on with Silas developmentally, mainly in terms of language (signing), but it's not going to happen today. It's too beautiful outside and there is so much to do to enjoy the day. So, a more wordy post will have to wait till we return to our normal 60 degree overcast weather.

For now, let it be said that Silas loved playing with his Papa's cap while Papa and Grandma Bryant were visiting. He wouldn't leave it alone, and enjoyed taking it on and off.

I took a video around the same time these pictures were shot of Silas dancing to some music. Will post that at some point...

13 Months Old -- Ugh Bug Retreats!

Silas is 13 months old today! You wouldn't know it from these pictures, just taken this afternoon, but he really was very sick the last few days. We had another rough night last night, and I know I promised a vomit-free post today, but this ain't it. He tossed his cookies so much more last night that I was starting to really worry, especially because he hadn't eaten any cookies or anything else to actually toss. For a while, he couldn't even keep water down. But thankfully, he seems to be over it, for the most part, today. He's even eaten a bit--saltines, applesauce, Os and bananas, mostly. Though he's not back to 100%, he's on his way.

Happy 1st Birthday Silas!

Silas had a great birthday! Here's how our day played out:
In the morning, I gave him the stuffed dog I'd knit for him. Looks like he likes it! He hugged it and patted it lovingly.
We went for a birthday breakfast with Patrick, then came back home to count down to Si's birth moment (11:04 am). Silas celebrated by falling asleep 5 minutes later.

In the afternoon, we had a little party. Everyone had chocolate nut cake. Everyone, that is, except Silas. Here he is enjoying his birthday treat: huckleberries, blueberries, and breakfast Os:



And, some of the party-goers:




William and Jessica took some footage of us singing Happy Birthday to Silas. Enjoy!

Don't forget to watch the tribute we made for Silas and his first year on the planet, posted below.