Almost 16 months

So much has changed in the last weeks. This age is just fascinating.

My favorite thing about Eli right now is how social he is. Every person we pass in the street or in a store gets a "Hewwo!" and when we walk past, "buh bye!" It's so so so cute and I just love it. It's amazing how many stern-faced people melt into a big ole smile when they get a "Hewwo!!!"

Climbing. He's ALLLL about climbing these days. He still has a hard time getting down from things, but that doesn't stop him from getting up on something in the first place. Today, I broke out his old Learn N Groove Music table and looked over to see him standing on top of it. At the playground today, we literally spent 30 minutes going up and down and up and down and up and down the steps. (P.S.... it's been super fun to be able to go on slides again... I'm glad I'm still able to crawl up those small steps to get up there).

We made an important discovery yesterday. While he's been feeding himself for a few months now, I've still been spoon feeding him the wet stuff.... well, he's been totally refusing to eat anything out of a jar and has even been refusing his yogurt sometimes. Yesterday, I thought...what the heck...and gave him the spoon. The squash that he previously wouldn't touch suddenly became the most delicious thing in the world to him. MESSY as anything, but he gobbled it all up. I think I'm going to start taking his shirt off before he eats. :)

Eli had a GREAT time at the beach! Each day, he got more and more comfortable with both the ocean and the sand... by the last day, he was running to the water (not far in... and he'd still get scared when waves came...but it was fun to see!) and laying down in the sand. It amazed me that he naturally knew how to dig... so cute to see him digging a little hole. Also fun to see him smashing my sandcastles :) (And super fun to be able to build sandcastles again!). We only made it to the pool twice this time... hope to get there a lot more next year! We also took Eli on a few rides at the Boardwalk.... so fun! He went on the airplanes and little train with Mike and the flying doggies with me... the whole time his face was just totally deadpan... but then he really cried when we tried to take him off. So I guess that means he liked it!

On our last night, we went to the go kart place and Eli LOOOVED watching Mike drive around in the car. He kept screaming ... CAR! CAR! So fun.

He's still SUCH a boy. LOVEs trucks, will stop whatever he's doing when he hears a plane or sees a ball....and naturally makes little car sounds when he drives his toys around. He still loves crashing his trucks and cars off of any higher surface onto the ground (sorry neighbors below!).

I don't know if I mentioned this last time, but one of my most favorite things he does..... "Eli...what does Chewbaca say?" "Mwaaaaaaaah." I will never, ever get tired of hearing him say that. We always throw it in when we're running through the animal list with him. He gets SO excited when we ask him to do his animal sounds. :)

He's doing great with body parts, too! We're trying to teach him a new one every day. Today was belly button! :) He's also apparently able to identify letters.... cause he came up to my mom and said H when he was holding an H.... dont know if it was coincidence, but we're trying to start teaching letters now, too. So far he can identify G, H and E. We'll see if we can get any further. It's insane how much they're able to learn at this age.

His new favorite thing to say constantly is "I know, I know, I know." So now I like throwing in... wow, you know a lot of things! Lol - we joke around that he's prepping us for his teenage years. :)