Merry Christmas 2011 & Happy New Year!

Here we sit - completely LAME watching TV on New Year's Eve. :) Oh well...'tis the life of a parent I suppose. Now some parents are still hip, hiring a babysitter while they go out to party. We've never been huge party people when it comes to New Year's so I really don't mind ringing in the New Year with a sleeping toddler and my hubby. Jake thinks we're boring....but....okay, we are. You know it's bad when your parents and grandparents are at parties ringing in the New Year while you sit at home. ;) Haha!


Let me backtrack here and fill you in on our awesome Christmas! What a great Christmas this was for the Soll Family! Silas scored big time on gifts (big surprise) and we had a great fun & family-filled weekend. Jake and Silas started off the weekend in Nevada with his Mom & her family and then we drove to Iowa City Friday night after I got off work and did Christmas with Jake's parents at their house and then with my grandparents, aunts, uncles & cousin. It was a fun day - Silas woke up completely excited to be at Papa & Gramma’s house.

Papa and Silas had fun making music!


The bib says it all! Silas loved GiGi's homemade sugar donuts!!


Silas LOVES Mittens!!


Silas enjoyed the food!



Christmas morning was filled with more presents & discovering his stocking.

Here's Daddy & Silas



Opening his stocking with Daddy


Little stocking treasures


My sweet boy on Christmas morning - he woke up with some crazy hair!




Papa, Gramma & Silas with his new tractor!


He even checked the tires on the tractor.


Oh boy, this is the best!!





More Christmas fun!







All this fun made for a tired boy!


Christmas Day night & day after Christmas, Jake and I were able to get together with some of my best girlfriends from high school & what a sweet, sweet reunion that was!! Some of the girls I haven’t seen for 3 years. Even Silas got to enjoy some time with Steph and Liz.

He is such a ham!











And finally New Year's Eve. It was 60 degrees today (AWESOME!!) and we took full advantage - after we all took a nap, of course. :) Jake, Silas and I all went to the park and had fun outside! How fun to be able to say we played outside in our spring jackets on NYE?!

Big Boy Status

Today Silas hit a HUGE milestone! For about 3 weeks now Silas has been very interested in watching us go potty. We talk about poopie and pee, look at in the toilet and wave bye-bye, then he flushes the potty. He has himself sat on the potty about 2 or 3 times. For a couple months now, though Silas has been telling us when he's poopie.

Today while eating lunch I could tell he focusing pretty hard and then he said, "I poopie." I questioned what he'd said - was he poopie or did he need to go poopie (do you love my toddler talk?)? I said something along the lines of pooping in the in the potty but realized when I took him out of his highchair that he had already gone so I took him over to change him. He began crying and I noticed just a small product of (yep, you guessed it) poopie in the diaper. I asked him if he needed to go more and he said, "yeah" so we ran to potty and within about a minute in a half of sitting, poopie in the potty!!!! Silas was so excited to look at it, Mommy did a happy dance and we immediately called Daddy - Silas right away said, "Hi Daddy. I poopie." There was more dancing, more shouting "Silas went poopie in the potty" and lots of hugs.

There you have it, we've hit big boy status! He still doesn't seem to recognize (or maybe care for that matter) when he's wet so there's our next challenge.

Let me just say that recently I've been somewhat nervous about the potty training feat. Not so much of actually potty training...........but of toilets. Some of you know my disgust and fear of toilets - private and public. The automatic flushing toilets bring about some major anxiety (think bazillions of germs flying through the air, maybe even up your butt if you don't have your pants pulled up all the way). I nearly sprint out of a bathroom that has an automatic flush for fear of a germ enema. What I can't stand the thought of is those nasty, NASTY germs on my son - his hands, his butt, anywhere. Think I'm crazy? Read what this lady has to say and maybe you'll understand: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amber-dusick/potty-training-public-toilets_b_1123409.html

A funny little story...

Yesterday started off less than pleasant. I went to leave and realized I had a flat tire. What a way to start a day. Long story short, I ended up taking Jake's car and he had to call someone to come get my tire off 'cause it was completely stuck.

Here's the funny part. :) While Jake was finishing up with the car guy, he put Silas inside to finish watching his "tractor mo-mo" (tractor movie). When he went to come in, he discovered that Silas had locked him out of the house!! Thankfully we had left a window off the deck unlocked so Jake was able to get it. Needless to say, Jake had a rough morning. :) I still giggle to myself a little when I think about our 20-month-old son locking Daddy out of the house. :) What an ornery little man!!

Indoor fun

Well wouldn't you know as soon as Silas' obsession with rocking before naps and bedtime started, it stopped. I'm sad to say that he's back to putting himself to sleep during those precious times before nap and bedtime. I relished that time snuggling so hopefully it will return again sometime.

We've had to get creative the other day when it was cold out and Silas was getting bored. This boy loves to jump on things so what better to do than grab all the pillows from the couch, cover 'em in Silas' beloved blankies and jumping on 'em? This kept us occupied for quite a while and gave Silas and Daddy a fun activity to do when Daddy got home. Check out the action shots:








We're getting excited for Christmas in the Soll house! The tree is up (the tallest, widest one we've had yet!), the stockings are hung, we're spent a couple evenings driving around looking at Christmas lights, we've read the Christmas story, presents are wrapped and in the basement away from little toddler hands....doesn't get much better than that!

Silas is now almost 20.5 months so I figured I should update his current "favs" list.

- Clementines (pronounced "men-a-mine")
- Elmo on his diapers...he seeks out the Elmo ones :)
- Tractors & "tractor mo-mo" (tractor movie)
- Barney movie....ugh, I know, I know. Hey, if helps Mommy get 30 minutes to get things done then we'll do what it takes.
- Songs on the radio. This boy has an opinion on which songs will listen to on the radio and will say "up" when he knows the song and wants it turned up. He'll say, "no, no" when he wants a different song. The other day when I was trying on clothes in our room, Silas asked to listen to "Low" by Flo Rida (I know, NOT a great toddler song) and then asked to take his shirt off while dancing!! Hilarious - he cracks me up!

Guess that's about all for now!

Happy December!

Sorry I haven't been very good at updating lately! :-/ I feel like we've been so busy and yet when I try to think of what we've been busy doing, I can't come up with anything. Ha!

We had a nice Thanksgiving and I got in on some Black Friday shopping with my parents and sister. We got some great deals and I've decided Black Friday shopping is completely worth it 'cause I really did get some good stuff for 40-75% off the original price - whoo hoo!

Silas continues to chatter up a storm. He is cracking us up on a daily basis. He now tells me when he's poopie (first step to potty training, right?) and I say, "P U, Silas!" He responds every time with "Da poo, Daddy!" (his version of P U). In typical boy fashion, he toots intentionally and then laughs about it...it's so hard not to laugh with him.

We went to a Mexican restaurant tonight and immediately upon being seated, Silas said, "Salsa? Salsa?" He loves dipping his chips and quesadilla in the salsa - a boy after my own heart!!! Heaven knows I ate plenty of chips and salsa when I was pregnant. :)

One of Silas' new requests that I am LOVING is his request to rock before naps and bed. This just started about a week ago and now he regularly says, "rock" when going down for a nap or to bed. I absolutely cannot help but agree and snuggle right in with him for 20-30 minutes of rocking. Of course he falls asleep but I always hate putting him down so I usually keep rocking a while longer. I will NEVER tire of rocking my sweet boy. :)

Silas has loved the Christmas lights. We got a Christmas tree today (in the rain...ugh!) and Jake and I set it up and put all the lights on it while Silas napped. He was surprised to see it and enjoyed looking at all the ornaments and lights. I am so excited for Christmas this year -- I think it's going to be so fun this year with Silas and we're even going to be home in Iowa City this year which I am equally as thrilled about. I love Christmas at my parent's house - a lazy day in our pajamas enjoying eachother's company without a care in the world. And then going to Jake's parent's house late morning and being with them.....everything about being home warms my heart and makes me so excited for the holidays!!

Hope you and your family enjoy the Christmas season! Safe and happy shopping too!