churgovich family christmas

the last couple of weeks boden seems to be having the time of his life! not sure if it is the stimulation he is getting or he is just coming into his own. so many times he just acts so happy to be alive. it is really fun to be a part of. this past christmas is no exception. we had a wonderful time. the only thing that could have made it nicer was if we would have had aunt nae and uncle wiley there to share it with us. maybe next year... i decided the best way to tell about the adventure was to narrate through pictures. i told you they were coming, so here it is.... hold on!

as always, boden having fun with uncle robbie.

eric is currently reading a book on mozart's life. he is convinced boden is going to be a prodigy...

helping gramma play the piano.


trying to wake up while sitting on grandpa after a nice long nap.


boden is taking after daddy and uncle robbie in their love for gramma's famous fudge nut bars. anytime anyone was eating one, boden had to have some too!

boden could not be kept away from gramma's christmas tree. gramma said she didn't care if boden broke every ornament on the tree if he was happy playing with it. well, he only really broke one (i never saw uncle robbie and daddy move so quick to sweep boden up out of harms way :) ), and there was only a couple times i was seriously worried that he might pull the tree over while trying to take off a stubborn ornament. all in all, i think it is safe to say he took about 30 ornaments off the tree when it was all said and done???

boden had a lot of fun opening presents! he is finally starting to understand it. when we would bring him a new present, he would make this surprised/excited face and dig right in.

a little quite reading time with gramma in the midst of all the excitement.

boden loved the kitty charlie!!! it was even more exciting because boden had just started to say kitty the day before!

a little family background... how many families to do you know that have a roller rink in their family??? well, we have two! crazy i know :) so, every christmas eve we have a big polish (a lot of your questions answered about me :) ) family reunion complete with perogies, borsch, roller skating, and santa. boden went last year, but was too young to try and roller skate (5 month old on wheels? maybe we should have tried it!). so this year it was a must! at first he wasn't too thrilled at all...

watching and taking it all in...

hey dad! uncle robbie is right! everyone does have cars on their feet!

that seemed to do it, because soon after that, he decided he would try.

we made in about halfway around the rink! yeah!!!

what boden really liked best though, was running around the rink floor! at times it was a challenge to keep him out from underneath other people's skates. when santa came though, he had the floor to himself :)

boden! don't leave uncle robbie hangin' :)

watching santa from the safety of gramma's arms.

boden liked sitting on cousin zara's lap waiting for a present.

is that for me???

what's in this one???

a ball!!! i love balls!!!

baby

baby. i have wondered if boden has been saying this for well over two months, but being a boy and not having any baby dolls in the house i had nothing to confirm with. i think he picked it up because i am always calling him my baby. when i was putting boden down for his afternoon nap today, we were reading a baby colors book. there are three babies on the front and throughout the book. i pointed to the babies on the front and said baby, baby, baby. boden did the same thing. then, with each page there was a baby on it, he would point to the baby and say baby. very sweet :)

btw, he has made elephant sounds and monkey sounds the last couple of days. the monkey one is very cute. he mostly does it under his breath - ee aa.

also, eric and i both agree, the last couple of weeks have been so fun with boden. we can tell he is really starting to put things together in a much more meaningful way. his communication, words and beyond, are really getting so much better. we are having a lot of fun with him!

ps-if you haven't noticed we have added a couple christmas photo album links on the right side of the page. we will write and post some favorites here sometime in the near future, but for those of you that are hardcore boden fans and can't wait, or just want more photos of his christmas adventures, be sure to check it out.

4 generations

a couple weeks back we had an extended family party on grammy's side. it was great fun and boden really liked great-grammy's doggie ginger!

boden and ginger.

great-grammy, grammy, boden, and daddy.

catch up

there has been so much that has happened since our last post!!! what a great holiday and time spent with family! there is no way to catch you up in just one post, so be prepared for a barrage of posting in the next few days...

the main subject for this post will be updating boden's word wall. it seems like he is really getting stoked up for words to come spilling out. he has done four new ones in just this last weekend. at last count he is up to 17 words (not counting the difference in mama to mommy and dada to daddy). the doctor said that he should have 10 words by his 18 month appointment next month, so i think he is well on his way :)

kitty. he said this the first time this past friday. we were reading a book together that had a bunch of animals in it and i was pointing to different ones and saying the name and sounds that each of them makes. it occurred to me to ask him if he could say kitty and so he did. i was very shocked. thought i should ask him to say specific words more often :). he said it several more times and then we were off to OH. when he saw charlie, the kitty at gramma and grandpa's house, he jumped down and started going after him saying kitty, kitty. he had a great time following the kitty around this past weekend.

bye. all of a sudden waving bye and saying bye have come together for the bode. at first we weren't sure if we had heard him right which turned into him going to the door and trying to pull it open saying bye to sensing that we are leaving and starting to wave vigorously and repeatedly saying bye and blowing kisses. :)

grandpa. we had wondered about it some for a little while here expecting him to come out and say exactly grandpa, but was confirmed after we got home to MI and had our first webcam conversation with gramma and grandpa on tuesday night. boden kept repeatedly pointing to grandpa on the computer screen saying pa pa pa. it is interesting the inflections in his voice that distinguishes "papa" from "grandpa." with "papa" he says it with the two pas closer together and punctuated, often with a lift on the second pa. with "grandpa" there is three or four pas with the first couple being a little garbled like maybe he is trying the grand part but doesn't quite know how to form it.

bear. a good teacher friend of mine had gotten boden a large stuffed bear when he was born. we call him mr. bear. the last few months boden has really fallen in love with this bear, hugging it, giving it kisses, laying on it, rolling around on the floor with it, etc. yesterday we went into the back room to say hi to mr. bear and boden goes to give him a big hug and says bear all long and drawn out so that you could hear each letter in the word. he said it several more times that morning and then later when daddy came home from work.

part two...

for those of you that would rather not hear the gory details, you may skip this post.... for those that want more gore, for whatever reason, in the midst of it all, eric thought to take pictures of the whole ordeal.... i may write about it, but i just don't have what it takes to post the pictures, so if you are interested, talk to eric :)

so, you would think that since boden had the flu on tuesday, he would be done, right??? wrong. tuesday was just a precursor for what was to come. friday we had planned to go to a living nativity with papa and grammy. we were bustling around to make it on time. eric had put boden upstairs for an auxiliary nap since we would be out late and he had seemed inconsolable and wouldn't eat. i went upstairs to get him because he just didn't seem to be calming down after a while. on the way down the stairs, boden burped and i thought, hmmm maybe he has a bit of an upset stomach. oh did he ever! just as soon as we had gotten to the bottom of the stairs and i had shut the door-splat, splat, splat!!! all over the floor, fridge, cabinets, the door, mommy ( i went thru 3 outfits, with the last one staying on till we finally put him to bed), and halfway down the hall - chunks of hot dog, carrots and other unrecognizable matter. for the next four hours boden proceeded to throw up every 10-20 minutes. after about the first 3 times it was pretty much saliva type stuff and dry heaves. very pitiful. i just sat with him on the rocking chair downstairs and he would awake from his sleep and start heaving. he actually was a little cute at times - we finally got smart and got a container to catch the stuff and he was getting quite good at it. he would start heaving and we would bring the container up to him and he would grab the sides of it and push his sweet little head as far as he could into it. when he hadn't thrown up for about an hour we all went to bed. woke up a couple times, but didn't throw up any more. at one point we brought him downstairs in the middle of the night and he drank about half a carton of pedalite.

saturday he was quite a bit better and we all tried to recuperate thinking we were on the upswing. this morning we all got up and were getting ready for church. it was the children's christmas program at church and we had nursery. eric was feeding boden breakfast and i was about to shower when splat! what!?!? he seemed fine and after eric wiped him up, he continued eating. (btw, at this point eric was not feeling super.) we were like, hmmm maybe that was a fluke of the old days when he spit up. he didn't appear to have a fever and since we had nursery and didn't know who we could call that didn't have kids in the christmas program, decided to tentatively keep getting ready and see how things progressed. well, not but 5 mins later, splat again! hardly five more mins and eric is very sick. i called the nursery supervisor and explained our plight. i felt so bad calling with just about an hour before we were supposed to be there (hmmm replay of five days before....). well, it proved to be a very good move. eric has been repeatedly sick all day and boden has not been much better with things changing direction of departure. with my boys bedded down for a nap, i got to shovel the driveway so that i could get out and get my boys some electrolytes at the store. this evening we had to cancel once again with papa and grammy. grammy has a main part in the christmas program at their church tonight. we are very disappointed to miss it. hopefully we will be better by tomorrow, though at points the last couple days i have been feeling sick to my stomach.... sympathy pains i hope....

chunks

is what boden blew soon after he got to daycare this morning. he woke up this morning and was pretty upset before 6am. eric got up with him once and then i sat and rocked him for a while when eric was getting ready. he didn't have a fever and he has been fussy/tantrum like the last couple of days, so we didn't think anything of it. eric brought him into daycare, everything all fine and dandy. about 15 mins after eric had been at work, they called to tell him that boden had thrown up. so, he went and got him and surprised me at home as i was getting dressed. with school to start in less than an hour and the subline closed, put us in quite a scramble. i went in and did some sub plans and the secretary said that they would get somebody in, even if my principal had to cover my first class.... eric was willing to stay home, but this week one of his machines is really coming to a head (he worked until 9:30pm last night), so it seemed best i stay with boden if we could swing it. so, now he is taking a nap. i'm a little scared :) boden spit up for the entire first year plus of his life, so i've dealt with plenty of that, but this is the first time i've ever had to deal with actual being sick and throwing up... i hope it is a one time throw up and he's done....

btw- last night boden and i were pointing to the different parts of our faces (hair, ears, eyes, nose, tongue....) and he pointed to his eyes and several times, very distinctly said "eye" (very strong on the 'e' on the end). one of the most distinct and understandable words he has said yet. pretty much like i thought all words were supposed to come out, clearly and in context.

hug the doggie

boden has really been getting into his toy doggie. he loves to carry it around, push its buttons, hug it, and lay on it. here is a photo of him cuddling with it on the foot of the barber's chair.

"no, no, no"

a couple of weeks ago boden started shaking his head no. it is actually pretty cute, even when you are sternly telling him "no" and he starts to shake his head no (very hard to keep a straight face). shortly after that he started going around saying "no, no, no" repeatedly while he was playing. wasn't sure if it was legit or not, but it seems like he is doing it fairly consistently and somewhat in context. "no, no, no" to the balls rolling around the room, "no, no, no" as he pushes food away from him....

"done." have been wondering about this word for a while now too. sometimes it seems very clear that he is saying it after we ask him if he is done, but he doesn't necessarily initiate it to tell us he is done (wouldn't that be helpful???). well, this morning at breakfast, he was fussing and fussing and finally i firmly asked him if he was done. if he was, i would take him out and put him down on the floor. if he wanted 'more' (we have really been trying to get this word out of him as well. ball and car do not help us much on a daily basis with communicating our needs :) ), i would get him more to eat. he sat still and you could see him thinking, and then he said very clearly - "done." so, we whipped him out of there as quick as we could to hopefully reinforce the meaning of that word!

boden's hair was getting long (mommy and daddy's too). we want to have auntie liz take some family portraits soon for greeting cards and we had a tiemeyer christmas party in the afternoon (more later), so, we wanted him to look shipshape. haircuts thus far have required some creativity, but have been manageable. well, it seems like haircuts and doctor visits now fall into the same category for us - boden does not like it and he is sure to let you know that he doesn't! after about 3 laborious snips of the scissors and daddy dancing around to music, family pictures on the computer, and yo gabba gabba party in my tummy, i was ready to throw down the scissors in frustration. (later when we were relaying the story to papa and grammy on our ride to great grandma tiemeyer's house, grammy said, so this is probably about the age parents start letting their kids' hair grow long? -said with a smile. i laughed and said, yes! at the moment above that i was about to throw in the scissors, i told eric, we shouldn't have even started, now he has big ol' chunks out of his hair! eric said, well, what would we do instead? i said, let it grow long!!!) eric said, let me do it then. i was like, no way. so, i tried a couple more times and gave him the scissors..... at first eric went about it gingerly as i gave him a few instructions. before long, he was going at boden like i'd seen him cut cow tales in the barn :) leaning all into him with commanding authority. for the most part, thru lots of tears, boden bent to his will. we laughed at different points today as we see a couple spots that are tell tales of daddy's first haircut, but i must admit, he didn't do all that bad a job. so now daddy has two more jobs - cutting boden's hair and cutting boden's fingernails (also a very similar story to the one described above that took place about a month ago ....).

couch olive spoon

boden was able to get onto the couch on his own today. he has been close for several days now, but today he finally got all the way up. once he was up we left him to his own devices. figuring that if he fell it would be a good lesson in gravity, because now that he can get up on his own we are not always going to be able to catch him. however today he did just fine. both times up he made it down without a scratch.

at the tiemeyer family party today, he tried olives for the first time. he seemed to like them; he ate approximately 4 slices. this is one more sign that he has his mom's tastes, not his dad's. which i think is good, because if he is going to fit in with the churgovichs he is going to have to like vegies, vinegar, and rotted cabbage.

then to top his day of firsts off, boden "successfully" used a spoon, on his own, to eat some applesauce. he scooped it and everything. it was not pretty and it did make a mess, but applesauce went from the bowl to his mouth, under his own power, without touching his hands.

egg and cheese wrap

many mornings i make myself an egg and cheese wrap for breakfast. well, about 1 1/2 weeks ago, boden started to show great interest in them. to the point where he fusses until i'll give him a bite. finally on saturday, i made him his own. he ate over half of it. on monday, i didn't make him one thinking..... i don't know, maybe he wouldn't want one??? well, he ended up eating near all of it. so, today i did make him his own. ate about half and then this time he was all interested in how it was put together and pulled it apart and then got upset that he couldn't put it back together. mom, i thought this would make you happy that he is now eating his eggs :) the neat thing for me, is that this is the most complex food he has eaten or even tried eating yet. he will sometimes eat what we are eating, but we always have to pull the components apart. hmmm maybe we shouldn't do that anymore and we would have more luck with him eating mexican????

steenwyk thanksgiving/christmas weekend

this was the weekend for the steenwyk christmas to fall on thanksgiving weekend. so we had one fun filled event right after another. thanksgiving dinner was at uncle mike and aunt emily's, an after dinner hike with the kids (actually boden stayed back and took a nap and then snuggled with grammy for a while till we got back :) ), and a tree trimming party at papa and grammy's (boden actually only got to hang one ornament this year, before we had to whisk him off for bed so he'd be fresh for the next day). friday papa had a pre-lunch fort building party in the hayloft planned for the kids. we had every expectation that boden would like it, he has liked everything else on the farm so far (loud tractors/combine, walking thru the cornfield, playing in a pile of corn, mooing with the cows, ect...). at first he just took everything in and sorta clung to daddy, after trying to get him to go into a 'hay cave' he pretty much decided he was done. so, mommy took boden in to play with cousin claire and auntie liz until lunch. that evening (aka christmas eve), the adults went out to a yummy anniversary dinner, while the kids got babysitters. on saturday we enjoyed a wonderful christmas breakfast, read the christmas story, sang christmas carols, opened presents, and just had a nice time being together as a family. so, i don't know if you have scrolled down at all, but i hope you are ready for the barrage of pictures i uploaded from the weekend. i already had a hard time narrowing it down. maybe we'll add an album on the sidebar so you can view them all if you so wish....

boden sure enjoyed spending time with his cousins...

taking books and videos off aunt emily's shelves with cousin nathan.

playing with cousin katie and nathan.

playing with cousin claire.

just lookin' cute all by himself :)

dancing with papa.

looking cute with auntie liz.


so boden found this little car in grammy's toy closet and kept coming back and back to it. problem was, he couldn't quite get his foot over the top to get on by himself, and he could only go backwards by himself, so we had to find a nice long stretch for him to ride :)


good thing cousin jenna was there to help push boden forwards!


boden brought this book to daddy to read to him and cousin jenna....hmmm hemboldt???


posing for the camera-daddy, boden, jenna, katie, and natalie.


don't cousin jason and natalie look so happy? why isn't boden? :)

hey! how come i can't get this doggie out of here???

hey dad, did you see there is a car in here???

what is this?

how did my favorite balls get in here? i thought i left them at home.

these balls work different than in my popper.

the whole steenwyk clan together...

word wall

alright. i have not edited the word wall for quite some time, because frankly, it has been a bit of frustration for me. i think i wrote about this in an earlier post- i really thought the whole speaking/new word bit would be more cut and dried. now, this could be largely due to my personality (getting big nods from my husband. he thinks it is ridiculous that i have been struggling so over the validity of the words boden has spoken/not spoken.). it is getting to the point now that i am starting to loose track of order (again, something that eric doesn't seem to think is a big deal :) ), and i'm sure you all would like to be kept more up to date on his vocabulary (right? :) ).

so, here it is. a few weeks ago we added doggie to the list. now, there were four of us that heard him say doggie over a couple day period, which would seem like some pretty hardcore proof. except, until yesterday, we had tried and tried to get him to say it again with pretty much no success (yesterday was steenwyk christmas and grammy and papa got boden this cool truck with a four-wheeler in the back with a tent and some figurines that included a black doggie that looked like rambo (an old steenwyk dog from days past). he was just about as interested in the dog as the truck, and eric and i thought we heard him say doggie once or twice. but we spent some time at auntie liz's and uncle (brother) mike's house this weekend, both of which have dogs (boden loved them btw), but the most we could get out of him was a moo (cite previous blog entry.)). so, even though i know we heard him say it a few times, i have been having a hard time wondering if i should have added it to the list (i'm pathetic i know. i have no excuse.). so.... i have decided to edit it with an asterisk. yes, we have heard him say it in context, but can we get him to say it consistently?????

segue into gramma and uncle robbie. i have heard boden say maamaw (for gramma) on more than one occasion. boden often times goes around the house saying obbie bobbie obbie (and i think, it seems a bit of a stretch to think he would have uncle robbie spontaneously on the brain. though, he will often times start talking about cars.). also, there have been times that we have been looking at pictures and will say: "who is it? is it uncle robbie?" and boden will start saying bobbie or obbie. but it is not rock solid. sometimes he will be more interested in getting to the keyboard or mooing at an animal also in the picture. so.... i am opting for an asterisk in the official word wall. yes, we have heard him say it, but can we get the consistency????

boden loves balls. big, small, rubber, plastic.... (i would be tempted to say that they could nearly bump cars into second place. i can't say that for sure, it is sooooo close! the balls that came with his popper that aunt emily got him have become almost a lovey. it is not enough for him to have one in his hand. often he will crawl around on the floor looking under things until he can find a ball for each hand, sometimes he is not content until he finds a third (he can now hold two of those balls in one hand.). when he does find them, you can almost feel the tension leave. he will many times take them to bed/nap clutched in his hands as he falls asleep :) ). so, we knew it wouldn't be long before he uttered the word. which, sounds with a 'w' (baw) on the end rather that 'll' (ball).

papa. we had suspected for some time that boden might be saying papa, but after our combining outing we were quite sure (we thought he was saying it a few times in the combine and then the next day when we were looking at pictures, with no prompting at all, he started saying papa each time papa was in the picture.). and if there were any doubts in our minds, he surely put them to rest this weekend during our steenwyk thanksgiving/christmas weekend. nearly every time he saw papa he would break into a big smile and start saying "papa, papa, papa." one of the cutest times was when we were all eating a meal at grammy and papa's very big table. boden heard papa talking, but couldn't see him, so he started to say "papa papa" all careening his head back and forth trying to look around people so that he could see him :).

the next and final word posted on the word wall to date is surprisingly, 'water'. it is not like boden loves water more than other foods/drinks. if i had to guess i would think he would prefer milk over water. as i'm writing this though, i think of how much he likes to take a bath or put his hand in a glass of water, so maybe??? anyway, he will say water (rather wawa. brother mike said it was legit to document it if he is clearly using it in context.) whenever he is drinking water, or sees some on the table. consequently, he is getting much more of an opportunity to practice drinking from a "big boy" cup than we had been giving him before. (as he is getting better at communicating, i am noticing that he is wanting to do things at certain times that i never gave him the chance before. example: a couple weeks ago, boden started going to his high chair when he was hungry. ever since then he has been going to his high chair around 9am wanting a snack. big deal you say? well, up until now, i hadn't been giving him a morning snack! i guess i wouldn't think of it because i rarely have a morning snack and it is not near such a long stretch as between lunch and dinner. makes me feel a bit guilty. wonder what else he would like that i just don't think about :).).

wow! if you made it to the end of this post, you must surely love and are smitten with boden nearly as much as we are!!! thank you for letting me get this off my chest. hopefully i will be able to move on with life now :).

pick'n

boden has discovered that noses are a great place to put fingers!

showering

boden took a big boy shower! he has been trying to get in the shower for some time. finally, the other day after i was done, i took his clothes off and pulled him in with me. he did good. he didn't quite know what to think of it, but it sure made it easier to clean him. i tried it again yesterday and this time there were more tears. maybe soon he will be able to do it all on his own.....

ps-the me in this blog is eric.

combining

last weekend papa was combining corn at full force, so we decided to make a trip out to the farm and check it out. we had taken boden last year at this time and he seemed to like it (well, as much as a 3-4 month old can i suppose :) he for sure didn't seem bothered by the loud sounds). so, we were curious how he would do this time (though we had a hunch he would like it, because he sure has enjoyed the tractor rides he has been on...).

well, when we first got there, papa had just made the turn and was going the other way, so instead of waiting for him in the truck, we decided to play in the corn. boden thought it was great fun!!! at first he just sorta sat there with a little smile on his face. after daddy helped explore it a little with him, he started digging into the corn and repeatedly sliding down the pile (i keep finding the corn all over the place here, even when i took clothes out of the dryer...). i think he would have put up a fuss over us taking him out of the wagon had the combine not been coming, and that was way too cool to look at :).

all three of us squeezed into the cab with papa, and for about half a round, boden was captivated. he kept looking at papa and at what was going on and then back at us like "isn't this cool?". the last half of the round he started getting a little wiggly and wanted to help papa drive and so on. boden wanted to get down on the floor of the cab and right up to the window so he could see for the next round through the corn. he stayed pressed up against the window for most of the round, but then found all the levers and things on the floor fascinating. after that, we decided not to push our luck. can't wait until he is old enough to ride in the combine by himself with papa like his cousins jason and nathan.

below are some (ok a lot, i had a hard time narrowing the pictures down...) pictures we took of our time:

fun in the corn!

daddy and boden.

sliding!

how many of these can i get into my hands???

whoa!!!

what's that big thing coming?

neat!

all three generations...papa, daddy, and boden.

watching the corn being combined.

fascinated.

i'm gunna drive one of these when i grow up, just like papa.