Beans and Poop - Major Strides!

We have been having some major breakthroughs in the Banta household! I know you are probably dying to find out what those are because the post title is so intriguing, right?!

Let's start with Little Man: He began his real food journey this week and he is a super-star! His first meal is grean beans - fresh from Oma and Opa's garden. I remember Libby taking her first bite of food and she just wasn't sure about it. Well not her little bro - he loved it from the first bite. He ate it like he had been eating beans his whole life :) He gets super-duper excited when he gets in the high chair and even more excited when he sees his little bowl approaching the table. It's so cute - he wiggles and pants and his eyebrows go up...it's hilarious!
He's really getting the hang of sitting up on his own, too. Yesterday afternoon I took them in the backyard to play. He sat in the rocks all by himself, scooping them in his hands and shuffling his feet in them. We were all plenty dirty when it was time to go inside ;)
He's also working on getting up on his hands and knees. He is SO close - just needs to have some good flooring underneath him - he tries to get up on the hardwoods and ends up sliding backwards.
Silas is such a fun little guy. He's always happy and smiling and really easy-going. He's starting to talk (babble) all the time...starting to make me wonder if we're going to have 2 chatterboxes on our hands?! Won't that be fun!! At the rate Libby talks, Silas will either have to talk over her or try to finish her sentences! Silas loves his sister a lot - he watches her every move and cracks up at her craziness. I try to tell him to only take in the good stuff she does, but I don't think that's happening. He's taking in every bit of her!

Libby is a ball of energy right now. She is non-stop moving and talking and dragging toys out and just being crazy! I know it's been said before, but if adults had the energy of a two-year old we would all be rail thin. It's hard to keep up with her sometimes. Which then makes her upset because in her world she should get everything she could ever want! Josh and I both try to make sure she doesn't get everything she wants, but also that we do spend time with her in her room to play or take her outside or something.
She is still learning at such a fast pace. She speaks multi-part sentences, she can count to ten, she sings rock-a-bye-baby and patty-cake. She can sing her ABCs and she knows all of her basic colors! Amazing that an almost two-year old can retain so much in her young brain! Her intelligence is really awesome, but it has it's downfalls at times as well. She gets things we hope she wouldn't get - like, she loves popsicles and has one every day when we get home from daycare. So I bought her some mini pops and she said to me, "that was little so I need another one!" And she says things like, "I'm supposed to watch Elmo right now." Supposed to? Really? I don't think so!
Her potty-training is still going really well - we are making big strides with pooping now that she's having prune juice everyday. It is helping SOSO much with her constipation and makes it much easier for her to poo on the pot - Yay Libby!
And guess what?! We traded in the crib this week for a big-girl bed!!! She loves it so much and is so proud of her new bed. We are trying not to jynx the situation but she has not crawled out of it at night and not in the morning, either. What a good little monkey :)
I know Olivia loves her little brother, but she is bound and determined to make sure he doesn't touch anything that she thinks belongs to her. She has wacked him pretty good a couple (or more) times for either touching her or one of her toys or books. Something we are working on , but she's super possesive - normal for a 2 year old, right?

So that's what's going on with us right now. I hope everything is good with you all.

Love you lots!!