I love me some Tanner

Tanner started out as the sweetest, cuddliest, cutest little baby you could imagine.  Seriously.  If all babies were like Tanner was, everyone would have 10 at least.  So cute and so easy.

Then he turned 2.

Now he's sassy and opinionated, but just as cute, so I have a serious problem.

For instance, last night, Kirk went in to get Tanner out of the bath, and he told Kirk to go away.  So Kirk gave him a few more minutes, and then went back to get him out of the bath, but Tanner told him to go away.  This happened several times before Kirk finally just took him out of the bath, and the look on Tanner's face was just priceless.  Deadly, but priceless.  That kid can glare with the best of them.

He's just so loveable, though.  Tonight, I turned on a Netflix show to distract me from the mountains of laundry I needed to fold after days and days of sickness and Tanner heard it and came out of his room.  When I told him he needed to go back to bed, he said, "Oh-KAY-yah" like the sassy pants that he is, but he turned around, went back into his room and shut the door, and for a moment I thought, "Amazing!  He actually just went right back to bed!" but then he started this sweet little wimper that I couldn't ignore and we cuddled for a while.  How can I resist?  I love the way he feels all curled up in my lap.  I'll be sad when he gets too big for that.

About half an hour later, I could hear him driving his cars on the walls so I went in to tell him to put his cars away and found him curled up back to back with Anthon, in Anthon's bed, with Anthon sound asleep.  And, while I think it's absolutely adorable that he crawls into Anthon's bed (on a regular basis--Anthon wins best brother of the year for putting up with it night after night, especially since Tanner doesn't go to sleep once there; he drives his cars on the walls...or Anthon's back) I told him he had to get back in his own bed to which he promptly shook his head and said "no." while giving me some serious glare action.  I insisted, and once he realized I meant business, he looked at me with those huge blue eyes and all the curly messy hair and the sweetness only a baby can muster and he said, "Lap?"

So we cuddled in the rocking chair for a while.

He gets me every time.

Here are some pics of the little munchkin...enjoy!

Cuddling in the chair.

 So excited about the kitty!

 Still lovin' those slides.

He ADORES dogs.  Any animal really.

Cooking with Tanner

Tanner loves to cook. He's already discovered, of course, that he can carry around his stool anywhere and immediately be able to see and do things he's never seen or done before. He has two stools, one big and one small. Actually, niether stool is really his, but you try to tell him that. The small one is handy for around the house stuff. Turning on and off the TV, for example. Or, even better, the Wii or Xbox while the kids are playing a game. Or for finding books on those hard to reach shelves. It's light, and easy to carry. But for jobs where height is really important, he uses his kitchen stool. It puts him at precisely the right height for "helping" with every day cooking chores. He's becoming an accomplished stirrer, a competent scooper, an excellent licker, and the best ever mess maker.

He loves it thought. LOVES it. Anytime I even go into the kitchen, or open a cupboard, he comes running--running--from wherever he is in the house, finds his stool (and if I've locked it up in the pantry to prevent this very thing from happening, he goes to the table and gets a chair. Stinker.), pushes it up to the counter and looks at me like, "Okay, Mom! What are we cookin' today? And where's my spoon?"

I can't resist.

It's lucky I have a broom.