Kent couldn't be more proud.

I think that Kent has secretly been waiting for Zeb to like dinosaurs.  Apparently Kent was a dinosaur fanatic when he was little and knew the names to every dinosaur he could find. So, when Zeb was just a few months old we bought him a few dinos from the dollar bins at Target.  He never really paid any attention to them until recently.

A few weeks ago we checked out a "Jay-Jay the Jet plane" dvd from the library and it turned out to be "the mystery of dinosaurs".  Shortly after watching the movie Zeb came up to me with his plastic dino and stated, "dinosaurs stink, mom."  "They stink? What do you mean?" I asked.  He quickly replied, "NO! mom.  They lived a looooong loooong time ago and died out.  they stink!"  He was trying to tell me that they were EXTINCT.  It's AMAZING to me how much this kid picks up.  He understands waaay waaay more than I give him credit for. And he can say more than I ever thought possible at 2 and a half years old.  I realize he's just repeating phrases from places, but it is still so fun to hear him learn to speak and recontruct ideas he's heard.  It reminds me a lot of when I was learning Russian.

Now the kid runs around the house scared of t-rexes and pretending to be a stegosaurus.  He says that his favorite dinosaur is triceratops, though.

We found him a big pack of plastic dinosaurs at Walmart (for TWO BUCKS!) that we are going to give him for Christmas.  This year has definitely been a lot more fun now that Zeb understands the holiday a little more.  It's fun to start implementing our own traditions and creating our very own family Christmas.  One of my FAVORITE new traditions is my advent calendar. It was SO worth every penny that I spent on it.  Check out this rugrat's face.  Somehow it's just as exciting on the 17th morning to pull out a starburst as it was the first.  He acts all surprised every time he shoves his little fingers into the pockets each morning and screams out "It's a candy!!!".