In the Christmas Spirit

We went to Opryland Hotel this weekend and had a fun time looking at the lights.That is an elephant behind us, if you cant tell. Kaleb liked the animal theme this year.
With Daddy and the Santa bear...
This was the section of the tree that Kaleb decorated. We thought it was great, but what is even funnier is that as I am sitting in front of the tree now, only one of those balls are still in the original position (and Jason and I have not touched them). Kaleb will put ornaments on and off throughout the day, although mostly just off...
Daddy making sure that Kaleb didn't fall through the window. Kaleb was actually pretty steady on the ladder.

THANKSGIVING WITH PAPA AND GIGI

My parents came up for Thanksgiving. They had not seen Kaleb since July. Although we Skype every week, Kaleb is rather shy on the computer so he doesn't talk much, but they got to see the real Kaleb this past weekend. We all went to my Grandmothers house in Clarksville where my Aunt, Uncle and cousins met us as well. We had a good time, except for the fact that Kaleb did not want to take his nap for 3 out of the 4 days they were here. Below Kaleb is showing Papa how to do the elliptical.Kaleb just loves his GiGi. And I love GiGi too! We were able to go Christmas shopping and take a few evenings off reading with them around. Thanks Papa and GiGi!!
We decorated one tree while they were here and I think everyone had a good time!

We're going to visit them for Christmas, so we'll see how a 2 year old does on a 10 hour car ride.

In a typical day

In no particular order (b/c I still can't figure how blogspot posts pictures after 2 years)...

We go somewhere fun. We have gone to Chucky Cheese twice now and Kaleb loves it (and we do to). My memories of Chucky Cheese as a kid consist or germ infested ball pits, dirty floors, flat, cold greasy pizza and frustrating games of ski ball. (Although I still loved it as a kid) So, when Jason begged and begged to go, I finally gave in and brought my 3 bottles of hand sanitizer. But, much to my surprise, the one nearby is really clean and does not have a ball pit. The best part of it is that all the games are only 25 cents (unlike Dave and Busters, etc.)

We also go an indoor gym at a local church that has tons of padded tunnels, walls and slides for Kaleb to climb. I hope to start him in an indoor swim class and/or gymnastic class this winter when I won't want to go outside at all.
We watch Wiggles. I HATE the Wiggles! For some reason Kaleb LOVES them. He knows all the characters by name, except the pirate which he calls Arrrr! Recently I've tried to get him interested in Sesame Street again, which is working. It is so much more adult friendly and is actually fun and educational.
Kaleb takes a nap. For some reason he always sleeps horizontal in his bed, on his pillow, so his feet hang out. Even when I try to get him lay the "correct" way, he moves quickly back to his favorite, seemingly uncomfortable position.
We make dinner. Kaleb loves to pull the chair up by the counter and help me dump the ingredients into the bowl. He is such a good little helper.
He hangs out with Daddy. Although, it is rare to catch them in this pose (that is...not moving), they are usually playing trains, making up some crazy game that I would have never came up with in a million years, doing art, or wrestling.

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY KALEB!

This year we celebrated Kaleb's 2nd birthday with family. I figured it would be the only year I could get away with it, b/c next year he'll know what's going on and want a party with his friends too. He is so obsessed with choo choo trains that I made him this cake with candy freight. I must say I was surprised and proud that it came out looking like an actual train (although up close it looked a bit furry!)He definately liked the way it tasted...he kept sneeking the candy off the top. His big birthday gift was a train set/table....We could not pull him away for a few weeks (which was great for me b/c I got a lot of housework and dinners made) but now he doesn't play with it as much but at least 2-3x/day.
Nylah had to help him open his gifts b/c he was too into his milk.
This is our attempt to teach Kaleb and Nylah to share. This way they could both ride the bike. For a while I actually thought Kaleb was catching on to the sharing concept, but recently he's been coming up to us and saying "share mommy" and grabbing whatever he wants out of my hands. I guess it will take a little longer.
Kaleb's really started to copy what we say. The other day Jason was dressing him and he put a plain white T-shirt on him and Kaleb looked at it and rubbed his hands down it and said "How cute!" I guess I say that when I'm dressing him...I've never noticed...

TWIK-TWEET

Halloween night we went to our church's fall festival where they had lots of fun activities for the kids...We dressed as vampires b/c Kaleb would not where anything on his head so that cut out all the costumes in the stores. I made him a cape and vest, but he wouldn't even put on the vest. Nylah, Amanda, Jeremy and Grandma and Granddad all came up for Halloween and Kaleb's birthday (coming soon to a blog near you). After the festival we went trick or treating in the neighborhood and the kids loved it. They got pretty good at saying "twik-tweet" The feindly vampire family

The weekend before Halloween we went to the zoo for their Ghouls at Grassmere festival. It was so fun and well organized. I would definately recommend it for anyone next year. The kids all dress up and trick or treat to different vendor set up. They also have a maze, bounce house, haunted hayride, haunted carousel ride, and dance floor.

The funny part of the story is that we were going to attempt to put Kaleb in his monkey costume we had and we got 1/2 way down there and realized that we didn't have the costume...soooo, we stopped at Walgreens and picked up this skeleton suit. It did the job and was pretty cute.
Above, Kaleb and Daddy kickin it on the dance floor to the monster mash!

PUMPKIN PREP

The month of october was full of fall activities. One was a trip to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins.Kaleb really got into carving them. He did not want to stick his hand in it to pull the "guts" out, but loved stabbing it with the carving knives.

Burt and Ernie are some of Kaleb's favorite characters. We also did a Thomas the train pumpkin, but Kaleb stabbed his eyes out.

PAINT! PAINT!

Kaleb's vocabulary is exploding...he now has 3 favorite phrases...1. "NO!" 2. "What's that?" 3. "I want..." which is followed with...paint, play choo choo, eat, apple juice, daddy, that, etc. Sometimes I'm glad he can communicate and at other's I want to scream...He thinks that now that he can communicate sufficiently he feels he should get what he wants b/c he now knows that we fully understand his demands.

Painting is now one of his favorite pastimes. Jason and he did it one evening when I was gone and now it's turned into an every evening event (right before bath time of course).
Below he seems to be reflecting on his masterpiece...

Jason recently got a new job doing home health PT (what I do, but full time). He has several hours more in the morning and evening to spend with us now. I must admit it has taken an adjustment period b/c it got us all out of our routines, but now we're starting a new routine which should be much nicer once we get used to it...by we, i mean I... Kaleb is just loving having his daddy around so much he has blown me off... I dont just mean blown off, i mean pushing me away when I try to do anything with him...yes, it hurts and I've felt that if I almost died giving childbirth to him and have taken care of him for 2 years now, that I deserve a little love!!! Actually, this weekend has been much better so I have hope that both of us will once again be worthy of his love and attention!

HELP!!

Beginning last week, Kaleb has not been taking his naps. We will put him down around noon and he will just talk and sing for 1-2 hours. Then I'll just get him out of frustration. Then he's grumpy for the rest of the day. What would be any easy solution would be to move his nap time up to 2:00pm...but there's a problem. His day care gives all the kids naps at noon, so I think he will get even more off schedule if he takes naps at different times every day...arrhh! Any suggestions?

So, today I left him in his room for 2 hours, checking on him occasionally and pleading with him to go to sleep. Well, when I finally came to get him out, this is what I found....It looked like he cut the grass! He reached out of his crib at the nearby tree and grabbed all the grass at the base and scattered it everywhere! All I could do was laugh.

Labor Day Camping Trip

We went to Center Hill Lake for Labor day weekend. We camped Saturday and Sunday night. Here is a picture from our campsite. It was beautiful and so close to the water (just as we like it)! Our friends Andrew and Ulla and Mary and Dan joined us. We waterskied and hung out on the boat during the day (except for the 2 short thunderstorms where all 7 of us huddled into our 8 man tent.)Kaleb didn't nap well either day. We took the pack n play in the tent, but during the day it was too hot and humid for Kaleb to fall asleep. So as soon as we got on the boat and it started rocking over the waves he was out like a light. He did, however, learn to climb out of his pack n play that weekend. He had fun jumping out of it and onto our air mattress.
Unfortunately, Kaleb missed out on the S'mores...we ate them after he was sound asleep...that was planned of course! We had fun sitting around the campfire talking to our friends after little man tired out.
Here's the little camper with his flash light.

August Happenings

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and we had to take advantage of the weather. Kaleb is definately a product of Jason and I. He loves to GO, GO, GO!! He had a great time riding and is always up for an adventure.Jason was so excited about this slip and slide...He and Kaleb used it several times and had a blast. I tried to go down it and realized that I was getting old. It kind of hurts to thrust your body on the ground w/ your arms outstretched.

If this isn't a Parent's Choice, then I dont know what is!! He had so much fun with this box. He doesn't seem to play regularly with his toys. He wants to play with anything that I don't want him to touch, so then I have to redirect his attention elsewhere. The other day at the playground he started picking up the dirt/mulch on the ground and putting it in the trashcan saying "dirty, dirty"

YELLOWSTONE

These first two pictures are actually of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming (I guess i downloaded them in backwards order). We drove through them on the way to Jackson Hole where we ate dinner.
Here's a family shot in front of the Tetons...Daddy, Papa and Kaleb resting after walking around the geyser park where old faithful is.
This is in front of "Morning Glory" a popular and beautiful thermal effect. See closer picture below.

There were a lot of cool (or hot rather) thermal effects throughout the park. They were all so clear and you could see quite a ways down them. No bacteria or algae grow b/c its so hot.
Here's good Ol' Faithful. Actually, not too impressive, but it gets its fame through how predictable its eruptions are, not its magnitude. Although its the biggest geyser we saw, its not the biggest in the park.

Family Reunion in Idaho

My side of the family (my mothers) trys to get together every few years for a family reunion. We are located all over the country. This time we ended up at my aunt and uncle's home in Idaho Falls, ID. It was all of our first time there. Our first full day there we loaded up everyone and headed up to Yellowstone which was only a couple of hours away. Below is a picture of the guys at our lunch location. You can see where the trees were destroyed by the big fire in the 1980's. Everyone told us we would see tons of wildlife in yellowstone, but we only saw ONE elk...not even blogworthy! Below is a picture of Kaleb and his 3rd cousin and best buddy, Noella. They had a blast playing together. My mom brought them matching monkey shirts. Kaleb still asks to wear his all the time.

We went white water rafting one day. It was so great and relaxing (the grandmothers watched Kaleb and Noella). The day before the guys blew up the rafts to prepare and the kids tested them out by jumping on them like they were a bounce house. They had a blast. The weather there was AWESOME! Even if it was 80-85, there was no humidity and felt perfect! (from left to right: Leida (Noella's mom), my cousin Kathy and me.

Below is my cousin Wes, with his daugther, Noella and Kaleb...let's just say he had his hands full in more ways than one.

Below is my Uncle Mike playing with Kaleb. They had multiple tickle wars. I must say, Kaleb had plenty of attention on the trip. It was nice for Jason and I to have a break too.

More pictures of Yellowstone to follow...