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.