Kaleb 18 Months

He's finally there. 18 Months. All 34.5 inches and 31 pounds, 5 oz of him!! Yep, he's a big kid, but that's old news. Some new news is that we have been working on his word usage. Ammon and I are specifically asking him to say words in order to get what he wants (Movie, Candy, Banana) and most of the time we get an attempt at a word. He has said Nana, Puzzle, All Done, Buckle (buh buh), and Buh is valid for book, bear, and box. He's gotten obsessed with flushing the toilet and will say Vosh when he wants to flush. It's slow work and sometimes we can't help but laugh when he says something that is nothing like what we asked him to say. He's gotten frustrated to the point of tears, so we are still owkring on finding middle ground between challenging him and driving him crazy. Tis the joy of being a parent.

Per some requests I've included an extra dose of Kaleb photos.

Here he is regressing to a womb-like state:

Graduating to the booster seat wasn't his favorite, but since buckles are a new obsession, he has fun fastening himself in, even right after I've just unbuckled him. Also, he really loves to eat with utensils now.

Too young for piano lessons?

Kaleb thinks that the words Grandpa and Outside are synonomous. Whenever he sees Ammon's dad he wants to go on walks outside with him. It's what they do together and he just loves it. Probably the indian in him!!

Decorating the Kisawuzawus Truh (Christmas Tree) was an event this year. Kaleb loves all the lights and sounds (from the musical ornaments) and he just can't keep his hands off of every single tree he sees, complete with an "OOOOOOOOOOOoooohhh" to go with it!

My own Christmas Cherub!!

OH MY GOSH!! We have created a MONSTER!! Kaleb has become obsessed with watching his two Elmo videos. He runs into the play room, turns on the tv, parks his butt on the futon and will watch his video for at least 30 minutes without even moving. This photo is an example of how he didn't even get to the futon.

Books are also more fun for Kaleb lately. I think he is starting to connect the pictures with real things as we read and point at stuff.

Or maybe he just wants to be like his Daddy!

Not-So-Bleak Black Friday

I know it's been almost a month since Thanksgiving (and my last blog), but I just wanted to remember a few things about that weekend. The best way to do that is to blog about it!! Firstly, Thanksgiving Day was a lot of fun. We got to hang out with both sides of our family... a bunch of times. Going from my parents' house to Ammon's brother's house (which were fortunately only about a mile apart) became a running joke that day. I think I made that one mile trip about 5 or 6 times each way (uphill in the snow with no shoes on). One thing we learned from this year at Thanksgiving, we will never do two again!!!!

***Lesson learned: Ammon and I agreed that we will either host one or pick one. No more volleying ourselves back and forth.



After that fun day, we came home to a front door that was wide open... we got nervous and called the police, but since there was no sign of forced entry and nothing was missing we all agreed it was a case of a not-fully-closed-door.

***Lesson Learned: We are locking all the locks we can on all the doors we can!


A few hours later we convinced Ammon's mom to sleep on our couch while we went to Toys R' Us for the 10pm opening. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Those were some good times, edging through the parking lot around the 500 people in line. We went to Denny's to try to wait it out, but to no avail.

***Lesson Learned: With a little bit of hot chocolate you can make any outing into a fun date.


The next morning, my father-in-law picked me up for a 7am opening of a store to pick up a very large present for Ammon. (I acn't mention what it was or where because Ammon actually reads this blog... go figure) It was going to be $100 off the original price, so I thought it might go fast and it would be worth getting up a little early to get. Well, Ammon's dad drove into the parking lot and basically said "Get out and go wait in line. I'm gonna park the truck and stay in here where it's warm." That might sound rude, but if you knew my father-in-law it's more funny than anything. Anyway, I waited in the 25 degree line for about ten minutes before the store opened. Since I had been by the store a few days earlier I knew where they kept this particular item... in the back of the store. I walked nonchalantly to the back, grabbed it and pushed it slowly to the front. (It was heavy) As I waited in line, catching my breath, I started looking around at all the hustle and bustle and I realized that the item I had come for was also stocked about ten feet from the front registers.

Lesson Learned: Ask about an item before looking for it; especially on black friday

Otherwise it was a fun weekend, and both Ammon and I got most of our shopping done that weekend. At the end of the day, we ended up having my sister and her family over. We all got high on hot chocolate and started playing with a hula hoop. Sure it was much more funny to us at the time, but the following evidence was caught on tape:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMbu8eCZIro