Grampie's Visit

My dad visited us on Mother's Day weekend. He drove down to pick my mom up from my sister's house. My mom had been down for a couple of weeks to help Bekah out with Hailee and Hannah since this is a busy time of year for her. Kalin and I had gone with Bekah and the girls a couple weeks before this to pick my mom up from the airport. Kalin saw my mom from inside the car and started waving and yelling "Grammie! Grammie!". It was so funny and I wished I had some video of it. So I made sure to have the camera out when my dad came for a visit. At this point it had been about a month since he had seen his Grampie. He was used to seeing him at least every other week when we lived up north and I knew that he missed both his Grammie and Grampie. Here's the video from that meeting! He was so excited to see his Grampie!

Kalin Update

I figured I should give a Kalin update since my last post was just a generic family update.

1. Kalin's verbal skills continue to grow and mature every day. He speaks in full sentences now (albeit grammatically incorrect ones) and will often times string several sentences together in order to fully explain something to us or tell us a story.

2. One of the most common phrases coming out of his mouth is "I do it myself".

3. He asks questions such as: "What's dog doing?", "What's tree doing?", "What's newt doing?". And he asks these questions about EVERYTHING!! It sometimes gets very tiring and taxing for my uncreative brain as I'm desperately trying not to say "I don't know" too often. But really, what would your response be when he asks "What's lake doing?" I've started turning the question back over to him and asking him what he thinks the object is doing. Such a curious little mind! I'm pretty sure after we've exhausted the "what" questions we'll be moving on to the infamous "why" questions.

4. He loves giving kisses and hugs. He'll even give them to people he doesn't really know! I was preparing him to meet a couple of my friends from high school whom I haven't seen in years so I was showing him pictures from their blogs so he would recognize them. We got to my friend, Janelle's house just as Jamie pulled in - as soon as I had him out of the car he went running down the driveway straight into Jamie's arms and gave her a big kiss. When our friend, Janelle, came out of her house to greet us he leaned forward and gave her a big kiss as well!

5. He likes to say things are "real spicy". It started with soda. We let him have a little sip and he made a really funny face then said, "It's real spicy. I like it!". Many things have now been deemed "real spicy" by him - most of which are not spicy at all. I think sometimes he just means flavorful.

6. He enjoys fishing for compliments. He's basically just copying things we've said to him in the past but he'll say them to himself then look at us and wait for us to agree. He'll say things like: "Good digging, Kalin!", "Thank you, baby boy.", or my personal favorite is when he calls himself squawky boy.

7. We've started potty-training and he is officially in pull-ups now. It's off to a slow start but I think he's starting to get used to sitting on the toilet. The goal is to have him potty-trained (hopefully completely but I might living in a fantasy world) by the time the new baby comes along. Only having one in diapers would be super nice.

8. With Kalin being almost 2 1/2 now we've definitely seen an increase in tantrums. Here's an amusing story from just a couple days ago that I e-mailed to my family because I thought they would enjoy it.

So Kalin was throwing a MAJOR tantrum this evening. Over what, we’re not really sure. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out not only what may have caused it but what the root of the problem was. But nothing Kasey and I could do was apparently the “right” thing in Kalin’s eyes. After having him sit in a chair and telling him he was going to sit there until he calmed down then trying to ignore him (which works a lot of time) he was still riled up so I finally just picked him up and took him to his bedroom – hoping the change in scenery would get him to calm down so we could talk. I sat him on his bed and he started asking for his ba’s (pacifiers) and saying he was sleepy (this was at about 5:15 and I had just gotten him up at 4:30). I finally decided that maybe he did just need to lay down for awhile so I gave him his pacifiers and tucked him in and, by his request, prayed like we normally do before naptime and bedtime. I told Kasey I’d only let him stay up there for about 15 minutes since I really didn’t want him sleeping anymore. Kasey went back up to get him about 15 minutes later and Kalin was sitting up in bed. When he saw Kasey he said, “I all done crying now. I put ba’s away. I’m real happy!”

Just an amusing story from today. The tantrum part isn’t so amusing but I liked that after 15 minutes of some alone time and relaxing he was a completely different boy and I also liked the fact that he understood that we needed him to stop crying and calm down.

Kalin is full of surprises every day and he makes us laugh a lot.

I'm Back!

So, it's been about 4 months since my last post and I'm not even sure I have any followers left but I've decided that I should update. The first major update, which I'm sure everybody who reads this already knows, is that we've moved!! In March, Kasey accepted a job at Cal Baptist in Riverside doing the same job he was doing at Bethany. We moved at the beginning of April. We didn't have a place in Riverside at the time that we moved but Kasey's parents were gracious enough to let us (and about half of our stuff!) stay with them while we searched for a place to live. The search only took a couple days and we were able to move in by the end of that week. Hooray! Huge THANKS to all those who helped us move - both up north and down south (and especially to those who helped in both places!).

We're still working on getting fully settled in - there's still some boxes sitting around and we're still working on making the house feel like a home.

The second major update is that I'm pregnant! Baby Martin #2 is due at the end of November. We are currently 13 weeks along and I'm hoping that morning sickness is finally letting up for good. I think it will be much easier to finish getting our house put together once I'm feeling good and have more energy.

Playmates

Kalin and I took a trip into Santa Cruz this week to have a play date with our friends Sarah and Luke. We had been trying to plan this play date for a few weeks and for various reasons it kept getting postponed. I decided that even though it was raining (with a chance for pouring in the forecast) we were not going to cancel again! Thankfully, we actually had a nice drive to and from Santa Cruz. I am so glad that we didn't cancel because it was so good to visit with Sarah again and we loved watching our boys play together. I love the fact that they're both old enough to play and that they seem to enjoy each other's company.

Night-Night Kalin

First we got the adorable toddler bedding set for his birthday:

Then he learned how to climb out of his crib:

And now we have taken the crib apart and transformed it into a toddler bed:

We'll see how early our mornings start now!

I can't believe that I have a two-year old! I can't believe that he's not in a crib! What's next - potty training? Hmm...not a bad idea.

The end of our bedtime routine used to look like this: I pick him up, we turn off the light, we pray together, then I lay him down and cover him up. Tonight it went like this: I picked him up, realized that I no longer have to actually lift him up to put him to bed, set him down, pulled back his covers, watched him climb into bed all by himself (sniff sniff), covered him up then knelt down beside him to pray.

He's such a big boy now.

Blogging

Kasey says I need to blog again sometime soon - now that I'm not working anymore there's a good chance that it will happen.

So Far, So Good

It certainly is the most wonderful time of the year! I love the weather, the decorations, the music, the goodies and the anticipation! My co-workers all kept telling me that working retail during the holidays would cure me of my love for Christmas - I set out to prove them wrong. There is no way I'm letting the fact that we need a little extra income steal my love for the Christmas season. So far, so good. I'm not tired of the Christmas music, I'm not tired of seeing all of the Christmas decorations and toys come through my checkout lane, I'm not tired of how busy it can get (it makes the time go faster), and, quite frankly, I haven't even had that many mean customers (I think all the mean ones go up to the customer service desk). I'm still in love with the Christmas season.

We've been busy around here since the last post. I'll give some highlights of the last 4 weeks:

Kalin's First Dentist Appointment! It went about as well as I had expected - he screamed the whole time the dentist had her fingers in his mouth. Thankfully, the dentist didn't have high expectations for this first visit either. It was mainly a "Hi! Let's get to know you and if your child will cooperate we'll have a look inside his mouth and maybe do some x-rays and cleaning." Our child didn't cooperate so all we got done was the "looking inside his mouth" part. My main reason for taking him in was because he has an extra tooth that I was worried about. We at least got reassurance that it's nothing to worry about for now. It did puzzle the dentist a bit while she was trying to figure out what kind of a tooth it was (I'm sure Kalin screaming and moving around didn't help either). She said his teeth look healthy and fine and then tried to convince us that we need to floss his teeth for him. Really?!?! Are you kidding me? Some days we can barely get the toothbrush in his mouth. Kalin's favorite part of the visit was the train set in the waiting room (which he got upset about leaving when our name was called, to which the receptionist and dentist both said, "He can bring a car with him!!". They must encounter that problem alot.) and the orange balloon they gave him after his visit.

Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful time at my parent's house this year with my dad's side of the family joining us for a wonderful turkey lunch! Unfortunately I had to work in the evening but we still had plenty of time to eat and visit.

Butterflies! My dad came up on one of his days off (while my mom was out of town) and we headed out to Natural Bridges to see the Monarch butterflies. It was a beautiful day to head down to Santa Cruz and Kalin had a blast walking around in the butterfly habitat.


Christmas Tree! We got our Christmas tree the first weekend of December. We went to the same farm as last year and Kalin had so much fun running around. He had a lot of fun last year too but since he had only been walking for just a little over a month he was still kind of wobbly and we had to watch him closely. This year we pretty much just let him run. It was soooo cold so we found our tree kind of fast and Kalin "helped" Kasey cut it down. On the ride home Kalin kept saying "tree? tree?" trying to figure out where we had put it. I kept reassuring him that it was just in the trunk and he would get to see it again when we got home. Once we put the lights on the tree it became the "happy tree". Whenever Kalin sees pretty lights or candles (or eats some of Sarah's pumpkin bread) he deems the item "happy". We hung some garland and lights around the door frames in our house and the first thing we have to do when Kalin wakes up is turn on the "happy lights" - and then we have to check the tree's water. This tree is lucky that Kalin is around - it certainly will not be going thirsty with Kalin reminding us to check the water level! He lays down flat on the ground and sticks his finger into the tree stand like he's seen us do then says "Wa-Wa". Christmas has always been a special and fun time for me but having Kalin around makes it even more special. I get to experience it all through his eyes and joy and enthusiasm.

Cookies! I decided that it would be fun to make Christmas cookies with Kalin. We decided to keep it simple and just make some sugar cookies that we would roll out and cut into Christmas cookie shapes. It became very clear at the beginning of this project that these cookies would be meant for only our family - you don't want to know how many times Kalin licked his fingers then stuck them in the dough. But we had so much fun. And, it only took two days, but we finally got around to decorating the cookies! There's nothing quite like trying to get an almost two-year old to help put frosting on cookies! We had fun, made a mess, and enjoyed spending time together.

And in between all of this fun stuff Kasey has still been going to work, I've been going to work, I've been doing the Christmas shopping after work (10 o'clock at night really is the best time to go shopping. I might have to do that every year.), I've been trying to stay on top of dinner plans for my boys (some days I just look at Kasey and say, "I don't know, just have cereal and eggs."), I've still been going to my Tuesday night Bible study (it's so tempting to skip and stay home with my boys), and I've been trying my best to keep up with the regular housework. Quite frankly, it's busier than I would like to be. I've never been one to make myself so busy that I'm constantly on the move so this has been a challenge. Anybody who is acquainted with my sisters know how much they're involved in and I used to say that I was the lazy one in the family - then one of them told me that I was probably the smart one! I resolved at the beginning of this new adventure that I wasn't going to sacrifice the seasonal things that we love and want to do - even if it meant leaving the house more often than usual :-) So far, so good.