Looking Back

I was just re-reading my blogs from the last year. My how things have changed! Will I ever blog again? Hmmm - I guess I just did :-)

Central Coast Vacation

We were able to get away for a few days and take a little vacation back up to the lovely central coast of California. We had so much fun visiting my parents, seeing friends, visiting West Cliff, and attending our old church. It was nice to be back up there after almost 4 months. We wish it could have been longer! It was especially nice to head back up to the fog and cool weather after enduring a Southern California heat wave! We really can't complain too much - Southern California weather has been very kind to us since we moved back down. It's really eased us back into the heat and we sure are enjoying having air conditioning!

Kalin LOVED being with his Grammie and Grampie again! Our first day there he was full of non-stop energy - talking, jumping, asking Grampie to fly the remote control helicopters, etc. I was glad that both of my parents were home that day because after doing a night time drive and getting in just before 2am, Kalin still woke up before 6! He spent a lot of time outside with his Grampie that day! That first evening we went out to Phil's Fish Market - a yummy restaurant right out by the ocean. After we ate we walked the little path down to the beach so we could catch our first glimpse in almost 4 months of the Monterey Bay. It was lovely - and a little bit chilly - which, to us, is also lovely.

The next day we headed into Santa Cruz to visit our friends the Meyers. Luke and Kalin got to run around on West Cliff, watch the sea lions, eat kefir pops, and help pick plums and cherries! What a fun time we had seeing our friends again and catching up!

Kalin, my mom and I took a trip out to visit my aunt and uncle, my Grandpa and my cousin's little girl. The kids had LOADS of fun "helping" plant corn. I think they're favorite part was when my mom was watering with the hose. They both got completely soaked!

On Sunday we were able to visit our former church. We got to witness the dedication of our friend's children - a 3 year old and an almost 3 month old. I was really excited that we happened to be there on the Sunday of that dedication ceremony. It was also good to visit with other people in the church - many of whom hadn't realized that we'd moved! I guess we left rather quickly and word didn't get around. I got to talk to many of the ladies from my bible study group. I had to mention several times that, yes, I am expecting again. I could tell by their glances while we were talking that they were trying to figure out if I was pregnant or just gaining weight! Ah, the awkward stages of pregnancy :-)

It was a wonderful trip and we look forward to the next time we're able to travel up there. We'll be a family of four by then!

New Smile

I was looking through our pictures taken just this month and realized that Kalin has this same goofy smile in about 75% of them...I miss his big toothy smiles!

Sleep?

I started this blog about 21 months ago with a post about getting Kalin to sleep through the night. After 9+ months of little to no sleep we had finally reached our limit and, realizing that things weren't getting any better (in fact they had gone into a downward spiral from bad to worse), the time had come to teach him to put himself to sleep. We were blessed with successful results right from the start. It seemed like Kalin was ready for this step and from that day forward (with the exception of a couple of "sick" nights) we enjoyed blissful, peaceful nights.

Until now...

I'm not sure if this all started with the move or with the end of the pacifier stage or both - or if it's just coincidence. It's possible that this is just a stage that he would have gone through regardless. Since moving Kalin to his toddler bed he's been really good about not getting out of bed by himself. In fact, he would just lay there and talk to himself or to his stuffed animals until we came to get him - even if we didn't come for over an hour. It was nice to be the one calling the shots on when he got up. But there have been a few instances since we moved and since we stopped the pacifiers where he would wake up crying in the middle of the night or in the middle of his nap. We wouldn't always hear him in the middle of night for awhile and always felt bad that he had gotten so upset. So we started telling him that if he was scared or upset that he could get out of bed and come get us. It took about a month of telling him this until he finally decided to try it out. And now it seems to be his favorite thing to do. We had intended on this to be a way to keep him from being scared and having to cry for us but he seems to be using it as a way just to see us in the middle of night. Actually, we really have no idea why he's doing it and once again, just like back when he was an infant, we're faced with the questions and possible reasons for this lack of sleep. His reasoning and verbal skills aren't advanced enough to tell us why he's coming into our room in the middle of the night. He just keeps standing there saying, "I awake?". It started out with just one or two occurences a night - but recently it's gotten a little ridiculous to the point that, last Sunday, I'm not sure any of us slept from 3:15am until we finally just got up for good at 6. This has definitely meant earlier mornings for Kasey and I. For all we know this has been a normal wake-up pattern for Kalin and he's just now involving us in it.

I've read several different things online about random nighttime wakings at this age and the one that seems to make the most sense is that they start to dream more and they can have a hard time distinguishing between dream and reality. It's possible that is what is going on - it's also possible that he's just testing this new novelty of getting out of bed whenever he wants. This also seems like a good possibility since he'll get up a mere 10 minutes after we've put him back to bed. Either way I hope this phase is short lived. I was looking forward to fully appreciating sleeping through the night before the new baby comes.

Most of the advice online is to take them back to bed without interacting too much - basically, don't talk to them. Which sounds like a good idea except he asks us to pray with him every time we take him back to bed and it just seems too harsh to say "No, I'm not going to pray with you." But maybe he's just using it as a stall tactic or a way to get us to interact with him. I don't know. I guess we'll just try a few different tactics over the next few nights and hope and pray that this passes and Kalin understands that he needs to stay in bed, unless he's really scared or upset - oh, and how about not getting up anytime before 6 - that would be great.

It's a Girl!

Our ultrasound this past Thursday went well! It took way longer than it should have because this little girl was being stubborn. She refused to roll over so the tech could get a good look at her spine. We were in the ultrasound room for a good hour! The tech tried all the usual tricks but the baby wouldn't budge! Eventually she had me get up and go to the bathroom (to give the baby more room to move) and jump around a little. That seemed to work although it still took a little bit of persuasion on the tech's part to get her to roll over completely.

Profile

One Foot (don't worry, she has two. This is just a shot of one)

This apparently means it's a girl.

I love the spine pictures.

Picture Post

Watching Toy Story (a.k.a. "Woody") and waiting patiently for me to bring him his pizza.

He loves his cousin, Hannah. He kept saying over and over, "I love Hannah!"


He has a blast playing with his cousin, Hailee.


I love that it looks like they're posing for a photoshoot.

Playing on the stairs.

New haircut! The little goober doesn't let us take very good pictures of him anymore. Remember when he was a baby and he would just happily sit there and smile for me all day long? Well now we have to resort to holding his head still to get a decent shot. A HUGE thanks to the person at Supercuts who cut his hair. She was quick and efficient and sooo great with Kalin. I believe that it was the least stressful haircut he has had.

He loves lining up all of his cars - whether it be on the cedar chest, in his closet or under his bed. This is how he puts them to sleep.

Enjoying the water misters at Aunt Kami and Uncle Jerry's house.

In other news: Our 20 week ultrasound is scheduled for next Thursday!! Hooray! I'm not sure Kalin really understands when we ask him if he wants a little brother or sister and his answer changes daily. However, when we ask him what his new brother or sister's name should be he generally answers, "Kalin". Hmm...I think that might get a little confusing.

No Pacifier

The time has come!! Kalin is spending his first night, practically since birth, without a pacifier! Hooray!!! I am SOOOOOO excited. This has been a long time coming and, quite frankly, I've been nervous about it. I had no idea if it would turn into a big ordeal with tears and tantrums or if he would just accept it. So far, he's just accepted it. I've been warning him for months that this time was going to come but it wasn't until this week that I knew the time was very close at hand.

Let me explain how I knew this.

About 6 months ago he was going to bed with a total of 4 pacifiers and I thought, "This is ridiculous! He's 2 now and I really want to get him off of these. How are we going to wean him off of them if he's used to having such a large supply!". The answer: Slowly. Just like he was weaned off of nursing over a 6 month period we weaned him off of his pacifiers. When the first one broke I said, "I'm not replacing it!". So he was down to 3. Within a week, a second one broke and once again I refused to replace it. And he was down to two. The last two hung on for about 5 months. This past week "green ba (he calls them ba's and I don't know why)" broke leaving just one behind, "blue ba". I told him all week that once "blue ba" broke there would be no more. A couple of days ago I noticed that a hole was starting to form in "blue ba" and I actually got scared. "Am I really ready for this?" Well, ready or not, I knew that it was necessary. As it happened, his first time sleeping without the pacifier came about by accident. We were visiting my sister-in-law and brother-in-law's church today and decided to hang with them at their house for the afternoon. This meant that Kalin would have to go down for a nap at their house and I hadn't packed his pacifier! I told Kasey, "If this nap goes well for him without his pacifier then I'm not going to give it to him tonight either." He didn't even ask for it when we put him down for his nap!! This was really odd for him because whenever we would mention nap time or bedtime he would immediately ask for his "ba". So when we got home tonight I hid his pacifier so he wouldn't see it and he didn't ask for it until the very end of our bedtime routine. He was already in bed all covered up and surrounded by his stuffed animals and he said "Ba?". And I responded in a cheery and matter-of-fact voice, "Ba is broken. Remember how you slept without it during your nap today? Here, how about if you hug Russell (the name that Kasey gave the sheep) instead." Then we prayed, kissed him and left the room. There was no crying and no tantrums and I am so relieved.

This may seem like a silly thing to devote such a long post to when a simple, "Kalin doesn't use pacifiers anymore." would have sufficed. But this is actually a big milestone in my thinking and I am so happy that it has gone smoothly. I had three very specific goals for Kalin this year:

1. Learn to jump - He accomplished that one shortly after his second birthday.

2. Get rid of pacifiers - I can now cross that one off my list (and many people who know me know how much I love to cross things off of lists!)

3. Potty-training - in progress.

Cookie video

I couldn't get the video of Kalin making cookies to load on the blog so I put it on facebook instead. Hopefully this link to the video works!

Cookies!

I decided I must be feeling better when, on Friday, I offered to make sugar cookies with Kalin! We were playing with play-doh and he cut out a star and said "It's little star! Star cookie?". And I responded with "Would you like to make some star cookies?". He was, of course, very excited about this. We made the dough together but since it needed to chill for 3 hours we weren't able to make cookies until after his nap. I actually cheated a bit and made most of them while he was napping but left plenty of dough for him to play with when he got up. We had lots of fun and he loved playing with the dough and mushing it in his hands. Don't worry, the cookies he made are the ones that just Kasey, Kalin and I will eat!

Adventures in Potty Training

Potty training has been going pretty well so far. He no longer cries when I try to sit him on his potty and he has actually gone to sit down on his own when he knew he needed to go. We’re trying out the method of letting him walk around without a diaper or pull-up. It certainly helps me to know when he’s going so we can get him on the potty. It’s caused a few messes but nothing I can’t handle.

One day, I was standing in the kitchen making his lunch and he had been standing behind me playing with his fridge magnets. All of a sudden I felt this warm stream of liquid hit the back of my ankle and I yelped and jumped. It was quite a shock! I was able to get him to his potty so he could finish. I’m sure we’ll have more experiences like that in the future!

His current reward for going in his potty is an M&M. After going he’ll ask for his “special treat”. He was really into it this past Friday morning – so much so that he ended up with 6 M&M’s before it was even 9:30! I’m thinking I may need to find another reward for the morning hours!

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.