Some of Summer

Wow, it has been awhile!  Our air conditioner isn't working right now, and hasn't for a couple of days.  So while we wait for our landlord to get it fixed, Calder and I are hanging out at my parent's house during the day. So since I can't do any house work of my own during his nap, I figured I would get to work on this blog.   Prepare yourself for a long post that is mostly about Calder (surprise, surprise) and a little bit of what we've been up to.

Calder is 16 months old!  I can't believe he is getting old enough for me to soon start saying his age as "one and a half" or "two" instead of how many months he is.  He is learning so much every day, and is becoming so independent!

He can point to his head, hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, teeth, arms, legs, belly, feet, hands, toes, shirt, hat, shoes, socks, and pants.  (There are probably others that I am forgetting about, too.)

He doesn't say a whole lot of words, but he chatters all day long, and fully expects me (or anyone else around) to listen attentively and understand what he is saying.  And although he only says a few words (mommy, daddy, this, ball, waffle, maybe one or two others...) he is VERY good about nodding his head yes, or shaking his head no, and is really good about communicating what he wants, or if he likes something or not. 

Calder is still a little book worm.  Reading is one of his favorite things to do!  He will grab a book and then come weasel his way onto my lap so I can read it with him.  But he also loves to sit on the rocking chair in his room, lean over and pick a book, sit down and read it, then pick another one.  

 Calder would be outside all day if I let him!  Luckily, the yard area right outside our apartment is fairly shaded and there is quite a bit of space between all the buildings. So when it is too hot to go to the park (which it has been a lot lately) we just spend time outside at our apartment running around the grass areas, or we go to the pool (which we do a lot, too.)  

 Every time we go outside, he has to check our flowers that he helped to plant, and helps water every day. (I am sorry to say they definitely don't look this good anymore.  I think I have one plant living still, and it's on it's way out. Bummer)

 Some of Calder's favorite things to do is to play with bubbles (like the ones from dish soap) or just play in a sink full of water.  I have wised up since the picture below, and now just strip him down to his diaper so that his clothes don't get soaked.  (The bib was my first meager attempt at keeping him semi-dry.  It wasn't successful.)

 We went camping recently, and Calder was in heaven!  He loved running around with the other little girl that was there, playing in the dirt, and watching the campfire.  (Yes, it was awhile ago, before all the fires that are going on now.)

 We had a lot of fun and look forward to plenty of other camping trips this summer.

 We even were able to squeeze in a little hike.  It was gorgeous!

We even let Calder get down and hike a little.  He's a natural!  

I can't believe how big he is getting.  The other day, he made it very clear that he was done drinking from cups with lids.  And now he drinks from normal cups!  I still make sure he is sitting down, to make it a little easier for him, but he does such a good job!  He is so proud of himself!!

He has also started doing somersaults by himself, too!  And he not only walks, but practically runs everywhere, and turns in circles (to play ring around the roses by himself), and can walk backwards (which is probably my favorite to watch).

He surprises me with something else he's learned all the time.   The other day, he went to play in the kitchen, while I was in the living room.  He came running back to me and pointed to the kitchen.  So I followed him, and he pointed out a spider!  So I was able to kill and get rid of it. He is so observant and notices anything that is out of the ordinary.

I feel like he is teething all the time.  Poor kid.  He still only has 5 teeth, and at least 3 on the way.  They just have been on their way for a REALLY long time.  But he does really well eating pretty much everything we do.

I am so grateful that Calder is part of our family! We have so much fun with him, and he brings so much joy to our home!!

Chalk Art Festival

Last weekend was the Chalk Art Festival.  It is probably one of my favorite Bountiful City traditions.  I learned this year that it is something they use to showcase young artists in the area.  I love walking down main street and looking at all of the AMAZING  art, all on the sidewalk!

Here are just a few of them:

I think this one is funny.

Very clever...

There were quite a few with the "imagine/book" theme.

This one was drawn by the featured artist.  I think he was a teacher who passed away recently.

I like this idea.

This one was a first place winner in the adult age group.

Several "Avengers" themed ones...

Lots of movie themes...

I am always so impressed.

Bryce Canyon

One of Craig's friends that he worked with down in Brazil had been dreaming about a motorcycle road trip in the southwestern part of the United States.  This year, he let us know that he and his wife were going to do it!  The farthest north they were going to be stopping was in Bryce Canyon. We decided that 4 hours away wasn't too bad, so we made an overnight trip out of it to go down and meet up with Fernando and his wife while they were in Utah for a day.

We went down Thursday night, and left a little before 8 (Calder's bedtime) thinking that he would just sleep the whole way down.  Well, we were very wrong in our assumption.  He only slept 1 hour (maybe?) the whole way down.  Sorry little guy!

We stayed in a little motel that night, and left the next morning to go hike in Bryce Canyon.

 I had never been there before. It was stunning!

 Calder got the easy ride.

He even got a little nap in, which was fabulous.  (probably because of his lack of sleep the night before. He was exhausted!)

 Family picture!  (Calder is in awe at the cliffs maybe?)

 We let him get out to climb some stairs - one of his favorite things to do.

 We stopped by the museum after we were done hiking, and had changed out of our dirty clothes.  That was probably the longest we have ever spent in a museum, just because Calder LOVED walking back and forth between all the little animals that were on display.  (He is walking like crazy now!  Sooo fun!!)

We found out Fernando and his wife would actually be coming into Cedar City that evening, so we headed over there to meet up with them.

While we waited for them to arrive, we found a fun park to play at, walked around a few stores, waited to hear from Fernando, walked around the SUU campus, sat in the grass and had a snack, waited some more to hear from Fernando, and then drove around - which is when the next monumental event happened: 100,000 miles on our car.

So, it turns out that Fernando and his wife got a little lost on their way, so they turned around to backtrack and find the right road.  They didn't get into Cedar City until pretty late.  We ended up (finally) eating dinner without them at 8:30 pm, and drove by their hotel once more to see if they had made it.  And they had!  So we spent a little time chatting with them. It was fun to meet them (for me) and fun for Craig to see Fernando again and catch up.  They were loving their trip, and had taken almost 500 pictures every day! 

We headed back home between 10:00 and 10:30 pm.  We had to make it home that night because Craig had a commitment the next morning. We had to pull off a couple of times to get a quick 10 minute nap in to re-energize.  Thankfully, Calder slept the whole way this time and we made it home safely.  

We decided a couple of things:

1. We are going to plan more day/overnight trips because they are super fun, pretty inexpensive, and planning isn't too hard.  

2. We probably won't start to drive home that late.  We are just grateful we made it home.  I guess we are just used to going to bed pretty early these days!  

We've been busy

We've been busy around here lately.

Craig's second CFA test is a little over a month away, so he has hit the books hard studying like crazy (most days :)) He also had a birthday (Happy Birthday, Craig!  26 years old!).

Calder has been busy practicing walking! (again, most days. Some days, he hasn't wanted to walk at all.) We are proud of him!  (sorry for the flipped video, I don't know how to fix it...)

And while Craig has been studying, I have been working on a quiet book for Calder, and I finally finished it!  It took longer than I anticipated, but it gave me something to do, and was worth the effort. (I got ideas for the pages from a pattern my mom had, from quiet books my cousins recently made, and pinterest.)

Front Cover

First page.  The fish are stuck on with velcro, so they can be moved to different "bubbles" in the bowl.

Dog and frog pages.  The dog can be pulled out of his house, and the frog's tongue can snap onto the flies.

Corn and Barn page.  The corn husk unzips, and the barn doors open up to show finger puppets!

Shoe and Overalls pages.  Practice tying a shoe and buttoning buttons.

(Not sure why it is flipped...but I don't want to spend time to figure it out!)  Gumball Machine page - practice matching colors, and the number page.

Match the shapes to their outline.

13 Months Old

So here is a little update on the things Calder is doing lately.

He has just recently (like, the last couple days) been brave enough to let go of our hands and try to walk!  He has been super sturdy for a long time, I guess he just wasn't ready to do it by himself yet. It has been so exciting!!  He can go several steps consistently by himself, but a few times he has walked as much as 10 steps (maybe a few more) all by himself!  We are so proud of him.  I think it is just a matter of time (like a week or so) and he will have it down. 

He is a bottomless pit!  Calder eats 3 full meals and 2 snacks (sometimes 3) a day. (although most of the time, his snacks are just as big as his meals) He LOVES peanut butter, loved canned green beans (he ate them almost every day for a month!  But he is over that obsession), loves bananas, and will eat pretty much anything we are eating.  

Calder is officially weaned!  Hooray! We were worried for a little while, because he wasn't drinking very much fluids.  But he is doing a lot better at that, too.

He is a climber.  We still have his toy saucer out (mostly because I don't know what to do with it), and the other day he climbed up onto it, and proceeded to sit down in it!  And then yesterday, the dryer door was open and he stood by it, reached all the way to the other edge (like into the dryer), grabbed a hold, and pulled himself up onto the dryer door.  Lately he has been trying to climb onto the kitchen chairs, but can't quite do that yet. (Thank heavens) The nice thing, though, is he knows how to get down from most things now.  We taught him how to get down from the couch by himself, and now he knows how to go down stairs, etc.

He loves the park!  He giggles every time we push him in the swing, and likes the slides, but I think he really likes seeing the other kids and playing outside. (plus, there are lots of things to climb there!)

He still loves books.  He will find a book somewhere, hold it up, and bring it over to me so that we can read it together.

Calder still only has 4 teeth, and I keep thinking another one is going to show up any day by the way he keeps drooling and chewing on things.  But I have thought that for a while, so we will see.

He can touch his toes on command, his belly, and mom and dad's noses.  Most of the time when we are reading, he is able to point out the picture of the dog or lion in the book.  One of the books we have has some bible stories in it, and so he can also point out baby Moses and Daniel in the lion's den.  

He will dance when he hears music (bounces up and down while standing, and shakes his head) and he thinks it is hilarious!

He is getting quite the personality.  We sure have fun with our boy!

Happy Birthday Calder!

I cannot believe our little guy turned one last week!  Time has flown!  I will update about his stats later, this post is long enough just about his birthday...

 One year old!

 We kept things fairly lo-key, and just invited our parents and siblings over for dinner and cake and ice-cream. I did, though, make a cake that I am quite proud of.  It is my first "sculpted" cake. I took pictures of part of the process.

This is 3 cake mixes, or 6 9 inch cakes all stuck together.  I used the pieces that I cut off for the tail, legs, and muzzle.

The next layer of frosting was to make sure everything stayed where I wanted it to, and to trap down any crumbs.

And voila!  A little puppy!  I am pretty pleased with myself, I am going to admit.  Calder loved it, too, which made all the work worth it!  

Here is is the first time he saw it.  He was pretty amazed that there was a little dog sitting on our table! And then for the duration of the week that we had cake left over, he kept excitedly pointing to it.  

He liked opening his presents and seemed to get the hang of ripping the paper.  

And we have had such a fun week playing with all of his new things.  He is fascinated with his new toy barn, and plays with it CONSTANTLY!  It is a very nice break for me, I have to say!

And he loves to cruise around with his new walker.  He always is so proud of himself!

He didn't really try the cake at his birthday party, but he loved the ice-cream!  (and he loves trying to use a spoon. It's adorable, and while he can get the spoon to his mouth really well, he has a harder time getting the food on the spoon, and makes a huge mess.)

He learned how delicious frosting and cake are later that week, though.

We had his birthday party on Sunday, and so on his real birthday, Tuesday, I took him to the dollar store and bought him a mylar balloon.  He was so pleased!  He wrestled with it all day.

Happy Birthday Calder!  It has been such a fun year!