Keeping Up with Kallen-- 18 Months Old!

Kallen Gentry...
A year and a half  (18months on July 3rd) !? Crazy how that happens :) You are still the sweetest, cuddliest baby. I so love my time with you. You are such a Mama's Boy and I love every minute of it!

You throw EVERYTHING. When we play with you, or really, anytime we're around you we have to watch you because you'll throw whatever you have at us. A ball, a cell phone, a sippy cup, an iPad. You name it. Theres already been a handful of times you've thrown something at me when I wasn't looking and got me good. The other night you threw a big 'ol light up play toy thing that was super heavy and hit me right in the ankle and hurt like a mother! I think something like that happens weekly. So we're guessing you're either going to grow up to be some sort of athlete that involves throwing (maybe a pitcher?) Or you're going to be a professional dancer. LOL. I'm gonna guess Daddy hopes for the first of those 2. And you don't just throw it...you look at me, or whoever you're throwing to and get it right to us. You also say "Catch" but that's usually after you've already chucked it. You have great aim and an incredibly strong overhand throw.

You have tons of words. Raya didn't have this many at your age. You say all kinds of things and you also mimic people really well. I remember getting the weekly Babycenter updates with Raya when they talked about "Oh at this point your baby is probably mimicking you." Raya never really mimicked, but you do a lot. Many times we can say a word and you'll say it right back (or at least attempt to ;) You say Mama, Dada, Raya (which sounds like Yay-Ya- so cute!), Jack, Dog, Nana, Bubble, Pop, Bye, BALL!, Catch, BBall, Tree, Jump, Mike (for Mike the Knight), bottle, just to name the ones I can think of. Oh and my 2 favorite words are Mickey Mouse and Chip. Mickey Mouse sounds like Mick Mou and Chip sounds like Chipeyy. Its hilarious and SO CUTE!!! You also do the sounds for Cow, Cat, Monkey, Frog, Dog, Bird and are getting pretty good at knowing all your facial features. You're just a little sponge these days!!! Raya wasn't very "babyish" and seemed older at this age, but word-wise you say a lot more than she did. You have 3 phrases and they are "Oh, Wow" "Ah Man" and "WoooW, Cool!"

You can jump with both feet at once. In fact you jump off your chair and stick the landing every time. You're a fast little runner. A great thrower. Love to do summer-salts. Love to swim. You let me take you under water occasionally and you have no problem jumping in. You LOVE the water. You hate any kind of floatie device and try to get me to let go of you. Obviously you can't swim by yourself, lol, so we are definitely working on it!

You have all of your teeth, except your molars. You've become a better eater....kinda. I still give you baby food because its the only way you get all your nutrients. You'll eat just about any kind of potato: fries, hash browns, baked potatoes, chips. You still drink 4 bottles a day. You'd probably drink milk all day long if I let you. You LOVE your milk. You also love fruit snacks and dum-dums. Dum-dums are my bribing tool with you. You are so content when you're eating one. Best idea ever!

Your Stats: You weigh 30.5 lbs and are 34.5 inches. That's the 95percentile for weight and 75percentile for height. You're in size 24month/2T clothes. You can still fit about half of your 18mon clothes, but for the most part you went from 12mon to 24mon, so I don't have many 18mon items as it is. You're in a size 7 shoe. You're in a size 4 diaper...I could probably put you in a 5, but you get more in the size 4 box ;) You are a solid kid. A Tank!

You have quite the temper, but that's not new. You've had a temper since you were in my belly. I remember trying to sit really still, or bracing myself in the car so I wouldn't move because you'd kick/punch me so hard and I thought if I moved less I'd be less likely to make you uncomfortable. HAHA!! You just get mad really quickly. And frustrated pretty quickly. You get over it just about as fast as you get worked up, but its still quite the fit.

You're a very happy boy. Typically you're pretty calm. You're not going 24/7 like your sister. You enjoy cuddling or sitting with me and watching TV or sitting out in the back. You make me laugh all the time. You know how to be funny and the faces you do are hilarious. Right now you're really into hugging and kissing me. Its the SWEETEST!!! You love your sleep and generally fall asleep really easily. Especially in the car. Sometimes you'll be asleep before I even start the car. You're down to 2 naps a day, morning and late afternoon. And you sleep pretty solid at night, although you HATE when you wake up in the night. You almost always instantly cry or holler. But as soon as you find your pacifier you fall right back asleep.

And you are still a huge DANCER!!! You dance all the time, especially to your Daddy's mixes. Lol. Your favorite show is The Fresh Beat Band. You stop everything you're doing and run to the TV and start dancing as soon as you hear the theme song. Its pretty hilarious. I have a ton of videos of you dancing. Its my favorite!!! 

I so love being with you everyday. I'm so lucky to have such a sweet son. You are my heart and I just can't believe I have a child that loves me as much as you do. Thank you for being so perfect!!! I love you!!!
Xoxo,
Mom

Valentine's Week

We had a fun week of Valentine's stuff. Bryce and Tara babysat Friday night so Gentry and I could go to dinner and a movie. And they brought crafts AND stuff to make cupcakes :) I'm sure Raya was in heaven.

It was so nice having a leisurely dinner. We're at that phase with Kallen where eating out is nearly impossible, so it was awesome to go out to dinner and eat as slowly as I wanted :)

The actual day of Valentine's I was trying to go to Gentry's work and surprise him for lunch, but his car was in the shop and he had mine so we couldn't do that. Instead my Mom came over and we had lunch and went for ice cream. I'm sure that was Raya's idea of a perfect Valentines Day! 

 Target's $1 section has the best stuff for kid's presents. I'll take any excuse I can to dress up in Holiday inspired outfits and put together little gifts :) I love decorating and being festive! So of course they had stuff to play with Valentine's Night. 

Oh and did I mention in between Valentine's Lunch and Valentine's presents at night my CAR WAS STOLEN?!?! Uhhhhh. Soooooo sad. It was stolen from the parking lot at Gentry's work sometime between 7:30am and 4:30pm. Did you know when you get your car stolen its actually really sad? I can kid now, but I seriously was borderline devastated. I love, love, loved my car. We've had it for 11 years and it runs great and is in such good condition, AND we did so much in that car! So it was sad to think that our family car full of road trip memories was gone. I'm constantly joking with Gentry about how if he for some reason surprised me with a new car I'd take it back because I so loved my Tahoe and it was perfect for me! And literally last week we finished installing all new lights. AND the windshield wiper fluid holder thing has literally been broken for like 8 of the 11 years we've had it, but we never fixed it because it was always so much money for this little tiny fix. Welllll, my Mom got it fixed for us when we were in Texas so we got to use it for all of 6 weeks. Grrrrrrrr. Well yesterday we got a call from Inglewood police that they found my car and it was at a tow lot in Inglewood. The tow yard closed before we could get out there and see it, so I have no idea what it looks like. I'm guessing its totally stripped. Both of the carseats were in there too, so I'm guessing those are gone. Basically anything that could be removed is probably gone :( Sad times. My insurance agent will go see it Tuesday and we'll go from there. So that's whats been going on this week!

I took this picture last Saturday, 2 days before it was stolen. Ahhh, my baby ;) 

Kallen's Birthday Party

We had Kallen's 1st Birthday party this weekend. It was great!!! Initially we were suppose to have it in my Mom's backyard and then Wednesday they predicted rain for the whole day Saturday. Awesome. So I  racked my brain for 3 hours trying to figure out where we could move it to and if I needed to cancel it because I didn't know where to have it. After those long 3 hours Gentry goes "Why don't you have it in the clubhouse?" DUH!!! And Ps- How long were you thinking of that idea?! If you would've said that 3 hours ago I could've missed out on all that stress! We live in a community that has a clubhouse we can rent for like $20 and it ended up being PERFECT. It was a big open room with doors I could shut so no kids could get out! And the decorations could all be displayed together. AND, most importantly, everyone could be in the same room :) It was such a great afternoon. My brother and his girlfriend help with party preparations, which was so helpful. We had a taco bar, margaritas and cake! When the party was over I couldn't help but be so thankful and so happy about the group of friends we have. Seriously. It was such a great group of people helping us celebrate! I had the best afternoon. Kallen slept through most of his party, lol, but the time he was awake he was having fun! Thank you so much to everyone that came out. You guys made it a perfect day!

Tara took great pictures, as usual. She got this perfect one!

The rest are ones my friends took. Gah, I love iPhones and the pictures they take/create.  I'll post the rest of the ones Tara took later :)

Ps- I LOVE decorating for parties. Not so much that I'd want to do it for a living. Haha. Its kinda stressful, BUT I love it enough to do it for special occasions like a 1st Birthday. And a BIG shout out to Pinterest. LOL. Seriously though, I always decorate the best parties in my head, so thanks to pinterest I was able to save all the things I've loved over the last few months and use them as inspiration for Kallen's party. I didn't have a theme, just colors I wanted: Lime green, Blue, Grey and then a black and white pattern. As I started getting fabric and supplies I decided to add different patterns too. It came together really well! I took pictures of most of the individual decorations. They were all really pretty simple to put together, so here's some ideas if you need them! 

The "Preview" picture :) 

I made the Happy Birthday Kallen banners out of scrapbook paper strung on rope. Super easy. And I found a "Make A Wish" birthday frame that was the exact colors of the party! (Sorry this picture is so bright)

This was the cake. Its a lemon bunt cake from our favorite place in Long Beach: Creative Cakery. You can get a topper for another $10, but I decided to make one so I could have the right colors. This was super easy! Just bought a big green bow and glued 4 ribbon bows under it and then glues the 1 on top! And made the little name banner with paper cutouts glued to a wire. 

I got a bunch of balloons. I LOVE balloons and think you can never have too many. Plus, they really add to everything. They're so easy to get and add a lot to the decor. I also made some rope-tie banners. Just tie scraps of fabric to a rope! You can make so many things with the rope-tie. I saw one girl make a wreath out of it. So cute.

Initially I bought this table cloth to make runners out of. I was going to do silver table clothes with the plaid blue fabric over it, but with the new tables I was given when we switched to the clubhouse I just laid the fabric down and it fit perfectly. I loved this as the table cloth!

I had a bunch of vases from my Mom that I filled with "fluff" and topped some with Birthday hats and some with balloons.

I covered lollipops with wrapping paper and glued black and white pictures of the birthday boy at 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 months old. The lollipops were favors for the kids to take home with them.

These were the favors for the adults. Same wrapping paper I used for the lollipops. I bought a bunch of leftover fabric to make these rope-tie banner things so I used the extra fabric from those to tie the paper down. I printed the labels and glued them to paper I used to make the Birthday banners with.

Brown Bite Toppers. Printed the labels off in corresponding colors and glued them to the birthday banner paper and glued a toothpick in between 2 pieces of paper.

The Diaper Cake! From my dear friend Megan. She made the one for my baby shower too. She's so good! Doesn't it match perfectly?! "Like" her Facebook page: Cake of the Dipes and you can also order diaper cakes there! Or towel cakes. She makes them for baby showers, birthdays, bridal showers, bachelorette parties, anything! They're a great center piece and she makes them custom to match your party.

Of course Raya's outfit matched the party :)

The Birthday Boy!!! I made a highchair banner too.

After the party he was EXHAUSTED. Neither of my kids had naps before the party. Lord. But amazingly they did great! Well Kallen took a solid hour in a half nap at the party, but it was great because I could visit while he was sleeping in my arms. 

He got a bunch of BOY toys. Haha. I didn't realize he really didn't have his "own" toys. A majority of the baby toys we have are gender neutral so they were all passed down to him, but at his party he got trucks and dinosaurs and some SUPER CUTE clothes! I think that's one of my favorite things about parties. I love seeing what my friends get him. And they did GOOD.

Helping me clean up after the party. He loves to sit on this stool and eat gold fish. He looks like such a toddler in this picture!

Pss- Kallen's 1 year pictures were yesterday. They are SO CUTE!!! Here's a few sneak peeks :)

I already sent this to Toms :) During his 1yr pics we did a mini Valentines Day shoot too. Can't wait to see those!!

Yes, I'm dying over this :) He's SOOOO CUTE!!!