K's 3rd Birthday!

I can't believe that K is 3! We celebrated his birthday all weekend long and he love every minute! The video below was from Sunday morning. My brother's wife, Bobbie Jo, always buys balloons and makes a birthday pancake in the shape of her children's age and I love the idea. SO, we do the same. The video is just a few seconds after I opened Kane's door on his birthday morning. After he ate his pancakes, we went to Scheels because he is finally tall enough to ride on the ginormous ferris wheel. I have been waiting for him to be grow so we could ride it, because I knew he would love it, and he did. He had a great time. I am afraid of heights. I ride roller coasters, but ferris wheels are so slow and they rock, so they scare me to death. I powered through for Kane and I was so happy I did because he really enjoyed himself.

On Saturday we had a birthday party at My Gym with his friends and it really turned out fantastic. The kids had a great time. Kane was able to run around and release his energy. Kane-o usually won't wear a hat but he really liked the king crown. Maybe I need to get him one for dress up.

His theme was race cars. Here is a shot of the decorations. I really enjoy preparing everything but oh my, it takes a ton of time. I made stop light fruit skewers, sandwiches in the shape of cars, and used apple wedges and grapes to create apple cars. It was such a fun party to set up. 

 I don't do cakes so this cake was purchased. Kane loved it. We had to do the cake cutting pretty quickly after arriving because we were actually able to get Jon on Skype so he see Kane blow out his candles. It's a good thing we cut it early because I could not keep Kane away from it and I am so surprised there were not a million fingerprints on the cake when we cut it.

Just look at that sweet face! Cake cutting was pretty much the only thing he stopped for.

I can just hear him now, "My do it!". 

He rode this for a few minutes, got off, and then tried to convince all the other kids to get off too. 

Kane has amazing balance, he loved this beam. I should get him into tumbling.

Kane saw his friend Ro and said, "My best friend!". 

We had them set up a bounce house, you can just see the joy on Kane's face as it was being filled with air.

 Air filled bounce house = Happy Kane

These next few pictures was me trying to get a picture of all the kids at Kane's party. It was like herding cats. It was the best I could do. Maybe in a few years they will cooperate. 

Happy 4th of July!

This year to celebrate the 4th of July, we headed to Pineview Reservoir with 6 other families and it was a blast! The company was great and we had a fantastic camping spot. We spent most of the time at the the beach that was just below our campsite. K had his first s'more. He didn't like the marshmellow at all but I made homemade graham crackers that he loved. He also scarfed down the chocolate, of course. He was so sad to go home. We wore him out, he went to bed early tonight and hasn't moved at all. He needs to rest up because we are headed to Vegas in the morning. 

 The view from our campground. If they had showers I think I could have stayed there forever.

 We went into town to check out the parade. K played in some bouncy houses and we saw the cutest lab puppies.

 High fiving his bff before the parade.

 K sees the "firecrucks".

 I think we all wanted to live in the water, the temperature was perfect. It was so relaxing.

 K and R running on the beach.

 Taking it all in.

K believes all things climbable should be climbed. 

That's all for now. We are headed to Vegas for a few days in the morning and then to Virginia (by plane). K is finally going to be old enough to realize he is on a plane. We talk about it regularly and he can't wait to fly on the plane. It's a four hour non-stop flight so I hope he stays excited and has a smooth flight. 

We Did It!

K is officially potty trained during the day. I think we have a while before he will be potty trained at night. Each month since December we have tried for a day or so just to see if K was ready.  Until this month he really didn't seem to be getting it so we would just put him back in diapers.  On May 23 we began this round of potty training and by Day 2 we were going out to eat in underwear! He has been doing excellent.  Of course we have had some accidents but they are getting to be fewer and farther between. He will tell us he has to go on his own.  In the previous months we would have him sit on the potty every 45 minutes or so but this time we have just let him tell us.  Of course I still ask him often if he needs to go but it's because I am paranoid. I don't think it has any effect.  We have reached some big milestones that make me feel confident in his abilities. He has gone at a stranger's house, parking lot, public restrooms, and on hiking trails and each time he has told me that he needed to go. We are so proud of K, he really picked it up very quickly.  We try to use underwear as much as possible over pull-ups and he gets a small potty treat.  I really feel like those two things were paramount in how quickly he potty trained.

 K sporting his boxer briefs, he calls them his socky ball underwear because there is a soccer ball on the waistband.

 I love this picture, he is such a cool cat. 

On a completely different note, we bought a large kiddie pool for K and he has not been willing to get in since it was filled up entirely. He was more than happy to help fill it but I think it is a bit overwhelming for him right now, hopefully he warms to the idea.

 Here he is loving the filling process.

And here is our completely empty pool. Ha!

And on yet another completely unrelated note, we went for a walk today and I was able to take this sweet picture of K with his friend.  They are best buds.  It's adorable.

Golf Baseball

Here is our little Tiger Jeter in action.  We don't have a baseball bat or ball but K has decided that will not stop him.  He uses his golf club as the bat and actually connects when we throw the golf ball.  I am impressed.

Food Wars

K was the easiest baby ever.  He slept like a champ, he had a happy disposition, and he ate anything. I always worried about having a finicky eater but I really thought it wouldn't happen.  Jon and I aren't picky at all and I cook a wide variety of stuff.  I assumed that if we exposed K to a variety of foods, it would never be a problem.  Around 18 months he decided he would not try things.  Even food that he had loved as an infant. His favorite thing in the world was yogurt and now he won't even consider it. Mostly it was anything that would make his hands gooey or felt strange on his hands. I am wondering if it is because he began using utensils at such an early age. 

We eat healthy food, so it wasn't like he was saving his appetite for fast food,snack cakes or cookies. His snacks are cranberries, nuts, cheese, etc. Since his snacks were healthy, and he LOVES most breakfast foods, I didn't push the dinner issue. I didn't make him anything different than what we were having.  I would give him a piece of fruit in addition to dinner.  He would, 9 times out of 10, eat only the fruit for dinner.  He would not even try a bite of anything else.

After nearly a year of this, and an episode of The View where they had a guest who said that if children aren't exposed to a certain food by the age of 3 they may never like it, we decided we needed to do something. So we resorted to bribery, which works surprisingly well.  It was slow going at first.  Every night the bribe is different, it may be a couple of M&M's or his favorite show, and there is still protesting at the start, but we have seen major improvements.  K has cleaned his plate for almost a full month now and his protesting is minimal. To be fair, had he gagged or been visibly disgusted by a food we wouldn't have had him eat the whole thing, but he hasn't.  Last night we had pulled pork tacos with a spinach blue cheese, dried cherry, and almond salad and; after he finished his, he helped me eat mine.

 Tonight we had chicken and broccoli stirfry over quinoa.  

 We started out at his table

and moved to the dining room table but, as you can see, he ate it all. This is month has been so major for us, it has been a frustrating journey at times but we are making strides.  It is so important to us that Kane eat a variety of healthy food and enjoy it as well.

Outdoor fun

After a very long winter, we are extremely ready for summer.  I have big plans to spend the majority of our time at home outdoors.  A few weeks ago we bought Kane a playset and he has been in heaven ever since.  If we aren't on the trampoline, we are on his playset.  I still think the trampoline is his favorite.  We are going to have many playdates this summer at the house and I have no doubt K's play area will get a lot of use.

 K's sweet set.

 He is doing such a good job on the big kid swing!

 Jon and his friends spent 12 hours putting this set together Saturday, Sunday morning K didn't even get out of his pj's before he was outside playing.

Trampoline time.  We love the trampoline and, barring bad weather, we are on it almost every day.

Tulips!

Today we went to the Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival in Lehi and it was magical! I love tulips and K likes to run free and there were plenty of open spaces for him to run wild and free.  Also, we went with some of our friends so he had plenty of buddies to hang out with. The weather was perfect and the flowers were in full bloom.  It is my probably one of my favorite events to go to in the spring and this year did not dissapoint.

 Having friends come is not only great company but it gives us the rare opportunity to get a family photo!

 My little cheeseball.

 Here is a merry go round made of bushes, I thought this was incredibly creative.  I bet it looks better when it blooms.

 Who doesn't just love fields of flowers!

 K running with his favorite friends!

One last cheese shot. 

It was such a lovely day.

Playroom Part 2

The playroom will always be a work in progress but it seems to have a nice enough variety now to keep K busy, so I guess we will call it complete...ish.  It's a great space for him and it's nice to see him learning through play.  I love to see his wheels turning.  

 I plan on using those grey chevron curtains in his rooms as he grows, I just love them!

 He loves his marble maze, which is a great toy but detaches regularly so I get a brain workout as well. The kitchen is also a favorite.  It's the perfect size too because his playroom is fairly small.

 The tent serves as a quiet space/reading nook.  We spend a lot of time in there.  The goal is to hang some bookshelves on the wall for easy access.  Right now he just has a pile in there that I rotate.

K is starting to draw more and more and he seems to really get use out of the stop sign chalkboard in his playroom.  

K's first performance

K learned this song in preschool and he loves it.  Enjoy this video of cuteness...excuse the hair, he just got out of the tub.

Transportation Playroom Round 1

I always said that I didn't see the point of playrooms and K wouldn't have one.  I lied.  Not on purpose, I just came to the realization that they do serve a purpose.  I always saw them as a place to store the excessive amount of toys that many children own.  This playroom will not be that, but it will be a place where he can learn a variety of things through play. It won't be a jumble of random toys, it will be an organized place where his imagination can run wild and free.  I know that sounds like an oxymoron, organized and imagination, but I want it to be organized so he can see the potential in each object in the room. I can't wait. He is really into everything that moves so I decided on transportation themed walls.  Here is what I accomplished this weekend. :)

 Here is the wall about halfway complete

 Finished product

 Wall 2 (I plan to put a chalkbord in the middle of this wall).

 Wall 3

 Wall 4 (Left)

Wall 4 (Right)

K saw the walls this morning and ran from one design to the other telling me the name of each one.  I was so happy to see his excitement.  I still need to by a few things to organize the room how I picture it but I am happy with how it's coming along.