Very Hungry Caterpillar

I'm not sure when babies are supposed to have popcorn but Kaelan found a cup and loved every bite! I was a little worried at first because it is so easy to choke on but he is a confident eater lately and proved it again with the popcorn...he even found some cupcake and cookies on the floor that he chowed down on before I could get to him. A Very Hungry Caterpillar!

Camille and Pierce hosted a Halloween party today with lots of activities and goodies. Pierce was not in the best mood for a picture so he is not in this one but most of the kiddos are here, minus the ones who left early.

The COOL Moms who dressed up!

Camille had many activities for the kids to do including cookie and cupcake decorating, coloring, sitckers and pumpkin painting! Way to go Camille. We had a lot of fun.

By the end of the party pumpkin painting became people painting. Violet even had black paint on her teeth!

Halloween Party #1

Kaelan and I hosted a baby group Halloween party at our house today and everyone came in character! The costumes were cute and the food was great! Laura did such a great job on these carved orange fruit bowls that I had to include a picture of them.

Kaelan was a caterpillar. Just in case you couldn't tell! He is going to be a cterpillar all weekend so I hope you like it!

The kiddos! We had all 8!
Zayden (spider), Isabella (bake fairy, her mama has a baking business!), Kyle (skeleton), Henry (homemade Bam Bam costume!), Willem (German cow!), Sam (she just returned from the US this morning but she came as the cutest unicorn!), Audrey (started as an ice skater and left as a pumpkin), oops and there is Zayden again!

Living on the Wild Side!

As I have said before, Kaelan loves the marble stairs. Going up is no problem but when he gets up he is stuck so he sits and yells until someone helps him. We have been trying to teach him to get down on his own and now he can do almost all of it by himself. He knows he has to go feet first but turning himself around is the part he can't figure out. He is so cute. This is him doing both on his own!

Update

This is an unusual post for me! I know most of you like pictures but I don't have anything this week so you will have to get your reading glasses out and read a little!

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted! We have been busy bees around here but no real photo ops. So here is what K has been doing the last couple weeks.
~Two weeks ago our family was struck with the stomache flu. It was not pretty for any of us. The worst of it lasted about 16 hours and then lingered for 4-5 days. Since then Kaelan has made some decisions. Day time sleep is optional, not that he has ever been a good sleeper but it got worse during this time. There are definite good foods and bad foods and he will spit out what he thinks is bad. Very new for my lunch truck who would eat anything! And finally, he has many opinions and he is discovering how effective it can be to make a fuss if he doesn't get his way. The fun begins!
~I mentioned his napping above. Well, my baby has been awesome. I really can't complain much about anything except that he has never been a good sleeper, which I'm sure is our fault because of his 3 trips to the US in his short 10 months. I feel I have read every book on this and finally have settled on a book that seems to be helping (thanks Bridgette) and am hoping to get one more to assist (thanks Gillian). He has made some awesome improvements over the last week and I'm so proud of him. Due to some very rigid schedules, including a 5:30pm bed time, he is now getting almost 2 hours day time sleep, compared to his 50min norm, and 11.5 to 12 hours at night. We still have some things to work on but I'm so thankful to have a baby who sleeps. Thanks friends for being so encouraging and patient with us. We have had to turn a lot of people down or leave early from outings to be consistent but hopefully we will get it all figured out soon. He is napping now so please pray that it will be a good one!
~Gymboree. Kaelan and I signed up for a package at Gymboree and it's so much fun. This is an organized play gym for children. We are in the 10-16 month class and we sing songs, do obstacle courses, and work on all kinds of little skills. We go a couple of times a week and just today, after about 5 visits, Kaelan had all the confidence in the world. The first 5 times he was very observant and a little scared. I have never seen him like that. He would race back to me and cling a little if something scared him. He was timid with the gym structures and all he really wanted to do was watch everyone else. He has always been very observant with people so this was right up his alley. Opposite of me forcing him to explore, today he was making me chase after him the entire class...it was great!

Update on Travis
~ He is currently in our house in Boise, sleeping on our new mattress, soaking up the cold wintery air! No, I'm not jealous, really. I don't want to put K through that again! I just miss the cold weather! Last week Travis was in Taiwan and the week after next he will be in China. He is home for the weekends, minus this one, so that helps. Fortunately we are pretty busy so the time goes quickly. And for him jet lag is much easier after having gone through it with a baby.

Update on me
~ Most of my life revolves around Kaelan. Including Baby group, playdates, MOPS (for me too). But I have been able to attend 2 Bible studies a week (lots of work but worth it) and I finally have been able to go to hot yoga again since K was born. I go at night after I put K to bed at 5:30...I have tons of me time with him on this temporary schedule! Funny thing about hot yoga. If you are not familiar with it it is 90 mins of yoga in a 35 degree celcius room, very hot, so hot you have to ring your clothes out after a class! The funny part is when the teacher feels it is getting too hot she opens the door to the outside. It cracks me up because it actually works! Most of you have either been to Singapore, heard about it, or lived in/experienced a city with very hot humid heat. It is hot enough in Singapore so the idea of opening a door to cool things off just seems a little funny to me! I love it though, oddly.

Travis' Birthday

On Travis' Birthday we had a BBQ down at the pool and lots of our friends came over to celebrate. Parties are a lot different now that there are so many kiddos around! Happy Birthday Travis!

Barricades

As you can see from the picture above we have a little bit of a problem with marble floors, marble steps, hard marble edges and our adventurous 10 month old! Of course Kaelan loves to climb the steps whenever he sees them...fun game we accidentally started by chasing after him trying to stop him. Oh boy! Below are examples of the barricades we have constructed and so far he escaped everytime!

This is a picture of Kaelan in his favortie spot (just at the top of the steps!). He loves to walk up and down the long hallway we have leading from the entry to the living area. Right now he takes whatever he can, our hands are best if available, to walk up and down the hall. This basket has come in handy to both carry his favorite ball and also scoot up and down the hall. What fun!

Get Your Motor Running

For the past few weeks, Kaelan has been trying desperately to stand and walk. He views everthing as an opportunity to test his skills. Since our arms and backs were getting tired always walking him around, we went out and bought this walker to help out. We're pretty sure he'll be ready to mow the lawn by next summer.

Singapore F1 Races

Travis was really lucky this year because Blake had an extra ticket for the Sunday race and asked Travis to go with him. This was Travis' first F1 and he had a great time. Some of the things he mentioned was how loud the cars are, how fast they can go in small areas, and the half a million people they had to fight through to get to their seats! Here are some pictures he got below. What an amazing zoom he has on that camera!

Above and below is the winner Louis Hamilton. He lead the pack from start to finish.

Singapore F1 races

Wow that looks fast!

This is not a video game...this is the steering wheel of the cars.

Ok, ok. I guess I better tell you that Travis didn't really take the above pictures! There are some amazing pictures by Henri ... on Orchard road so I took some pictures of the pictures! Here is how Travis' photos turned out!

Gold Class!!!

This is what Camille and I were doing while our husbands were at the races! This is Gold Class. What is that you may ask? Well, it is first class at the movies! You get these awesome recliner chairs that fully lay back, blankets and at the press of a button you have a server ready to meet your every need! So, so fun. Travis and I have never done it because it is an expensive way to see a movie but it was so worth it! This might have ruined me for good! The movies will never be the same! Thanks for taking me Millie!

Pictures taken from my phone so they aren't great! Travis needed the real camera at the F1.

I even had Hot Chocolate! Heaven!