Pre-Christmas Festivities

The two weeks After Thanksgiving, leading up to Robert's Christmas break were packed full of Christmas partying. Calvin and I just had a blast packing in so much Joy and Merry-ness before Christmas! 

Calvin built his first snow man, and his favorite part was taking off the nose and eating the carrot. Silly boy. He definitely came to learn to LOVE the snow. 

One Saturday afternoon Calvin and I met our friends to ride the Santa Express down in Carson City at the Nevada Railroad museum. It was absolutely darling and Calvin loved meeting Santa, and REALLY loved getting a "nany cane" from "Sana!".

 Later that day we went down to our local park to go to a Brass Christmas ensemble. It was SO much fun and Calvin wouldn't stop dancing. He loves music and it was perfect.

 Alisa and I hosted a Christmas Story time (that I ended up not being able to go to due to a sick little Calvin), and I was in charge of the sugar cookie station. While the kids were sleeping I finished cutting out and baking the cookies. They woke up while Alisa and I were chatting and they got eerily quiet. I noticed the silence after about 5 minutes and we walked into the two yay hoos hitting the gold mine of cookies. They are good.

 There were a few snow days before break and Calvin and I got to run snow day errands together.

 Our local library had a big North Pole day when Santa came to visit. They had coloring and games and a little story time set up in one of the rooms while you waited to see Santa. It was darling and perfect. Calvin was a little bit suspicious of Santa and I didn't want to set a screaming child on Santa's lap; he decided that getting the candy cane from Santa was more than enough bonding.

Alisa and I also hosted a fun Winter Girls night gift swap, which I'll post about later!

18 Months

Last Saturday our baby boy turned 18 months! The time between his 12 months mark to his 18 month mark really flew by quickly. It just amazed me. The saddest part about this is now he is in nursery! I knew it would happen but it just really solidifies how old your babe is once he isn't causing havoc next to you for all 3 hours of church. 

 He is 30.2 lbs (90%ile), and 33 5/8 inches (85%). He has a pretty large vocabulary (about 30-ish words) and always knows exactly what he wants. He is also daily independent and has to do everything by himself or he gets all sort of angry. 

 His BFF is Emmeline. He spends about 30-35 hours a week with her, and when he isn't with her, he is always asking for "Emm.line". He loves to hold her hand when they're in the car, dump water on her in the bathtub, as well as try and help wash her hair.

His favorite foods are always changing; he is a great eater if we don't let him snack excessively, or too close to dinner time. Being confined in one place for long periods of time is not his forte, so even if he is still hungry he will usually say he is all done just to get out of his chair. With a lot of work he has gotten really good at listening to guidance like "Calvin, you can get down as soon as you eat the rest of your (blank)."

 He is mischievous and knows exactly what he is NOT supposed to be doing. In the picture below he is trying to throw his food through the hole and onto the floor without being caught. So much naughtiness.

The child got a wagon from his grandparents for Christmas and loves to go on wagon walks multiple times a day. Whenever he gets out of the car he dashes to the wagon and does a nose dive in and says "wagon walk!" over and over again. Half way through he usually wants to get out and pull the wagon himself.

Even thought it's probably a good thing, he hates TV. He says he wants to watch "George" and then will walk away after the theme song. Sometimes it would be nice so i could get a few things done....oh well. He loves books and his favorite books are "Moo, Baa, LA LA LA" and "Spot".

He got a "pa-packkk" recently and loves being able to carry around his little day pack. He is also a pro at saying "CHEESE" whenever I pull out my phone to take a picture.

He loves playing peekaboo

 Recently he discovered the joy of cleaning and LOVES to help me clean around the house. I do love that he understands cleaning so he can learn the importance of cleanliness in the home, but he also has to do everything, so vacuuming takes 25 minutes instead of 10, and scrubbing the toilet usually means mopping the floor right after. But thats ok:)

 Calvin is still a fabulous sleeper, going down around 7:30 and waking up at about 7 (unless he is teething, then he wakes up at 6:30. *sigh*). He takes one nap around 12:30 that lasts anywhere from 1:30-2 hrs.

About a week ago Robert put Calvin down as normal and 10 minutes later he  screamed "water" until we brought him his water bottle. Robert tried to get him to drink it but he just grabbed it, put it under his chest and curled up with it and fell asleep instantaneously. Three nights ago he screamed "moose!" until we brought him his moose (along with his blankets and water bottle). Last night we packed in his water bottle, two blankets, and moose for bed. Ten minutes later he screamed "owl!" Until we brought him his owl. Now he refuses to go down for a nap or bed until his has his two blankets, water bottle, moose and owl. He usually feeds his moose some of his water as he is laying there. It's adorable. 

Sometime in the last week this little munchkin has become a super high maintenance sleeper. 

The Happiest Autumn

This Fall has been one of my favorite Fall's since I can remember. Having a little kid makes everything so much more magical. I can't even tell you how excited I am for Thanksgiving and Christmas with this child.

Celebrating the season with Calvin and friends has been an absolutely memorable. We went to pumpkin patches, halloween story times, Fall festivals, Halloween parties, Trick or Treating, and 'Meet the Turkey" days at our local park.

Andelin Family Farm
When Collette and Justin were here the week before Halloween, Collette and I took Darwin and Calvin to a local Pumpkin Patch. It was so well done, and the kids had an absolute blast. They even had a "train" made out of barrels!

Somersett Fall Festival
Calvin was able to experience his first costume wearing experience at one of our good friends neighborhood's Fall Festival. Calvin's favorite part was jamming to the music, but he and Emmeline were definitely the cutest pumpkins in the patch.

Halloween Story Time

This gem of a picture is the best we could do with a 3 2 and 1 year old.

Halloween
Calvin and I partied in the morning with some jack o lantern quesadillas. Later in the evening we went to our friends house and had a little party after we took the kids trick or treating. Our parting consisted of a lot of festive treats, chili, and Halloween episodes of Brooklyn 99 and Community. We are wimps.

We do love our friends, and holidays!!

Rancho San Rafael Meet the Turkey
Our last festive activity (before it snowed and turned the seasons from Fall to Winter), was a nice run down to our local park. We were going to let calvin play and enjoy the beauty of the colors, but then it turned out there was actually a Meet the Turkey event. Calvin had a lot of fun seeing the turkeys, but his favorite was definitely petting the bunny!

Happy Fall Y'all!

Yosemite

Two weeks ago Robert took his first final of MS2 year. Wohooo! A few of our friends here in Reno invited us to tag along on their camping trip to Yosemite. We were 1000000% on board. Plus we (I) completely splurged on a hiking backpack for Calvin, so we pretty much had to go.

We got there on Friday afternoon and hiked to a beautiful waterfall. Side note- we thought we were going on an easy 1.5 mile little stroll. False. Every hike in Yosemite, no matter how far the distance is going to be STEEP! You've been warned. But it's completely worth it.

After our hike we got to our campsite and had a lovely time setting up. Calvin was in heaven running around and rolling in dirt. That was until he was crawling into his little camping chair and flopped over and gashed his head down to the school on the corner edge of a cement brick. 

We were very blessed. I am not going to go into all the details, but the clinic was closed and the angel PA heard about it and came and stitched up our little babe in the middle of the night, saving us a 6 hour trip with a bleeding child. That night, once we got back to the camp sight he fell asleep and slept like a rock until 7:30 the next morning. 

We had a fabulous following day, hiking to Yosemite Falls. It was a 5 hour hike and Calvin did fabulously. Our hiking backpack was COMPLETELY worth the splurge. It was incredibly comfortable and the babe even took two naps in it during the hike.