Sledding, Clapping hands, and Waving Bye Bye!

We have fun before Calvin goes to bed. Need I say more?


Heather, Alicey, Trevor, Calvin, and I went sledding this morning to celebrate President's Day! We went to Centennial Park which had great hills for little kids (long, but not too steep like Rock Canyon Park). We all had a great time! Alicey and Calvin seemed to really enjoy it as well!




Alicey liked to be pulled around while sitting on the sled. She also wasn't afraid to go down the hill by herself! She's very brave!

Calvin and mommy going down the hill.

Alicey and Calvin didn't go down the hill together, but it sure made for a cute picture!





Here's a video of Calvin clapping his hands together. We think he's one cute little boy!

Here is a video of Calvin waving "bye-bye." He kind of also says it in this video, but he's said it clearer at other times.

Valentines Day and other updates

Calvin is growing and getting so much bigger every day! His two new favorite things are clapping his hands together and waving bye-bye (sometimes he evens says "bye-bye"). He's also getting better at crawling. It's a half-army-scoot-half-crawling motion he does now. He can also sit-up from a crawling position. I took him to the doctor for his 9-month check-up last week and he is doing great. He's in the 75th percentile for height! He has two bottom teeth, but it will only be a matter of time before he gets more.

My classes are going well. I really enjoy interacting with my students during lecture. They give insightful comments and ask great questions. It makes me happy that they aren't afraid to say they don't understand something. I know as a student I never wanted to feel dumb and say I didn't understand or ask the teacher to explain that again, but I find it really helps me as a teacher know how much of the lecture they are retaining and what we need to focus on during the lectures.

We had a great Valentines Day! Trevor and I went and saw the movie Coraline while Summer babysat Calvin (thanks again Summer!). We got to see it in "3-D" which was awesome! The animation was really cool to see and even though 3-D movies have lots of room for improvement, it was amazing to watch. It was a really interesting/creepy/intense movie. Unfortunately, even though it's PG, I think it was a little too dark for kids and there was an inappropriate scene.

Yesterday for dinner we made stuffed peppers, steamed zucchini, garlic french bread, and banana cream pie. It was such a good dinner! We added some extra stuff to the peppers like onion, garlic, tomato, basil, oregano, and had shredded pork instead of ground beef. We will definitely be making those again!

Sorry we don't have any new pictures to post, but we will be sure to post pictures tomorrow!

Happy Groundhog Day!

So the groundhog saw his shadow today, huh? Does that mean 6 more weeks of winter? While no one knows for sure, it just so happens that the groundhog's accuracy rating is about 39%. So actually, to have a higher chance of being correct, then say exactly the OPPOSITE from what the groundhog says. That or flip a coin.

Happy Groundhog Day everyone! :0)

Spitting and Splashing

Calvin's two new favorite things are spitting and splashing. He's discovering new things about his body every day and it makes it really fun to watch him. When he eats now, he has discovered he can spit the food back out and make a funny noise with his lips. While it is funny to watch, it's not so funny when you get food sprayed on you... At first we thought it was because he didn't like some of the food we gave him, but now he does it with all the food we give him. Then I thought that he spit because he was full, but that theory was voided as well because he still accepts food even after spitting. If it's just a phase he's going through then that's fine, I can handle it. I just can't feed him anything that will stain or I just wear old clothes when I feed him. I've also tried being stern with him when he does it and tell him, "don't spit," in my "I mean it" voice, but he doesn't seem to respond to that. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice? Like I said, though, I'm not too annoyed with it, but I just don't want it to turn into a bigger problem later on. Hopefully it's just a phase he's going through. It also probably didn't help that we sometimes think it's really funny so we laugh when he does it.

Caught right in the act... :0) He almost looks like a baby Buddha.


The other thing Calvin loves right now is bath time (which he gets more often after spitting as much as he does!). He LOVES splashing in the water. Bath time has become much more enjoyable now that he can sit up by himself in the water. I couldn't decide which pictures I liked best, so I'm posting most of them. Hopefully you won't mind.



I like this picture because you can see the water splashing out of the tub!




Notice how many waves there are in the tub from all the splashing.




Calvin is almost ready to crawl. He is barely starting to army crawl and I'm sure he will be crawling any day now. Other things he loves right now are pens, hangers, electrical cords (we are learning how to baby proof our house), calculators, rice puffs (it's seriously his favorite food. Close seconds are bananas and biter biscuits), books, being "super baby" and flying around the house, rolling around while getting his diaper changed, and smiling (it's what he does best!).

While I try not to make this "Calvin's blog," I can't think of anything else exciting going on in our lives. Let's face it, our world pretty much revolves around Calvin, but we're perfectly fine with that! :0)

Some more of Calvin's smiles

I think this picture is cute. It looks like he is giving a "thumbs up!"

Now every time Calvin sees the "red-eye reduction" on the camera he gets a huge smile on his face. I had a great time taking pictures of him! This makes up for the very few smiley baby pictures we have from his infancy.

Calvin is almost crawling. Well, he has figured out how to get up on his knees. I'm sure any day he will start crawling. He still gets around by rolling and twisting his body around, but I can tell he wants to crawl.

Calvin's First Balloon

On Tuesday night we went to Brick Oven for a Microsoft Dinner. Trevor decided to get a balloon for Calvin. I have to admit I thought he wouldn't really care for it, but was I ever wrong! He loved it! He would stare at it and then bounce it up and down. He always got really excited whenever he saw his balloon. Here's a video of him playing with it. It's not too exciting, but it's mainly for the grandparents anyway. The way he bounces is a new thing he does ALL the time. It's really cute to watch. Also, we were in the process of changing his diaper and getting PJs on him which is why he is dressed the way he is.  

Toy Shelf

I also forgot to post about our toy/book shelf. I had wanted to get something so we could organize all of Calvin's toys (because at the time they were just in a corner pile in our living room). I didn't want to spend a lot of money and just so happened to see a bookshelf listed on Craigslist for only $5! We picked it up that night. The color didn't really match our living room so we decided to paint it. Here is a before shot (I didn't put the shelves in though):

And here is the after shot:
I actually ran out of paint so it needs another coating, but we are using it in the meantime until I buy more paint. It's so nice to have all of Calvin's toys organized!