Kallen's Bling

I don't know if any of you remember, but for Kallen's King party I got him some gold and silver necklaces to go along with his royal crown.  Kallen hated the crown, but he absolutely loved the necklaces.  And to Tyson's disappointment, Kallen still loves them.  In fact, every day he wears them around the house.  I just thought these were cute pictures of him wearing his jewlery, so I had to post them.  What can I say, the kid loves his gold and silver.

Freak Out!

Kallen has a few things that he absolutely hates.  One of those things is the doctor...not just his, but any doctor.  Any time we go to his doctor he freaks out as soon as the man in the white coat comes close to him.  He is especially afraid of stethoscopes.  Why?  I have no idea.  They are the least harmful of any of the doctors instruments.  He also freaked out big time when the doctor tried to measure him last time.  Does that hurt?  Nope.  Not that I know of.  However, Kallen was relatively calm when they checked his ears and eyes.  Now that seems more harmful than a stethoscope and standing against a wall.  Silly kid.  

Anyway, you would also think that Kallen wouldn't mind going to someone else's doctor. Nope. He still hates it.  Every time I have to go get a checkup, which happens a lot since I'm pregnant, he has to have me hold him and even when I get my blood pressure checked he starts crying and trying to push the doctor away from me.  Maybe he is just trying to protect me?  That is kind of sweet.  Then again, maybe he is just trying to push the doctor further away from him and Mommy isn't a factor at all.  That seems more like it.  :)

Another thing Kallen hates is getting his hair cut.  When he was a baby I gave him some haircuts, which basically turned into buzz cuts.  Then when he got a little older, Tyson took him to his "old school" barber in Snoqualmie for Kallen's first real haircut.  Tyson's barber has a one-man shop in old Snoqualmie and it is pretty interesting.  It smells like a barber shop that I could imagine my Grandpa going to, complete with the old 50's chairs and furniture.  It also has tons of animal heads up on the wall.  It really is a funny old shop.  Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of this first "real" haircut, so I went with Tyson for Kallen's second and got these.  

From these pictures, you probably think we were torturing the little guy.  He screamed at the top of his lungs the entire time.

It took two of us to hold him down while the barber cut his hair.  I held his legs, while Tyson held his upper body.

Kallen usually calms down when I sing to him, but it didn't work this time.  He just kept screaming.  I think you could officially call this the meltdowns of all meltdowns.

When the barber was finally done, he tried getting all the excess hair off of Kallen, but Kallen wanted nothing to do with that and tried to jump down as fast as he could.

When the scary barber was all done, poor little Kallen had the reddest cheeks.  Plus, he was all scratchy from the hair.  It makes me laugh when I think of that experience, because he was so upset. I guess I'm not a very good mom, because I should probably be sad for the little guy.  But it really is kind of funny.  I might not feel bad for my son, but I did and still do feel bad for the barber.  I bet he felt like $10 was not enough for the traumatic experience that Kallen put him through.  Poor guy.

Hopefully one day Kallen won't be scared of the barber or the doctor, but for now, I'm afraid that we'll have a mega "freak out" every time we go see either one.  Wish me luck, because we have to go see the doctor tomorrow.  Ahhh, I'm so looking forward to the freak out moment that awaits me.

Big Boy Bed!

A little over a month ago, we decided it was time for Kallen to have a Big Boy Bed since the new baby would be coming in a few months.  I was a little apprehensive to do this because Kallen has been having a hard time sleeping through the night since we moved to Olympia.  I'm guessing this was due to the new place and everything.  Anyway, as you can tell from the pictures, we decided to give him a big boy bed anyway, and he was very excited about this.  He loved laying on his Big Boy Bed and liked to pretend he was sleeping.

Also, he was very proud of his bed once we got it all made with his new sports themed sheets. He looks at them all the time and points out the colors on it and the stars and balls.  This is also the first time he has had a pillow and he loves it.  He points it out to me almost every time I'm in his room.  In fact, when I was doing this post, he was sitting next to me, and pointed it out to me when he saw the pictures.  

Look how proud he is to be tucked into bed.  I love his goofy grin.

I'd love to tell you that the transition from crib to Big Boy Bed was wonderful...but it wasn't. When we put him down in his bed for the first time, he was wonderful.  He went down without a problem.  So I thought, "hey, this is great.  I'm so glad he loves his bed".  However, this was all a sham, because around 11:00 pm he woke up crying, but I was able to get him to go back to sleep.  Then around 1:00 am he woke up crying again, but this time he never stopped until we brought him into our room around 6:00 am.  This was bad, because the next day was Sunday and Tyson and I had to speak in Sacrament meeting.  We were all dead tired.  

I must admit, after that first night of constant waking up and crying, I wanted to put him back in his crib.  But Tyson was a trooper and convinced me to let him try again.  The next night he did great.  I think he only woke up once and then went back to sleep on his own.  However, this little guy is very inconsistant.  Somedays he sleeps great, and other days he has some very bad nights.  It is difficult at times, because I love my sleep, but I think we've decided it is just a transition phase Kallen is going through and not due to his Big Boy Bed.  For the past few weeks, he really has done a ton better.  He is waking up earlier in the day, but he is going to bed without a fuss, not waking up as much and also takes his naps better. 

Overall, the transition from crib to Big Boy Bed was a little difficult, but Kallen is really doing great.  He really does love his bed and goes in there and plays on it with his toys all the time.

Oh and here is one more picture that I think is hilarious.  This is how we found Kallen one afternoon after church.  He was sprawled over his big duck with his legs all tangled in different directions and arms out to his sides.  Also, if you can tell from the picture, there is a little black dot on his cheek.  Can any of you guess what it is?  Yep, a boogie.  Silly boy.  I am often amazed at the positions he can fall asleep in.  

Happy Halloween!

We started out our Halloween festivities by going to Chipotle with my parents.  I learned last year from one of my friends, Stephanie, that if you dress up as a burrito for Halloween (wearing tinfoil in some way), Chipotle will give you a free burrito.  No joke!  It was actually pretty fun making our little tinfoil accessories beforehand.  Tyson wore a Zorro mask, My Dad wore a tinfoil bow tie, My Mom a tinfoil sailor hat and I made some tinfoil glasses.  My Dad and Tyson even wore cool hats that went with their tinfoil costumes.  Silly guys.  

We loved our burritos.  Personally, our favorite was the steak fajita burrito.  Tyson highly recommends it.  It was also pretty funny because my parents were so shocked that the burriots were completely free without any strings attached.  It was funny.  My mom kept hesitating at the register thinking they were going to charge her something, but they didn't.  I definitely think that this is going to be a Halloween tradition every year.  Not only are we excited for our free burritos next Halloween, but I'm also excited to come up with new tinfoil costumes.  If any of you have a Chipotle in your area, go ahead and try this next Halloween. You won't regret it.

As you can see from the previous pictures, Kallen dressed up as a Dragon for Halloween.  I thought he was so cute.  My Mom was nice enough to make the costume for him, and I think it was better than any dragon costume that I could have bought for him.  It was also amazing because Kallen didn't mind having it on at all.  I was a little worried that he wouldn't wear the hat because he hates wearing hats.  But I was wrong...he actually enjoyed wearing his whole costume, which made me very happy.  The first time he tried it on, he ran to the mirror in his room and looked at himself with a big smile.  

Here Kallen is waiting to go Trick-or-Treating.  He was very impatient to go and waited for us at the door while we got our shoes on.

Hurray for Trick-or-Treating.  I love this picture, plus, I love how it shows Kallen's little Dragon tail.  I love it!  Kallen at first didn't know what to think of Trick-or-Treating.  He would go up to people's front doors just fine, but once they offered him candy, he'd back away and wouldn't want to take any.  He was so silly.  After a few houses, it finally clicked that these people weren't scary and if he went up to them he got candy.  So he started to accept their tasty offerings.  In fact, he got so good at it that after awhile instead of just taking one piece he would take big handfuls of candy instead.  

Kallen had a lot of fun Trick-or-Treating.  I also had a lot of fun seeing him experience it.  I can't wait to take him next year.  Halloween is so much better when you are a parent and can take your little squirts around.  Plus, you get to eat their candy with them...and it was tasty.

Pumpkin Patch

Hurray!  I've finally caught up to the month of October.  Aren't you all proud of me?  I sure am. After 6 months of silence, you have all enjoyed a plethora of postings from the Hills.  Amazing.

In October we traveled to a nearby farm and went to a pumpkin patch with Kallen.  He loved being there as you can tell from the great big grin on his face.  He just wanted to run all over the place, which you will find out later turned out to be a bad thing.

The first place he ran to was this big pile of hay for kids to climb and play on.  Once he reached the top, with some help from Mommy and Daddy, he started clapping his hands...he was so proud of himself.

Next we went on a tractor ride that took us out to the pumpkin patches.  Kallen was very impatient for the ride to start, but once it did, he loved looking out of the side of the wagon.  If you are observant, you will notice that the picture below isn't showing pumpkins in the background, but Christmas trees.  Silly I know, but we passed their Christmas Trees before we got to the pumpkins.  

Kallen was very impatient to get to the pumpkins.  Every time the tractor stopped, he would jump up and want to get out.  So when we finally reached our destination, he was very happy.

Kallen loved the pumpkin patch because it allowed him to wander everywhere.  Whenever he is in open spaces he loves to run and run.  It's something we've actually tried to work with him on, because he won't listen to us when we tell him to stay by us or to stop...which is scary if he is by a road or cars.  So we were trying to get him to stick around us at the pumpkin patch, which failed miserably.  In fact, we ended up without a pumpkin because we had to leave early. Kallen decided to have one of his classic meltdown moments which forced us to leave early with a crying 2-year-old.  Don't you just love those moments?  Have I ever mentioned how glad we are that Kallen is 2?  Because he is definitely beginning to develop classic 2-year-old behaviors.

King Kallen Party

I don't know how it got started, but we often refer to Kallen as "His Majesty", "King Kallen", or "His Royal Highness".  (Hopefully these titles won't give him too big of an ego when he grows up.) Those are just some of the many nicknames we have for the little guy.  There are others like: "bud bud", "Snickerdoodle", "Sputnick", "Stinky Pants", "Pipsquik", "Squirt", "Munchkin", "Little Man", "Wackamoose", "Number 1 or Number 1 Son", and "My Son", etc, etc. There are tons more...but I don't want to make this post too long.  I guess we really do call him a lot of names. 

Anyway, "His Majesty" is a name we use a lot with Kallen (especially if he is being a little temperamental), so we decided for his 2nd Birthday we would give him a Royal King Kallen Party.  I decided to decorate with red and gold.  I tried to get as much gold and red things as I could like: streamers, balloons, plates and forks, and even wrapping paper.  On a side note, if any of you ever want to find gold wrapping paper, just know that it was almost impossible to find...at least here in Olympia.  I had to go to two party stores, ToysRUs, Target, Walmart, the Grocery Store, and JoAnns before I found it.  Anyway, besides the wrapping paper, I was even able to find Kallen a royal red velvet crown and silver and gold necklaces to wear.  However, to Mommy's sadness, Kallen didn't really enjoy wearing the crown.  So it became more of a decoration than anything else.  

On the other hand, Kallen loved wearing his gold and silver necklaces...much to the chagrin of his Daddy.  Here he is lounging on the couch with his Teddy and necklaces.

For Kallen's party, Grandma and Grandpa Sutherland were able to come down as well.  So it was a great big family party.  Kallen loved having both of his Grandparents here.  

Here he is blowing out his candles with Daddy.

Kallen got a lot of loot for his birthday.  I think we all went a little overboard.  In fact, we ended up putting some of them up in the closest to save for Christmas.  Hey...he's two, he'll never know.

Kallen's favorite presents by far were these.  His shopping cart and his electronic keyboard.  He loves them and plays with them all the time.

After his party, we all went to our apartment's indoor pool.  Kallen loves the pool, so we thought this would be a great ending to a perfect birthday for him.  He had tons of fun...as you can see from the pictures below.

We were so happy that our families could come and visit during Kallen's birthday.  He had so much fun and loved having you all here.  Thank you for coming!

Kallen's Pre-Party Fun

Before Kallen's birthday party, we decided to take him to a family fun center called Charlie's Safari.  It really was a neat place that had a bunch of blowup bouncy toys/slides, miniature golf, laser tag, and a huge play structure for kids.  Of course Kallen wasn't big enough to try miniature golf or laser tag, but we did everything else.  

Here are some pictures of him and us playing on the play structure.  It was kind of like something you'd find at McDonalds...but a ton bigger.  His favorite part of it had to be the slides.  He loved that.

Here are some of the blowup toys.  Kallen really didn't know what to think of them at first.  He didn't really like walking around on the unsteady surface, but he started to enjoy it more when Daddy and Grandpa got in there with him and played peek-a-boo.

I hate to say it, but I think Kallen's favorite part of the whole place was the miniature entrance door that he could open and close.  What a silly kid.  He loves playing with doors.  He'll open and close them over and over and over again.  Sometimes it isn't such a good thing.

I love this picture even though its a little blurry.  Kallen sure loves his Daddy.

Kallen's Birthday Weekend

For Kallen's 2nd Birthday, he got a great surprise.  Both Grandma and Grandpa Hill and even Aunt Kristi came up to visit for the weekend.  Kallen was so excited to see them all and I'm sure he loved all the pampering he received.

While everyone was here, Grandpa Hill wanted to show Kallen Cabellas.  It is a new outdoor sporting equipment store in Lacey.  We had never been before, but had heard that it was pretty fun to see.  Its a huge store, decorated like a lodge, and then inside they have tons of real stuffed animals.  Things like Lions, Tigers and Bears.  They also have some aquariums full of live fish and as you can see from the picture below, a lifesize plane.  It is pretty neat to see.

Here is chubby, pregnant Mommy with Kallen next to an Elk.  I almost think I'm bigger than the Elk.

Here Kallen and I are looking at the live trout that they had.  He loved them, and we even got to feed them.  I think the fish, which he pronouces "fis" was his favorite thing to see.