Scary Spiders

I don't know why, but spiders have started to invest our house for the past few days. Maybe they are trying to get me in the Halloween mood by making their presense known. I don't know. Either way, I'm not liking it.

On Monday night, after the Kallen baby went to sleep, Tyson and I decided to watch a movie. Blades of Glory...kind of funny but not a movie I'd rush out to buy. Anyway, as we were watching the movie I just happened to see something scurrying across our floor which caught my eye. What was that? I thought. I had a feeling that it was a spider, but I am always paranoid and think I see or feel spiders crawling on me all the time, so I initially thought that I should ignore this. But my paranoia got the better of me and I turned on the light as quickly as possible. I thought I saw the creature crawl under our coffee table, so I had Tyson put the movie on pause and then move the table. All of sudden I screamed, because the biggest spider I ever saw came rushing out towards me. Holy cow this thing was huge! I'm talking Old School silver dollar sized. I screamed to Tyson to kill it, and as he rushed to get some toilet paper I tried to deter the scary bug away from the couch. In the end, Tyson wasn't fast enough and I grabbed and used a shoe that Tyson had flung to me and smashed the evil bug. Yuck. Even though he was smashed, I still made Tyson give it a watery grave in the toilet.


Then today I kept getting attacked by more spiders and bugs. I was sitting on the couch and then suddenly I felt something on my arm. I looked down and there was another spider. This happened more than once today! What is the deal, YUCK! I absolutely hate spiders. I'm a firm believer that the only good spiders are dead spiders. I'm starting to get pretty paranoid by these creepy guys. I always check our covers and sheets before going to bed now. I've even started to search the internet to find out what kind of spiders are native to Washington. Bad news, I found out that we have an "aggresive house spider". Yep, that is the name, aggressive. I bet that is the one that attacked us during our movie night. Anyway, hopefully you all have been enjoying a spider free fall. I'm hoping that the other spiders in the area saw what we've been doing to their little friends and have decided to haunt someone else's home...or maybe they will come after me for revenge. Let's hope it isn't the latter. eek.

Happy Birthday Baby Kallen!

I'm sorry it has been so long since I have posted. We were so busy there for a few weeks going on vacation and celebrating Kallen's birthday. Then, I just kept getting sidetracked and never posted. But no more...these are almost a month old, but here are pictures from Kallen's first birthday.

I still can't believe the little guy is a whole year old. I look at him and realize that he isn't my little baby boy anymore...he's a little boy. He zooms around the house now and gets into everthing! He climbs stairs and cruises everywhere. Sometimes it amazes me at how fast he can move and all the little crevices and corners he can get into. He no longer eats baby food, preferring instead to eat everything we eat (which sometimes isn't good since we don't eat so well.) And there isn't any more quiet snuggles with mommy. It's kind of sad. He'll never be my little baby ever again. But you know, its good that he is growing up. I know there are so many more fun things to look forward to now that he is getting older. So I guess I'll just have to remember all the good baby memories and be happy with the upcoming new memories that we are about to have with him.

Sorry for being a little sentimental. Let's get to the good stuff...pictures of the cutest kid ever!

Here are the cupcakes that I made for his birthday and some pictures of Kallen waiting to dig into one of them. Isn't he cute in his 1st birthday hat? I couldn't believe that he kept it on the whole time. He usually hates hats and I have to fight with him to keep them on...but maybe he sensed that this hat was special. I don't know. Either way, it always makes me smile to see him in this little hat.




I know that he should have probably only had one candle on his cake for his first birthday, but I wanted to use a whole bunch so they would show up in the videos we were taking. Kind of sad huh...I do things so they look good in pictures. We got a new camcorder for his birthday, so this was the first time we had used it...so I had to make sure that it looked good right? Well, I wish I could have posted some of the video we took, but I haven't gotten the software yet that allows me to edit it on our computer...so you all will have to wait for those.



Here is the little guy digging in. He was very slow and methodical at the beginning, but then he just started tearing the cupcake apart. The funny part was that he didn't really like eating it, but he sure did like smearing it everywhere. Funny kid.

Hey, want to know a secret? I chose to have his birthday party over at my parents house instead of ours for one big reason. I knew that he would make a mess with his cake and I didn't want to clean it up! If my Mom reads this, I know I'm going to be in big trouble, because she was the one who ended up cleaning it all up. Oh well, after looking at these pictures, I think everyone will agree with me that I made a good choice and it was worth the risk of my Mothers disgruntlement. He, he.





If you look closely at this picture you will notice that Kallen has frosting shoved all the way up his nose. You might think he did this himself, but he didn't. Good ol' Dad decided that Kallen wasn't making enough of a mess and decided to help out. He smeared that cupcake all over Kallen's face and in the process shoved it up his nose. If you couldn't tell, Kallen was not too happy about it. I can't blame him, I don't think I'd like my cupcake shoved up my nose. Silly Daddy.



Here Kallen is waiting to open his presents. I think he enjoyed the wrapping paper, the balloons and ribbon much more than the presents.







This has got to be the best part of the whole night. Tyson loved that we got Kallen helium balloons, because he wanted to use them to make his voice really high. From the very first moment we bought those balloons, he was after me to let him try using one...I kept telling him he would have to wait. So he did...he was very patient. After Kallen had opened all his presents, Daddy got his turn. Here is a video to show off Daddy's stuff.

Bubbles

Here are the promised bubble pictures. Kallen loved watching all the bubbles that the kids would blow on him. Also, look at the huge bubbles the other kids were able to make. They were amazing and they were so proud of being able to make them.

Tidepools

When we were in San Diego, we wanted to check out some really cool tide pools. So we carefully researched when the tide was suppose to be out and then planned our trip accordingly. Somehow we failed in our research, because when we got there, the tide was completely in! Oh well, we still had fun walking on the rocks and playing in the few tide pools that were still accessible.

Kallen really liked watching the waves crash against the rocks. It was really hard to take his picture, because he was always distracted by them.





Here is Kallen and his Uncle Nathan playing in one of the tide pools. All the kids loved this one, because the waves would come crashing up into it and completely fill it with water. This picture was taken when a wave was coming in, so you really can't see the tide pool, but trust me, its there. Nathan is attempting to lower Kallen's feet into the pool.


Weren't the rocks there amazing? I loved all the textures and colors.

Playing at the Playground

Here we are playing at the playground in San Diego. Kallen really enjoyed the swings and sliding down the slide with his Daddy. We also took a great picture of all the grandkids on the slide. They all look so cute.

Fun at the Beach

Kallen really enjoyed the beach on our trip. He loved playing in the sand almost as much as the dirt...but I think he still prefers dirt. We all had fun playing in the sand, in the water, and looking for gold! Tyson did a little treasure hunt with the kids and each found some fools gold. Two pieces were lost. One was dropped into the sea and the other was buried by Rylan and never recovered. Tyson wonders what lucky person will find them some day. Maybe there will be another "49er" gold rush?

As I said before, Kallen loved playing in the sand. I wondered if he would love eating sand like so many of our friend's babies. I would soon find out...

Happy Kallen


Grumpy Kallen. It didn't take Kallen long to get sand all over his face. Here is a picture of Kallen's grumpy face after he ate some sand. It definitely didn't taste like chicken.


Daddy and Kallen playing in the water.



Here is a video of Kallen playing in the sand with his little shovel.



The entire time we were at the beach, a few of the grandkids were working on a pit. What do you think they decided to use the pit for? Bury Grandma of course. At the end of the day, that is exactly what they did. Here is a video of them all working on the task.



They were so proud of themselves after their accomplishment of course.

Playing with the Cousins

Here are some pictures of Kallen playing with his cousins Audra and Dalton. Dalton is the newest grandkid and he is almost 3 months old. That means, he will be in the same grade as Kallen...I just know they are going to be great friends. Even though Dagan and Christy already have 5 kids, I told them that they still have to have a few more...at least 2 more. That way, my kids will always have someone to play with at reunions. :)

Kallen loved the baby. He was always trying to touch his face. I don't know if Dalton liked that.


I just noticed something funny. Most of these pictures have Kallen wearing the same submarine outfit. I thought that was funny, because these were all taken on different days and I promise that he really did wear other clothes while we were there. Funny.

San Diego Zoo

We got to visit the San Diego Zoo during our vacation. It was great and it had so many new animals to see. I would have to say my favorites were the Pandas, Gorillas and Meerkats. I don't really know which were Kallen's favorites. I think he really enjoyed seeing the elephants because they were a lot closer to us than the ones at our zoo at home. Here are some pictures to enjoy from our trip.

All of the Koalas were asleep when we got there. However, we got lucky and this little guy woke up for a few minutes. So I quickly took a picture.

These Meerkats were a hit with everyone...especially my nieces and nephews. I think they like them because they like watching Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet. Again, I was lucky to capture a few shots of these little guys all at attention because they only did it for a few seconds. The rest of the time they were chasing one another and running all around.

One of all the grandkids and Dagan and Tyson. This was a midday break where we all ate some fish crackers. Hurray! Kallen also practiced his walking, which made him so happy.


Kallen's favorite...the elephants.

This is Tyson's first attempt at using the video setting on our camera. So at the beginning I am trying to explain to him how to use it. He figured it out pretty quick...he's so smart. In the video you can see one of the elephants dancing back and forth. We thought he was so funny. I have no idea why he was doing this the whole time. Silly elephant.



What a lazy Rhino. I can't blame him though...it was a really hot day. Relaxing in the pool sounded pretty good to us all. In fact, after the zoo that is exactly what we did.



Pandas are such cool animals. I love them!



They had so many flamingos there and I loved watching them. They were the prettiest color of pink/orange that I've ever seen.


Here is a video of two little baby Gorillas that we saw at the zoo. They loved to play with one another. I thought it was funny because while the kids played together, their mothers would just ignore them and eat their food. However, in this video I thought it was funny because the two little babies were wrestling and finally one of the mama Gorillas got up and broke them up. So funny. I think I like watching the Gorillas because they seem so much like humans.