19 Months

19 months...

I've been asking myself how long I will continue these monthly updates.

The truth is, I do them for myself more than anyone else.

He changes so much in such a short amount of time, and I'm truly concerned I may forget it all someday.

So for now, they will continue.

Calvin has been SO much fun lately!

This kid cracks me up!

The other night, he started loading all the shapes from his Shape O Ball into his shark backpack and when they were all in there he grabbed the bag, yelled "BYE-BYE!" and ran to the back door.

It was hilarious.

He's very opinionated at this point too, which I'm sure is just going to get worse.

He knows EXACTLY which shoes he wants to wear, what he wants to drink, which book he wants to read and what toy he wants to play with.

Case in point: Eating his snack with daddy's hat on. The hat was non-negotiable...

He's absolutely obsessed with learning new things.

He can almost put every shape into his Shape O Ball without any help. Only the pentagon and hexagon trip him up.

He's got the majority of his basic colors down, although sometimes he just says everything is "yeyow".

He's getting really good at counting to 10, especially the 8-9-10! part.

He's figuring out the alphabet and can confidently identify all the vowels on his alphabet puzzle (including Y).

He's my little friend maker. He says "Hi!" and "Buh-bye" to every kid we walk past... and most of the adults. 

He really likes to high-five but if you "bump" knuckles with him he will walk up to every single person in the room to bump knuckles with them too.

If when he falls or runs into something, he pops back up and says "boom..." in a concerned voice.

His very favorite song is Ho-Hey by the Lumineers. He's been "singing" it for days now. It goes like this:

"*garbled toddler language* HEY! *garbled toddler language* HO! 

Heeeeeeeeeyyy!

*indistinguishable words* HO!"

Basically, this age, while challenging at times, is super awesome.

I get all emotional and choked up at random times thinking about how much he's grown and changed since last year. 

Easter

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

We spent the day at my sister-in-law's house in Reardan which is about a half hour out of town.

She has a darling farm house with sweeping country views.

It was a beautiful setting for our lovely Easter celebration complete with family, easter-egg hunts, food, doggies and kite-flying!

 

 Calvin still didn't quite understand the Egg Hunt.

He was more interested in the Hot Wheel's cars in his Easter Basket.

Our niece and nephew got a couple of great kites from the Easter Bunny and the fields were an awesome place to fly them.

Calvin even got a turn.

We ended up giving the kiddo his basket when we got home.

I had to run into work in the morning and wasn't there when he woke up.

He loved everything in his basket!

We had a very fun and busy day and I think we all slept like rocks last night.

Easter Goodies

If you read my post about last Easter, you'll remember that I TOTALLY FAILED at being the Easter bunny. Calvin's goodies didn't show up at our house until 2 weeks after Easter.

Thank goodness he was too young to remember.

With that failure nagging in my ear, I'm WAY more on top of things this go around.

Kiddo still doesn't really know what candy is and I know his Grandparents and aunties and uncles will be sneaking him plenty of treats this Sunday;
So I wanted to fill his basket with goodies that were fun, and maybe even educational.
Plus, I use holidays as an excuse to buy him things I would've probably gotten him anyway...

Jammies are always a must for every holiday.
(He also just happens to be out growing all of his current sets)

How great are these PJ's?!

In previous posts I've proclaimed my love of one-piece jammies, but now that we're sort-of kind-of potty training, 2 pieces are SOOOO much more convenient.
I love the the Gap, Old Navy and Carter's sets because they're actually slim enough to stay on him.

Calvin LOVES stuffed animals.
He kisses them on the nose, cuddles up with them and even puts blankets on them to put them "nigh-nigh", so I had to get him a little stuffy. Just a small, inexpensive duckling from Target that I'm sure will be his favorite thing to carry around for the next week.

Because I am a hairstylist, I get to talk and bounce ideas off of lot's of wonderful people.

One in particular is a teacher with a very smart son of her own, and she has made some much needed (and very appreciated) suggestions for keeping up with Calvin's urge to learn.

One was to get him a Tupperware Shape O Ball .
Do you remember these!?!
I actually found this one in new condition at a children's consignment shop for $5!!
Score!

I have been eyeballing this wooden alphabet puzzle online for a month now, but was NOT going to drop that kind of money on a puzzle.
No.
I found this one at JcPenney on clearance!
I can't seem to find it on the JcPenney website so you may have to search your local store.
 

I also snagged him a board book copy of Good Night Moon.

It's a classic and we didn't have it in our collection yet.

Bunnies... Easter... it totally works.

Bubbles!!!!
They HAVE to have bubbles!
The last time kiddo played with bubbles he dumped half the solution on his pants, so these big non-spill buckets are fricken awesome!!

Not too shabby right?

Honestly, if I didn't know he had a bunch of other goodies waiting for him at his aunty's house I would have gotten more little stuff.

Probably some eggs stuffed with stickers and bouncy balls and maybe a coloring book with finger crayons like these. 

But those ideas can wait until next year.

P.S. I happened to be at the mall today and found THIS ridiculously cute backpack on clearance (!!!) so I HAD to snag it immediately and you probably should too.
Nothing like a last minute addition to make the Easter basket AMAZING!

Boys Weekend

Whew!

I'm sure you were all wondering if I had abandoned my blog.

Fear Not!

I've just been busier than usual.

Last weekend I went out of town for the Fashion Focus Hair Show in Bellevue.

I worked Saturday, came home and took off that evening until Monday night.

Which means... 

Tristan had Calvin all by himself for a few days.

Tristan is an AMAZING dad.

He has no problem taking care of the kiddo.

The only thing I was worried about was making sure they had meals.

I am definitely the one that cooks in this house.

So I loaded up the fridge, freezer and pantry and crossed my fingers.

If worse came to worse I knew they could just order a pizza, so I tried not to give myself anxiety.

They had a great weekend and I made Tristan promise to send me lot's of pictures so I knew what they were up to.

I had a great weekend too.

My friend Becky and I sat in on several classes, learned a ton (I have pages and pages of notes), met with educators and vendors, and scored some KILLER deals on products and tools.

We even ended up on stage the second day as hair models.

Between the show and moving into a new salon that I LOVE, I'm feeling more motivated and inspired than ever!

18 Months! That's a Year and a Half Folks!

 First things first:
The winner of the Prince Lionheart playMAT giveaway last week was Wendy J!
Congratulations Wendy, I hope your son enjoys the playMAT as much as Calvin does.
Thank you to everyone that entered!



The 28th of March marked a year and a half of Calvin.

He continues to amaze us every single day with his personality and everything he knows!

Shoes

I put off this post until now because I wanted to wait until we'd been to his 18 Month check-up to get his stats. This blog has become his make-shift baby book, and I want to make sure I don't forget!

We visited our Pediatrician this morning and he was very happy with Calvin's growth.
He's not as tall, percentage-wise, as he used to be; he's right around the 50th percentile for height, and still a string-bean (30th percentile for weight).
He's eating and sleeping like a champ so he must be growing right?

Look at that kid! 

Definitely not a little baby anymore.

That Radio Flyer scooter was mine when I was just a smidge and it's so fun to see him enjoying it.

He's really just started to understand how to sit on it and scoot.

Until a couple weeks ago, he'd get on, hold onto the handle bars, then stand-up and kind of waddle-walk. Then he'd get frustrated and need help getting off.

When he's had enough scooting, he flips the thing over and spins the wheels.
He LOVES spinning wheels and looks like he's concentrating so hard on figuring it all out.
Maybe we have a future Physicist on our hands.