fun stuff from the summer

Casen and I went to the Gateway fountain and he LOVED the water. He was so sad when we had to go. Although you can’t tell from this picture, he really did have fun. And he got a balloon, which he loved. He is obsessed with balloons!Sharing chili with mom
And dad...
and you!

He was on couch arrest this day:


First Haircut...finally! Before:
After:

Please note the uber long hair in the front. We could never spike it cuz it was so long. I love his hair now but the hair cut definitely makes him look older. As you can see in the pic below:

thoughts and trains and stuff...okay just train of thoughts

So I have other things to post about but those are sitting on my computer at home and I am at work so I'll post this now and those things later. I just was sitting here thinking about the beauty of books on cd and how I just put a few on hold at the library today and how great it will be to have those to listen to as I'm cleaning and such at home. For some reason it's really hard for me to always be motivated to do my "chores" and not just sit down and play with Casen all day. Weird, I know. So lately I've been listening to talks, music, or dare I confess, watching movies on the laptop (Don't tell Aaron, he thinks I'm not that lazy). haha just kidding. he already knows. Anyway this whole train of thought got me to thinking about how we are moving so I was picturing all my cleaning being done in our new apt. And THEN I pictured myself doing laundry in our new apt. because I will be doing it IN our new apt. Yes, I said IN meaning that we are now the proud owners of our very own washer and dryer which by the way, we paid cash for!!! YAHOO!!! This is a slight step up from our current washer/dryer situation because we have them here at the apt. but they are upstairs and across the back porch in a separate room which I'm still extremely grateful to have. But I'm more grateful that they are in our apt. Ask me later if I feel that way because I have a feeling I won't love the noise. But right now I'm lovin' the idea. Our other piece of excitement is that we also paid cash for a portable dishwasher because this new place doesn't have one. After we decided we already wanted the apt. Aaron reminded me that this place doesn't have one and I pretty much wanted to cry. I realize that people get by without dishwashers and we actually didn't have one in our first apt. But that's why I wanted to cry when I thought about us not having one because I know what it's like for us: we struggle keeping up on them regularly so I ended up spending hours a day making up for it. This was before we had Casen. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the idea of keeping up on dishes and Casen. (Secretly I'm sure it's possible and you do what you've got to do but I'm glad I don't have to do that). So we will have a dishwasher, with a counter top that doesn't look ghetto! :) Anyway, that was my train of thought as I was sitting at work today...

Camping

This last weekend we went camping for the first time as a family with our ward. It was really fun! I would love to do it again. Although it's much more work when you do it on your own. We didn't have to bring any of the food except a dish to share so it was an easy trip for us! Casen was in absolute heaven with the dirt and rocks and since we just let him explore he came back to us pretty dirty. Here are some pics of the evidence:







Apparently he would have been just fine sleeping under the stars instead of our tent



And here's our family pic--evidence that we did go camping!

This little post is part of a long post I'm working on getting to you. But since blogger is being so freakin' stupid I'll be posting it later.

recent pics

Just a funny shot of him smiling
Happy Easter everyone!

This video is of casen with a balloon. Typical of how he plays with balloons.

update

Casen at 11 ½ months:

· Can stand for a few seconds on his own

· Says “wow”, “what’s that”, “who’s that”, “ma ma”, “da da”, “hi dad”

· Claps hands

· Shakes head no

· Likes hot and sour foods

· Likes to dance by moving up and down or side to side

· Like to sit Indian style

· Is afraid of trees, especially pine trees

· Has tried his own feces…how many people can say that?

· Loves to wrestle and play “chase” on the couch

· Likes to point at everything

· Likes to hang upside down

· Loves to watch Little Einsteins

· Loves to explore and get into everything

· Can snap his fingers (at least he tries)

· Can “get his tickle on” (moves his pointer finger and tries to tickle you)

Casen is SO fun. He loves to be like mom and dad and eat the same foods we do. Often he will refuse his if we are eating regular food because he always prefers to eat what we do. He imitates so much with so many things it’s surprising what he picks up on at such a young age. The other day we had music on while I was feeding him and I started snapping to the music. A few seconds later I noticed he was trying to snap too. So cute! And so fun to see him learning so much.

Lately he has started to really like some toys that he wasn’t much interested in a few months ago. There’s a truck that he will push around that keeps him busy for up to a ½ hour sometimes. We also got a hand me down push toy that has balls on the inside that pop when the toy is pushed (I’m sure you all had one when you were younger). He’s not quite old enough for this yet since he can’t walk and push it but he really wants to play with it so it’s a love hate relationship for him because he tries so hard to get the balls to pop but then gets really frustrated when he can’t push it. I tried to get him to focus on some other toys when this was happening but he insisted on playing with the popper.

He’s also been very good at entertaining himself lately by exploring and usually he’ll play by himself while I get the house clean or laundry done. The only problem is that lately he’s figured out how to open the cupboards in the kitchen and we haven’t gotten them baby proofed yet. We need to get on that really soon or I might have more exciting yet dangerous stories for here.

And speaking of exciting stories….Aaron said this one would be a good one to write down and I haven’t yet so I figured here would be a good place for it. I do have to thank my brother Jared for doing this when he was younger. Because I heard of his experience from my mom when this happened to Casen I was able to deal with it without gagging or bawfing (barfing).

So one morning recently we got Casen out of bed and could tell he needed to be changed which is a usual for him in the morning. He was wearing a “night sack” for his pj’s (it’s like a big sack with a zipper) and when I unzipped him we saw that his diaper had come off in the night and all of its contents had spilled out into his pj’s. Awesome. So I took off his diaper and stuck him in the tub to clean him off. I completely forgot about rolling up his diaper and left it on the couch. Later that day he was playing on the couch while I was in the kitchen cooking. I look over to check on him and I notice some brown stuff on his fingers. For a split second I couldn’t think what it would be and then I remember his diaper must have been sitting there still. I ran over to him but before I could get to him he put one of his fingers in his mouth! Sick of a-mer-i-ca!!!! WHY DID I LEAVE THAT DIAPER THERE??? Anyway we both lived through the experience without throwing up. In fact, he didn’t even react to what he ate and I was able to keep it together by not really thinking about it. And now it makes a good story I guess.

Well in 17 days Casen will be 1 year!! I can’t believe he’s already going to be that old!

We love our little man!

A couple weeks ago I was asked to clog at a Relief Society activity. Keeping in mind that I haven't even worn clogging shoes except maybe 3 times in the last 2 years...it went better than I expected. And I'd forgotten how much fun it was to perform!

new videos

We captured a few new things Casen learned how to do recently...wave bye bye, clap, and say "oh"
when something is very interesting.