It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I am SO SO SO behind on blogging that I am struggling to find the motivation to keep up. Part of me just wants to write about the more recent stuff, but because I want to put all of 2014’s blog posts into a book for our family I don’t feel like I can leave out major events. So I feel like I need to try to catch up a little bit, even though I think I’d rather just write about stuff going on now. In any case, here we are in the middle of February and I’m writing about December happenings. Yeehaw.

We were able to squeeze several fun christmas-y things into our month. We were all so excited for Kellen’s first Christmas. He loved mostly everything (except for Santa, but we’ll get to that), especially the lights. In fact, the first time he actually genuinely crawled a significant distance on his hands and knees was when we put up the lights on our Christmas tree. He took one look at the glowing tree, pushed himself up, and crawled towards it as fast as he could! He hasn’t left it alone since. Our tree is only decorated from about a foot from the bottom up. 

We have this tradition where we put up our Christmas decorations on Thanksgiving day. The sooner the better we say, and the longer we have to enjoy them. The boys were so excited to “help.”

On of our favorite Christmas decorations is this little Fisher-Price nativity set. We usually get it out the first Monday of the month and do a little FHE where we tell the boys about the birth of the Savior. I was really impressed with how much of the story Mason remembered this year. He could repeat a good portion of it and could identify all of the characters. He called the gifts the wise men brought “Frankensince, Gold, and Mermaid.” Haha. Kellen mostly loved gnawing on shepherds and sheep.
One day I found the nativity like this:

We wore Christmas nammies as much as possible.

We made Christmas cookies.

We read lots of Christmas stories. One of our traditions is to go to the bookstore to read Christmas stories and pick out a new Christmas book each year. We are slowly building our holiday library. This years book was “Snowman at Christmas.” Such a cute book! The illustrations are darling and Mason loves look and find books.

We took the boys to the cemetery to see the reindeer. I’m not sure why the reindeer live at the cemetery, but they do. Their caretaker told us to bring them bananas the next time we visited. Apparently reindeer love bananas. Who knew?

Then we went to meet Santa.

Even though Kellen was decidedly unimpressed, this was the best Santa I’ve ever seen. He was so patient and kind with the boys and took lots of time to talk to them. Mason ran right up and told him that he wants a “screw” for Christmas. He meant a little toy power drill. He got one for his birthday, but that one broke and he has been asking for another one. We told him that maybe he’d get one for Christmas and Mason hasn’t forgotten it. He talks about Santa bringing him a screw all the time.

The setup to visit Santa was really nice too. Santa had his own little gingerbread house and families got to enter one at at time. It made the experience a lot more personal and less rushed to be away from the loud line outside the door.

We made several family outings to go look at the lights. There are a few local spots that are actually really pretty. We also went to a local tree lighting ceremony and that was really fun. It was exciting to be with the crowd and count down from ten to light the enormous tree. The boys met Santa there too, but I didn’t get a good picture of that one.

The end.

Or rather, to be continued…

Kellen at Ten Months

At ten months Kellen:

Is into everything! He is crawling everywhere and loves to tug things off the couch/table/bookshelf to play with. A couple of nights ago he was getting tired and fussy so he crawled right over to me and climbed into my lap saying "Mamamama" over and over. Best moment of my week! I love when he wants to cuddle because he wants to cuddle, not just because I want him to. He does the sweetest thing where he burrows into my shoulder when he's waking up from a nap or when he's feeling a little bit shy. I love it so much.

Has really mastered the walker. He enjoys walking down the hallway, though he doesn't usually get around the corner before we catch him and tug him back. He still can go faster backwards than forwards and he thinks he is such a big boy walking along. He adores dashing out of sight more than anything. 

Really likes the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" song. He even does the actions for down came the rain. We sing that song over and over throughout the day and he gets excited every time.  He also likes clapping along and doing the actions to some of his other favorite songs. “Rock a bye bear” is another of his favorites. He can clap at the right parts and points his finger to his lips for the “shh shh shh” part.

HATES diaper changes with a fiery passion. It's amazing how the second babies get really mobile they'd rather die than be contained for 30 seconds to get a clean bum. Spencer and I just look at each other when this happens because he was always our mellow man! And he still mostly really is, but when it comes to wardrobe or bum changes Kellen goes from happy camper to cranky bear in .02 seconds. That kid is just a man on the go now, far too busy to bother with silly things like cleanliness.

Is very interested in doors. He likes to close his, which makes me so nervous because I am worried he'll mush his little fingers. We try to keep doors closed around the house so he can't swing them around and hurt himself. One afternoon I got him out of his crib after nap and I set him down on the floor. He crawled to Mason's room and started knocking on the closed door (Mason was still asleep). He wanted in there to play with Brother! Darling. 

Will point to our noses if we ask him where the nose is. He also knows mouth and eyes. He is very obsessed with mouths. He loves to poke his fingers at our lips so we’ll nibble on them.

Has discovered his reflection in the big glass door. He crawls over and plays with the baby in the glass several times a day. It is so cute to see him hooting and hollering at himself as he slaps the glass and presses his nose to it. 

Adores baths so much. If I turn on the bath water, he will come crawling as fast as he can from anywhere in the house. Then he pulls himself to a stand at the side of the tub and screams with glee urging me to hurry up and get him in the water. 

Loves his burp cloths. He has to have one to sleep with every night, along with his teething lamb. He likes to put his burp cloths in his mouth and then crawls around with them dangling down. He looks like a puppy or something when he holds things in his mouth like that. We all think it's so funny.

Kellen at Nine Months

Some fun facts about Kellen at nine months old:

He could not be any closer to crawling without ACTUALLY crawling. He is so stinking close. He props himself up on his hands and knees, rocks back and forth, wiggles forward ever so slightly, wiggles backward just an inch or two, and then gives up, flops to his tummy, and rolls away like a tumbleweed. He can get everywhere he needs to go by rolling and he can get there FAST. Yesterday he navigated from his room to Mason's room just by rolling. He knows the places he shouldn't be (front door curtain, DVDs, computer corner) and he rolls there most often. He is also a big fan of the "roll under the crib, get stuck, and scream for help" maneuver. He thinks it is so hilarious to roll under there at first, but he inevitably gets really upset when he can't seem to roll back out. I rescue him out from under the crib a million times a day. Kellen has also started doing the most hilarious thing where he props himself up on his hands and the tips of his toes. It is so adorable and so funny and must require a good amount of strength to prop himself up like that.


Kellen is STRONG. One of his latest hobbies is rearranging furniture. He can move the coffee table and entry table and does so at every opportunity. He also enjoys poking his legs through the slats of the crib and shoving the crib away from the wall. He can move his entire crib! I find it amazing. Although, because his thighs are so chunky and rolly his legs sometimes get stuck between the slats, and I have to help him pry them out. Silly kid.

Kellen has really started to enjoy touch and feel books lately. He loves to explore all the different textures and especially likes this one page with a bunny with soft fur on it . He will pet that bunny and then look up at me and smile. Those books hold his attention the best of any of his little stories.

He loves pushing trucks around like brother. I am amazed he knows how to do that, but I would say that the tractors and trucks are some of his favorite toys and he loves to push them back and forth on the floor. He also has been playing a lot with the Elmo keys. He thinks he's so big to be able to push the buttons. This kid just loves toys and can play forever. I guess it's so amazing to me because Mason didn't play independently like Kellen does when he was that age. Kellen loves when we lay on the floor and play with him, but he is also content to play by himself from time to time.

The Kelephant recently learned how to blow raspberries. So cute! Mason thinks it's pretty funny, so the two of them love to blow raspberries together. 

He also discovered his tongue! It is so funny to see him poking it out all the day long. He does it the most during mealtime. I think it is darling and hope he does it forever.  And speaking of mealtime, Kellen likes to touch our faces when we feed him a bottle. It's so very sweet and I hope he does that forever too!

Mason remains Kellen’s favorite person in the world. My boys are such good pals and I love it so much. When Kellen wakes up in the morning or from naps, Mason is right at the foot of the crib saying “Hello buddy!” and begging me to lift him into Kellen’s bed to cuddle.

Or sometimes they go cuddle in Mason’s bed instead.

We STILL have to remind Mason to give Kellen GENTLE loves.
Cuddling my boys is and will always be my absolute favorite thing in the whole world.

Kellen grew another tooth for a grand total of six! He looks so different with teeth! The top four make a perfect stair-step since they are all in different stages of growth. I can't get over how big he looks with his new pearly whites. 
Kellen is getting a tiny bit better at scooting around in his walker. Mostly he can only push himself backwards! But he can navigate a little bit, provided his destination is behind him. He would probably be a lot better at scooting himself around if SOMEONE wouldn’t oh so helpfully nudge him along.

Kellen added a new word to his vocabulary: "nana." I'm not sure how much he connects meanings to words yet, but it is cute to hear him talk. He is a pretty quiet little fellow for the most part. 

Kellen has also learned how to point at things. This makes him seem so big to me! One day Spencer said the closing prayer in sacrament meeting, and Kellen pointed up at him on the stage and said, "Dada!" His favorite time to point is when we're reading stories and then he loves to point at the pictures on the page. He also knows how to turn the pages and really likes to be the one to do it after I've finished reading a page.  

Is way more interested in real food that puffs or his baby food. But he's a bit of a lazy eater. He CAN feed himself some little morsels of food that we put on his tray, but he usually hollers hoping we will do it for him. 

Gosh, I love that little marshmallow. He is in the most delightful stage where he learns new things so quickly and surprises me every day with the things he can do. And he is still the happiest baby I've ever seen. He is just cheerful and smiley all the time.