Walking!!!

Well kinda....walking with assistance I should say. He is using a toy he got for Christmas to manuever around the living room. You can tell I am a nervous mama, following around behind him. For those of you who knew me in high school, you can laugh that I am still wearing my high school year book shirt in this video.

Our Little Piggy

Kale thinks pig noises are the funniest sounds in the world. We play with his Old McDonald's Farm toy (you know the one that makes all of the animal noises--I don't know what it's really called), and everytime he hears the pig's sound he cracks up. Yes, I am oinking on this video...

Like Father, Like Son

Kris' cousin, Heather, got Kale an Iowa State cap a several months ago. The other day I discovered that it finally fits him. On Sunday, Kale and Kris had on matching Iowa State hats. Kale didn't like his too much though, and kept ripping his off.

On a side note, Kris dressed Kale...he has on a purple, green, and yellow collared shirt with blue and red wind pants.I just had to laugh!

Wagon Ride

It was such a nice day on Sunday (85 degrees!) that we decided to take Kale on a wagon ride. I put his sunglasses on, but he didn't feel like wearing them. In this picture, Kris is physically holding his hands down so that he doesn't take the glasses off.

...and off they come!

The wagon that we were using was Kris' when he was a little boy.

Kale wouldn't stay seated in the wagon, so mom had to go along for the ride.

Excuse the glaring white legs!

8 More Days!

The dog kennel...we decided to install a kennel because our dogs completely destroyed our previous back yard. Not to mention, Jonah has a history of digging and eating stones, sticks, etc that he finds in the yard. We have had two stomach surgeries to remove various "stuff" from his stomach. We are hoping that the concrete kennel will help with that problem!

The outdoor kitchen is completely done. They have to put in the fridge, but will wait until the day of closing.

The rest of the patio....looking forward to summer BBQs.

The railing for the stairway is done. Yippee!

The carpet and remainder of the flooring has been installed!

Kale was disappointed to see the carpeting. Everytime we went to see the house, he would start going "oooh, oooh" before we even got in the house. He loved making noises because his voice echoed in the house. With the carpet and flooring, he doesn't get the same effect.

We officially close next Thursday, the 31sr. We did our walk through on Monday. They finished sodding the yard today and will add landscaping (flower beds, shrubs, etc) after we close. (We decided to wait until stuff was blooming to complete the landscaping.) They will also power wash the outside of the house and install speakers in the outdoor patio, then we are all set to go!

We're Almost There!

Kris' shower...complete with a bench, giant shower head, and body sprays. This is the one thing Kris desperately wanted in the house.

Outdoor kitchen...a mini fridge will go in the spot in between cabinets

Kitchen/breakfast area. It's hard to tell what everything looks like because everything is so dusty!

Laundry room--we have lots of cabinet space and a sink

Double ovens-Thanksgiving and Christmas will be much easier at our house!

Stove top and backsplash

Hardwood floors-once again, it's kind of hard to see what they look like due to the dust.

The house is pretty much done. They are cleaning today and will be sodding this weekend. We can do our final walk through on Monday.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Everyone knows I love St. Patrick's Day since it's my birthday! I had to dress Kale up for the occassion. He got me a spa package with a massage, manicure, and haircut for my birthday. Kris got me a gift card to go shopping. I am so lucky to get to spend my day with my two special boys!

Kale loves Books

Kale has really taken an interest in books lately. He enjoys being read to and will even "read" the books that we keep in his toy bucket They are some of his favorite toys. Being a reading specialist, I love to see him playing with books.

In the picture at the top, he is looking at a card that his "aunties" from Hidden Hollow (my team from my previous school) sent him. It plays music. He loves opening and closing it, making it play music.

Gross!

Kale loves spaghetti, but we had to have a bath after this meal.

Kale's Favorite Thing

My child loves the vaccuum cleaner. Don't ask me why...his little eyes light up whenever he sees me getting it out of the closet. He loves to play with it too. I can't wait until he's old enough to use it for real!

Going for the plug...

My Not So Good Eater

The past couple of weeks, Kale has done a really horrible job eating. I literally have to put on a song and dance to get him to eat anything. One trick that I did discover is that if I put snacks in the front compartment of his his little car, he will eat him all. I guess it's the novelty of eating out of his car!

More Teeth!

If you look closely, you can see Kale is getting both of his top two teeth.

Go Blue!

I put Kale in the Michigan jacket that my mom bought him for Christmas. Much to Kris' delight, Kale started bawling. (Being from Iowa, Kris has an automatic dislike for Michigan sports.)

A Busy Body

This is how I contain Kale these days...put him in his bumbo and give him treats.

I can't believe my little man is almost one!

Chocolate Ice-Cream

If you look closely you see a ring of ice-cream around Kale's face. Kris and I stopped to get ice-cream cones Friday night after dinner. Kale loved chocolate ice-cream. I basically couldn't get a bite in because he would start screaming if I took the cone away. The funny thing is I did eat about a half gallon of chocolate ice-cream almost every day I was pregnant with him.

Spaghetti...from Kale's point of view

Trying spaghetti for the first time...

Oh no, mom! This is gross!

Actually, it's not too bad.

This is pretty good stuff!

I am a pro at eating spaghetti.

Most importantly, spaghetti is so much fun to play with!

Mom's babysitter

Kale will sit in play in a laundry basket or Huggies box forever! It's the one thing I can do these days to contain him. He is everywhere!

Kale's Social Calendar

Kale was invited to his first party on Saturday. His more mature, 2 year old friend, Alex, was turning 3. The party was held in the family life center of a church. They had tunnels, little clubhouses, bounce castles, ping pong, etc. It was so much fun! Kale played in the tunnels, jumped in the bounce houses, and flirted with the four-year old girls.

This is a horrible picture of me and I normally would never put in on the internet, but we didn't take very many pictures and I wanted to document his first party. Kale is currently going through a stage where he takes horrible pictures and refuses to look at the camera.

Speaking of birthday parties--I CAN NOT believe Kale will be one in a few short weeks. I felt as if I was pregnant forever, yet his first year has literally flown by. Kale is currently crawling, standing, walking by holding onto objects, clapping, and giving open-mouthed kisses (it's the sweetest thing). He is still a horrible sleeper and has yet to sleep through the night since we moved to Amarillo. He is also becoming a horrible eater...he just thinks he is too busy to eat. My strategy for getting him to eat changes on a daily basis. Today I let him feed me a bite, then I would feed him a bite. (I did learn his puffs are very stale!)

We're Almost There!

The cabinets, trim and doors are stained! I am very happy with the way they turned out.

The granite has been installed in the kitchen and bathroom. This picture is of the kitchen granite (it's very dusty in the house, so it's hard to tell what it looks like). The bathroom granite is black.

The fireplace in the formal living room is stoned.

We decided to have a dog kennel poured in the side yard. Our dogs completely destroyed our previous back yard, so we wanted to take precautions to protect our new yard!

Our giant backyard patio! We are having an outdoor kitchen put in, but it has not been installed yet.

More of the backyard patio. I am looking forward to summertime BBQs!

My master closet.

Kale's bedroom. The high ceilings in this house were definite selling points.

The entryway has been painted...it looks kind of blue, but is really supposed to be silver. The builder says the color will change once the flooring is installed.

We are still scheduled to close on March 31st. The house is supposed to be 99% finished by this Friday. It still seems as if they have a lot of little things to do, but I suppose it will all come together quickly. I am not looking forward to the packing! :(