He is Listening

Calum is kind of a wild man these days. He rarely holds still and is always doing and saying the funniest stuff.

Eating some sweet treats

 Trying on some clothes/shoes

Chillin with the lion cubs

 Hiking with mom and dad

 Coloring on his head

And that was just some of our adventures from the week! As you can imagine this wild thing doesn't sit very still or listen very reverently during family home evening, prayers, scripture reading, church, and what not. So we were amazed when Sunday morning, we were getting ready for church and out of nowhere Calum brings up the Holy Ghost and how he helps us to not be scared. Then he said something about being reverent and the Holy Ghost. Apparently our last FHE did sink in! It isn't a waste of time, because Calum is clearly getting something out of it even if he is running around like a mad man while we are trying to have a lesson. Anyway, I just wanted to share that the prophets and apostles know what they are talking about, and if we put in the effort we will see the blessings!! :) 

Who needs pants?

Warning: Explicit images :)

I had the bright idea to try and potty train Calum this week. He has been showing signs that he's ready, like wanting to sit on the toilet, and telling me when he goes and that he needs his diaper changed. And he even would go in the toilet on some occasions. My friend potty trained her kid using a no pants method. They go diaper-less for three days, and it supposedly helps them recognize when they go and associate that with going on the toilet. Anyway, I did my research and thought I would give it a try. It actually worked alright. When we would sit Calum on the toilet he would go on command, but he didn't really get the hang of letting me know when he needed to go. I would try to just take him every half hour or so, if I timed it right we were happy, but all too often I did not, and ended up cleaning up messes left and right. It was a trying three days. I think I'll wait a little longer to really tackle this potty training business.

I tried to find stuff for us to do in the kitchen, so the messes were easier to clean.

I did put big boy undies on Calum one day, he thought he was pretty cool.

The next morning he woke up and tried to put some underwear on himself. Haha.

Calum didn't complain too much about being a free bird for a few days. As I've mentioned before, he doesn't love wearing clothes, so he was kind of in heaven. :)

Calum's favorite things: Jumping on his bed.

Stickers- "How I look Mom?"

My phone camera.- "What?!"

Hide and Seek- "We're hiding from the scary lizard, Mom."

Anyway, couldn't really take Pant-less Joe anywhere so spent most of our time at home watching the crazy weather. We did make a trip to Ikea, or Build-a-Bear for adults, as Kevin termed it :) Just slowly getting our house ready for another little one! Keeping my fingers crossed that Calum is potty trained by then.

Kids Say/Do the Darndest Things

Calum is just Mr Personality these days. He says everything, and is constantly making me laugh. Almost every morning he wakes up, wants me to take his PJ's off, goes and puts on this life jacket, then  goes and gets his shoe basket and puts it on his head. Then runs around and around our house. Seriously, this happens daily. For some reason the life jacket means, bucket head too. Silly goose. He figured out how to take picture on my phone, here is one of the better ones :)

Calum loves to ride horses. Mechanical ones, bouncy ones, the horse named dad, or riding on my knee. He loves it. He is a natural cowboy. Constantly saying things like "Giddy Up Horsey!" "Ride em Cowboy!" "Neigh!" "Yeehaw!" He's pretty much the cutest. He also insisted on dressing himself when we went to the zoo the other day. His shirt was too big, his jacket was too small, and he chose this awesome swimming hat to go with. It was pretty awesome. 

Luckily, it was a pretty warm day so he shed some layers and just ended up looking like a gangster in his Tall T :)

Calum was so excited for the zoo. He was singing the Putt Putt saves the zoo song the whole way there  and then kept naming off animals we were going to see. I'm pretty sure his favorite was the monkeys. They were pretty entertaining. The gorillas were eating lunch. There was a baby orangutang that followed its mama up a tree. Calum was really proud of it and started yelling, "Good job baby! You did it!" He also yelled at some monkeys playing catch, "Get the ball monkey!!" He was really into it :)

 The three little monkeys at the zoo, and their three big mammas! (We are all 21-23 weeks pregnant. Haha)

 We asked Calum if he was a little monkey when he got home and he responded, "No, I'm a blue jay."But then he clarified and said he was a woodpecker and started pecking things. He's such a nut. He has this big animal book and pretty much knows what every animal is named. It's pretty entertaining to look at with him.

I can't believe the things he remembers sometimes. The other day he wanted to play with play-doh. It's been a while since we've played with it but right when I got it out, he was asking me to make a dog with it (which is what I did before) and then asked for his plastic centipede toy, so he could make "fossils"with it in the play-doh (which again, we did the last time). He does stuff like that all the time that just amazes me. Remembers peoples names and what not. It's so entertaining.

In other news, Calum is cutting four teeth right now, so he's been understandably grumpy. He also pooped on the potty for the first time the other day! Hooray! I was really excited cheering and what not. And a few minutes later Calum came up to me and said "I'm so proud of you! Good job mom! Went on the potty! I'm so proud." It was pretty cute. Kevin started back to school this week, and I got a sweet deal on this double stroller. I was so excited, I almost took it to the zoo but refrained :)

Here are a couple more videos of Calum being silly this week. He's such a ham, can't wait to see what he says and does this week.

Video2 Video3

Skills to Pay the Bills

What a week! This week was Eventful. Thats the only way I can accurately sum up this week. Eventful. Calum is definitely two and isn't afraid to show it. He is full of personality and is getting older everyday. Calum hates to wear clothes and so in the majority of his pictures he is naked. Hope you aren't offended :)

We did a bit of spring cleaning. Calum had a lot of fun helping me go through our closets and make a big pile to donate. 

Calum pretending to use the potty. Poser. One of these days he'll actually use it :)

Here is where the fun begins. We took a weekend trip to Steamboat Springs with our friends. Calum discovered he could climb out of his pack and play so getting him to sleep was pretty much ridiculous. He didn't go to bed until like 1 am the first night we were there. Maybe he just knew he was going skiing the next day and was too excited to sleep :) 

Despite the late night partying, he was ready to go the next day. He was really excited he got to ride a bus up there.

He and his friend Aimsley took full advantage of all the free rides :)

The dads getting the little ski bunnies ready to shred.

Ready for his first time on the slopes!

Look at that proud daddy.

Loving the ski lift :) These boys are soooo cute! I can't get over it!

Calum tore it up!

And was tuckered out after two runs :)

Beautiful day in Steamboat. It was supposed to rain, but the weather must have heard it was Calum's first day on the slopes and decided to hold back the rain until the evening. So the dads got in a good full day of spring skiing.

And me and the kiddos headed back to the Condo. It was tiresome, riding the shuttle and hiking back with two toddlers and their ski gear. But we survived.

Fun little hike to FishCreek Falls.

Can you spot the falls? It was kind of buried in snow :) Calum saw it before we did!

Being Tourists in Steamboat. We had a lot of fun, and were glad for a quick trip away before Kevin starts back up at school.

We got home from our trip and of course Calum started climbing out of his crib. After a day of this, and one pretty bad fall I took the front off to convert it to a toddler bed. It takes him a while and multiple times of putting him back in bed but he eventually falls asleep. He doesn't always make it in his bed though. Right now he is actually right inside his door napping on the floor. Poor kid. 

Barricading him in his room and hoping he falls asleep in his bed is not ideal however. Remember I said he is constantly naked? Well today, I put him in his room for a nap, and he was really quiet for a while so I thought he'd finally fallen asleep. But I suddenly heard him screaming, "It's everywhere! It's everywhere!!" I went in his room, to find that he'd taken off his own poopy diaper, and had gotten it "everywhere." Oh the joys of motherhood. 

Like I said, this week has been eventful. But whether Calum is grumpy...

Or goofy...

We are loving watching him grow and learn. Some of the skills he's learning, like skiing, are more fun than others, like say, climbing. But we are rolling with the punches and hoping we make it out without too many scrapes and bruises. Any advice on naked babies or keeping kids in cribs I'm all ears. Don't be shy to send some words of wisdom my way!