Hot Air Balloon Glow

Tonight we drove down to Mesquite to attend the first annual Mesquite Hot Air Balloon Glow.  It was so much fun!  It was awesome to see the balloons from the beginning as they unloaded them from the trailers to the end when they were all blown up.  I think all of the kids loved it and I'm pretty sure all of us adults did as well.  Cason was in awe the entire time and couldn't take his eyes off of the balloons.  It was a pretty amazing sight.  Hopefully we'll be able to go back again next year.

Cason 20 Months

Cason is now 20 months old and is getting to be such a little boy.  It's crazy how grown up he seems.  He has so much energy and is developing quite the little attitude.  Could he be gearing up for the terrible two's already?  It's hard not to smile or giggle when he has his little moments.  I can't help but think he's adorable even when he's being a little stinker. 

Here are a few things about him at this age:

• He can carry on conversations and I can understand so much of what he is saying.  He can communicate everything that he wants and knows so many words it amazes me.  It's a lot of fun to have this interaction with him. 
• He's doing awesome at learning to be polite.  He says please "peas", thank you "tank yoooou", you're welcome "wecome", and sorry "sawee."  He's says you're welcome after somebody says thank you AND after he says thank you.  Pretty cute!
• He's starting to count a bit.  We count to 10 and he says the words along with us... leaving out a couple here and there.  He counts to 2 on his own a lot.  Last night he was painting and counted the paints over and over "1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2." 
• He loves songs with actions and wants to sing all the time.  He'll tell us what he wants to sing by name.  Favorites are Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row Row Row your Boat, 5 Little Ducks, Wheels on the Bus,
• He loves cereal with milk and will ask for it multiple times a day... even in his sleep.  It's a bit ridiculous.  Also still loves candy :).
• Favorite toys are his wagon, piano, and paints.  He loves wagon rides to the park. 
• Loves Blue Clues.  He sings the songs, does the actions like Steve, and loves to point to the clues as they come on the t.v. 

Now for the terrible two's part:

• He's started hitting a little bit recently.  We've implemented time-out which he does really well with.  I'm hoping we can nip this habit quick!
• When he's upset he will pucker his lips, glare, and say "hey."  It's pretty comical!  We were at a restaurant the other day.  Apparently he didn't want the waitress to clear our table and did this each time she touched anything. 
• He has learned what the word "mine" means and says it often.  He also struggles with sharing and thinks everything is his.  At the park the other day he was playing on a teeter totter type toy with a couple of other kids and then moved on to something else.  When he decided he wanted to go back to that toy it was filled with other kids.  He walked up, puckered his lips, glared at the other kids and says "hey, mine!"  I couldn't help but laugh. 

2011 Family Pictures

We got our family pictures taken in November by our great friend Tara Hilsmann. Cason had not been feeling great the week we got them done and I was certain we wouldn't be able to get a good shot. He was not the most cooperative to say the least :). We had to distract him with his blankie, tickling, and pointing out airplanes in the sky. I was soooo surprised when we got the pictures back and they turned out great! Much, much better than I had expected. I was hoping to get just one good shot of Cason and we ended up getting several. Of course, I shouldn't have expected anything less from Tara. Check out her work at tarahphotography.blogspot.com. Thanks Tara!!

Here are some of my favorites.

Out with the Old... In with the New

Or in this case.... the older. We've made a few changes recently. In an effort to downsize to get ready to go back to school we sold our truck. It was a bitter sweet day, but all in all I think it's going to be a good thing. I'll miss the newness of it and how roomy, comfortable, and beautiful it was, but I won't miss the payment :). We got a steal of a deal on a used jeep and are pretty happy with our purchase. Jeff has always wanted a jeep and in the event that we do end up in Salt Lake or Colorado it will be nice to have a small, 4 wheel drive SUV to navigate the snow.

So we went from this....

 to this.

I also recently decided to do a little remodel of our front living room. Not anything fancy by any means, but I love the change. When we first moved into this house, almost 4 years ago, we barely had enough furniture to fill half of the rooms. Our home has a formal living room and a regular living room and we had absolutely no idea what to do with the former. My parents had an old pool table that they were willing to let us use to fill some space and it has been there ever since. The pool table has been a lot of fun for us, but for the most part collects junk and takes up space. Since we've had Cason this room has also been a convenient place to store all of his many toys. I've thought for a while that it would be nice to have more of an open area for him to run around and play, but have just now done something about it. So we got rid of the pool table and moved in some other furniture including a storage ottoman for some of Cason's toys. The minute the pool table was gone Cason ran around and danced for hours chanting "dance, dance, dance." He absolutely loves the room and I don't even mind that his toys are scattered all around. The furniture in the room has turned in to his furniture. He says "my couch, my chair." It's his own little sanctuary :). This new change also gave me the push I needed to finally hang up our family pictures... bonus! 

Here's the before...

and after.