Halloween with a 15 month old is interesting…they love the excitement, but aren’t really sure what to make of it all. Candy? Don’t get it yet. Costumes? Awesomeness. Lots of other people wearing costumes? SO COOL! (Not scary even if it is supposed to be) Decorations? YES! New toys to play with! Everywhere we go!
On Friday we took Thomas the Tiger to Shawn’s office party…he was a hit and had the best time of his life. Seriously, he was so built for parties. Ever since he was little, he has loved any setting where there are people and food…in fact, he is better out in public than he is at home. Always has been. So here are some pictures from work…
I have no idea what this candy stuff is, but I gotta get MORE!
He loved the huge conference room table and chairs...he wants to be Donald Trump
But really, this is an awesome conference room! What party? Oh, right...
Thomas and Liberty (the daughter of a co-worker) T's got it bad!
Kelsey has a great picture of Dusty, Thomas and Jonah here. So cute…and mischievous is right. Seriously, I can hardly believe how quickly he picks up on being sneaky and naughty! He has taken to stealing things and hiding them…I find things all over the place. His toothbrush has been missing for weeks, so now he has a new one…that I am trying hard to keep tabs on. He also loves to hand you something, then whisk it away at the last second. “HA HA, you thought I was going to give you the remote? NEVER!” Then he laughs his head off at himself. And then you end up laughing too…which makes it worse I’m sure. He love love loves to be scared…he loves it when you jump out at him or sneak up on him. Every night we chase him around the house and he is screeching with laughter. He has never gotten too scared…it’s funny. Here are two videos from the past couple of days…in the first one, I am scaring him (sort of) and in the second one he has figured out how to scare me…I think Halloween has rubbed off on him!
I love October! So much! And I just realized it’s almost over. So sad. So today we took Thomas to Cornbelly’s…for those of you who aren’t aware, it’s a pumpkin fest and corn maze at Thanksgiving Point. It was really fun, believe it or not! Thomas L to the OVED it and was eager to sign all the things he saw, as he saw them. There were lots of “babies” (anyone under 12), “cars” (anything that goes that he can’t tell what it is), “daddies” (all creatures over the age of 12) and “cats”. You would never believe how many “cats” there are at Cornbelly’s. Cats you didn’t even know were there.
Big chairs are always funny
Houses filled with corn are hilarious (but kind of scary)...
...and hard to walk in...
but mostly, fun to nuzzle with
Wooden tractors are pretty great
Corn mazes are very exciting (prolly this picture needs to be black and white and hanging on my wall...so cute)
bouncy pillows are rad, but I don't know how to jump so I don't really get it
See video…
In fact, eventually he got braver and decided to run across the bouncy pillow. The first run was a total success…he teetered a little at the end, as he came off the pillow onto the sand, but he held it together like a champ. It was hilarious and he was very proud of himself. Now his confidence was up and he decided to make a break for it, again. Uh oh. He went even faster, of course. Well, because it slopes downward and he isn’t great at speed control yet, he picked up speed on the downhill and took a huge ol’ faceplant off the bouncy pillow and onto the sand. (don’t worry, it was at least the little one) But, it was pretty bad…Shawn and I both thought, “Uh oh, bloody nose.” He did the “I am crying so hard I am not going to breathe for a full minute” routine but he stopped pretty quickly. And there was no blood…however, now he has a big, red sand burn/bruise across his forehead. Poor Thomas. We were noticing that he is as big as a lot of kids that are older than him…so in a situation like this he looks like he should know what to do. All the two year olds around him were bouncing like Tiggers and running all over the place…but he is still just a little guy in a big guy suit. Or a total clutz.
Even though we had a huge bifferoni, we still managed to smile for a few more pictures…
Train rides were fun
Pumpkins are fantastic! (hey, is my forehead a little red?)
But the best part of Cornbelly’s? The Chicken Show, of course! If you listen closely, you can catch some of the hilarity.
Here is a little taste of what you might see on Halloween, creeping around in your neighborhood…
Halloween sneak preview
Tigers love milk
and baby Jonahs. Aww, isn't this the sweetest thing ever?
Again! I'm ready!
Thomas is in love with everything lately. He has become quite a good little hugger and kisser. Unfortunately, he has been a sickie the past couple of weeks (AGAIN) so he really just ends up rubbing snot all over everything and everybody. Try not to think too hard about the germs and dwell on the sweetness behind it all. This kid loves life. He wants to snuggle the kitties, kiss all his toys and his newest trick (besides eating little babies for dinner) is blowing kisses to the grocery store as we leave. My kinda man.
Over the weekend we went to St. George for the marathon. Shawn was super excited for it and thought he had figured out the perfect formula of proper training, energy goos, water, running style and salt tablets…if you don’t know Shawn, he sweats more than your average person and was struggling with finding the perfect balance to prevent cramps. SUCCESS!!!! He did great! His goal was to finish under 4 hrs, which he did. With 8 minutes to spare! In fact, Thomas and I were hurrying to get to the finish line and find a spot where we could see him because there are MILLIONS of people there. It’s craziness. So we got there at 3 hrs and 49 minutes….just in time I thought. So we get situated and Thomas has his treats in the stroller and many, many, many, many interesting things to watch as we wait. It is really hard to keep your attention focused on that many people running across the line. You can’t blink for a second. So we stood there and stood there and we never saw him. I was starting to get pretty worried…it was 4 hrs and 30 minutes now and no sign of Shawn. Sad. I was just thinking, ok, should I stay here or go looking for him or what? We didn’t have a designated meeting place because we thought I would just be able to see him. So just as I am leaving, I check my phone and some unknown number has called me 4 times in the past few minutes. So I call back and the lady who answers says she is at the INFORMATION booth and my husband is looking for me. OOPS. So I say, “Oh yay! He finished?!?” I’m sure that sounded weird, but I was still standing at the finish line wondering if I should call the morgue and see if any blonde dudes had perished along the way. She says, “Yes, but now I don’t see him anymore.” So we slowly made our way over there and waited and waited. Finally he wandered back and he looked great! He said he felt good and it had been the best run ever! He had finished under 4 hrs! Yay! So just as we were getting there and getting prepared to watch for him, he was done! YAHOOOOO! So his real time is 3 hrs and 52 min because he started a few minutes late. There are over 5,000 people who run it, so sometimes it take a while to start. I can’t believe he runs marathons…I think it’s so admirable. When you see all these people doing it, you think, hey, that looks totally hard, but if they can do it, I could do that. But then I never do. Because I hate running, that’s why. I wish there was a volleyball marathon or something. I would do that. I already participate in many marathons thought, I have to remember that…eating and baby-chasing are probably the ones I am most noted for.
Needless to say, the trip was a success. Sort of. The down side was that Thomas was a total nightmare the whole time. He is getting his molars and he has a cold, so he was not a happy camper. In hindsight, he should have stayed home with Max and Grandma Susie. Oh well, next time. He screamed all the way there, all night in the room and all morning after Shawn left. Shawn left to run at 4:45…Thomas woke up and our day began. HOW FUN. He is so LOUD too. That’s the real problem. I was sure someone was either going to call the police, certain that a baby was being murdered in the next room, or we were going to be cordially escorted from the hotel because they had hundreds of complaints about us. We were going to stay 2 nights, but ended up leaving at 7 on Saturday night because neither of us had the stamina to do another night with T-bag in the hotel. OMG. I don’t know how people do it. Either our kid is the worst kid in the world, or people are just able to endure more than we can. I don’t get it.
But, here are some pics from our super fast trip…
I'm not impressed with your attempted distraction of cheesy crackers. I hate this car ride.
Winner! Winner!
Trying to distract an unhappy baby...he hated swimming too. boo!
Last night, Shawn suggested we try some of his old teething toys…good idea! We haven’t seen Sophie the giraffe for a while…she was in the “I don’t like these toys anymore” box. So we broke the giraffe out to see if he would chew on her to help ease the pain we are all feeling. He was super excited to see her again and gave her lots of love…unfortunately, it seems she was in a bad way and also needed some medical attention. Good thing he is trained in life-saving techniques….and spinning…?
Thomas is 14 months old today! Scary. He is a little human, for sure. He is walking/running everywhere, falling down on purpose because it’s funny (usually), signing everything he sees, chasing the cats, eating almost anything (except meat!?! he will eat chicken nuggets, I guess that counts as meat), only taking a BIG afternoon nap (praise the Lawd) and has recently moved into his new big boy bedroom! Sheesh, it’s busy around here.
Here are some random photos from the past month…
Dressed exactly like G-Pa Greg. Pure coincidence, but very cute
I didn't even have to put 50 cents in to make it go...he was happy just sitting by Kermie!
My Cousin Angie and her daughter Clara , Kelsey and Jonah and me and T-Pain
Londyn, Thomas and Sophia and Auntie Stephie's Wedding
Where'd she go?
Thomas reading his book right in the middle of the reception. What a dork.
Me and my guys
Wedding schmedding, there are pinecones in here guys
It's the Alamo, but with chairs. Thomas lost.
Thomas Von Magnuson will now lift this 20 lb decorative duck
He ran around these trees forever, looking for pinecones and his cousins
Thomas loves Beulah and Uncle Dust
New Super Hero pj's
They have a cape!
Jonah on his day of birth...he already looks totally different so I need to take some new pics
Jonah is so stinkin’ cute…I can’t believe I don’t have any recent pics of him. He finally weighs what Thomas did when he was born, yahoo! Goal: Take camera next time I visit Jonah. Duh.
And, Kelsey told me forever ago to show some pics of me when I was a baby…well, they are all old and I am too lazy to scan, so she solved that problem…check out Kelsey’s site and see what Thomas would look like in a girlie wig.
In case you can’t figure out how to say the name, here you go….Long A, you know, the one that says it’s name. And then tawn, as in fawn. Unfortunately, this Aton was more like an asshole than a fawn.
This past week, our dear sweet friend Lacey was in town from Portland! YAY!!!! We did lots of hanging out and LOTS of eating. It was grand! We went to Settebello pizza one night. Unfortunately, Thomas was being the world’s biggest butthead. He was crabby and DID NOT want to sit in his highchair and eat pizza. He wanted to run down 300 West. So on one of our many trips taking turns walking him around while the other parent ate, I took him into the Gellataria in the next room. If you have never had gellato at Settebello, you suck. You must have it. Must. Anyway, while he was running around in there, he spotted another tot about his age banging on the glass demanding ICE CREAM! NOW! That should have been my first clue…the dumbass kid was demanding ice cream when it was clearly gellato he was looking at. So of course, Thomas goes waddling right over there and wants to see what this kid is up to. I’m just going to say it now…the kid didn’t look right. I mean, there wasn’t anything WRONG with him, like he only had one eye and three ears, but something was up. Dude was one donut short of a dozen, for sure. But Thomas doesn’t care. In fact, if he’s like his father, he will adore people who are one donut short. He will find them more interesting. So Thomas sidles up to Donut and does that thing he does when he sees something interesting. He gets right in it’s face and giggles and says, “OH!” He can’t help it. Everything amazes him. He means no harm, which you can tell by looking at him. He’s laughing for crying out loud. Anyway, Donut, who is a few inches taller than Tomas, bellies up to Thomas and gets a very “dark” look on his face. A cloud passes over him, for sure. I have students like this. They aren’t right. So when he does this, Thomas puts up his arms to make some space because he ain’t no dummy. He knows this is not a welcoming gesture. When he puts up his arms, Donut grabs them and swats them away and turns back to the gellato. As he turns, his father, who is sitting right there perusing a pizza menu with 2 older kids and the mother of this devil child, looks up and says, “Aton, say hi. And be nice.” Aton? At least I don’t have to call him Donut in my head anymore. So Aton turns back around and Thomas steps towards him again, because he’s interesting and Thomas wants to get a better look. As he steps forward, Aton the Barbarian grabs him and throws him to the ground!!!! I was, of course, already reaching for him because I sensed this whole thing was going bad, fast. But poor little Thomas is lying face down on the gellataria floor crying, and NOT ONE OF ATON’S GROWN-UPS even notices. Both of Aton’s siblings came running over and were telling him, “Aton, no!! You can’t do that! Be nice!!” These kids were like 8 and 10. At least they were paying attention. So as I am picking a blubbering Thomas up off the floor, Aton’s pseudo-mother looks up from her incredibly important menu and gazes, bleary-eyed at the situation. I swear, lots of seconds passed before she remembered she had kids. Then she said, “Oh, did Aton do that?” Yup. He did. He’s mean. Aton is mean. And you are dumb and your husband is an idiot. And your other kids are better parents than you. Sad.
So I take Thomas outside to calm down. I set him down and he starts STOMPING up and down the sidewalk muttering angrily to himself. Seriously, I am not making this up, HE WAS PISSED. I could clearly interpret what he was saying: “That stupid f-ing Aton, why I oughta go right back on in there and push his dumb a$# to the ground, see how he likes it. I was just trying to say hello, and this is what I get? Oh yeah, and your name BLOWS Aton, hear that? BLOWS!!!”
Poor Thomas got beat up by a 2 year old. But after his reaction, I’m pretty sure he will be ready for the Aton to come along. As you can see from these pictures, he is quite the tough guy now…
Bruiser!
Fighter!
Now don’t you think this kid could take ANYBODY!?!?!
Ha ha, he’s such a goofy, silly, fun-loving thing. That was his first time wearing those boots. Aunt Carol gave him those before he was even born! They are very cute and still a little big, but we thought he would love to stomp around in them. Of course. And I love how he has to stop what he’s doing, switch the toy to his left hand so he can sign CAT! with his right. He does that all day long. CAT! CAT! OMG, CAT! (if we are outside… BIRD! BIRD! CAT! (car?) BIRD! BIRD! (bicycle?) Well, whatever)
Second only to Thomas getting his ass kicked, Baby Jonah has arrived!!!!! HA HA HA! I only say this because everyone who reads my blog reads Kelsey’s, and I am related to most of you so you already know he is here!! (and I haven’t blogged in FOREVER)
He is a cutie! I totally think he looks like Dust, but what do I know. I am so excited to be an Auntie and to hang out with a little guy again. It really is unbelievable to me that one year ago Thomas arrived and now he’s huge and crazy and then here comes little Jonah, all sweet and quiet and TINY! Thomas has been signing a TON lately. We have been trying to get him to sign “baby” because of Jonah, and yesterday he finally did it. In the bathtub, no less. He stood up, pointed to the picture of a baby on the shampoo bottle and signed it! At first I thought he was doing a dance move. Then I realized it was BABY! yay! He did it at breakfast today with Jonah too, so he doesn’t think babies only come on shampoo bottles.
I think signing is so cool…he is so proud of himself that he can “say” things. He can sign, daddy, eat, banana, drink, orange, milk, dog, bird, cracker, cookie, water, book, boat, baby and cat…cat is the fave though. He sees “cats” all over the place. Anything that he doesn’t know what it is, he signs “cat” or “cracker”. It’s funny. For the longest time we have been teaching him to sign and I thought he would never get it. Then out of the blue one day, it clicked. Now he is on the fast track. Says me.
Here are a couple of videos from the past week…I think they are hilarious. But I am it’s mother, so of course I think that.
And, a funny story:
We go to Book Baby at the downtown library as often as we can…usually once a week. We sing songs, read books and play. It’s very cute and Thomas loves it. Since he’s started walking, now he just cruises the room and gets in everybody’s face. He squats down and gets about 2 inches from every baby’s face and squeaks at them. Or goes, “OH! OH! ha ha ha!!” It’s pretty funny. I always look around and most of the other babies/toddlers are just sitting by their parents clapping their hands and following the leader. But not Thomas. He waddles around and makes new friends. Then he takes someone’s book or pats some other adult on the head, with a huge smile on his face of course. And usually he goes right up to the woman/man leading the group and grabs their legs and giggles (while they are trying to sing/rhyme/read). I’m sure all the other parents are thinking, “Man, what an annoying little kid.” Oh well, I just think he’s extremely social! (I know, there are many parent/teacher conferences in my future that begin with…”Mrs. Workman, your son is very, um, well, very energetic.” I know what they will really be saying, but now the tables have turned! I have had to deal with their “energetic” children all these years! I think I might giggle in those conferences, just like Thomas does at Book Baby.
Anyway, today at Book Baby, Thomas was cruising around as usual, clapping once in a while and smiling when everyone else clapped, as if they were applauding something AWESOME he did. Eventually, he found his way back to me, sitting on our cute little carpet square all by myself. He plopped down, reached forward and grabbed a cell phone out of the lady’s back pocket who was sitting in front of us! Then he held it up to ear like he was going to make a call! She turned around to see who just robbed her and I was laughing too hard to speak. She thought it was hysterical too (phew).
I am pretty sure I was much more timid than he is…and I think Shawn was too. So all I can come up with here is…..GRANDPA GREG. OH NO!!!
On the 24th of July, Shawn ran in the Deseret News Marathon. It starts up Emigration Canyon and winds through the city and ends at Liberty Park. It goes right past Kelsey’s house on 800 S, so Thomas and I hung out on the side of the road to see him run by. We almost missed him…it took 10 years to get to K’s house because of all the parade hoopla. But we made it and got this one great picture of him running past. Thomas was like, “Hey, wait, that dude looked like my dada.”
He's even waving!
The next day, I had Kelsey’s baby shower at my house. It was very fun…lots of good Costco food. And we decorated onesies! Everyone had such cute ideas.
The one in the middle is a Hula Monster! Not Kelsey, the onesie.
These girls are witty
very crafty
So stinkin' adorable!
awwwwww
Yay for rainbows!
I'm either not too impressed with Kelsey's Hooter Hider, or maybe it's just the Hooters.
Sing: Sometimes it feels like somebody's watching me....
Hey, I know what that is....TOY
On Monday, Thomas and I met my friend Heather and Thomas’ friend Anthony at the park for some lunch and play time. It was cute to see two little ones so close in age hanging out. They were very funny. It was stinkin’ hot though. We all got hot and tired pretty quick.
Thomas and his buddy Anthony
A firetruck went by with it's siren blaring. Hee hee
Heather and I joked that they looked like little old men going fishing
Grandma Susie got him this cute drum. I had to hide the drumsticks…eye-gouging incident for sure. But he loves to run around with the drum hanging around his neck. It’s hilarious.
Drum, drum, drum...
OMG, it's cat food. I better eat some before I continue marching.
We survived the one year-old’s birthday week! Yay us! On Wednesday, his real birthday, we baked cupcakes, had a couple of great naps and went to the zoo in the late afternoon. He loves seeing all the animals up close and personal.
Happy Birthday Baby Boy!!
That is the face you get when you stick a hat on the baby right after he wakes up.
Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes! mmmmmm
There is an animal in there, we think...
Go Elephant, Go!
Yay Peacocks!
Gat! Gat! Gat! (some desert dwelling cat-like thing...hey, maybe it was Zammy)
The classic Hogle Zoo pic
Then we came home and had cupcakes! Raegan and Susan were going out of town for the weekend, so they were going to miss the party. They stopped by to drop off his present and sing Happy Birthday…
I love it, I love it, I love it
Thank you for the flapping duck!
Cutest picture EVER
Thursday, Sondi and Holly stopped by because they couldn’t come to the party on Saturday either. We had a good time, even though poor Thomas wasn’t feeling well. He had been to the Dr. that morning and had 5 shots. So he was feverish and a little pissed. Oops. Sorry guys!
Thank you Auntie Sondi (and Holly, not pictured. )
Now for the birthday party on Saturday at Liberty Park!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Birthday Thomas and his new chair
Thomas and the G-Pas
Awww. I love this picture
Sweeeeeeeeeetness
Uncle Dust trying to prevent a heat related incident...not unlike living with Kelsey, I'm sure
It was soooo hot. We needed some mandarin oranges to get us through.
Grandma Susie is like a hummingbird...I finally caught her sitting down, but her head was turned!
Auntie Stephie, Londyn, Grandpa Kent, Cam and Mike in the back
Shawn and his grandparents
You all wish you could do this and get away with it.
Hip Hip Hooray for my birthday
This is the only pic of Michelle I got! She has no face. Sad.
Uncle Tom and Maxie Poo
Thomas and Aunt Carol and some bows
The two lovies found each other again!
Phew! What a week! Thanks to everyone for all the great gifts and fun. It was great to hang out with you all. Thomas thoroughly enjoyed himself!
In fact, he had so much fun, he was still giggling…days later…
My baby is turning ONE this week. It’s quite unbelievable, really. I remember every second (well, kind of) of this week last year. I was so nervous, so excited, so scared…but mostly I was ready to meet my new man. And then he arrived so suddenly, I couldn’t believe it happened so fast. That should have been an indicator to me…time flies. So understandably I am slightly emotional today! If I had more time to sit and reminisce, I’m positive I could work myself up into a complete emotional tornado. However, since I barely have time to write this, I am hoping to pull through fairly unscathed. It is only Monday though…and Thomas is sick (AGAIN) and I have a party to plan and I am halfway through my summer vacation and can’t even believe that. And I DON’T want to go back to school, ever. Crap. There is totally a tornado on the way. Until then, here are some cute pics from the past few weeks.
A few weeks ago, I was trying to take a picture of his right eye…he had fallen in the bathtub and had a nice cut and swollen eye hole. However, he just ended up looking cute.
biff city
Everybody needs a tent to hide in
His contruction skills are quite astonishing
Edward Q-Tip Hands
Oh man, is it my lucky day?
YES! Floor snacks!
Shawn’s Grandpa is on the Executive Council for AARP Utah and he got to throw out the first pitch at the Bees game the other night. Believe it or not, it was Thomas’ first baseball game! And he was sick. So he wasn’t too content to just sit there. We moved out to the grass and let him run around which made him much happier. We still left early, of course, but it was fun. Shawn was very cute…he kept trying to point out what was going on on the field to Thomas. Can you imagine how ecstatic he would be if Thomas played baseball?!?!? It was very sweet!
My baseball boys
Kelsey, Beulah, Susie, Max and Thomas and I went to Rockport Reservoir on Friday. As Susie said, it was like deja vu. We used to go there all the time when we were little. It was fun. Thomas was laughing his butt off watching Beulah fetch the ball out of the water. At first he was very nervous for her (he doesn’t like people getting in the water. He FREAKED when he was on the boat and Shawn was trying to wake board at Scofield last weekend.) But then it was hysterical! Funny boy.
bathing beauties
farmer tan anyone?
Beulah can't figure out how to take a pic and get her head out of the way at the same time
He is getting his molars and he has a cold, so he was not a happy camper. In hindsight, he should have stayed home with Max and Grandma Susie. Oh well, next time. He screamed all the way there, all night in the room and all morning after Shawn left. Shawn left to run at 4:45…Thomas woke up and our day began. HOW FUN. He is so LOUD too. That’s the real problem. I was sure someone was either going to call the police, certain that a baby was being murdered in the next room, or we were going to be cordially escorted from the hotel because they had hundreds of complaints about us. We were going to stay 2 nights, but ended up leaving at 7 on Saturday night because neither of us had the stamina to do another night with T-bag in the hotel. OMG. I don’t know how people do it. Either our kid is the worst kid in the world, or people are just able to endure more than we can. I don’t get it.
