Life with Milo

It's kinda about time I do a post on our baby boy-now toddler boy. I haven't done one since June, and things have changed a bit. He's 15 months already! Here are some things from the past month that he's been up to.

*He has figured out how to throw a fit. He goes into a corner, throws himself on the ground and just screams. It kind of makes me giggle cause he'll stop to see if you're watching. He isn't quite as persistent as his brother is with them. He gets bored of it faster than we do, and gets up and goes and plays. If he's tired, he'll go on for a bit.

*He points to where he wants to go and everything he wants

*He loves it when you let him turn on and off the lights

*It's still amazing to me what he understands. Examples: Sit on your bum, go get your shoes, take this to Daddy, throw this in the garbage, let's get in the bath, etc. AMAZING! Never underestimate the little guy.

*He puts EVERYTHING in his mouth. Every kids does this, and goes through phases. He is so much more obsessed with it than my others were. It drives us a little bonkers. We can constantly be heard saying, "What's in your mouth? Hand it to Mommy/Daddy." He gets his binky more because of it. 

*He blows kisses and has for a while. It's adorable. 

*He has been able to stand from a sitting position for a while now. And squats to grab something and stands back up. He walks, and runs, and moves really well now.

*He does not want to hold your hand EVER. We used to worry about Ollie wandering, and going in roads, but he never did a ton. Ollie likes to hold hands. Milo hates it and wants to go where he wants to go. He wants to go in the road cause that's where he wants to go. He runs away from you. Yeah, he's gonna be that kid.

*He talks and jabbers lots, but still doesn't say anything well. He says Mama and Dada when he wants something, but not necessarily to address us. He will say it to Gabe and Ollie. He says "Oh" when excited, and "Uh Oh", but that's about it.

*He doesn't like shut doors and not feeling included. He knocks and bangs on the door. 

*He has loved figuring out how to walk backwards, and turn in circles,  and prancing. 

*He LOVES having his picture taken. It's adorable. 

*He is super independent. To the point that it throws me off. He has his times he wants to be paid attention to, but he is by far the most independent of our kids. He just does his own thing. 

*He's big into mimicking the kids. The funny thing is he loves to be cuddled by Gabe best and freaks when Ollie touches him, but LOVES to try to do everything Ollie does. This is hard for Ollie cause Ollie's such a cuddler. But Ollie loves to be the big brother and be copied. Like this picture, he looked to Ollie and saw him sticking out his tongue, so he had to as well.

*He loves Baby Signing time or Baby Einstein Videos. He doesn't love animated stuff. Gabe was the same way, it's the reason she loved sesame street so much. So maybe when he's older we'll try that out. 

*He eats most of anything right now. He has grown like crazy! I feel like he could be back in the running with his brother's stats. It's like he's playing catch up for all his lost sick time. He eats more than most of us. He has an appointment next week so we'll see a nice jump I think.

*He gives tight squeezes. When you hug him he wraps his arms around your neck super tight and squeezes. He loves doing it, and we love it too. He'll also just come up and hug your leg, then walk away. 

*He has this adorable dirty blond hair. It is getting lighter and lighter. I love it. 

*He loves his Melman. It's this giraffe animal he sleeps with. Before we knew what his gender was we picked out a giraffe stuffed animal from the store. So giraffes have kinda been his thing. We got him Melman for Christmas. He used to be such a blanky boy, but now he goes nowhere without Melman. It's cute. The kids know if he's crying they can run and get his Melman for him and he'll be happy. (Melman named after the giraffe on the Madagascar movie)

A Day in Zions

We spent the day in Zions on Saturday. It was such a nice day. We went earlier than we normally do. There was more stuff going on in the area than just a free entry day, so it was way more busy than we've ever seen it. We always go on free days and don't have problems with parking. This time all the lots were full and you had to park in the city and walk in. We checked the lots anyway and after wandering for a bit got lucky with a good spot. Phew. 

Each time we go we try a new hike with the kids. We usually just don't end up doing the whole thing. We kinda just go off of how well the kids are doing. This time we decided we'd to the Emerald Pools hike. There are lower pools, middle pools, and upper pools. To go to the upper it's a mile and a half. We decided we'd just go until the kids were done and see what we could see. 

The kids look forward to the "bus" shuttle rides that take you to the trail heads. Ollie was especially excited, cause he doesn't get to ride the school bus like he wants to. 

There are so many people from all over speaking so many different languages. Gabe asked me why everyone was speaking Spanish, even though hardly anyone was. :)

Milo is getting too big for our carrier. We tried him a few different ways and took turns carrying him. We contemplated bringing a stroller, and we might have if we were to do this other hike, but we didn't want to mess with it not knowing what to expect. We were glad we didn't. 

Most of the beginning of the hike was paved, which our kids actually don't care for. They love the rock climbing and dirt trails. Can't blame them, we like them better too. So in the beginning it wasn't too fun. As soon as we hit the rougher terrain they were in Heaven. 

There were waterfalls that fell into some of the pools. They were pretty. I bet after a good rain storm they'd be amazing. The pools were beautiful as well. Nothing spectacular, but they were nice. 

We got to the middle pools and kept going. Mainly cause after the middle pools it turned into a dirt trail with rocks everywhere and stairs. The kids LOVED it. That's the kind of hiking they enjoy. They like climbing and getting dirty. Ollie got to the dirt and said, "Okay let's get dirty!"

We finally made it up to the upper pools. I think people thought we were crazy with three young kids, but we were the ones trying to keep up with them. At the top we celebrated with suckers. The upper pools weren't as pretty as the ones below we thought, but we had fun going to them. 

Ollie cracked us up the whole time. He insisted on scaling the biggest rocks he could find going up and coming back down. He usually was sprawled out on them. 

When coming down Ollie noticed a shirtless hiker. He just started giggling, while pointing to him he said, "Hey he doesn't have a shirt on!"

These were the middle pools on the way back down.

If you look closely you can see the tarantula that Adam and Gabe found as they frolicked off the trail for a potty break. I guess there is a reason that they say to stay on the path. :/ We didn't have much off a choice when Gabe was afraid she'd pee her pants. It wasn't the only creature we saw. We had a deer jump on the path right in front of us, we tried to catch some lizards, and Ollie had a good time chasing grasshoppers. 

A few family pics down at the bottom. Phew we made it. 3 miles later and the kids were about done. We were so impressed by how amazing they did. They had so much fun and were so good. When we hit the paved part towards the bottom the weren't happy about it. :) 

We finally let Milo out and he was loving it. He had a few hard moments where he really wanted to get down and explore like the kids, but we wouldn't let him. Fun day, good times. We love days like this one.

A Pirate Birthday!

So since Ollie is obsessed with Jake and the Neverland pirates he requested a pirate themed birthday. Thanks to Gabe's last b-day, themed birthdays are now kinda a huge thing to my kids. So pirates it was. Ollie had everything in his mind how he wanted things to look and everything he wanted. He had time to plan it out, he felt like he had to wait forever for his birthday to come around. He woke up to a room full of pirate stuff and some fun pirate presents. 

His most coveted gift was the pirate ship that Jake and all his buddies ride on in the show. The boat's name is Bucky, so when he first told me he wanted Bucky for his birthday I was confused what he meant until Gabe explained it to me. So he got the boat and action figures, and then a sandbox for his trucks to play with outside. He has these tractors that I always let him play with at the table with sugar. Now I can send him outside to his miniature sandbox. It wasn't as loved as his pirate ship, but he still liked it. Milo loved it. Ha! Gabe also made him a friendship bracelet for his b-day.

Where'd we get the sand? Down the street Daddy and Gabe went on a secret trip to get some the night before. Nice thing about living in the desert, enough sand to go around. 

While Gabe was at school we played with his toys and then read some pirate books from the library and watched some Jake and the Neverland pirates shows. 

Luckily for Ollie it was early out day, cause he just wanted Gabe home to play with his toys. When she got home we played some fun little games. 

When Daddy got home later we went on our big planned activity. It was a treasure hunt around Hurricane Island. We gave the kids clues and they had places they needed to go with things they needed to accomplish before they could get their next clue. 

So they had to go to the park and cross the crocodile bridge, and go down the "waterfall" slides, and cross over hot lava on the monkey bars, etc. Then the clue was hidden somewhere for them to find. We went from here to Walmart to buy a b-day present with the money Grandma sent him for his b-day. We didn't take pics at Walmart. 

From Walmart they had to go to Mermaid Lake (Grandpa's pond) and throw coconuts (rocks) into the water. We tried to make all the things and places things Ollie loves to go do. 

While there they had to look out for Captain Hook (Daddy) who tried to steal their treasure map. 

We then went to the library where they had to check out 3 books they wanted. 

Then the clues had us take a break for dinner at McDonalds to get some energy and play on the toys. 

Our last clue took us to Daddy's office to search high and low for the treasure, which they both excitedly found. 

In it was candy and other small pirate knickknacks. 

Now he had Jake's headband, so he could be Jake. He loved it the best I think. :)

Ok I know this cake is not grandly decorated at all, but it's what he wanted. He wanted an ice cream sandwich cake with M&Ms on it (he saw a picture of it) But he wanted them to look like a boat. So this is what he got. Oh well, he loved it, and the kids loved helping decorate it too. He still was over eating it after a few minutes. 

He still struggles blowing out candles. Kinda funny, he spits too much instead of blowing. Blame it on all the spit bubbles he thinks are so fun to blow. 

After cake we had a pirate water balloon war. Gabe and Ollie got in their ship and bombed Mommy and Daddy with their cannons from their ship. We launched an attack on their boat from the shore. :) Ollie LOVES water balloons so we had to add that in. 

I think it was a success. The kids still talk about how much fun their treasure hunt was. Glad he got an eventful pirate birthday like he wanted.