18 months (actually 20 months) check-up

Trying to get Kort's 18 month check up was a joke here. The process was ridiculous, but alas, we got an appointment . . . 2 months later. So here we are, 20 months old. 

Here's Kort's stats:

Height: 34 inches = 78%

Weight: 26 lbs. = 43%

Head Circumference: 48.3 cm = 55%

Still the same tall and skinny dude! I didn't realize they needed a check up at 15 months, so we obviously skipped that, so Kort got 3 shots, which he screamed for them, but he relaxed a few minutes later and was fine the rest of the day. I hate seeing him tear up. 

Here's a quick rundown of his daily schedule.

7:30 wake up, mommy be lazy, eat breakfast, get dressed, get 8 oz. whole milk

10:00 nap time - he still gets tired in the morning and will take about an hour nap

11:00 playgroup on Thursdays - that is, when we have the car and feel up to going

12:00 lunch time - 8 oz. whole milk plus lunch

2:00 nap time - this one usually varies - he'll fall asleep on his own, or not, so I put him to sleep, which he doesn't nap as long

5:00 dinner - 8 oz. whole milk plus dinner

7:30 get ready for bed

Yes, that's the basics. We lead a boring life so it's time for me to whip out all the things I've pinned on Pinterest and start doing activities with Kort :) Good idea, eh? ha ha We've gone to the splash pad a couple of times, walk around our apartment complex, go shopping, went to the park for a picnic, so not totally pathetic. Most days Kort doesn't get to see Clay, but when he does, he loves watching out the patio door for him to walk by and then run to the front door to see him walk in. 

For his check up, they had me score with a yes, sometimes, or not yet on things he's accomplished or progressed with, such as how many words he can say, his personality skills/traits, interactions with toys/kids, etc. We got the results back and apparently he's too low on some so they have what's called SoonerStart which helps toddlers through 36 months with developmental delays. Well, I definitely wouldn't consider Kort to have that, but it's free so whatever help is given, sure. On the questionnaire the ones I put Not Yet on were things I haven't even tried with him, but it still rates/scores it the same, so I think those were the ones that are considering him to have a delay. We'll see what happens. I blame myself for anything like that because I just don't get him out enough to interact with other children and he's always cooped up in the house like I am, so it's my fault anyway. 

Kort's doing great overall. He's still super active and won't give me a break! 

New things he's doing:

*Throws and kicks the ball

*Folds his arms for prayer and says "may meh" for amen

*Signs please, thank you, all done, and more

*Learning to use a spoon/fork

*Stands on his head and sometimes rolls over

*Will spin in circles saying "pin pin pin" for spin

*Still not a huge fan of large amounts of water, but loves splashing during bath time

*Loves to hear Skype ringing/calling

*Is pointing at everything!

*Takes his shorts off all the time

What a hoot he is to have around! I figure there's always going to be something that's hard to handle with a child. First it was sleeping, then it's eating, and yadda yadda yadda. It's never ending, but I still love our little monkey no matter what!

California Trip

Now that it's been months later after taking a much needed vacation, I think I should probably post about our memories before I forget them!

Monday (June 25th) we hung out in OKC and went shopping. We checked into our hotel, had dinner, and just relaxed. We had a 7:00 a.m. flight in the morning, so that's why we decided to stay the night instead of getting up at 3:00 a.m. to make the flight.

Tuesday morning, we tried to keep Kort asleep to at least the airport, but uh, that never happened. He didn't fall back asleep until during the flight - which was perfect anyway. We got into Orange County Airport around 9:45 (11:45 our time) and took the shuttle to get our rental car, which was a Mazda 3 - pretty nice, but too small for what we'd buy, but it was perfectly fine for the next couple days. We found an In-N-Out immediately!!! YUM! Our next destination was the shop for Clay's scuba trip. We drove to Venice Beach and while Clay was getting fitted, Kort took a long nap :) That took a good hour. I had previously planned to hang out at Newport Beach and check out that Temple, but since it was now out of our way, we were super close to downtown L.A. and the Temple, so we drove there and checked out the grounds and Visitor's Center. So pretty! Add another Temple to our list that we've seen! We also made a quick stop on the beach in Venice. I wanted to find the popular spot where you see everyone biking and roller blading, but I had no idea what area and I was just wanting to get out of the car. It was fun to watch Kort enjoy the sand for the first time though! We checked into our Anaheim Hotel, got settled, and then met up in downtown Disney with Barbara and crew (Brandon, Leland, and Barbara - Barb's mom) for dinner at Napoli's. We got these ginormous pizzas which were really good. We went back to the hotel after while everyone else went back in the park.

Wednesday morning Clay and Brandon set off for their scuba trip on Catalina Island. Kort and I left with the other three to hit up Disneyland! Kort was already asleep before we even got to the front gates. It wasn't bad having Kort there. The rides have parent passes. So I stay with Kort outside a ride while everyone goes through the standby line. Once they get back, I can take someone with me through the fast pass line to go through quicker. This way you're not wasting hours waiting to go through :) It was nice. In the meantime, whoever had Kort would walk around, go on kiddie rides, or whatever. Kort did fantastic on those rides, like Winnie the Pooh, Little Mermaid, The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a few more that he could just sit on my lap and see all the colors! We were able to get a Hopper pass and go into California Adventure Land and go on Screamin' California and Soarin' California! Kort wasn't a fan of the carousel, by the way :) Clay and Brandon met up with us for dinner and Clay took Kort home so I could go back on some adult rides. We only ended up going to Tower of Terror, but that was perfect. The park also had this outside club that was an Alice in Wonderland theme. It was pretty cool.

Thursday Clay and I dropped off the rental car at LAX to pick up his parents and take a shuttle to the Catalina Express Ferry. We met everyone else there, ate some lunch, and boarded the boat. Catalina Island was amazing! We walked maybe a half mile or so to our hotel and just relaxed the rest of the day checking out the "beach" (there wasn't much area of sand so it was pretty small), going to dinner and exploring.

Friday morning we played in the sand before we had our underwater glass submarine ride scheduled. It was actually pretty cool. You could buy "torpedos" of food to shoot off once we got around a bunch of fish. It was amazing how fast the fish would swarm to the food. I've never seen so many fish in my life, and right all around us!

That afternoon Carol watched Kort while the rest of us went snorkeling. Can I say I looked pretty dang hot in a wet suit? JUST KIDDING!!! Our guide was great. I'm glad we had a guide, and wet suits. I was pretty much freezing by the end of the tour, well at least my ears were frozen and hurt. Once you stepped in the water, a couple feet out there were fish swimming all around your feet - and you couldn't see them outside the water. Fish were constantly all around you throughout the whole trip. We found some sea urchins and a sea cucumber - basically a really big, slimy worm. Nasty.

That night after Kort went to bed, Brandon, Barb, Clay and I checked out the town. We had fun visiting the different shops and walked to Descanso Beach. They had cabanas and chairs all out, but they were soaking wet so we just enjoyed them - this was all in the dark. Oh, and we might have had a picture taking fest making stupid faces. That was plenty of fun! We walked around the Casino, which isn't a gambling one, only a museum and movie theater. Great night away from the kiddo ;)

 Saturday we decided to rent golf carts and drive around the town around the huge homes, past the zipline, up to the highest point we could on a road, and overlook the Pacific Ocean! It was just gorgeous! We also saw a bunch of deer right off the road towards the end of our drive. We took a bus to the Botanical Gardens. HA, that was a joke, probably because it was in the summer so it looked like a desert. At least we enjoyed a hike. The guys also rented some kayaks for an hour and enjoyed paddling around the inlet, while us girls got ready to lay out on the beach :)

That evening was time to sail back to civilization to the main land. Good thing I got a hoodie because it was cold on the way back! Barb insisted on being a taxi and taking turns driving people back to the hotel so we could save money, but it took probably 3 hours total from leaving to getting everyone back. Oh well. We checked into our AWESOME Disney Marriott Hotel - BEST Hotel I've stayed in (except once for in Coeur d' Alene;) ). We ate at Red Robin - YUMMMM - late that night.

Sunday morning everyone parted ways and took a bus to the airport and left for home.  The night before I was trying to find out where we caught our bus for the airport (I ordered cheap tickets from getawaytoday.com - cheap Disney tickets, etc.) and the hotel internet was retarded as we could only check it from a computer in their business lounge. And then, our flight tickets through priceline had changed our flight to a later time so I tried confirming and printing our tickets the night before and so I was making all these phone calls trying to get it figured out which I ended up not. Very frustrating night with nothing figured out. Well, the bus ended up picking us up outside the hotel, so that was nice. We got to the airport early, thank goodness, because it took about an hour and a half to get our flight figured out. After that everything was just peachy. We got back to OKC late and picked our car up from the hotel and about an hour into the drive, we came into one of the towns along the highway and Clay forgot to look at the speed limit and the ONLY car happening to drive towards us was a cop. PO PO pulled us over! Luckily we got no ticket, but the warning he gave Clay went into the system so next warning = ticket :( We finally got home and went to bed! So nice to be home. Great vacation. Maybe next one we'll get together on a house boat at Lake Powell - anyone got connections there??? :) Really. Ok, now that this was a novel.
Hope you enjoyed our adventure, if you're still reading :)

*If any of you know how to make collages for blogger, I'd appreciate any feedback :) I've always done it on photobucket, but it's so confusing now with all the "layers" and that whole process.

Nursery time!

Sundays just got easier!

I'm sure many of you have gone through what we have with a toddler and trying to handle them through all three meetings at church. It's guaranteed that one of us won't make it through the last meeting (Relief Society or Priesthood) as Kort has way too much energy and it's past lunch time. It's also right after he wakes up from his nap in our arms so he wants to run around. That doesn't help.

Luckily . . . the nursery must love him because they let him go in at 17 months, four Sundays early! Ok, so the first couple Clay would put him in there during Priesthood and he did quite well. Now, he's in there the whole two hours after Sacrament and he is an angel in there ;) Yes, he's the typical newbie that cries once he gets dropped off, but he's good a couple minutes later after we leave.

Absolute hilarious story.

Fact: Kort does not sit still. Maybe give or take a couple minutes he will and then BAM - he's off on another adventure. I don't know if it's taking longer for him to "mature", but he still tries to eat crayons, can't sit still in a chair without being strapped in. So, now for the story, or rather a short story.

We love checking in on Kort during nursery to see how he's doing, if he's crying, biting, and what not. Well, this last Sunday, Clay went and checked on him and what do you know, they're trying to all sit at the table, eat their snacks and Kort is on top of the table, crawling to the other end, stealing the other kids' snacks. The teacher pulls him down, puts him back in his chair. This repeated a couple times. 

Ok, so I said short story. I meant it. Guess you have to know how Kort acts. I could not stop laughing for a good solid five minutes when Clay told me this. I can completely picture it. He climbs on anything he can. We have our apartment so baby proofed that we pretty much have nothing anymore. He's gotten to the point where he knows what to use to step up on to climb on the computer desk, the table, or up to the counter top. He uses diaper boxes, his toy box, or our little half circle chair thingy (whatever you want to call it). He is a monkey!

Anyway, it's so, so nice to be able to relax now in Sunday School and Relief Society! 

Then we come home and the madness continues.

happy 4th!

With us just getting back from vacation, we really didn't plan anything spectacular for the 4th. Kind of a bummer, since it's usually one of my favorite holidays, especially when we lived in Idaho. It was guaranteed that there was some sort of water involved, whether being on the Snake River boating, or swimming, cliff jumping, we were there. Then the fireworks. And who could forget the parades! Well, we got nothing of that this year :)

There was no parade in this town of ours. We went to lunch at Rib Crib. BBQ. 

Enough said :) Then had a movie marathon.

This was a really great movie. Awesome that it had clips from the real life story.

Napped through half of this - not on purpose though, since Clay started it after I fell asleep. But the main guy, Dartanyon, is from Percy Jackson - that Olympian movie :)

This didn't fail me. Great like the first one.

We grilled some hamburgers after Kort went to bed and continued watching. Didn't want to leave the house for fireworks since we're trying to get Kort back on schedule, or maybe we were just lazy. So we caught a few out the back of our apartment. It was a great day though. Just relaxing.

So thankful we have a free country to live in and that we have so many brave soldiers that have and are risking their lives daily so that we can continue to live freely and worship freely as we please. 

O--K--C!

This has been consuming my life for the past couple of months. Maybe I jumped on the bandwagon and became a Thunder fan because we live in the same state, so sue me. :) I'm still a Jazz fan at heart. I've come to love this team though, even through losses and all. Ok, so they really didn't lose a whole lot ;) ha ha I have to say that they really aren't much of a dirty team, unlike those Fakers, er, Lakers. This is a bright, young, talented team. Heck, practically all of them, or at least the starters, etc., are under the age of 25, AND they made it to the NBA Finals. That has got to say something. So what, they lost to the Heat. Their time will come :) Maybe I can catch one of their games before we move again from this state. I can tell you what, though, that if we ever moved to LA or whatever, I can guarantee you that I will NEVER be a Laker fan ;) HA HA No jumping the bandwagon on that one :) Here's to OKC Thunder's future . . . !!!!!!!

father's day

Father's day felt a little extra special this year. With Clay's wind project that he's on, he works long hours 6 days a week, so every spare time we get to spend with him is cherished. Clay had his rotation weekend, which meant a big whopping four day weekend! 

I don't want to write a super long post about how fabulous Clay is of a father, because we all know that he is :) But instead I'll do a top 5 list.

1. He comes home after work and still helps me do chores. Even after a 14+ hour day.

2. Takes care of Kort on the weekends to give me a break - and to spend time with him.

3. Did I mention he works super hard to support our family and provide for our needs/wants?

4. He trusts me with our finances :) (had to throw that one in there)

5. He loves the Lord more which in turn draws us closer to Him.

I could go on, but those are some of my favorites about him.

These are some wonderful men that I have married into the family of. We sure do miss Grandpa Fenton though. Dave is such a hard worker to provide for his family and is so kind to others and thoughtful. I'm thankful to have a father-in-law like him.

And how could I forgot my papi - papanawa :) I always told myself I had to marry someone just like him, and I'm pretty sure I did :) He is intelligent, kind, smart, hilarious, and the list goes on. I guess you could say I'm daddy's little girl. 

I'm glad there's a special day to celebrate all the fathers in our lives. I wish I did better at celebrating it like a holiday, but at least I tried more this year :) ha ha I made Clay breakfast, we went to church, I let him take a nap, and he had some friends over that night for a bbq and watch the Thunder basketball game. It was nice that he could at least relax, especially having the next day off of work.

Clay had already gotten a grill for an early father's day present, so this is what he got from me. Just something simple, thanks to Pinterest :)

are YOU insane?!

In all of the almost five years that Clay and I have been married, we really haven't gone on a real vacation. Like, longer than a weekend vacation. So when Clay's family decided we should go somewhere for a type of family reunion, Barb, Brandon's wife, thought of Catalina Island. I hadn't really heard of it before, but I had seen it on one of the episodes of The Bachelor - it was some romantic getaway on an island off California. Yeahhhh! Sounded like a great idea :)

To make a story short, we already started planning months before we were going. We are going the end of June and bought our flight tickets clear back in March. Needless to say, I've been pretty psyched about it. We had also started a family weight loss competition with a pot of $350 for the winner. So to help Clay and I out, we decided to buy the workout DVD's of INSANITY!

We had gone through P90X, although we never made it through a month of that, and those are back in storage in Minnesota, so we needed something. It was a great motivation to get ourselves beach body ready for Catalina.

Well, with a month left of the competition and 3 weeks away from vacation, sadly, I've done nothing. Ok, so I can't really say that. I just haven't lost much. I have been working out. But within the last few weeks I've actually gained weight. I don't know how the heck that has happened. I haven't done anything differently. I have also been super, super tired and exhausted all the time. Ok, so you're probably thinking, are you pregnant?!?! NO! :) ha ha I have an under active thyroid and the only thing I can figure out the problem is that my dosage is not enough. Under active means it's contributing to a low metabolism rate which probably explains the weight gain. I haven't had my blood checked for about five months, so it's possible. My symptoms all relate back to when I first found out I had hypothyroidism - I was sleeping all.the.time. I never noticed anything with my weight though because I was always active, working out, working, going to school, etc. Ok, I'm just rambling on now.

Along with Insanity, I've tried to incorporate their meal plans and kind of count calories and be better about healthy eating. So I have come to a conclusion, which you've heard before, but it's like a light finally clicked on in my head - exercising more leads to better eating habits. It's so funny, you would think you wouldn't have energy for the rest of the day if you work out and "use" all your energy with a workout. It's just the opposite. I find myself making bad food choices when I don't workout, and then I never want to make dinner, do chores, and clean up the house. And so even with my energy level low because of my medication (of what I'm blaming it on right now until I go see a doctor) right now, I still find myself with more energy throughout the day when I get a workout in, even if I only survive ten minutes on the treadmill. Oh, and the Insanity workouts? Really, I've only done like five days of it! HA HA If you've ever done it, or know someone who has, they'll say the warm up is a workout itself. It's SO TRUE! You're literally dripping sweat. It's nasty. So that's my justification some days that at least I raised my heart rate for
ten minutes during the warm up :)

I'm sure you all enjoyed reading my post, that is if you're still reading. Guess I just wanted to remember this moment so I have no excuses in the future saying I won't have energy afterwards if I workout, etc. and yadda yadda yadda :) One thing I do miss? Nursing. Never thought I'd say that. BUT. . . I miss it for the reason that I could keep my weight down :) ha ha Agree? I won't tell you how much I've gained after I stopped, but I'm glad I made it through the hard times to nurse as long as I could and did.

Ok, the end . . . for now. Until Catalina . . . :)