Let's actually talk about KELLEN!!

So, Kellen's 18 month appointment was last Friday...which also happened to be my 40th birthday.  First of all, let me say...40 sounds SO old to me.  10 years from 50!!  WOW.  I can't believe I'm THAT old.  Time is just FLYING!!!!  I was just 20-something a minute ago!!  It's really hard for me to put my mind around.  It's harder when a lot of your friends are 5-10 years younger than you.  This milestone has REALLY been hitting me hard, BUT, I have to say...I have ALL THE THINGS I've dreamed of in life!!  OK...I'm not rich beyond belief...but I don't think that really matters.  I think, no matter what, what I have is enough because I have Kellen and Patrick.  We are basically very comfortable.  We need to work on saving more...but I'm praying that after we finally have OUR OWN HOUSE...we can finally start saving for a rainy day.  That doesn't seem to make sense as I write it...but I know what I mean.

I think both of us agree that a lot of what we've worked for in our lives has come up to this moment of buying a house.  It is our dream and we are REALLY excited.  We LOVE the house, the neighborhood, everything about it.  I can't wait to make it our own and make it really amazing.  I've dreamed of this for YEARS!!!!

OK...back to Kellen.  He continues to be awesome!!  Kellen, I hope someday you read this.  I hope you know how much I (we) love the HECK out of you!  No matter what you do or how you act...you are the love of my life.  It is SO AWESOME watching you grow up and get smarter and smarter by the day.  Your little faces that you make are SO darn cute!!  You have this cute thing where if you don't want us to look at you, you'll say "No" and turn your head.  SO CUTE!!  You have these boards with shapes that you can match up to the holes...and you say "OBAL" for Oval...although sometimes you'll call the Circle an "OBAL".  You are learning all your shapes, it's so awesome!!  You know the letter "E"!  You point at an "E" and say "E!"!!!  You are just adding words to your vocabulary like a MADMAN!  Unfortunately, you can't say the "C"- "kuh" sound, or "TR" - "truh" or "F" - "fuh".  You call fish "BEE!"  Not even close, but I totally know what you mean!!  When Daddy was getting himself some leftover Chocolate Cream Pie, you were in the kitchen going "DAME! DAME!", which is "Give me" in Spanish!  Amazing.  Of course all the Hispanic teachers at your school LOVE you and ask you to give them kisses "Dame un beso", so I'm guessing that's where you learned that.  You give Daddy and I hugs, which is the BEST.  I just pray that I can teach you to be loving to everyone.  (except strangers in vans)

Now for the challenging part.  Because you are a toddler, you are starting to show me your defiance.  This is good and bad.  You will hit me (not hard of course) when you don't get your way or I tell you "no".  OK...first just let me say...THIS CRACKS ME UP!!  Your cute little defiant mad face just cracks me up!!  It takes so much restraint NOT to laugh!!  But I have to be Mommy and I have to teach you not to hit or be mean.  So, I've started putting you in "Time Out" when you hit or do something when I've told you not to.  It's just for 2 minutes, and you scream and cry the whole time.  But when you're done serving your time, you are usually better.  I try to not have to do any of that.  I try to redirect you to something else so you won't get mad or defiant.  But sometimes, especially when you haven't eaten or it's close to nap or bedtime, you are a HOLY terror! Most of the time it just makes me laugh...you're so cute and awesome no matter what.  I'm sure I'll quit laughing when I'm older...so you better shape up now...  :)

We just had Father's Day and we had an amazing day with Daddy at the Muehlenbeck Rec Center here in Plano.  They have indoor and outdoor pools and water park-like slides--it's a pretty AMAZING set up they have.  They have the, what I like to call, Not-So-Lazy-River and you LOVED it!  We just went speeding around in circles and you held onto my neck and I could just kiss your precious cheeks a million times.  And we splashed and went UP and DOWN in the main pool and you LOVED that too!  You would say "UP ADA!"

You are learning how to feed yourself and you don't do too bad of a job!  You can get food on a fork and put it in your mouth, but tonight, at dinner, you got a little bored of that and just dumped your plate out onto the highchair tray.  Again...made me want to laugh, but I didn't want to encourage that behavior so I had to tell you no.  We'll keep working on that...

So...I'm stressing over when you'll be ready to potty train...I don't want to wait too long, but now doesn't seem like a good time with the very likely chance of us moving in a month.  So, I think a couple more months we'll wait.

More later as the story develops!!