Thursday, July 30, 2009

Aquarium


My cousin accompanied us to the Living Planet Aquarium where we got to expose Corbin to all sorts of crazy sea creatures. There was a relatively dull Utah water exhibit, which featured about a billion different varieties of trout and some brine shrimp. Then we moved onto the cool Ocean life area and a new Amazon section that was not open last year when we went.


Corbin's favorite part was by far the sharks. I kept trying to get him to pet the sting ray, because I thought was supper cool, but he could see the shark tank ahead and kept wanting to run over there. So I finally gave in trying to force him to enjoy my favorite things and let him stare at his little sharks.




In the Amazon area they had some electric eels and you could put your fingers on a little metal piece and have a battery shock you to experience a mild baby eel's sting. I had Corbin touch it and it turns out he didn't particularly enjoy it... who would have guessed!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Pioneer Day

To celebrate Utah's founding we took Corbin to his first parade.


First of all, we saw signs about the parade in Bountiful, which was suppose to start at 6:00 pm. A couple of days before hand my aunt (who has attended the parade numerous times in the past) tells me that people are a little crazy when it comes to the Bountiful Days of 47 parade and they set out chairs ridiculously early to try and save seats.

I guess at one point things got a little out of hand when chairs started going out the day before so the police posted signs saying you couldn't reserve spots until 7:00 am the day of the parade. So I was driving home from the gym around 6:30 in the morning and people are lined up on the street waiting to set their blankets and chairs down. Seriously?!

So I go home and grab some chairs and head back over there right at 7:00 and there are no good spots left anywhere! People brought out police tape and ropes and tied off large sections of public property within minutes. How annoying is that? So anyway, we ended up sitting in the sun and poor baby girl was dying the whole time, but being the trouper she is, she chugged about 16 ounces of water within those two hours and we all survived and had fun watching the good ole parade.

They threw out lots of candy, which all of the other kids around us decided to focus on completely. About 90% of it was salt water taffy that Corbin can't eat. At first I felt so bad that he was missing out on part of the experience that the other kids considered their favorite part of the parade, until I realized that it made the actual parade his favorite part of the parade. He was looking forward to each float, got excited when the mayor drove by and was asking questions about who he was and what the soldiers did and dancing along with the bands. In the end I was so proud of him, because he was by far the most attentive 2-year-old there. It was fun teaching him about our community and our country and pointing everything out, as he was not preoccupied with candy.

The next day was the actual 24th of July and we went up to Ogden to hang out with Harmony's family. We enjoyed their yummy barbecue, played volleyball and played on the legendary slip-n-slide. Corbin LOVED it, and I even enjoyed it once I got over my wussiness and braved the cold water. Thanks Hesley clan!


On the way home we stopped at my parent's house and Corbin got to light some sparklers and throw pop-its. We love holidays!

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The Zoo

Good old Hoogle Zoo.

Caleb only worked half the day Monday, so when he got home we took a family trip to the zoo. We have taken Corbin every year since he was born so far and it is fun to see how he grows and develops.

The first year he was about 11 months old and rode around in the stroller with a permagrin on his face, pointing to things like crazy.

The next year he was one and a half and ran around everywhere, totally overwhelmed, trying to take it all in. He would be staring at one animal making that animal's noises and telling me what it was and then mid-thought he would get distracted and run over to the next cage.

This time, at two and a half he was old enough to stand at each exhibit and ask questions about what the animal ate, if it had soft or bumpy skin, if it was a mean or nice animal, etc. And after looking for a couple of minutes he would then say, "okay, lets go to the next animal."

Every time you ask Corbin what his favorite color or animal or food or whatever is, he tells you something different. But I would say he claims giraffes are his favorite animal twice as often as anything else, so we take that to mean they really are his favorite. And he really was excited when he saw them and he wanted to go inside and see them. There was one little one over eating that we took some pictures with to document Makelle's first trip to the zoo.



Then right as we were getting ready to leave the bigger one came inside and walked right up to where everyone was and stuck his nose out to say, "Hello." Corbin thought was pretty neat and keeps talking about how the giraffe was, "poking his head under the fence, that's so silly!"



Those are such large, impressive animals. It really was cool to be right there with it.

Corbin got really excited when he saw this elephant statue. There were a couple of kids playing on it, and he ran over there to join them and right when he arrived it screeched and blasted a puff of air into his face, which totally freaked him out. It was pretty funny to see our brave little fearless child so scared of some air. He must have thought it was a real elephant for a second there or something.


We also saw the monkeys. For some reason there seems to be a disproportionately large amount of primates at the Hoogle Zoo, but that's okay because they are one of my favorites. While watching them run around and eat their food and climb and swing Corbin was standing next to a little girl that looked to be about his age. They immediately started talking to each other, sharing their vast knowledge about monkey's lives and enlightening one another. Then Corbin looks up at me and says, "she's just my little friend. That girl is my friend." I love how little kids can instantly be friends. Why does our society teach us to suppress that outgoing, friendly attitude as we grow up and start worrying so much about impressions?

Any who... we all had fun together. Makelle was a little doll--just her cheerful, happy little self the whole time. And Corbin was awesome, but he is definitely his father's son. He spent no more than a couple of minutes at each area, moving swiftly and purposefully through each exhibit. And at one point, he told me he didn't want to take anymore pictures. Boo boys.



I don't know why those boys don't like it when I try and pose the family for pictures all the time :) It works out so great!

Random Happenings

"A little too close for comfort," says Makelle


Seriously Corbin?... you don't fit.

And to complete the randomness... We love our little girl!


Sunday, July 12, 2009

Corbin's First Model

For Christmas Aunt Mel and Uncle Ron gave Corbin a model train to put together. He had so many new toys at the time that we decided to put it away for a few months and this past week when we were trying to keep Corbin entertained in the house we got it out.

First he painted it with Mom.


Then father and son sat down and assembled it together.


I wish we would have video taped it because Corbin was hilarious "reading" the instructions to Caleb and telling him what needed to be done next.


Needless to say, Corbin LOVED his little project.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Wet and Wild!


Corbin loves swimming, which is a good thing, because I have always been a fan of the pool. So I thought that it would be fun to let him take swimming lessons over at the community center this summer. They have a class for 18-months to 3-years-old, but a parent has to be in the water with them, which would have been hard with Makelle. So I just went ahead and enrolled him in the 3-5 years old class.

He had a TON of fun! We almost didn't get to go back after that first day because he threw a huge fit when it was time to go. Not good when you are holding a baby in one arm, and with your street clothes on trying to drag a screaming child out of the water with the other. Embarrassing! So when we got home he received a huge lecture and I told him we would try it one more time, but if he ever threw a fit again we were not ever going back to swimming lessons. And he was on his best behavior after that.

I really struggle with trying to discipline Corbin in the moment. He is a really good little boy and listens and obeys wonderfully if you sit him down ahead of time and explain things, what is going to happen, what your expectations are, etc. Then when he starts to act up you remind him what you talked about and he quickly redirects his actions, but if you can't prevent a melt down ahead of time, you may as well give up and drag him home before you try and reason with him or get him to calm down, because nothing seems to work once you hit that full blown tantrum. We've tried spanking, yelling, talking, singing, bribing, ignoring... nothing seems to work other than completely removing him and then talking about went wrong after he has calmed down on his own. Which is great that he can reflect on his actions and discuss his behavior and what not, he really is a good kid, but SOOO frustrating when you are out and he starts to throw a fit and there is no possible way to get him to stop without giving up whatever you are doing. I guess that's why they call it the terrible twos.

Anyway... two weeks later, he didn't come out of it being the world's best swimmer, but he actually ended with some pretty good skills considering his short attention span and lack of coordination. He can lower himself into deep water from the edge and scoot along the wall and then pull himself out unassisted. He is comfortable putting his head underwater and holding it for maybe 3 seconds or so at a time and of course blowing bubbles. He can't float on his back to save his life though, he refuses to relax and allow himself to just float there, so all the moving around causes him to sink every time. He will stand in water where he can touch the ground and jump out with his arms extended kicking like crazy and be able to glide maybe a foot before he goes under. We will have to keep working with him because in order to advance to the next level he has to do the back float for I think 3 seconds on his own and glide two body lengths on his own, so he isn't quite there yet, but I think he did pretty darn good for a 2-year-old.


The major goal was to get him comfortable in the water and not be afraid if his head goes under, so I consider it a success. We can now play in our pool and he learned enough basic arm movements and kicking so he can navigate the pool on his own with his floaties on, which frees me up to hold Makelle, so that is good.


Having almost no bone density and being nearly all fat... Makelle is actually pretty good at floating on her own :)

Everyday we went to swim lessons he could see the kiddie play area and water slides and ask to go play. They don't open the pool for public swimming until a couple hours after his lessons because there were other classes after his, so we took him home and made a picnic to eat in the park and then let him go back over to play. Before we went he kept talking non-stop about the slide, but once he got there he discovered a wheel to steer the boat and stood up there fighting off other kids to control that wheel the entire time. He kept telling Caleb, "shiver me timbers," over and over again. Which he then explained meant I will drive while you do down the slide, I think the slide became the plank and he was being a pirate and trying to do his dad in, but who really knows.



And finally out of swimming lessons came a love for showers. The boy hasn't taken a bath in weeks, ever since he discovered he could stand in the tub and warm water would rain down on him. Yesterday he was in there for so long he used up all the hot water (it was close to an hour) and got upset when I told him I couldn't fix it and he was just going to have to get out for now and try again later. Which he remembered and we continued the marathon shower a couple of hours later. Oh man, it is a good thing he is so cute.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Friends Forever


To be honest, we were a little bit sad when we found out that Makelle was going to be a girl. For some reason I just kept picturing two little boys that would be fairly close in age and grow up to be best friends. Of course now that we have Makelle, I am so glad it worked out the way it did.

You can just tell that Corbin loves her so much, and they have some weird special connection. He treats her 100% like an equal... he doesn't seem to realize that she is only a baby and can't understand him or that she has no desire to play action figures with him or watch movies. He includes her in almost everything he does, and has ever since the day we brought her home.


I thought that this would wear off after a little while, but he loves playing with her and is oblivious to the fact that she doesn't play back. He always asks her for permission before he takes things from her, checks to see what movie she wants to watch, etc. And he somehow comes up with an answer every time... "she wants to watch Robin Hood." "Makelle says she wants to be Maid Marion." "She's all done, she is sharing with me." "Here Makelle, it's your turn now."


It is so neat to watch them together, he adores her and she grins and bears it. I swear you would think she would be crying all the time the way he holds her so awkwardly and such... and if anyone else holds her that way, she does cry, but she seems to know that he is doing it out of love or something and puts up with it without a fuss.


Corbin also tries to impart his wisdom to Makelle. The other day they were playing in the living room and I hear him, "Makelle, you can't put that toy in your mouth, or you will swallow it and have to go to the doctor and take a picture of your belly and he has to get it out, only put food in your mouth Makelle, okay?"


If I remember correctly the day she was born my parents brought Corbin over to the hospital to meet her for the first time. It was late so they only stayed for a few minutes and then took him home to bed. During that time he had been in a phase where he kept waking up a lot in the middle of the night and my mom said that that night he woke up crying and my dad went to check on him and he said, "I miss my mommy and my sister!" Seriously?! How sweet is that?


Corbin has been sick the past day or so and honestly the hardest thing is keeping the two of them apart. Corbin keeps crying and saying he wants to see Makelle and play with her (I have been keeping them in separate rooms). I keep explaining to him that we don't want her to get sick too... so he holds his cough in and staggers out saying, "look Mom, I'm not sick anymore, I'm all better, can I touch Makelle now?" Bless his heart.


He tells me repeatedly throughout the day how much he loves his little sister and I am so grateful for his sweet little spirit... that boy is a handful to raise, but man is he ever worth it. If this continues as I hope, they are always going to have a special bond and he is going to be that overprotective big brother that looks out for her whether she wants him to or not.

Fireworks


We got home from the Lloyd Family Reunion on the 4th of July, just in time to watch Kaysville's city fireworks with Jake and Ashley. Corbin enjoyed the show and liked talking about each individual firework that he saw. We identified shapes, colors and tried to come up with names for them all.


Makelle was cute because she was mesmerized by the flashes of pretty colors, but startled by the loud noises. So she would stare in awe, then jump a little and look up at Caleb to make sure everything was okay, then she would stare followed by a startle again, the entire time.


It has somehow become a tradition in Caleb's family to get together with his siblings and lite off personal fireworks as well. I think that is a normal part of many people's 4th of July celebration... however, the Miller's use their personal fireworks to reinact a modified version of the original Civil War it would appear.

Everyone gets a couple of tank fireworks and then they proceed to strap various other fireworks onto and inside of their tanks, then face them off to see who can win in battle.






It is always a fun surprise to watch, because you never know for sure what all explosives are strapped to each tank and when they will go off, so you could be watching a smoke bomb fizzle around and all of the sudden a ground blossom ignites.



After they are fairly confident that no additional fireworks will spontaneously erupt, everyone goes out to examine the remains and a winner is declared based on who's tank suffered the least amount of damage. Sometimes it is hard to tell... as Ashley stated, something to the effect of, "well mine continued to burn longer after the fireworks portion ended, so..."

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Lloyd Family Reunion

This weekend we drove up to Southern Idaho to go camping with the Lloyd family.

We got to stare at this great plaque marking a place where there was once a fossil bed.


Wander around a flea market. Visit this exciting alligator farm, aka small pond with a chain link fence. Seeing the alligators close up was pretty cool... afterwards Corbin requested that we go visit the zebras next -- he clearly hasn't ever seen cool animals in the wild and was certain we were at a zoo.


Go swimming, the water was about the same temperature as your average hot tub, but luckily we went the first night we were there while it was raining and stormy outside so we didn't mind warming up a bit.

All in all, we had a great time!


Okay, so clearly Makelle wasn't able to appreciate it all, but Corbin really did love camping... I think little boys always like being outside, going on adventures and getting dirty.

My favorite line out of him though was at 5 o'clock in the morning (after bouncing off the tent walls with excitement the night before about sleeping outside in a sleeping bag) when he woke up to the first glint of sun and stated that he was boring (we are still working on tenses) inside the tent and he was ready to get out and play more.


For me the best part was getting to see my family, talk with what feels like my long lost cousins, (we don't get to see each other nearly enough) and introduce Corbin and Makelle to their Great Grandma and Grandpa Lloyd. Caleb's favorite part of the trip was well...


What a great babysitter, he is always so good at getting the kids to sleep.

Dog Pile on Daddy