Find Snitch

Kelty and I found Snitch this morning ... can you find him too?

Meet "Snitchsnitchity" aka "Snitch"

We introduced Snitchsnitchity (he prefers Snitch) to the family today! Snitch is one of Santa's elves who lives with us throughout the holiday season and reports back to Santa every evening; letting him know if Kelty was naughty or nice. After Snitch's evening report to Santa he comes back to the house before Kelty wakes and sits in a different place ... making it fun for us to find him every morning. Let's hope each day you can help us find snitch in our blog pictures too!

Al read Kelty and I the story of "The Elf on the Shelf" when we welcomed Snitch to the family. This actually turned out pretty comical; Kelty was pretty antsy by the time we read the section of the story about not touching the elf or he could lose his magic. Kelty grabbed Snitch off my lap and rolled to the side and kicked Al in the groin ... I promptly lifted Kelty up and put him on the other side of me ... all the while he was staring at us with these big innocent eyes and biting Snitch's butt. Al and I were laughing hysterically!

Kelty is really having a lot of fun with his new book from Jake and Ryan.

This is a little video from Monday. Kelty has a hang of his little 4-wheeler.

Kelty, Al and I have been coloring together with the chunky crayons I made. I was in the kitchen yesterday while Kelty was exploring and I heard a scratching sound, I poked my head around the corner and he was coloring by himself! He seriously crawled to the table, flipped the paper to a fresh page, grabbed a crayon and colored. Of course today he decided to color all over the table before I caught him ... sigh.

Now I can breath .......

I am so happy to be able to make a post! I'm starting to recover from the whirlwind of August ... it went something like this; military drill weekend (exhausting) ... TN trip to meet with cabin builders (fun but business) ... IJOLD in Switzerland (AMAZING!) ... trip to MI for my youngest sisters wedding! I'll summarize the last few weeks mostly with pictures and captions ... otherwise I'd be doing this all night! Here we go ....

Tennessee!

Al, Kelty and I met up with Al's parents in Gatlinburg TN in early Aug. We own a parcel of land together and have finally decided to start building a rental cabin. We spent the week meeting with builders, marking property lines and the placement of the cabin. Everyday was jam packed but we had a nice time.

Clearing the way along our property boundaries.

OK ... there is an amazing Christmas village in Gatlinburg, it is my favorite store to visit ... it just makes me so happy to be around so many Christmas decorations! This is my favorite purchase and I am soooo excited to start this tradition. This little elf is meant to be placed out in the house to watch over the children. Each night the elf reports back to Santa and let's him know if the children in the house were naughty or nice. When the elf comes back he is perched in a different location for the children to find the next morning. How cute is that!!! I can't wait until Kelty is old enough to run out of his room in the morning to find the elf and of course always behave in it's presence!

Switzerland!!!

I don't even know where to start with this one ... to sum up the trip ... AMAZING!! I am so thankful I had this opportunity and even more thankful that my husband and his parents were there for Kelty in my absence. A week away from Kelty felt like a lifetime ... I missed him so much I'd nearly cry looking at his photos. To my dissapointment Kelty did not want to come to me the first night ... he would cry in my arms and reach for daddy. He wouldn't even let me breastfeed him that night. I'm happy to report that we were back to normal in the morning ... I guess he was done punishing mommy for leaving him! I'll just post a few photos and caption them as I go ... no matter how much I post it will never be enough to capture how awesome this experience was!

Enjoying class discussions ... our group got along so well! Seriously, this was a great group of folks!

Each morning we started class with a fun little exercise for the mind.

I was apparently quite focused during class here ... see, I'm a good student!

Our evening in Zurich. Our class met with our instructor for dinner ... followed by drinks at the bar ... followed by a dance club ... followed by a late night and early morning!

Zurich at night.

Garrety (and old college friend that was at IJOLD) and I hamming it up at the Castle of Bubikon ... our farewell dinner.

Our return trip on the KC-135 ... it was a looooong day!

Michigan!

3 days after getting back from Switzerland Kelty and I traveled up to Michigan for my sister's wedding ... Al was coming up a few days later. The week up in MI flew by but it was a great trip. Kelty loved it up at Nana and Papa's house and the beautiful outdoors.

I was showing Kelty the goats ... they were hanging out in the barn when my sister took this picture. Everytime I took Kelty out to see the goats he was full of little happy noises.

Daddy and Kelty in the bounce house ... it was such a great place for Kelty to play ... he could fall all he wanted and not get hurt! Nana and Papa bought a full-size bounce house a few years ago for the grandkids ... what fun ... for the adults too!

Ok ... I'm a little too big for the kids John Deer! I was bringing it out for the kids to play on.

Kelty driving the golf cart with Aunt Jessica!

Lacing up Rachel's wedding dress ... she looked amazing! I'll post more wedding photos when we get them. It was such a wonderdul weekend, ceremony and reception! More to come on the wedding!

Ok ... I could go on and on posting photos but I'm tired and this blog is already long enough. Tomorrow I'll post some updates on Kelty, photos and videos.

A Little Bit of This and That

This week really flew by and we had a great week ... of course finding out we will be moving to Germany really set a good tone for the week! Thursday we joined some of the other squadron mommies for our weekly playgroup. We had a great time and I love seeing Kelty interact with the other babies. It's also a great opportunity to learn new tricks and tips from other mom's ... I really look forward to our playgroups every week. Here are a few cute pics from the playgroup (thank's for sharing Michelle!)

What a cute bunch of kiddies!

Oh boy, let's share .. or not! Kelty loves Catherines toy and was trying to take it from her! Poor Catherine!

Yumm ... a ball! Kelty pretty much played with this the rest of the time!

Kelty in a Jump-A-Roo for the 1st time during the playgroup ... he seriously bounced for 20 minutes non-stop!

We finally bought Kelty his big boy carseat ... I have mixed emotions about this. 1) I love the convenience of his baby carseat, especially for quick trips. 2) He's leaving behind his 1st carseat ... he's growing so fast! He looks pretty happy trying out his new ride though! Now ... let me tell you about the deal we ended up with on this seat! Some of you may know that Al and I are thrifty shoppers ... we love coupons, open-box buys and we shamelessly ask for military discounts just about everywhere we go. So ... this little beauty retails for $309.00 ... it's one of the most expensive carseats out there! Britax is phasing out this fabric so Babies-R-Us had it on clearance for $299 (ohh, $10 off) ... then we had a 20% coupon, whoohoo! ... we were happy with that .. but .. for some crazy reason the cashier applied an additional "clearance 20% off" ... we paid $191 for a $309 car seat!!! That's right people!!! I felt like I won the lotto!!! Whoopwhoop! Here is a snapshot of Kelty in the seat after we took it out of the box and I was adjusting it to fit him properly.

Happy in his new seat!

When we arrived home after picking up the carseat we had another surprise waiting for us. Nana and Papa had sent Kelty a new toy ... it is seriously the cutest baby toy I have ever seen ... so cute that I display it in his room when he's not playing with it. It's a European toy which is quite fitting! The wheels are wooden and the rest is fabric. It converts from a train/pull-toy to a stackable toy when you take the wheels off. How clever!

Proudly displayed between his Itsy Bitsy Spider and his Elephant

Oooh, check this out!

Here are a few extra photos from last night and this morning. Kelty just looked to cute to pass up these photo ops!

All clean and wrapped up after his bath!

Pushing himself up and away from the nightstand ... this was just after trying to pull the drawer open.

Splish Splash!

It was our turn to get a standing baby butt bathtub photo ... it was Jayne that started this trend with baby Hana and each of our new mommy friends have followed suit! These pictures are too stinkin' cute! We tried to get Kelty to stand at the tub but he thought it was "bouncy bouncy" time so we settled for a sitting photo. Here is our attempt until he's ready to stand and bare the rear!

Kelty and his line-up of bathtub pals!

Here is a cute little video of Kelty splashing in his tub. He loves bathtime and usually plays with his rubber toys or his big blue "rinse" cup. The video is short but at least it's something.

Where's the Beef?

Just a quick entry before we head to bed. Kelty tried meat for the 1st time this evening ... we figured if he wasn't a fan of banana's he probably wouldn't be a fan of this either. Unfortunately this little bite of meat was enough to spoil his appetite for the rest of the evening.