new baby and mini-reunions

A lot of big changes around the Denton household! Biggest one would be... we're going to have another baby! Currently I'm 14 weeks pregnant and starting to awake from weeks of sleepy ickyness. This pregnancy has been so much better so far than with Keelan and I feel so grateful for that. I was expecting it to either be the same, or harder and amazingly, it's been better! We saw the first ultrasound and listened to the baby's heartbeat, it was pretty wonderful.

Keelan looking like a big brother!

I know a lot has been going on when I have to put all the photos into one slide show cause it's too hard to pick and choose from all the options. Or perhaps it's a testimate to the fact that I haven't been feeling that great. Todd can sure vouch for that, he would come home from work and I would basically hand him Keelan and beg to take a nap... and then just make grilled cheese for dinner :-)

Here is the run down of the events from May through early July... First in a series of mini-reunions with old friends was with my high school buddy Ashley Bahney, her mother and three month old son Brock in Seattle, WA. Of course we were so busy hanging out and enjoying our time together, I didn't really get any pictures with her :-(

Next was our Montana road trip which consisted of A LOT of driving and a lot of good friends too. We stopped in Virginia City for my good college friend Angi's wedding. Angi and I became great friends when I was going to school in Missoula, MT. There's nobody quite like Angi ;-) It was a beautiful day and Keelan enjoyed dancing around and getting attention from everyone at the reception.

From there we drove to Bozeman and hung out with some of Todd's friends from his Montana State University days, including Dewey (his old Juneau buddy) who is living and working now in Bozeman. It was in the 90's when we were there and the aircon in our car didn't work too well and we didn't have it where we were staying so my pregnant self just about died in the heat! I am not accustomed to it at all. Keelan did pretty well, enjoyed playing with a friend's daughter and running around in his diaper in the kiddie pool.

Lastly, we went to Eureka which thankfully is the northern most part of Montana and was much cooler and comfortable. We visited our dear friends Sarah and Ben Quilling and their son Emil. We hadn't seen them since their wedding in 2007. Sarah and I became close friends at Berklee in Boston and have stayed in touch since then.

Oh, I almost forgot! When we got back to Bellingham our friends from Shanghai (all teachers at SAS) who all have connections with Bellingham area were in town and all came over to our place. It was fun to spend some time reconnecting and hearing about all the changes in Shanghai over this last year.

Whew... I hate cramming important life events into one blog post, but unfortunately if I tried to be too ambitious it wouldn't get done!

Family time at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

So after moving to Washington state one of the 'must see' things that we've been told is to go to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in April and see one of the largest growing areas of Tulips in the world. Apparently it is one of the only other places, besides Holland, that has one of these festivals. Of course we decided to go on one of the busiest weekends of the season so ended up stuck in traffic for a long time. Thankfully Keelan is a champ in the car these days and enjoyed watching one of his favorite things (cars!!) and playing with some toys in his car seat. Getting stuck in traffic was worth it, we had a really nice time and got some great pics. Plus Todd found a way to avoid the log jam on the way back by taking a scenic ocean route on chuckanut drive. A pretty nice way to end our weekend :-)

A "five paces" toddler

The first of April Keelan turned 15 months! I can't believe how quickly the last couple months have really flown by, it almost seems like time is speeding up. He's started acquiring verbal skills a bit faster now, and is babbling constantly. Here are some of his newest skills.

• Ball, Go, Hi, Heidi, Socks, Shoe, Car, Hat, Animal sounds: moo, quack, monkey sound, cluck
• Kicks the ball around, does "headers"
• Found his pacifier again after giving it up at 9 months (when his top teeth came in) and it was almost like "Hello old friend, I've missed you!" So now I'm trying to figure out what limits I place on it, just for bedtime or naps etc.
• Does "all done" sign for more than just food. Does the "help" sign when he wants me to help him with pretty much anything... getting up on the sofa, out of his high chair, playing with his toys etc. 
• Still doing the "eat" and "milk" signs all the time
• Waves and says "Bye bye" and "Hi"
• Does high fives

AND the biggest new development is his new found love of cuddling :-) He now is very much into hugs and kisses and just being a sweet little guy. I think the reason for this might be that around 14 and a half months or so I got ready to nurse him to sleep and he looked up at me and started giggling! It was like, "hey ma, I'm so done with nursing!!" So, from then on he hasn't nursed. It's funny because that day I had mentioned to Todd that I thought Keelan was going to stop pretty soon, and that was the night!

Lastly, for my long winded list of my amazing son's accomplishments (so I don't forget, it's all happening so fast!) He is what I have recently dubbed, a "five paces" toddler. Example A., today I walked into the kitchen (about ten paces away) to grab something and all of a sudden it got very quiet. I ran into the bathroom, and there he was laying in the kitty bed, with the kitty. Now this kitty, MeiMei, is really not fond of Keelan and had her ears pinned back and scratched Keelan on the arm. This type of event is becoming more an more common and it seems if I don't have Keelan literally strapped to me in the ergo or I am five paces away from him, things happen... a lot. Worst part of it all, even when he gets hurt, he doesn't care or learn his lesson, he'll do it again and again. I was certainly not this type of baby, I would get hurt once and be done with it. I'm crossing my fingers he'll start learning his lessons.

                                                          ..........................................

Below are some pics from the Baha'i Naw Ruz (New Year) party. Here is Keelan and his little girl friend sharing some sweet baby kisses :-*

hitting our stride

It has been quite the year I'll be honest. We've had so many transitions it's hard to know where to begin. Sometimes it was hard for me to sit back and enjoy the ride, but I feel like now we, as a family are starting to get the swing of things.

Starting mid-January it felt like we went from zero to sixty all at once. We had a short reprieve from the craziness after we settled into our rental in Bellingham, but as soon as the house buying/fixing up/family visits started, it got pretty darn busy around here!

In the matter of a few weeks we had a laundry list of things that had to be done on the house before we could move in which included; painting trim, painting Keelan's room, putting in new carpet in the refinished basement, refinishing the bedroom floors (they're fir!), installing a closet, major cleaning of the whole place, unpacking TWO shippments of our belongings (one from Alaska and one from China), and a whole list of handyman stuff - like missing doorhandles, adding new locks and the like. I'm so glad that we decided to do as much now as we could afford, that was a piece of advice I got from my Mom who said "do it now or it will be years before you get to everything!"

In our parade of visitors, we also had both Todd's dad Bruce (twice!) and my Dad, Steve who did a lot of the random handyman stuff that had to be done. And Todd's mom Sharon and my mom Susan to help with the biggest task of all... Keelan. He's a busy one, to put it lightly.

Now that the house stuff has started to slow down, I'm starting to focus more on getting involved in all the wonderful things there are for babies and tots here in Bellingham. Right now we have so many fun things that are availble to do throughout the week, and many are FREE! MOM's club activities like play dates and swimming, library story time, a free yoga class (for me!), an open play gym in Ferndale, Nature Babies - exploring local parks with toddlers, and Music Together classes - my Mom paid for this one (Thanks Mom!). We've also gone to a handful of other playgroups recently that have been a lot of fun for Keelan. I guess I just really enjoy having something that we can do everyday, whether we actually do it or not, that's another story ;-)

For myself I've been helping out in the local Baha'i community Children's classes on Sundays - teaching songs and doing crafts, and also taking the free yoga class. Todd has been playing in a co-ed soccer league on a team called the 'Road Turtles', isn't that the cutest name? I love it, they're the little bumps in the median of the road. We've also been going up to Mt. Baker pretty much every Saturday, which can be trying on me sometimes, but it's worth it. It's about an hour and a half drive up to the mountain then Todd and I trade off and on a couple times (with skiing and watching Keelan in the lodge) before driving home. It's a commitment both of time and finances (gas, the season's passes), but after four years of living in Shanghai and no skiing, it was high time to be up skiing again!

Here are a couple of pics of the inside of our house. It has been so fun decorating with all the stuff from our travels, it reminds me of how incredibly lucky we are to have done so much exploring before Keelan was born. There is also a major 'Asia' vibe going on in our house :-)

these are a few of his favorite things

In the past three months, Keelan has morphed from baby to full on toddler! He is a walking, running, climbing, dancing, babbling and signing champ. He amazes me how much he is absorbing and how much he retains! Here is a list of some of his current "skills" :-)

-Points at the ABC cards hung in his room when he wants me to sing the ABC's

-Puts his fingers together when he wants me to sing itsy bitsy spider

-Makes the sign for 'eat' and 'milk'.... the kid loves eating, what can I say?

-Kisses pictures of babies, and sometimes other actual babies.

-Nods his head, swings his arms and does baby squats when he's getting his dance on

-Plays chase around the house with Todd and I, or any visitors who are willing

- Has learned to LOVE snow, not afraid to walk around, sit, eat and play in the snow up at Mt. Baker. 

- Says: Dada, GaGao (for our cat Xiao Mao), car, and the occational 'Mama'.

On another note, within the last three months we've moved into our new house and had a long parade of family visitors/helpers. This parade continues on pretty much through the end of March and then tapers off for our summer travels. My efforts to document these big changes for our family hasn't happend yet, but I hope to get my act together before I forget everything that's happend :-) 

snow day...s!!!!!!!

So, initially moving to Washington I thought 'sure, it's close to Alaska, they must be a bit rough around the edges, able to handle things or have as Todd would say, "man skills!". But surprisingly, they can't handle snow!!! Apparently, sometime in the 80's the then current governor sold all the plows and snow removal equipment because, hey it only snows here a few times a year. But of course, many times since it has dumped snow and left the city of Bellingham crying to Mt. Baker to come down and plow the roads. Even though I haven't driven in snow for over four years and I am really not one to talk (a bit of a wimp I'll admit, lacking man skills) it seem silly that with five or six inches of snow the city comes to a halt.

Todd has had three snow days attached to his three day MLK weekend, so SIX days without working! This has meant so much wonderful family time, skiing, getting stuff ready for/in the new house (ahem, even though I'm an awesome wife and Todd went skiing twice by himself and I stayed at home with Keelan car less.) With our studded tires we've been one of the few cars to venture out on the somewhat poorly maintained roadways and return home unscathed. Plus, Todd is a pretty good driver I'll give him that :-)

Overall, it's been a great long weekend thanks to mother nature and governor 'what's his name'.

Keelan's developmental update consists of a very nasty fever/cold that is on the mend, thank goodness. He's been rolling his R's like a champ, clicking his tongue and buzzing his lips, but not really saying much. I'd like to think he's doing vocal warm-ups or developing his range or some music geeky thing like that. His walking has taken off this last week, Todd counted 76 steps without stopping the other day. He bends down to pick things up, stand back up and keep walking. Anyhow, those are some of the newest developments. I've really enjoyed as he becomes more aware and his sense of humor develops, he's one silly guy! There was a moment however, when Todd and I looked at each other and said, "Oh no, now we really have to start making decisions about parenting a toddler!"

whirlwind of celebrations

The last few weeks went something like this:

• Grandma Susan came to Bellingham for a short, but sweet visit
• Trip to Seattle to visit Great Grandpa and Grandma in Seattle
• Trip to Centralia to visit Todd's cousin's family, including brand new baby
• Overnight flight to Boston with sick baby (just a cold, but pretty nasty) who throws up on man sitting next to me (who blocks it with his magazine!) and Todd 
• Two days of visiting old Boston peeps
• Drive to Connecticut for AMAZING wedding of a high school buddy of mine, Christine and her beau - Dave (fairy tale reception to ensue in castle following)
• Keelan stays awake until 10pm to enjoy reception, then promptly falls asleep in his pack n'play in a back room. We dance and enjoy the festivities ringing in the new year and Keelan's birthday. 
• SECOND overnight flight with much less sick baby (who proceeds to stay awake whole flight)

Whew, glad to be home!