17 Month Milestone

17 Month Milestone...

 Jon and I went back and forth on whether or not we should take the boys with us on our vacation this summer. It was a hard decision and I missed Kellen more than I can even find the words to explain. K spent half the time with my parents and half with Jon's. He got to see almost all of his family during that time and he had an absolute blast without us. Though I REFUSE to leave him for a full week ever again, ha, I am glad we went and even more glad we are back home! :)

It goes to show you how fast they are growing at this age because only in a weeks time he picked up new words and quirky things he does.

We got back and his knew words were 'mummy' and 'dahdee'.. and I asked both our parents 'who did he hang out with that was British?!

He also now says 'no' very clear and shakes his head.. I say Kellen do you need to go pee pee and he says 'no,no,no' and shakes his head no.

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This age is priceless to us parents. The other day towards the end of dinner Jon took his spoon away from him because he was playing with it and he put his head down, put on a pouty face and said, 'my pooon'.

It just plays over and over in my head and makes me smile, precious.

He has a pastel yellow blanket with monkey print on one side of it. I like the material so I just wash it every couple of days and keep it in his bed to sleep with. I guess because of it always being there he has adopted this as his favorite blanket. Calls it his 'bank'. He loves it and will drag it around the house and play with it or lay on it or whatever.. Every morning when he gets up he yells out 'momma' and I come get him tell him good morning and pick him up.. He will reach down to get his blanket to take it with us.

Our routine is simple. I carry him to the couch, turn on cartoons, and get him chocolate milk.

He will set on the couch with his 'bank' in hand and watch cartoons until the milk is gone, and then he'll either ask for 'mor' or he'll get up and go play.

Well a couple days ago Jon got him up before me and they came in to tell me good morning. We played around for a while and I finally said, 'you ready to go get chocolate milk and watch cartoons?'

He jumps down off the bed and darts down the hall way headed to the couch with me right behind him.

At the end of the hall he stops, turns around and points to his room and says very clearly, 'OH, my BANK!'

so of course we back tracked to the room and got his bank.

priceless

I upload all of his short videos and pictures from my phone and save them, so I can't help but share a few goods I uploaded this week. Above he is so proud. He worked very hard to get daddy's shoes on and even harder to walk around the house in them. He got frustrated a few times, fell a few times, but its clear that he thought it was oh so worth it once he succeeded in his task.

His love for shades is a hoot.

He is one kid that will actually wear them and keep them on when we're out playing

or at the park or somewhere thats bright. He didn't take a pair with him to either Mimi or Gramma's houses on our trip and he begged for shades to the point they each bought him a pair while we were gone!

You can also note his location in the above picture of being on the furniture.. Well over the course of the past month his climbing skills have evolved quite nicely...

I put those delicious vanilla wafers you see there on his high chair tray and left the room for a minute.. Came back and he had moved them all over to the table and was setting and eating his snack! ha

This would be where I find him most of the time if I leave the room. He's usually pilfering through my wallet or whatever else is on the table..

 He has without a doubt graduated to using the high chair seat as a booster chair.

At least I can still strap him in! And he wants plates and forks and 'poons' or he'll refuse to eat. ha

 At my mom's house he stirs cookies and helps her cook things all the time, but I have been a little more reluctant to get that started at our house.. Mainly because I am 'Paranoid Patty' about everything and don't want him to fall off the chairs.. but a couple days ago I let him help me stir some corn bread mix. I scooted the chair over and he stood there helping and thinking he was such big stuff.. So the ENTIRE rest of the day that is all he wanted to do.. scoot the chair over and 'help', or scoot the chair over to wash his hands. We must have washed those fingers 85 times! I finally had to get his mind off of it by going outside (his favorite)

I got it on video, check out muscles in action...

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Back to the outside part.. This appears to be almost every child I know of, they love to be outside.. This baby can be outside for 10 minutes and his hair will start getting sweaty and his cheeks will be bright red and he is squinting because the sun is so bright but it doesn't even phase him. He will play and play and play and beg to go outside every chance he gets! This week we were headed to the back yard and Jon was like, 'wait a minute, theres a snake I gotta get first.'  I bet you can guess that I'm not a fan!!

I scooped up Kellen and we stood back and watched as Jon snagged a 2x4 to get rid of the garden snake. Kellen just watched and giggled the entire time..

He loves to 'help' Jon water the garden or check the mail or anything else that gets him out those doors!

Our 4th of July was good.. Jon had to work so we were bummed about him missing the fireworks. Mimi and Pops and my Aunt Barb came up and we all headed to our church to watch the display for the 2nd year in a row. It was an awesome show for sure. It was fun to watch his expressions as they exploded in the sky.. He past out about 10 minutes into it and slept the rest of the time. Zzzz..He was plum tuckered out from all the watching the big kids play and running around drinking out of Mimi and Gramma's cups and snatching up their straws!

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I've been even more in awh of my child since getting back from our cruise. It seems like he grew 2 feet!

I got him dressed to go run errands with Jon and I the other day and he looked so cute I grabbed the camera and told Jon we needed to run by somewhere and get some pictures of him. Didn't have a location in mind, just wanted to get some sweet pics of our sweet boy. They grow oh too fast.

'Mummy' loves you Kellen Powell !

 

Cruisin the Caribbean...St. Maarten/St. Martin

I'm going to have to say the best was saved for last..

 I mean there are so many breath taking scenes in St. Kitts and St. Lucia and Trunk Bay was picture perfect... but our experience of the beach in St. Maarten was just ideal.

And how fitting for a couple of rednecks from Arkansas to end up at a beach named Mullet Bay.

Go figure

We arrived bright and early in the morning and had the place to ourselves. The powder sand is so abundant, there's actually a slight enbankment from where your beach chair lounges to where you walk down to get in the water. Maybe many moons ago when I was wild and single a beach full of beach bums and cabanas would have been the deal, but nothing beats being with the person you love and having an entire peice of God's paradise all to yourself.

(Jon's thinking shot.)

Jon and I are not even drinkers but there is something relaxing about being kicked back with a cold beer on some white sand looking out on the ocean and veggin with the love of your life.

Though a little gimpy and snaggled, my toes sure do clean up nicely in the sand!

lol

I took this first thing in the morning but when we stopped back through later that day the joint was poppin!

Jon had read a review saying to make sure to have a guavaberry colada in St. Maarten so we did.

YUM

Maho Bay was walking distance from Mullet Bay so we just walked between the two. On the way we stopped at a cute little pizzeria for lunch.

Maho Bay, better known as 'the airport beach' in St. Maarten, was pretty beautiful sand and water, it was just more crowded. It's apparently a main attraction for the island due to the fact that the airport landing strip is literally across the road from the edge of the sand! I only had my little digital camera with us on this beach day so didn't get any great captures of how close the planes actually are to the people on the beach. As we walked up and were snapping a few pictures a plane was coming in. We were off to the side a little and just watched as it landed. The people that were standing directly within its path were hit with what looked like a sand storm from where we were standing. They were all ducking and running for cover. Some kids were even being dramatic and diving into the ocean. Kind of cool to watch, but this sign below is no joke!

As we were gawking around and waiting on the planes with all the other yahoos on the beach, we ran into our cruise friends Alberto and Maria. The four of us had a drink at the food shack on the waters edge... They told us the funniest story.. There are tons of taxis on the islands for tourists.. they mostly are all vans or something boxie but you can tell what is a taxi or not. Well they said they were walking the island one of the days and a random older lady in a green 4runner was like 'hey you need a taxi?'.. So they got in and told her where they needed to go.. and they said she made a stop along the way at a daycare and she was like 'I just need to pick up my grandson.'

 So her grandson gets in the car.. a young island kid.. and he was like 'grandma, who are these people?'  'grandma, where they gonna sleep?' and she was like they're from the cruise ship... and he was like 'grandma, whats the cruise ship?' 'grandma, I wanna go to the cruise ship.' 'grandma, they rich?' and the grandma replies, 'mmm,hmmm'   I cant remember all of it but to hear them tell it, it was hilarious. We not only got a good laugh out of the way they told the story and how cute the kid was, but also that they had hitched a ride with some random lady on the island that wasn't even a taxi. Guess she was makin her some quick cash.

haha

St. Maarten/St. Martin's sister island is Anguilla.. You can take a short fairy ride over to Anguilla from where we were. We opted not to because we wanted to soak up St. Maarten as much as we could.. but we discussed how that would make a great vacation plan for the future... until we meet again, St. Maarten, until we meet again 

:)  

Demarco, I Love My Life, Lyrics

This is the music from our catarman cruise of St. Lucia. Jon found the song we liked on youtube. This will forever remind me of our trip to St. Lucia. love it

Cruisin the Caribbean...St. Lucia style!

St. Lucia

We anticipated arriving on the island of St. Lucia probably the most.. Well, it tide with St. Maarten on the 2 port of calls we were most looking forward to on this trip...

and it did NOT disappoint.

After all, If Oprah says its one of the places you must see in your lifetime then golly it must be pretty great right ?! Since O owns half the property on the globe she's probably been a few cool places, I took her word for it. :)

The island was phenomenal ! Or our experience of it was anyways. Theres no way to take in all that a caribbean island has to offer in one day but we did our best.

We took a catarman ride to the Pitons. There are supposedly 3 miles in between the two points. Setting out on a sail boat in the middle of the water with the view of the Pitons on one side of you and nothing but sea on the other made for a pretty great day! Not too shabby

The morning started like all other mornings on our cruise.. we got up rested (EARLY),

went up top deck had some coffee and breakfast and enjoyed the view of the sun rising over the island of the day.

We all need to find out what resort this is and book a stay!

Fishing village we past enroute to the Pitons

Get a good look at the picture above.. a real good look!

Lets see, expensive island ride, expensive water ride, quaint island home, great views and its all setting on beach front property... have mercy. MUST BE NICE.

                                                                          If they told us where we stopped off to swim then I have forgotten, Jon would probably know. He actually listens :) -     It was gorgeous of course. We through our stuff up on the beach and took us a swim. The guy in the above picture walked by and asked us if we needed any 'Bob Marley'. Apparently they either ask everyone this or we just look the type because every part of the caribbean we go to we get the offer for the hook up.. lol..Upon arriving, some locals in their kayaks came up to the boat immediately and began selling their items. some of the goods genuinely looked handmade, like some woven baskets.. and one guy, 'the bird man' had carved mocking birds out of coconuts and wood.. Not sure of the trade our guides were making with these locals but they were handing them bananas and cokes..I liked this guys braids so I bought the turtles.

The local beer is Piton... the bananas were local as well. they were small and extra sweet. so so so good!

Later in the day we were at some local markets milling around for some souvenirs.. we collect fridge magnets from the places we go so it was crucial to find a good one for a fabulous island like this one!
I was picking which flute to get for Reece and the lady was talking to me and we were sharing some laughs and she leaned over and said, 'you know, Oprah says this island is a must see.' ha.
It was funny that she said that considering I had made such a joke about that to Jon when we booked the trip and then again earlier that day.
We opted for a cruise so we could see so much of the Caribbean at one time, and to see if we were cruisey people or not... Now that I've got a little taste of St. Lucia, I'd easily opt to vacay there someday. And hopefully we will :)
(attached is a link to music from our catarman cruise. This will forever remind me of our trip to St. Lucia)
http://youtu.be/KAqozua-ekM