Cutting Micah's Hair - Before

Cutting Micah's Hair - After

Wow this post took me all day! (give me a break, I am a busy, and not to mention sick, mommy)

I am pretty sure Micah is saying, "I did it"! He is playing with an empty Ritz cracker box, and putting toys inside the box. it seems as though his objective is to put toys inside without the box falling over. Each time he has done this successfully he yells "I did it"! He is so silly.

Today Micah had his 18 month appointment. During the apt. I told the Dr. about how Micah has been having A LOT of tantrums lately. I mentioned that I was reading the Happiest Toddler on the Block by Harvey Karp, and since I have used his technique, Micah's tantrums have escalated. She gave me a few other ideas to try. The first book she recommended is 1,2,3 Magic and the other one is SOS help for parents. I am excited/ desperate to try something new; hopefully something that will work.

Oh yeah and everyone has had the stomach flu in our house (blah). This is the second round of the flu to hit us in the last 2 months. We think the first round was H1N1 (scary, but not as bad as it sounds), I dodged that one luckily. This time around I was not as fortunate, however I have managed to hang on to my cookies! Micah was probably the worst off, there was no telling when he was going to up-chuck and I had to clean up a lot of messes on the carpet. Luckily I was able to borrow a carpet cleaner from my Grandmapa to get the carpet good and clean. Thanks Grandmapa!

What's that you say?

So Micah is 18 months now, I can't believe how quickly time has past. As a lot of you know 18 months in a milestone in Mormon culture. Now Micah can go to Nursery, yeah! Actually he has been going since he was about 5 months so this doesn't make much of a difference. Hopefully soon he will be able to go alone.

I have been reading a parenting book that would describe Micah as a Spirited child, this is a nice way of saying hyper, energetic, passionate etc. I would also describe Micah as a spirited little guy. He is tons of fun but he has his moments that he likes to challenge me and see how much he can get away with. Besides being a spirited 18 month old, Micah loves to play with me and Ryan. He can spend hours reading books, playing cars, taking walks, doing dishes and washing Laundry as long as he gets to do it with either me or Ryan. He is really a great helper around the house. I love my Micah!

Every day it seems as though Micah is saying a new word. Ryan and I are constantly looking at each other asking, "Did he just say...?" The words that kids pick up on are so funny, here are a list of the words (and definitions) in Micah's daily rhetoric.

Micah's First Word's

Mama, Mom, Ma
Dad, Dada, Da
No
Go
Puh, U-p: Up
Ba: Ball
god, Daw: Dog
Kah: Milk
Ah (with a refreshing sound): Milk, Water, drink
K, Kee: Keys, Cheese
ck (like the ck is sizzling in your mouth): car
Baba: Bubbles, Belly Button
Th: Snake, carrot, Yogurt
Eee: ewe
RYAN!: I think Micah thinks this is what you say when your calling for someone :)
The sound that you make when you smack your lips: Bye
Kaw-dy: Katie (Micah's Aunt)
Micah also Makes a humming sound to say cat and baby, He is so silly.
Please and Thank You (in Sign Language)

Micah's First Sentences

Uh oh!
HE GUYTH!: Hey guys (this is what Micah yells to the group of kids that play outside).

**I am sure Micah has a lot more words that I can't think of, so I'll most likely be adding them on when they come to mind.

Bod Pod

Helping in the garden

Ryan's parents let Ryan and I use some of their garden space to plant our own garden. I go over to their place almost every morning to work out. One morning after I got done exercising, I went out back to water the garden. Micah loves to help me do whatever I am working on. As I moved the hose from one spot to the next Micah would try to move it too. After a while he discovered that water and dirt make mud, oh happy day for Micah! It is so amazing to me how children go through the discovery process, there are so many simple and fun things that we all know about but there is something special about discovering things for the first time.

Back to the story, I let him play around in the mud and get dirty because he wasn't doing anything wrong and with this distraction I could hurry and finish watering the rest of the garden. After I finished up, it was time to tackle my little mud man. Before doing any cleaning though, I had to get a picture of the mess. I tracked down Liz (mother-in-law) and asked her to get a few pictures. He was so upset with me for pulling him away from his fun. honestly the neighbors probably thought I was torturing him. Before bathing him I wanted to get my own pictures. Micah was pretty happy by this point but the muddy effect is not as strong. I still think he looks so adorable!

Micah's Adventures

I just realized it has been so long since I have posted pictures of my little Micah. the following is purely for oo's, awe's, and oh's. Enjoy!

Micah loves to help in the Kitchen

Micah loves to choose his own outfits, I think this one is a keeper!


I think he looks so darn handsome here.


Playing at the park, one of our favorite pass times.


Sometimes we put this gate up so that Micah can gaze out the door, he loves to throw his toys outside.


Like Father like Son


Micah likes to hide under this pail. We play the "where's Micah...There he is" game. So much fun!


Micah pulls this cheesy smile every time we take pictures of him.


Micah's first Easter egg hunt, he was pretty happy with just finding two eggs. He is too small for the candy so we threw it away and let him keep the eggs.


Silly Micah playing inside his toy box, literally.


Micah's hair is getting so curly, it always looks messy but I love it! I can't imagine cutting off those beautiful locks.


I was just goofing off with the camera settings and Micah was modeling for me.


More playing at the park. We took this stick away when it was time to go and he cried the whole way home, it was really sad.

1-800-222-1222

If you don't already have this number somewhere handy, I recommend you jot it down and keep it somewhere accessible.

Earlier today Micah got a hold of a bottle of sunscreen. I was in the middle of cleaning up one of his messes when I noticed him grab the bottle. The bottle still had the seal on it, so I though I had a second to set everything down before taking the sunscreen away. Instantly I hear a small spray and Micah crying and gagging and trying to spit out all the sunscreen he had just sprayed into his mouth. I picked him up and grabbed the bottle from him, frantically I searched for any warning information on the bottle. I was also hoping to find a number to poison control on there. The on helpful information I could find was "if ingested seek medical attention or call poison control." It wasn't very long before Micah was throwing up. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to make Micah feel better and I absolutely needed to find the number to poison control. I reached for my phone frantically and dropped it. Which resulted in the back cover and the battery falling out. My Windows were wide open so I started calling out to my neighbors, no one could hear me. With Micah, the sunblock and my useless phone in hand I ran to my neighbors bellow me. No answer. I ran across the street to my friend Lesley's apartment who was home and was very quick to help me out. Thankfully Micah is fine but it was an awful scare. I hope this never happens again, but if it does I have certainly learned my lesson to "be prepared."

Captiol Reef

Ryan's job has had a bunch of pay-cuts this year, the pay-cuts have been rough, but I am just grateful he still has a job. Among the many pay-cuts all employs were forced to take a 1 week unpaid vacation. Ryan has taken a few days off here and there. He had about 3 days left he still needed to take off before the end of April. So with these last few days we decided to take a trip down to Capitol Reef. We went with our two Favorite Woodbury's in all the world, Weston and Nelsy.We left on a Wednesday night and in a Jam Packed Volvo. We had to leave some things behind in order to fit into the car. I can't believe how much stuff we took for 4 nights of camping. We hit the road around 8 o'clock and finally made it to the Fruita Campgrounds at Midnight. unfortunately all the campsites were full. We were so shocked because we certain that we would be able to find a campsite, mainly because a ranger whom we called ahead of time told us we would have NO PROBLEMS! It was no big deal because we headed back into the nearest town and stayed at a Best Western at a really great deal (good Job Wes). The next Morning I enjoyed the last shower I would get for a few more days and we headed back to Fruita campgrounds. Luckily there were three spots available so we snatched one up.

Each day we did a hike, I'll be the first to tell the world I am a really horrible hiker. I am so glad I had Ryan to push me along not to mention Weston and Nelsy's for being so patient with me. Each hike we did was amazing. The first hike we did was the Narrows. This was my kind of hike, nice and flat! After the first day of adventures we went back to our campsite for dinner. The first night we made campfire dinners. I usually really like campfire dinner but this meal was AWFUL! I don't think the pesky raccoons would even it this concoction. We made dutch oven peach cobbler for desert that night, it was much better than dinner but unfortunately I ruined my dutch oven.That night mother nature was furious (I don't know why?) The wind was so strong I could hear branches slapping around and things tossing around outside the tent. I thought that our tent might blow away, and I was certain that we would find our camp chairs invading someone Else's space in the morning. No one could sleep all night. Finally when the sun was coming up the winds calmed down and we got a little bit of sleep. But seriously, we did not sleep all night! The next morning the only thing that was missing was our hot dog buns and marshmallows. It was one of those pesky 'coons, they are clever little creatures.
The next hike that we did was Chimney Rock, this was much harder for me, but it was so beautiful. The terrain was awesome it would change from white sand to red rock instantly.
The next day we heard that there was a mountain lion spotting in that area on the day that we did the hike, yikes! Later that day we took a scenic drive which was AMAZING! We stopped to look at some petroglyfs, a pioneer registry and a heard of deer grazing in a picnic area, this was one of the best parts of the whole trip, the deer came so close to us. We also drove through the Grand Wash area, this was one of the highlights of the trip. After our drive, it was getting close to dinner time, Dutch oven Pizza was on the menu that night but since I had ruined the dutch oven the night before this meal plan didn't seem like it was going to work. We still had hot dogs we could have done but we would have to eat them without the buns. That did not sound very good to me. I heard about a really great Mexican restaurant in Torrey, so Nelsy and I did our very best to convince they guys to go out for dinner, they were very hard to convince (I'm not joking). Finally we were on our way to Cafe Diablo, this place was so fancy, we were very out of place. The nice hostess sat us at a table and gave us each a menu, we took one glance at that menu and we were so shocked by the prices, there was no way we were going to pay so much for a meal. We snuck out and ended up eating at a delicious restaurant called the Patio (I think). Their prices were more in our range and the food was delightful :).

The next Morning we headed out for Hickman's Bridge, this had to be the coolest natural bridge I have ever seen! When we reached the bridge it started to sprinkle so we quickly made out way back down the mountain. There wasn't much we could do with the rain so we went to the visitors center and The Gifford House to pick up a few souvenirs. We also stopped at the nature center to see what we could do in there. It was mainly a nature center for children, but Nelsy and I had a great time making postcards with cool petroglyph stamps. The rain started to let up when we got back to our campsite, there was more rain in store however. With that in mind we decided to pack up our things and go home a little bit early (we were planning on leaving the next morning). I was probably the most hesitant to leave, I was having so much fun. The only reason I was willing to go was the thought of seeing Micah. We left him with my family and this was the longest I have been away from him. Thanks Mom, Dad and Gabby for watching him, you guys are the best!

This is for all of the skeptics out there.

Why is it that every time you try to show off your baby, he (or she) doesn't deliver? For Micah's first Birthday, My brother Alex got Micah a program called "Your Baby Can Read". It is a great program and Micah LOVES it. I could tell that after the first month Micah's language had increased. A few weeks ago I was testing him to see how much he had learned. I would hold out 2 cards with 2 different words Dog and Clap. Then I would ask him "which one says dog"? And I swear to you he picked the right one. I did it a few more times with other words and he kept getting them right! I was so excited to see how well Micah was learning from this program. When Ryan got home later I tried to show him Micah's new skill, no luck. Eventually Ryan saw that Micah could actually read. I have also tried to share Micah's skills with some family and Friends and nothing, he tends to get stage fright.
Fast forward and then rewind to yesterday, Micah and I were playing with his flash cards. This time instead of asking him to pick between two words I showed him one word at a time and then asked him what it said, "Keys, Dog, Arms Up, Cup, Hat" he would either do the action for the word or call the word out. I was so shocked, I really couldn't believe what I was hearing. He doesn't always say the word or even get it right, but he's new to reading so back off! :)




*The end of the video cuts out, Micah is saying "Kah" (keys)