My dad and Kevin took Katie and Kobe fishing at the river with some of our neighbors this morning. I stayed home with Kaleb because he is starting to hate the car. He was so good for the first couple months but now that he is getting a little more mobile, he hates being strapped down. He strains against the harness trying to sit up and just screams bloody murder. I reconfigured all the car seats last week in the hopes that moving to a convertible car seat would make him happier but so far he still seems to hate it just as much as the infant seat. I just feel safer with him in a convertible that is tethered though, it just seems more secure than the infant seat that could just pop out of the base. I also had to move Katie out of her Regent. :( I was NOT happy about that but her shoulders are almost an inch higher than the top harness slot. Which makes no sense because I know her torso height is less than what Britax says the top harness slot height is... but regardless, she has outgrown it. I put her in a Monterey booster and she loves it, it is a nice seat with great side impact protection. I'm thinking of taking the car in to get the seat belt inspected so at least I can have some peace of mind that her seatbelt will actually hold her if we get in an accident. I'm so paranoid about seatbelt failure now. So now Kobe is in a Safeguard Child Seat (which is usually in Kevin's car but I needed to wash the cover on the Signo, so I swapped them out), Kaleb is in a Diplomat (it just fits rear facing so much better than a Boulevard or Signo) & Katie is in the Monterey. We'll keep it like this for a while and see if we like it. Hopefully Kaleb will outgrow his hatred of the car seat soon!
So we had our "block party" last night, it was SO much fun. We had 4 of our neighbor families over for a total of 11 adults and 10 kids! Yet another reason our new deck is so awesome, there is no way we could have hosted so many people before. We had enough tables and chairs for everyone and we all hung out on the deck and ate and talked. The kids played around on the deck riding on the ride-on toys and cozy coupe cars and also down on the playground, swinging and sliding and playing in the sand box. It was really cool. We went all out and served shrimp cocktail, fruit platters, chips w/ hot artichoke spinach dip as appetizers and then had slow cooked baby back ribs that we had been cooking in the oven all day and then put on the grill w/ barbecue sauce, barbecued chicken legs, potato salad, green salad & green beans. And of course 2 ice chests full of beer, soda, wine coolers, juice and water. Oh and I made 2 gallons of homemade strawberry lemonade. There was a TON of food and incredibly it all got eaten!! I thought we had gone overboard and made way too much stuff but it turned out to be just enough. I'm so happy that we have finally met some other families in our neighborhood with children. For a while there I was thinking we were the only ones. The way the houses are secluded and spread out on so much land and trees, it's hard to "bump into" your neighbors. It turns out we have some really cool families living right around us. I think we'll start doing these get togethers as a regular thing, everyone seemed to have a really great time.
Kobe has been cracking us up lately with the things he says. I guess he's picking stuff up from Katie but it so funny to hear it coming from a 2 year old. Yesterday he was on the potty when I walked into the bathroom so I asked him "are you going poop?" and he goes "Yeah, I taking a dump" LOL, and earlier that day Kevin had taken him with him to the store to get a few things and Kobe insisted on carrying the ice chest. He was really struggling with it and Kevin kept asking him if he needed help and finally Kobe tells him "I got it dude!" Kevin said the girl helping them almost died laughing. Oh and his new word now is "actually", he says it all the time when he is telling you a story or correcting you. It's amazing how quickly his speech has taken off. I remember when he was about 18 months old I was kind of concerned because he seemed a little behind but now he is talking just as much and as well as Katie or Kyle was at this age. It's incredible how quickly he bridged that gap. I love this age when everything they say is just so darn cute!!
Well I guess I better use my time while Kaleb is napping to actually get some cleaning done.
So we had our "block party" last night, it was SO much fun. We had 4 of our neighbor families over for a total of 11 adults and 10 kids! Yet another reason our new deck is so awesome, there is no way we could have hosted so many people before. We had enough tables and chairs for everyone and we all hung out on the deck and ate and talked. The kids played around on the deck riding on the ride-on toys and cozy coupe cars and also down on the playground, swinging and sliding and playing in the sand box. It was really cool. We went all out and served shrimp cocktail, fruit platters, chips w/ hot artichoke spinach dip as appetizers and then had slow cooked baby back ribs that we had been cooking in the oven all day and then put on the grill w/ barbecue sauce, barbecued chicken legs, potato salad, green salad & green beans. And of course 2 ice chests full of beer, soda, wine coolers, juice and water. Oh and I made 2 gallons of homemade strawberry lemonade. There was a TON of food and incredibly it all got eaten!! I thought we had gone overboard and made way too much stuff but it turned out to be just enough. I'm so happy that we have finally met some other families in our neighborhood with children. For a while there I was thinking we were the only ones. The way the houses are secluded and spread out on so much land and trees, it's hard to "bump into" your neighbors. It turns out we have some really cool families living right around us. I think we'll start doing these get togethers as a regular thing, everyone seemed to have a really great time.
Kobe has been cracking us up lately with the things he says. I guess he's picking stuff up from Katie but it so funny to hear it coming from a 2 year old. Yesterday he was on the potty when I walked into the bathroom so I asked him "are you going poop?" and he goes "Yeah, I taking a dump" LOL, and earlier that day Kevin had taken him with him to the store to get a few things and Kobe insisted on carrying the ice chest. He was really struggling with it and Kevin kept asking him if he needed help and finally Kobe tells him "I got it dude!" Kevin said the girl helping them almost died laughing. Oh and his new word now is "actually", he says it all the time when he is telling you a story or correcting you. It's amazing how quickly his speech has taken off. I remember when he was about 18 months old I was kind of concerned because he seemed a little behind but now he is talking just as much and as well as Katie or Kyle was at this age. It's incredible how quickly he bridged that gap. I love this age when everything they say is just so darn cute!!
Well I guess I better use my time while Kaleb is napping to actually get some cleaning done.
4 comments:
Kobe is too cute!! I am glad your party was a success. :)
The party sounds like it was a lot of fun! I LOVE neighborhood parties, but, alas, we haven't had one in FOREVER. Need to have another for sure! :-)
Hope you enjoyed your quiet time- It seems like everytime I have some time to myself without the boys I just have so much else to do that I can't enjoy it much! Ugg!! Have a GREAT week!!
kobe is so cute!! i can't wait to see him again to hear him talk.
glad the party went well. we'll have to do it all over again when we are in town next. i love block parties.
tanner outgrew her regent too and i'm sad that she will have to go into a booster soon. i really want a monteray though, i loved katie's when i saw it in person.
Poor Kaleb...lots of kids hate the car seat at his age. He has excellent head and neck control for a baby his age. From a CPST point of view, I'd definitely make sure his Diplomat is installed pretty upright (if it isn't already). He was probably hating that 45 degree angle in the infant seat.
I'm guessing that pesky recline bar in the Regent makes Katie's seat pretty reclined and is why she has outgrown it even though the torso height is 20." When seats are installed more upright, kids seem to have more room in the shoulder..well at least in my experience. Not sure how Katie's Regent was installed, but you could always make the parental decision to install it without the recline bar to see if that gives her any more room. Not that I'm advocating that...hahaha =)
I was really impressed with the info the SKJP rep provided regarding the Monterey at the conference. It seems to be very well designed with lots of EPS foam ...even on the insides of the armrests. I like how the side wings are adjustable as well. You can always do an 86Y with the Monterey so that any crash forces would be spread more evenly over her torso rather than just 2 across the hips and 1 across the shoulder.
Enough of the car seat chat. I'm so happy you have finally met some more of you neighbors. The warmer weather definitely seems to bring people out of hibernation and out to socialize more.
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