Just a Sunday Afternoon...

We woke up to beautiful weather in Seattle today so we headed down to the waterfront to visit the Seattle Aquarium. We had a fun time looking at all of the different fish and marine animals but Ethan just wanted to run through the museum to see what was coming up next. The joys of having a three year old with a tiny attention span.

After the aquarium we went next store to the Crab Pot for some tasty fish and chips. We had a lovely day and I hope your day was lovely as well.

Grown Up Purchase...

After three years Ethan's dresser/changing table in his room finally fell apart. Well, this was a work in progress for about a year since it was a pretty cheap piece of furniture to begin with and we had duct taped the bottom of the drawers several times. Plus, since he no longer wears diapers we don't need the changing table anymore. By the way, we have several pull-ups and overnight diapers if anybody needs some. ;)

We finally made the big "grown up" step in buying a high quality dresser for Ethan. One with actual solid wood drawers instead of particle board. We ended up getting it at Dania after several furniture store stops and they had the perfect one that fit his bedroom exactly. Ethan's new designed room is finally complete so I thought I would show his final bedroom pics below and his new grown up dresser.

Aloha!

Jeff, Ethan, and I recently took a family vacation to the big island of Hawaii. We stayed in the Waikaloa Village in a condo at The Fairway Villa's and boy oh boy did we have a great time.

We were lucky to have 80 degree weather almost every day on our trip and sunny skies. We pretty much let Ethan determine our schedule of events which included visits to the beach in the morning to build sand castles, followed by lunch, a nap, and afternoon time out by the pool. We mostly stayed on the Kona side of the island but did a trip over near Hilo one day to visit the Botanical Gardens where we had to find our way out of a maze. We were all a little sad when we had to fly back home but hope to go back next year.

Here are a few photos from our trip. Enjoy!

 (A-Bay Beach near our condo)

 (Building sand castles at A-Bay)

 (Ethan loved the sand and making pools)

 (Returning from sea with a bucket full of water)

 (Botanical Garden Maze)

 (More Botanical Garden Maze)

 (Ethan and I in the rain forest)

 (Our home away from home at the Fairway Villas)

(View from our balcony at the Fairway Villas E-21)

Robots and Rocket Ships...

Ethan's room is officially done. Well besides the rug that I am still waiting to come in the mail but the walls are complete. We transitioned his room from a baby nursery to a big boy room with robots and rocket ships, the theme chosen by Ethan and some of his favorite things. We went with decals on the walls this time instead of wallpaper to avoid the lovely water streaks down the wall and they are easy to take on and off. It turned out pretty well if I do say so myself and Ethan likes it too.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone. Let's hope that 2011 is a fantastic year.

It started out great in the Kalles household. Ethan is finally using the potty which is HUGE. For a second there I thought we were going to have a kid that would never learn to use the potty but I figured he would get it down before college right? We decided to spend our holiday break working on toilet training and believe me, it was a little difficult at first with several accidents the first few days but I have to give thanks to Elmo's potty video. Without that I think Ethan would still not want to use the potty but if it is OK with Elmo, it's OK with Ethan. I just hope that he doesn't think from here on out every time he uses the toilet he gets a treat which usually results in a cupcake or car.

One other thing that we did during the winter vacation was turn Ethan's room into a big boy's room. He still had his nursery decor up and had stripped some of the wall trim off the wall so we decided it was time to change it up a bit. All the painting has been completed and we are just waiting on some finishing touches to show up in the mail. Once it is all complete I will be sure to post pictures so stay tuned.

Merry Christmas!

We had a holly jolly Christmas this year. Ethan was a very good boy, something that he kept reminding us all the way up to Christmas Eve. This year was a fun one since Santa was finally in the picture and Ethan was well aware what Santa brought on his sleigh, presents! And what did Ethan ask Santa for this Christmas? A Mickey Mouse and a dump truck and luckily Santa's elves were able to make both of these.

(The elves working into the night on Christmas Eve)

(Santa's gifts of a Puppet Theater)

(Home made cookies and milk for Santa in case he was hungry)

(Christmas morning. Ethan became a master un-wrapper)

(Ethan putting on some shows)

(The Christmas aftermath)

I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas this year and with New Year's right around the corner it got me thinking about New Year's resolutions. What are your New Year's resolutions? Mine are listed below.

• Be more creative. I plan on doing more sewing, painting, becoming a better photographer, and hopefully learning to play some guitar this year.
• Have more family fun adventures that include getting out of the house more and just enjoying nature and each other's company and also plenty of travel I am sure. I got a new camping stove for Christmas so I hope to have a few camping trips under our belt this year. Of course that most likely means staying in a cabin but we will still be using the camping stove. :)
• Updating my blog a little more often. Life goes by to quickly so its great to take a snap shot of it every once in a while before it passes you by.
• Being healthy. But isn't this on everyone's list? ;)

Santa Visit.

We made our annual excursion to the town of North Bend to take the train and visit Santa Claus. The weather turned out perfect which equals not to chilly. We bundled up just in case and had a great time. You catch the train at North Bend and take it to the town of Snoqualmie. Once there you get to go and visit Santa and a toy, followed by cookies and hot chocolate in one of the rail cars. It is a great time, even if you don't have kids and want to go on an old fashioned train ride up in the mountains. You can check it out here if you are interested - Santa Train.

Ethan for some reason did not want to look at Santa but he did tell Santa what he wants for Christmas, a Mickey Mouse and Dump Truck.