Well it's been forever since I've posted. I need to be better so that way my post aren't always a mile long. So I'm going to skip over these past couple weeks and will keep this as short as possible. Just wanted to dedicate this post to my half-pint Evil Kanevil. Tavita turned one on Friday, this year has flown by and he has kept things busy for us. I often refer to him as our dog beacuase there are times where I feel like I'm raising a puppy rather than a baby. He chews on EVERYTHING, loves shoes, always has trash strewn everywhere, drools like crazy, drinks from the toilet (finally bought toilet locks), eats off the floor (he was sprawled out licking the Wal-Mart floor the other day),and manages to get into everything. He truly has a passion for life. He has never been one to sit and observe. Since he was a newborn he always wanted to be faced out and exploring the world around him. He is one never to back down from a challenge, if he's trying to climb ontop of the couch, the counter, the bed, the changing table, up the slide at the park, or anywhere else most 1-year olds will leave alone he keeps trying no matter how many times he falls until he succeeds. We went to get his 1-year pics done and they asked me if he was okay standing if he had something to hold on to. I just laughed. And sure enough they could hardly get any shots in because he was running around everywhere. But him on a little ledge, he climbed down and ran to the computer, put him in a rocking chair, he climbed out and ran, tried sticking his legs through the back of a chair, got out of that too. Like I said, he's not one to sit around but wants to be out there exploring. You can't talk about Tavita without mentioning his incredible appetite. He eats more than Brayden and I'm not talking baby food: apples, steak, chicken, rice, EVERYTHING!!! Only he's taking after his dad and starting to refuse vegetables. I'm so grateful to have Tavita and all his spunk and character in my life. He keeps me hopping, no need for the gym when he's around, also keeps me laughing. He loves to dance (does the haka), sing, and sword fight (sound and everything included) The local grocery store here gives a free cake for 1-year birthdays and writes Happy Birthday with the childs name included. I told them his name was Tavita, the girl looked at me and repeated what I thought was "Tavita", I nodded, she gave me a funny look and started writing. I sat there thinking, "come on it's not that unusal of a name". With a few flicks of her wrist she was finished, handed me that cake, and I started walking out. I looked down and read, "Happy Birthday Papita" I started cracking up. I would've taken a picture but Brayden was so excited to show Tavita his cake that he flipped it sideways and the writing came off. Nonetheless, I love my little Papita! Here's a little slideshow, since I'm so bad at posting, I have to create these to put all the pics together so my post aren't any longer than they already are. Our camera is slowly breaking so the pics aren't too high of quality
So at the local zoo here (Hogle Zoo) there's this huge fake elephant that makes noises and occasionally sprays out a mist of water. For some reason Brayden is deathly afriad of the thing. You can hear the elephant throughout the majority of the zoo and whenever it starts making a noise, Brayden keeps one eye in the direction of the noise. My parents have a video of Braydens first encounter with the innocent elephant. Brayden has his hands raised above his head, running and screaming for dear life. In his first two visits we've tried everything under the sun to get him to touch the elephant. He'll get close to patting it, then the elephant starts to make noise and he's off again. Funny thing is he has absolutely no fear of the real elephants, he sits there and watches them beat the tar out of their food pinatas and begs to go in there and play with them. However, the fake elephant evokes every fearful emotion in him. This past week we went to the zoo for the 3rd since moving here and after riding the train Brayden begged to go see the elephants, which meant having to walk by the fake elephant. We had my cousin Lori (who is 5)with us and she and Tavita immediately walked up to the thing and started crawling around and under it. Brayden was keeping his usual distance when I tried convincing him to go by Lori and Tavita so we could take a picture. His response was, "No thanks, I'll wait here" and sat down on the bench. We sat Lori and Tavita on the trunk and for some reason Brayden decided that it looked fun enough to overcome his fear and sit with them. He was so proud to have finally touched the elephant but wanted to get down as soon as the picture was taken. Bottom line is, the elephant has been conqured!!! 
