Other babies

We have Sunday School in the Relief Society room. It's a really big room (I know not all RS rooms are). We could probably fit the top half of our house into the room. Anyway, they have like five rows of chairs (divided into two sides) and then chairs around the edges of the room, against the wall. Our favorite spot to sit is in the back corner because there's a little bit of a gap before the rows start, and hence more room for the babies to sit on the floor and play.

Caleb is so funny to watch around other babies. He doesn't really play with them. And he doesn't really play around them either. Mostly, he'll just sit there and stare, wondering why the other baby keeps taking his toys. Occasionally, he'll get up the gusto to take a toy back. But as long as nobody takes his blue block from him, he's just fine to watch the others play.

Today, at church, was no different. Faith (who's a month older than Caleb), was sitting next to him, playing. Then there was this other baby, definitely older than a year, but obviously not yet 18 months, who Caleb found so extremely fascinating to watch. Maybe Caleb would have played with Faith if it wasn't for this other little girl being there. It felt like he was definitely "intimidated" by her presence -- which means that I'm going to definitely need to teach my baby how to flirt once he becomes a teenager, if he hasn't already figured it out by then, so that he isn't afraid of girls.

Faith did the funniest thing in the world today at church. (I know, this is a blog almost solely about Caleb, but other babies are cute too...) She was on the floor, towards the end of Sunday School. I think one of the toys had kind of rolled under the chair of the row nearest to us. She started to crawl for the toy, but then lost interest and crawled under the chair and out the other side. As in, she went underneath the lady's dress that was sitting in that chair, and magically appeared at the lady's feet. It was kind of an older lady, otherwise it might not have been as funny. I can only imagine what she must have thought. We were laughing so hard. It was a good thing the meeting was about over.

In my brother's ward (or at least I know they used to do this, I don't know if they still do), they have a separate Sunday school class for people with babies too little to go to nursery. I think that's really the smartest idea in the world. Having only the three babies in the back of the class today, we were so loud, I'm sure it was distracting for a lot more people than just the babies' parents. Oh well. At least we're sitting in the back.

Next week -- excitement of all excitement -- church starts at eleven! I can hardly wait. We were not cut out for 9 am church.

Belize Bound

In exactly seven weeks, Brandon and Caleb will be on their way to Belize. Whether I will get to join them or not is still undetermined....

(We applied for their passports today. Still can't find my passport or my birth certificate. Massive house-wide search scheduled for tonight.)

Sleep Issues

We are notorious for staying up late. We have some friends who feel bad if they stay late that they're keeping us up, but after they leave we'll still be up for hours. Others, who work late to start with, we tell to come on over anytime, because we're still up all hours of the night. The earliest we usually get to bed is 2 a.m. but sometimes not till 4 a.m. The rest of the nights fall somewhere in between.

Last night, a real rarity, we were to be by like one. I don't know how it happened. Then, as fate would have it, Caleb woke up at 1:30, screaming his head off. I thought that he'd fallen out of his crib or something, he was screaming that bad. But no. He was okay. Just really upset.

We fed him a bottle. Changed his diaper. Rocked him. Sung to him. Finally, an hour later, he's asleep again. Only to wake up twenty minutes later, screaming. But what was there left to do for him? So we just let him cry it out. He eventually fell back asleep on his own and slept till nine this morning. But still, that meant we didn't go to bed till after 3.

I guess that's what we get for going to bed early.

Gifts from Caleb

I almost forgot to mention the beyond awesome presents that Caleb gave us.

For Mommy -- Caleb is completely weaned. Words can't describe how much this gift means to me.

For Daddy -- Caleb's now saying dada. Started on Sunday. Brandon is beyond thrilled.

My Favorite Present

The very best Christmas present I got, was that my husband remodeled my kitchen for me. It's so beautiful and I absolutely love it. He redid the whole thing: floor, cabinets, counters, sink and faucet, back splash. New (to us) oven and stove top. New fridge. And best of all -- new dishwasher!! (There was no dishwasher there before. That's what inspired the remodeling job. That, and my husband really loves me.)

Those who regularly read this blog, know that these pictures have been a long time coming. Brandon started the project back in October. We were having a Halloween party, and I really wanted it done in time for that. The saddest part about me posting these pictures today, is that Brandon did all the work in about a week and a half. His brother, Nathan, helped with the tile work. And of course, I had to pick it all out. While I know that Brandon did all the actual work, I still think I had the hard job. :)

So, two months later, here's the pictures of my beautiful kitchen. (Although, in my defense, he's technically not done yet. He still has to paint a few things. So I guess it's taken longer than a week and a half after all.)

The right side of our kitchen. The sink used to be this huge ugly thing and the faucet came out of the wall just above it. And did you notice the dishwasher? We LOVE it.

The left side of our kitchen. There used to be 18 inches of wasted space. But with the new stovetop and the counter stretching all the way across, it makes the kitchen look so much bigger.

The backsplash is probably my favorite part of the kitchen. I love those cute little brown diamonds. They're the only thing I really insisted on having in the new kitchen.

The floor. It was Brandon's first time laying tile. I think he did a most excellent job.

Thank you, honey, for my present! I love it sooo very much!

Oh, and if you want to see Brandon's favorite present, you'll just have to come over. But to give you a hint, we'll just say that Brandon won our previous dilemma.

Caleb's big present

We waited till after his morning nap for his big present, since he was pretty worn out from all the morning fun.

Opening the present. Look at all the paper just waiting to be eaten.

What is it?

Oh, that looks like fun.

It's broken. I'll fix it.

What? Still broken?

Need any help, Daddy?

Oh, here are some pieces I can play with.

Almost done!

Well worth the wait.

Definitely the cutest trucker I've ever seen!

Icing on the cake

What could be even better than presents?


The entire thing of ribbon, of course!

Opening Presents

Caleb did killer good opening gifts this morning. Thank you to everyone who contributed to his collection. He loves all his presents. So thank you and thank you.


(I know this one's a little blurry, but I was videotaping the baby at the same time that I was taking pictures with our digital camera.)

Merry Christmas!

Christmas eve eve

Last night, we had a Christmas eve eve party and had some friends over for dinner and games. It was so much fun. We let Caleb stay up later than normal so that he could play with his friends.

Here's a couple shots of the babies playing together. It's really hard to get all three looking at the camera at once, but I think we managed okay. Look how good Caleb is at sharing his toys. :)



Caleb doesn't get the concept of going around things. If anything's in his way, be it legs or toy bins, he just crawls right on over it. I figure he's really going to like off roading when he's older.

After all the good sharing he did, Caleb thought it only fair that Naomi share too.

For my mom

Yes, that's Caleb. Eating a pickle. A pickle that I gave to him.

Sacrament Thoughts

What age do you start giving your kids the sacrament? And I'm not looking for the "technically there's no point to taking the sacrament until you've been baptized" answer.

Caleb really enjoyed sacrament meeting today. But I think he's confused about which religion we belong to, since he kept trying to shout out his own little hallelujahs along with what the speakers were saying.

Our bishop told a really cute story, that I thought I'd post. Hopefully, I can get it right and you can feel a little of what I felt when I heard it.

It was Christmas time and the train station was extremely busy as people tried to finish their last minute shopping and hurry off to visit family and friends. A small crippled boy sat on a stool, out of the way of the hustle an bustle of the holiday rush, selling newspapers and candies.

A man rushed past him, in a hurry to catch a connecting train, accidentally knocking over the boy and his display. Frustrated by the inconvenience, he shouted obscenities at the boy as he continued on his way.

Newspapers and candies were strewn all across the floor, many damaged by the trampling feet of passersby. The boy struggled to get back up and on to his stool once again.

A second man stopped to help him up. He picked up the newspapers and candy, and set them back up for display. Before he left, he handed the boy a ten dollar bill to help pay for the damaged goods.

As he hurried on his way, the boy called out to him. "Are you Jesus Christ?"

The man turned to answer. "No. But I'm trying hard every day to be like him."

Ladies Man

Liz emailed me these pictures from when we hung out with them last week. Since they're super cute, I thought I'd share some of them.

Caleb was just as fascinated with seeing Santa as he was last time, just stared and stared. Only, this Santa was much more determined to get Caleb to look at the camera. He was the only one of the three babies that didn't cry. Afterwards, they all got really awesome suckers, that of course we only let Caleb eat with the plastic still on it.

Faith, Caleb, and Naomi. Faith was still worked up from Santa.

Caleb and Naomi.

In front of the nativity.

Back on Track

Caleb had his nine month check up today (although he technically doesn't turn nine months old until tomorrow). When we took him in at the beginning of the month, he weighed in at 16 pounds 13 ounces. After two and a half weeks of bulking that little baby up, he weighed in today at a whopping 17 pounds 14 ounces! He gained a whole pound in two and a half weeks. So, now we can say with much confidence, that we switched him to the bottle because he wasn't getting enough to eat from nursing. And look at him now!

He's still not back up to his normal 25th percentile, but he's making progress. The doctor was quite pleased and thinks that we have nothing to worry about with our little guy.

In case you really want to know the rest of his stats...Caleb measured 27.5 inches long with a head circumference of 44.5 cm. Which makes him still in the 25th percentile for both of those.

Happy days

Caleb was so cute today. He was just the happiest, sweetest little baby. Maybe it's because he took a three hour nap this morning.

We're starting to settle into a fairly consistent routine. Brandon gets up with Caleb in the morning and stays up with him till his morning nap. Then they both go back to sleep. Then, when Caleb wakes up, I go get him and we let Daddy sleep a little longer.

Today, as usual, after his morning nap, I brought Caleb into the living room to play. He crawled around the room, so very happy, just playing by himself. He found a book to read (we keep all his books on the bottle shelf so he can reach them). It was so cute. I'd look over the couch at him and he'd look up at me and smile super big. Then, when I wasn't looking anymore, he'd go back to playing with his book.

He wandered around the room, occasionally making eye contact with me and smiling. He ventured over to the Christmas tree to play with the presents. He's been playing with them more and more these days. Today, he almost got one open. At first, I thought it was super cute and went to take his picture. (You know me, I'm addicted to taking pictures of my baby.) Then, I realized that he was opening an actual present (one of the few) and took it away with him to rewrap it before he got too far. He followed me over to the other side of the tree, where I was getting tape, and picked out another present to play with. The funniest part was that this one was another actual present. I guess the kid already knows what the good stuff is.

Wild Goose Chase

We've been tearing our house apart today (and somewhat yesterday) searching for my passport. We're going on a cruise in February to Belize. Which means we all need passports. We even went to the health office yesterday and finally got Caleb's birth certificate so he can have a passport too.

Well, we can't find mine anywhere. Or my birth certificate. Brandon finally found my social security card. Not that we need it for this, but it's good to know where it is. The other stuff, however, we definitely need.

But we did find something even better. No, not better. But something that's been lost a whole lot longer.

We have one of those kitchen cart things where I keep all my cookbooks. For about a year and a half now, there's been this box of oil on the bottom shelf. Occasionally, when I see it, I sometimes comment to Brandon that it is an extremely silly place to keep oil, but we've never moved it.

So today, in desperation to find the passport, Brandon even pulled out the box of oil. Only, there's no oil in the box. What's inside is ten wine glasses that we thought we had lost when we moved to Utah. A year and a half, we've thought they were gone. A year and a half, we never bothered to look in this box, assuming it had oil inside simply because the box said that's what went inside. A year and a half.

Needless to say, we're quite pleased at our find today. Now, if only we could also find my passport...

Further Proof

Tonight we had some new friends over. One of the couples has a baby girl, Naomi, nine days younger than Caleb (the other couple has a baby girl, Faith, a month (minus a day) older than Caleb). Brandon was holding her on his lap towards the end of the night. He was gently bouncing her on his knee.

Wait -- before I continue, I have to say that it took me most of the night to get Naomi to warm up to me. And even then, she was still unsure.

So Brandon has her on his lap, and she's totally loving him. Not a single fuss. Not only was she being so very good and not complaining that a stranger had her, but then she fell asleep. That's right. She fell asleep while he was holding her.

Just further proof that Brandon is the baby whisperer/baby sandman.

Oh -- I almost forgot -- while he was holding sleeping Naomi, Faith laid down at his feet, ready to go to sleep. She would have too, except that her mom picked her up and let her fall asleep on the couch instead.

If it didn't work to my advantage (since he does manage to get Caleb to nap as well), I would be seriously torqued about his magical gift.

Hallelujah Chorus Nuns

My friend Kelsey sent me a link to this video and I thought it was so hilarious! So now you get to watch it too. :)

Momentary Angel

Sunday was such a fun day with Caleb. He was being all kinds of cute. Saturday had been a fairly cranky day (although you'd have to see Caleb on a cranky day to realize how non-cranky it is compared to actual cranky babies), so it was a lot of fun to have him so happy and cute.

In the picture above, Caleb put one of his bath letters (the letter T in case you couldn't tell) in his mouth and just crawled around the room like that for a while. It was so funny. Caleb loves to make us laugh, and just smiles even bigger when we do.

My favorite part of the whole day though, was that Caleb's saying "ma ma" as if he's starting to understand better what it means. Brandon made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Caleb was crawling on the kitchen floor while I was reading a book in the other room. When Brandon placed mine on the table, he said something along the lines of "Mama, lunch is ready." Caleb then chimed in with his own mama. (He doesn't usually repeat us. Usually we just repeat him.) I was so thrilled that I ran into the kitchen and scooped the baby up and gave him lots of kisses. Which he loved, of course.

Then, when I made dinner, Caleb was sitting in his exersaucer. He was babbling mama, and ever time he did, Brandon or I would exclaim, "Mama! Did you say mama?!" and get all excited, which made Caleb so excited and smiley. So, naturally, he kept saying it over and over again, then waiting for our reaction.

Still nothing on the "dada" front. Not a single D sound actually.

When Caleb first started making his "angry" face, I found it cute, but it still drove me crazy. Why was my little boy suddenly so angry all the time? I could tell when he was making it without even looking at him, because his breathing would change. Now, he doesn't wrinkle his nose as much, but still pouts those cute little lips. Which I think is so utterly adorable. It just makes me want to kiss him all the time. And usually, if I'm close enough when it happens, I do.

Speaking of kissing though. At church, Caleb was being his normal adorable self. During sacrament meeting, he went on a full blown attack giving his mommy kisses. It was so funny. He just kept lunge diving at me, mouth wide open, wanting to suck on my face. The people sitting behind us were dying laughing. But since we were sitting in the second overflow area, we can't really be held responsible for distracting them from the meeting. (If they wanted to pay attention, they would have shown up on time and got an actual seat, right?)

Caleb is such a good crawler now. Brandon was lying on the floor with Caleb, while I was on the couch. Caleb kept doing laps around the coffee table so that he could alternately play with each of us. Sometimes Brandon got in his way (unintentionally). Since the shortest route is a straight line, Caleb proceeded to crawl over Daddy whenever necessary. At one point, only his belly was touching Brandon, the rest was all in the air, but I didn't get the camera out fast enough. So instead, you just get one little leg up in the air (it kind of blends in with Brandon though.)

Caleb has also realized how much fun Christmas might be. He played with the presents more today than he ever has, thumping on them, and even tasting a few with ribbons. He used a couple to pull himself up a little higher and was delighted to find that the tree contained a much greater treasury of fun. Not only are there tasty pine needles and movable branches to grab and pull, but there are also bright shiny lights hidden inside. And if you're really tall, you might even be able to grab something even more fun!

Needless to say, both the lights and the ornament were moved a little higher.

Grilled Cheese

Sometimes, when I'm not in the mood to feed Caleb baby food for lunch (since I never know if it'll be a battle to get him to eat or not, and he's always willing to feed himself for at least a little while), I'll make him a grilled cheese sandwich. Normally, I then cut it into bite size pieces and wait for it to cool down before placing the pieces on his tray.

If I'm cutting pieces, Caleb only gets the good stuff in the middle. If Brandon's cutting pieces, Caleb ends up with the crust too.

Today, Brandon made us all grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. I don't know why I did it, but after blowing on the inside of Caleb's sandwich to cool it (something I ALWAYS do when eating grilled cheese), I tore the sandwich in half and handed it to him. He loved it! He loves to be able to eat like his mommy and daddy do. We thought it was so super cute the way he tackled the sandwich.

(It's weird the way things are cute when you're a baby and so not cute once you're a teenager.)

Anyway, I of course took a ton of pictures of the event. Brandon was no help whatsoever in narrowing it down to just one or two favorites. So you get a whole slew. (I know, so different from every other day when I can't decide what picture to post.) Although, if half eaten food grosses you out, you may not want to scroll down. But it's a baby doing it, so it's still cute.