Farewell Forever

As alluded to in the post below (you might really have to read between the lines to see it though), we've left Texas. For good. I don't think we'll ever step foot there again. Unless we're flying somewhere that has a layover in a Texas airport. But we might even try to avoid that.

Not that Texas wasn't good to us. We're just so glad to be done there. As we were driving away, with our car overflowing with our stuff, I felt a momentary twitch of sadness that we were leaving our home of the past four months and would never live there again. That didn't even last a block before I was so excited to be going. Although, it wasn't till we hit Colorado that the weight of the summer seemed to finally lift.

I think the best part about going to Texas this summer was that I got to see my friend Jaymie again, who I hadn't seen in several years and had kind of lost touch with. (I'm not very good at keeping in touch with people, as is evident by the fact that you have to read my blog to know what's going on in my life.) Granted, we still didn't see that much of each other, but hopefully we'll stay in better touch now. That's who Caleb's smiling for in the above picture. She and her husband came over Wednesday night and Caleb was giving her some of his very best smiles. Normally he only smiles like that for me and Brandon.

As far as the rose thing goes, I really like taking pictures of my baby. The crazier the better. Brandon bought me roses the other day (I have no idea what day it was, we've been in the car for so long that I really have no sense of time left anymore). The one that Caleb's holding was broken, so I thought it'd be fun to give to the baby. He did pretty good at just holding it and not crushing it to death or eating it. Although, of course, he had to taste it at least once....I think once was enough for him. If anyone else has been wondering whether roses taste good or not, Caleb's not really the most reliable source. He tends to make that face every time he tries something new. So I'm sure if I gave him rose petals ten times (at least, that's the number the "books" say), then he'd probably like them.

Chomp chomp

I've been dying to update our blog for days now, but the many wireless internets in our complex that we've attempted to "borrow" have all decided to gang up on us and shut us our of their lives completely. It's okay, the feeling's mutual. But sadly, no internet till now.



This is a video of how funny I think my baby is. He just loves to eat. Absolutely loves it. He wants to eat everything in sight -- especially if we're eating it. Unfortunately, for him, he's still too little to eat anything besides breastmilk and rice cereal. But he makes the cutest little chomping face whenever he wants to eat -- usually when we're eating, but also when it's time for him to have his cereal.

Brandon and I have been trying to think up a new nickname for our baby because of this cute new thing he does. Not that Caleb needs a new nickname. He has a bajillion of them already -- Caley Bale, Gangsta C, Little Turtle, Baby Blue, and a bunch more that I can't think of at this very moment. Not to mention all the times I call him baby, sweetheart, sweet pea, honey, love, etc.

But for the new mouth action, we're debating still. The contenders currently are Chomp Chomp, Sir Chompsalot, The Chomp Meister, Gummers, and Gumbo. There might have been more, but I can't think of those either. It's been a really long day,

Going Public

Up till now, our blog has been private, by invitation only, requiring readers to log in before they could view our blog. This has been because we're super paranoid people and fear kidnappers and identity theft.

However, I absolutely love reading other people's blogs. Often, when the baby is napping, I'll surf the internet, reading blogs of people I barely know or sometimes don't know at all. (I read the blogs of people I know too, they just don't always have new posts, causing me to link to their friends' and families' blogs instead.)

I get such joy out of seeing pictures of old acquaintances and their new families, that I feel that I have been selfish in hiding our blog. I mean, what if everyone hid their blog? Then whose would I read? So, as a thank you to all those people (who will probably never read this), I've decided to make our blog public as well.

So, if you're a kidnapper -- I know our baby is super cute, but we'd really like to keep him. If you could please kidnap someone else's baby instead, we'd greatly appreciate that. (Although, if you are a kidnapper, I strongly recommend giving up the practice completely. I don't think it's gonna help you get into heaven. Or stay out of prison here either.)

Just Kidding

Apparently, putting our baby to bed a half an hour early wasn't as bright of an idea as I thought it was when I did it. Caleb woke up last night at quarter after ten and would not go back to sleep. We tried rocking him, singing to him, even letting him cry for a while. Finally, at 11 I thought that if I just fed him (which I didn't want to do because I don't want him to start waking up every night to feed at that time), he would go back to sleep. He was so very tired.

Instead, feeding him made him wide awake. He didn't end up going back to bed till I think it was 12:40 a.m. Then he woke up again at 5:30 to feed. At least, after that, he slept in till 9 a.m. and finally woke up happy and cooing.

He had been sleeping through the night really good. The last several nights, he'd started waking up again in the middle of the night. And then last night, well, you can see what a disaster last night was.

Tonight, he'll be staying up till his normal 8 o'clock bedtime and we'll hope that improves the situation.

Mommy-Baby Games

I know this isn't the best cropped picture, but the camera was back behind my shoulder as I tried to get far enough away to take a picture of Caleb sitting on my lap. Maybe it wasn't worth it and I should have just tried for a normal picture. Actually, all the close ups that I took make him look funny since we were way too close to each other.

Brandon complains that I always win when we play the Wii. It's because my reflexes are so super quick. Caleb, being the good baby that he is, likes to help me sharpen those reflexes so that I always beat Daddy at the Wii. Today we played a game where Caleb was half sitting half standing in my lap. He would balance there for a really long time and then suddenly lunge forward (or sideways usually) and try to catch me off my guard. I'd grab hold of him and give him kisses, then put him back in starting position. I think he had a lot of fun playing. That's what the above picture is about. I didn't want to cut out his little hand that's trying so hard to balance, so instead you get an off-centered photo.

Another fun game that Caleb and I played today had to do with eating rice cereal. Caleb's turned into a champion eater. He gobbles that stuff down so quickly as if I might change my mind and stop feeding it to him and he has to hurry and eat it all before I take it away. Well, today he decided that it'd be more fun if he fed himself (since I'm obviously too slow at it). I don't keep the food anywhere near him, so all he could manage to do was steal the spoon away from me. He has such a strong grasp that I didn't want to hurt him by forcing it away, or worse, make him cry, so I just let him have the spoon and went and fetched me a new one. We took turns feeding him, although only my spoon had food on it, but his was apparently still fun to eat in between bites. Then, the really fun part of the game occurred -- Caleb whacked himself in the face with his spoon. Funny to me, not so much to him. He started to cry, which actually only made it funnier to me. After that, he didn't get to have his own spoon anymore. And when he tried to take mine again, I warned him, "You remember what happened last time you did that" and he quickly let go. (Okay, the letting go might have been mere coincidence.)

We're having a killer rain storm tonight (I tried to take a picture of it for your viewing pleasure -- see below). It seems to rain all the time here in Houston. Tonight it's kind of nice because it made it dark early and since Caleb took his three naps early in the day and refused to go down for a fourth one, he was all the more willing to go to bed early tonight. Which, for some reason, makes his mommy in an extra good mood, despite all the fun we had together today.

Sunday Sit-Ups

Now that Caleb has so effectively mastered the art of rolling over (or at least now that he's done it two days in a row), we've moved on to teaching him how to sit up by himself. Okay, not so much teaching -- although I do demonstrate by sitting up myself -- but at least propping him up several times and watching to see how long he can last before he falls over. He's getting pretty good at it. (The sitting up part, that is. Okay, he's pretty good at the falling over part too.)

After yesterday's great sitting experience, Caleb did not disappoint today. He's catching on really quickly to the idea. Although, after a while he gets bored and flops over. But that's pretty fun to watch too.

Today, during sacrament meeting, I was talking with another new mom as we sat in the closet (yes, that's as big as the mother's lounge is here) feeding our babies. Her baby is a month older than Caleb. She's been crawling for about two weeks now and figured out the rolling over thing by the time she was three months old. Caleb's definitely not up to par with her. However, the mom said that her baby is totally not cuddly and hates to be held, which is probably the reason she's learned to move around on her own so quickly. That made me feel better about my baby's progression in life. He's such a cuddly baby who would rather be held then left on his own to explore the world. He definitely prefers playing with his toys while sitting in my lap rather than while laying on his back or stomach. Although his favorite is when we play with him and keep him entertained. I'd definitely take the cuddly baby or the mobile one any day.

Before I had Caleb, my two goals for him were that he wasn't going to watch tv and he wasn't going to eat sugar (i.e. candy, ice cream, any sort of junk food really) until he turned two. Hopefully yesterday's post doesn't break that second rule, cuz the first one was shot long ago. Caleb loves watching tv, although I've never turned it on for him to watch. Now that we no longer have cable, his tv watching has been dramatically reduced. But perhaps even better than watching tv is watching Daddy play the Wii. (Sometimes he gets to watch Mommy play too, but this particular picture was just Daddy playing.) I just love how chill he is sometimes.

You know you're a bad mom if...

...you resort to giving your 5 month old baby a lollipop so he'll stop fussing.

Yes, it's true. I am that bad of a mother. But if you took me before a judge, all I'd have to do is plead insanity and I'd get off scott free (especially if the judge had kids).

You have to understand, Caleb had been grunting at me for hours. Not crying, not fussing, but grunting. No matter what I did -- and I even tried feeding him when he wasn't scheduled to be eating -- he just kept on grunting. And it's not a happy noise. If he was still in his newborn stage where he pooped after almost every feeding, I would have assumed that's what he was up to. But these days, he only poops about once or twice a day and usually always in the morning. So he just grunted and grunted and grunted without any results.

We went down to the office (APX's office here is just another apartment which happens to be in our same building and on the first floor, making it the easiest place to visit when we need out of our apartment). At first, that was enough to satisfy Caleb. New things to look at, new person to stare at. But then the grunting resumed. The candy was just sitting there on the table next to me looking so inviting, and I caved. But the kid was still sitting in my lap and I was monitoring him closely -- and yes, the wrapper is still on -- so hopefully I'm not too bad of a mother after all.

While we were down at the office, I was sitting on a long table with Caleb on my lap and he decided he wanted to sit all by himself (still in my lap though). He sat there for a really long time without leaning against me in any way. He wasn't even holding my hand to help him balance. Just sitting there. It was rather adorable.


And later, when he gobbled down his rice cereal, he didn't slump to one side in his booster seat, but sat up real good and wiggly, looking around at everything.

He's also definitely mastered the art of rolling over from his stomach to his back. I guess all that time that I was worried about his hit and miss ability to roll, I should have just been putting him on his stomach. He hates it so much, he's quite eager to roll back over to his back.

When it came time for bedtime, I think both Caleb and I were more than ready.

Party Time

Our office had a competition with the Detroit office to see who could sell the most in seven days. Not total, but per day. And whoever won the most days, got a prize -- these super duper headphones and $100. As you can see by Caleb's wonderful modeling job, we won.

The other guys in the office were all really excited about the competition. I guess they are supposed to be really good headphones. They're Skullcandy Ti. Whatever that means. Brandon and I were excited about the extra $100. But the headphones...we're still undecided. From what the other guys were saying, you can use them to listen to your ipod while skiing. Yeah, we have an ipod. But no, we don't ski. Or snowboard. Or anything else involving being freezing cold, wet and falling down a lot.

For a second, Brandon considered reselling them on ebay, but then decided to keep them. Don't know if we'll ever use them, but at least they look cool or something. Oh, and they have fur on them to help keep you nice and warm. And cool looking.

In other party news, our neighbors threw a huge shindig last night. I think they're Indian, but am not sure since I've never actually talked to them, just seen them in passing. They weren't noisy or anything, but this was the sight Brandon saw when he came home from work last night. So obviously, it was quite the bash.

5 Months

Caleb turned five months old on Tuesday. Our computer was in the shop getting fixed, so I haven't had a chance to update until now.

Five months old has been going really great for us so far. Yesterday, Caleb ate his rice cereal for dinner and just gobbled it down. He finished his normal amount and still wanted more. So I whipped him up a second helping (it's real hard to do, you know) and he gobbled that down too. Then to make sure I knew he was finished, he fussed a little when there was only two bites left, as per usual.

I absolutely love feeding him. I think it's so hilariously funny to give him a bite of food and watch his facial expressions. This morning we fed him some cereal for breakfast/lunch so Brandon could see how funny our kid is. He attacks the spoon with a vengeance, then realizes it's rice cereal and makes the funniest faces. But then he's super eager for the next bite, until he realizes it, too, is rice cereal. He still eats it though. Although sometimes he spits it back out and I have to feed him the same bite several times. That and he likes to blow bubbles when his mouth is full of food. Brandon thinks it's disgusting, but I find it hilarious.

Then, after last night's double dosage of food, I gave Caleb a bath and he actually enjoyed it. Not just suffered through it while I hurried to finish, but actually enjoyed it. I even let him sit there for a little bit after I was finished since he was in such a good mood.

And of course, he's excellent at going to bed. We've even managed to figure out the nap thing with him. Oh, and today, he rolled over three times from his stomach to his back -- while laying on the hard hard floor.

So, I have to say, I really like having a five month old baby.

Knock on wood.

So far, the only downside to Caleb's new age, is that I haven't been able to get any good smiley pictures of him. He still smiles for me, but not when there's a camera around. He also gives me great laughs and is starting to enjoy more games, which is fun for both of us. Sometimes though, instead of laughing, he makes this purring kind of noise. It's not as fun as the baby laughs, but still cute.

He's also so fascinated with the world around him. He loves going for walks to the mailbox. Tonight we went to the mall to pick up the computer and he was just so content in his stroller, looking around at all the people and things. Sometimes he gets bored being in our apartment, looking at all the same stuff, playing with the same toys. But if I take him to another apartment in the complex, he loves it. Even though all the APX apartments are furnished with the exact same couches and pillows and what not, he loves looking around at other people's apartments. It's way better than being at our place.

Sunday Fun Time

Life has been good lately. Perhaps a little sad since we don't have internet anymore. (Although I'm currently stealing someone else's wireless -- bless those people that don't put passwords on their internet.)

Yesterday, being Sunday, was Brandon's day off. Caleb absolutely loves having his daddy around. This morning, we were all three laying in bed together, with Caleb in the middle and he reached out one hand to touch me and the other hand to hold on to Brandon. Then he just kept looking back and forth between us as if there was no place he'd rather be than with his parents.

Brandon had him laughing so hard yesterday. He was lifting him up in the air and then bringing him back down again (holding him the whole time still) and Caleb was just laughing and laughing and laughing. Maybe it's just that I'm home with him all the time, so I don't have the energy to play as much, or maybe Caleb just really likes playing with Brandon better, but he was giving him some of his very best laughs. It was so precious. I even got out the video camera and filmed them for a little while before our battery went dead.

I know I've said it before, but I just love those two boys. And seeing them play together is my absolute favorite thing.

Sometimes the non smiles are as cute as the smiles. :)

Eating on the phone

As promised, a cell phone report on our lives. Caleb did much better eating today. I made it a little thicker and he just chowed down. Although he did make some really funny faces as if I was giving him poison. He's still undecided on whether he likes this new eating thing or not. After all, he's really good at the old way of eating.

But at least he still likes his mommy!

Definitely a no go on the rice cereal today.

But maybe a yes to the spoon. :)

We interrupt this broadcast...

Tomorrow the cable guy is coming to turn our cable and internet off. We're leaving Texas in two and a half weeks (and I'm so excited to go back to Utah to our cute little home there). When we signed up for cable, we did a three month special rate which ends today, so why pay full price for only two extra weeks?

But that means it'll be much more challenging to post blogs for a while. Either I'll have to get super proactive and go somewhere that has free wireless internet, or just settle for blogging from my cell phone. Either way, I thought I ought to make one last effort to update on our lives before resorting to those options.

The only thing is, there's not much going on here. Caleb has no new tricks. In fact, he was rather cranky today, refusing to take a nap for me after having taken two for Brandon earlier today. We were in such a fight today that I finally had to take him for a really long (and sweaty) walk since it was the only way that he would stop crying (or else I would have had to feed him pretty much non-stop since that was the only other thing that would work).

I tried the rice cereal again today. One of these days he'll eat it really good and I can stop talking about it. I had breastfed him only an hour earlier, so he did a little better eating today. At least for a little bit. Then he was done. It's a fun game -- feeding a baby. I give him a spoonful of food, then he spits it back out, then I scoop it off his chin and stick it back in his mouth only for him to spit it back out and I keep giving him the same bite until he finally swallows it. Then we start all over again with the next bite. Good times.

As far as his other trick in progress, rolling over is still a hit and miss thing. He lays on his side a lot. He can spin in a circle 360 degrees and then some. And every now and again, he'll roll all the way over. But he's not that interested in making it a regular habit yet. He just doesn't like being on his stomach. I guess I'm so eager for him to roll over because I feel like he has to learn to roll over before he'll learn to sit on his own and I'm anxious for him to be able to sit -- it'll make his pictures so much cuter. And really, that's what I'm in it for, the cute pictures.

Houdini in Training

Today, when I was changing Caleb's diaper, he discovered that his foot can reach his mouth! He was quite excited about it. I was too, actually, and ran to get the camera. I know it's a normal thing for baby's to learn to do, but it still amazes me that they are that flexible enough to be able to do such a thing. I can't do it.

As far as putting things in his mouth that are supposed to be there, such as rice cereal, still no luck. I tried again tonight (now the fourth attempt), and he started crying once again. He did pretty good swallowing what I gave him, so I think the problem lies in the fact that he thinks it tastes awful. I haven't tried it myself, it smells gross enough that I can imagine the taste isn't much better.

To get back at me for giving him something so disgusting, Caleb grabbed my hair and quickly shoved it in his mouth. Yeah, that was gross. Rice cereal in the hair. Then when I went to wipe his mouth off with his burp cloth, he grabbed that and likewise shoved it in his mouth making it impossible for me to keep feeding him. I think he did it on purpose. He started to lower the burp cloth, but the second I said the word cereal, it went right back in his mouth. He's just too cute to get mad at.

I guess when he's a teenager and eating us out of house and home, I'll look back on these days and say remember when...

Fun in the Sun

Our manager rented jet skis for all the guys so that they could have a day to play. It was actually an incentive that they earned a while back that never seemed to work out before since it's always raining here. But today was a beautiful day, so we drove down to Clear Lake and got to ride jet skis for a while.

No, Caleb didn't actually get to ride the jet ski, but I think he found sitting on it just as exhilarating. Actually, given his natural tendency to cry when he gets scared and his mild dislike (or maybe just distrust) of the water, he probably liked sitting on the stationary jet ski way better than riding one.

We did take him in the pool -- the jet ski place was attached to the Hilton, so while the guys took turns riding, everyone else hung out by the poolside. He did better at the pool this time then the last time we took him. Granted, this pool was a lot warmer than the one at our complex was back in May when we went. So he did a little better. Lasted several minutes even. But then decided it wasn't for him. Oh well. There's still hopes that he could be a basketball star. We'll just have to find another way to get him tan (though having inherited his mommy's olive skin, that shouldn't be too hard).

In all honesty, I thought jet skiing was a little nervewracking. I'm sure if I'd had more time to get accustomed to it, I would have been fine, but we only had them for a limited amount of time, so I let Brandon go out without me after a while. He had a lot of fun. And maybe one day we'll be rich and can buy our own for non-stop family fun.

Wii Love APX

No, that's not a typo in the title. We got a Wii! (For those of you that don't know what it is, it's a video game console by Nintendo -- you've probably seen the commercials for them, where the people are golfing or bowling or whatever and act out the motions.) We got it last night and just love it. It is so much fun to play. We're not big video gamers, but I can tell we're gonna be addicted to this one.

The best part about it is that it was free. Well, for us at least. APX is footing the bill for this one. It's one of the extra perks of the job. To help motivate the sales reps to hit 100 good accounts, they offer some little extra something. Last year, we got a free ipod because of it. This year, a Wii.

I wanted to get a good video of Brandon playing. Last night, we were just too into it to stop and take a video. We tried out the golf game. At first, it was a lot of fun. But then we got one really windy course with a lake and I kept hitting my ball into the lake (not on purpose). Being a bad loser, we had to switch to a different game after that. So we tried out the baseball which was a lot of fun, but rather hard. We were sweating trying to get a base hit! Definitely my kind of video game though. (Thank you Bon for recommending it instead of the xbox 360, because I really really like it.)

Anyway, the picture is of Caleb with the box the Wii came in, obviously. I wouldn't trust him near the actual Wii, considering how much he drools and how much he likes sticking things in his mouth. Today he really wanted the strap attached to the controller. It looked like such a fun toy. But since cell phones aren't allowed to be baby toys, I don't think this one is either.

Gotta get the baby to bed so I can play some more!! (I do try to pay attention to my child when he's awake...must be why bedtime is earlier and earlier every night. Either that or the fact that he didn't want to take a nap all day today because he somehow knew that if he did, Mommy would start doing something way more interesting.)

Baby Whisperer

My husband is genius good at getting our baby to sleep. For those who tune in regularly, you know that lately Caleb and I have struggled with the whole nap issue. But Brandon, is amazing. He can always get Caleb to take a nap. Sometimes he'll come back in the room and announce that the baby is asleep in his crib and I'm just shocked.

He says it's like his job. You've got to push past the first several no's until you make the sale. I'm just too soft. If the baby doesn't want to sleep, I let him be awake. If he wakes back up ten minutes after I put him down, I don't know what else to do than just assume nap time is over. Brandon, on the other hand, can put Caleb down for a nap, without feeding him first, and the baby will stay asleep for an hour. It's so wonderful.

Today, I fed Caleb and he fell asleep, which I was expecting. I took him off and just let him sleep in my lap on his boppy for a little while, since earlier today he woke up from his nap just a couple minutes after I tried putting him down. Well, sleeping on the boppy wasn't that much better. He maybe slept for twenty minutes before he woke up again, crying. So I changed his position and was just holding him in my arms, his blanket no longer wrapped around him while I finished up what I was doing on the laptop.

Within five minutes or so, Caleb was asleep again, reclining against my chest. Well, more like hanging off my arm. It was so uncomfortable but I was nervous to move even an inch for fear that he might wake up again, since he really needed a nap. After twenty minutes, I shifted him ever so slightly so that I no longer felt like my arm was going to break. Then we sat there on the couch together, him asleep against my chest, me on the computer but so very uncomfortable. Our couch is not meant to be sat on in one position for so long. Finally, after he had been asleep for an hour, I couldn't take it any longer. I had to move. So I carefully slid off the couch and set the baby down on the spot where I had been sitting. He slept there for like another twenty minutes while I laid beside him on the floor.

He's so precious when he sleeps. I just wish I had Brandon's magic touch. Oh well, I guess it's just one more reason to be grateful for my husband.

Second Attempt

I thought I'd try the rice cereal again today. Yeah...it didn't go over so well. He ate it just fine, but pretty soon, he was crying once again. He seemed to like it better today. I mixed it with breastmilk instead of water. It was still pretty thin though, which made it rather easy for him to swallow.

He actually did a really good job eating. Hardly spit anything back out (well, except for the picture above, but that was it). He did pretty good opening up for the spoon, too.

I don't know what it was that made him start crying. He was in a kind of fussy mood before I started, so maybe that's all it was. Or maybe he just really doesn't like rice cereal. By the end of our eating attempt, he was arching his back something fierce, trying to get off my lap.

Oh well. I guess we'll wait another couple days before trying again.

Family Pattern Baldness

You may have noticed that our baby doesn't have all that much hair. Surprisingly though, it's grown a lot since he was born. It's just still so very short and also hard to see because it's a rather light color. For the most part, however, our baby looks bald.

He's not the only one in the family. Brandon has a great fear that he will one day go bald. His hair is pretty thin, but he doesn't look at all bald yet.

I, on the other hand, am definitely looking rather bald these days. My hair has always fallen out. Every where you go in our house, you'll find random strands of my hair. I just shed all the time. Then, when I was pregnant, my hair stopped falling out. No random hairs anywhere. Not even in the shower, when I conditioned my hair, would it come out. Now that I've had the baby, however, it's falling out again. At first, it was no big deal. But these days, it falls out by the handfuls. I really don't know how there is still any hair left on my head, it has been falling out that badly. I guess that's the problem though. In some places, there isn't any hair left. I put my hair up in a pony tail the other day and was shocked to see how bald I'm looking. One of the other wives out here said that it happened to her too after she had her baby, so I'm hoping it's a normal post-pregnancy thing and soon I'll go back to normal amounts of shedding.

And hopefully one day Caleb will have hair too. :)

The Moments that Matter

There are days that I absolutely love being a mother. Days that I think my baby is just the greatest blessing. Now that Caleb is 4 1/2 months old, we seem to be having more and more of those days. He is just such a delight to be around.

The other day, I was singing him a little song that he just thought was so funny. He laughed and laughed and laughed. I don't think it was a coincidence, however, that the words to the song were, "It's time for Caleb's nap." He tends to give us his best smiles whenever we catch him not napping. Like he knows how guilty he is.

He's actually been laughing a lot more lately. And to his father's utter delight, Caleb seems to be ticklish. I wasn't really ticklish at all until I got pregnant. And now, even though I'm not pregnant anymore, I'm still rather ticklish. Brandon is so beyond ticklish that he loves that I am now too. And now Caleb is as well which makes him all the more fun to play with.

Saturday evening, Caleb and I went for a walk to get the mail. It was actually a really nice evening out (possibly the only nice evening we've had in Texas). There was a cool breeze blowing gently through. Caleb loved being outside in such nice weather. He thoroughly enjoyed looking around and not having sweat drip down his back for once while he did it.

Some nights, I'm so in love with my baby that I don't want to put him to bed. We're just having too much fun together and I don't want to see him go. But I still put him to bed. It'll be easier when the summer is over, because at least then his daddy will be home at bedtime, making it easier for me to part with the baby.

If there is one thing I have learned this summer, it's that the only thing that really matters in life is our families. When this life is over and done with, it won't matter how much money we left behind, whether rich or poor, or what kind of car we drove. All that's going to matter to us, the only thing we can really take with us, will be our family. I'm extremely grateful for my little family.

One more great thing about Caleb -- notice in the picture above, he's giving himself bunny ears. How fun is he? Not to mention that cute little tongue.

Here comes the airplane

We decided to give Caleb his first taste of real food today. Yummy yummy rice cereal. Actually, it's mostly just water with the tiniest bit of rice cereal mixed in. I put some on his tray and let him play with it. Then I dipped my finger in it and let him taste it that way. Finally I decided to give him a spoonful.

At first, he thought it was a great idea. He was totally hip to the idea of eating like a big person. Would open up super wide and everything for the spoon. But after a couple of bites, he decided it wasn't at all fun afterall. In fact, it was awful.

He hadn't eaten enough to spit it up very good. But still it dribbled out of his mouth as he started to cry.


I don't know if it was just because he couldn't sit up very well or if he really didn't want any more food, but he was totally leaning away from me as far as he could.

Brandon and I thought this next picture was just so adorable. He looked straight at Brandon with this face pleading for help. "Save me from that wretched mommy!"


We didn't want to force it on him, so once he started to fuss, I stopped feeding him. Some of it dribbled out of his mouth and onto the collar of his shirt. He stuck the collar with the food on it into his mouth and just loved it. Not surprising considering his favorite toy is his burp cloth.

We thought that since he liked eating his collar so much, that maybe he'd keep eating the food if we put it on his clothes instead of in his mouth. But not so much.


Maybe we'll have better luck next time.

Lizard or Turtle?

As I've said before, when Caleb was first born, he totally reminded me of a turtle all the time. Brandon thinks it was the turtle from Over the Hedge, but I don't remember what that turtle looks like.

Anyway, Caleb does this tongue thing now (which is why I got out the video camera in the first place -- see post below) which makes me think he's more of a lizard. But maybe lizard is the wrong word -- I'm not really up to date on my amphibians and reptiles. Still, some sort of creature that sticks his tongue out.

This video was captured on my cell phone. Look how cute that little tongue is.



I tried to find a really good turtle picture, but I don't think we ever managed to capture the turtle essence completely. Anyway, this picture was from when Caleb was like a week or so old. It has so many of the features I love from when he was that little. First, there's the wrinkly turtle forehead. Then, the "oo" face that he used to make all the time when he was little. And, perhaps one of my favorites, his Gangsta C hands.

His first film

Yesterday, I had the video camera out to try and take some video of Caleb. For the most part, once he saw the camera, he'd stop doing whatever cute thing he was doing and just stare at the camera. Makes it really hard to try and capture the true essence of my baby.

Then he grabbed the lens cap, which is attached to the video camera still, and decided to direct his own little video. I thought it was incredibly hilarious. I was still holding the camera, and so I had some control over what we were filming, but Caleb would pull it this way or that at his own leisure.

So here's what my little aspiring director came up with. Not bad for his first film. (Although, hopefully we'll improve with time.)

Free Stuff Rocks!

Today was totally awesome. I'd been telling my friend Hayley that she should take her son in to Kiddie Kandids since they've taken so many great pictures of Caleb. Plus they'd given me referral cards so my friends could get a free picture (well, it's more like a montage) and I had given one to Hayley.

So we finally went today. Her son turns two on the 18th. I never realized how hard it is to take a 2 year old's picture. He was so fascinated with the different props (baseball bat and ball, football, soccer ball, truck, train, building blocks, ladders and other fun things to climb on, etc.) that we had trouble getting him to smile for the camera. He would smile or he would look at the camera, but not both at the same time. Hopefully they ended up with something Hayley liked.

The previous two times I've been in, I've had the same photographer. And she's great, as you can tell by all the super adorable pictures of my baby. This time, there was a different lady working who I've never seen there before. She offered to do a free montage picture for Caleb too. I'm not one to turn down free stuff, especially when it's cute pictures of my baby.

As you can see from the photo above, we had yet another successful session. Actually, this photographer wasn't as good as the other one. Either that, or she'd used up all her energy already and didn't have much left in her to try and get Caleb to smile. Still cute pictures though (more below, of course).

We put together our free montage thing. It's like an 8 x 12 with one big picture and then three little pictures toward the bottom. I'm not sure how I'm going to frame it, or what I'll end up doing with it. But it's cute. And it's fun to see lots of cute pictures at one time. I loved loved LOVED the basketball one (which, as usual, was my idea for a picture). Our photographer heard me telling my friends how much I loved it and decided to print us out a free 8x10 of it. I was so excited. Totally wasn't expecting that -- they've never given us bonus free stuff before, despite the fact that my baby is always so adorable. So that made our day awesome instead of just good.

More cute pictures:

Got milk?

I thought this picture was so funny. What an accurate portrayal of how much my kid loves to eat. You can even see the milk on his cheek, but he's still searching for more. (In case you can't tell, he's laying in my lap and that's my shirt in his hand.)

Seriously, Caleb eats ALL THE TIME. I mean it. All the time. Sometimes it feels like I'm feeding him for four hours straight. We have a rule that he's only allowed to eat every two hours. But that's two hours from when I last started feeding him. So if he takes an hour and a half to eat, the two hour mark comes pretty fast. And then when I finally let him eat again, he attacks me like it's been days since he last ate. You'd think I hardly ever fed him, based on how eager he is to always eat.

There are a few times that he can last past the two hour mark. Usually when we're out and about and so I don't cave to feeding him as soon. Plus, he likes to look at all the fun things around us and is sometimes distracted by the fact that he hasn't eaten in the last ten minutes.

We're definitely going to have to start him on solid foods soon. He's just that hungry. Plus he stares intently whenever Brandon and I are eating. He's especially fascinated when we brush our teeth. I've just been lazy about starting the rice cereal. Brandon's only home for bedtime on Sundays, which would leave me to feed the baby on my own every other night of the week, and that just seems too exhausting. But then again, so it breastfeeding him constantly. (And no, he won't take formula.)

I just hope we don't end up with a football player on our hands. Hopefully he'll stay tall enough that all this eating will only help him grow vertically, rather than horizontally.