Today is my niece Nora's fourth birthday! Caleb and I absolutely adore her (as does probably everyone else that knows her). She's brilliant and beautiful, but also so sweet and fun. She's such an angel with Caleb and is always so very patient with him. We just love love love her.
Yesterday, my mom and I spent the whole day cooking. We thought we'd try out one of those 30 meals in one day programs. You know, where you make a ton of food in one day and then freeze it all to eat the rest of the month. The lady, whose program we were using, suggested making only fifteen recipes and doubling them. I figured, since there were two of us cooking, we should make twenty recipes.
It was so exhausting! We cooked all day long. The kitchen was filthy by the end of the day. Caleb did pretty good with both of us cooking. He wanted to be held a lot, but other than that, didn't complain too much.
All in all, we only managed eighteen of the recipes, but finished the other two off this morning. Most of the recipes made three meals, sometimes more, so we're going to have a lot of food in our freezer now. In fact, I don't know if there's enough empty space in our freezer for all the food. But we go home today, so we'll soon find out.
Caleb and I made our first craft project together today. It's a firework/torch thing that we were supposed to make when Laura and Agnes were here, but never got around to doing. Since we already had all the stuff, Caleb and I gave it a try this morning.
I couldn't find a functional glue stick, which made the whole thing less Caleb friendly. He did really enjoy putting on the foam stickers, and helping tear the paper. But for the most part, he wanted to take the whole thing apart while I was still trying to put it together.
Afterwards though, he thought it was so much fun to play with. He especially loved waving the "flames" in Mommy's face, as well as beating a few bushes with it.
And when he got bored, peeling the stickers off again also proved enjoyable.
I thought this picture was so cute, I had to try it out in black and white. Caleb's been teething pretty bad lately. We've been waiting for his fourth top tooth to come in and it's been taking its sweet ol' time. We've been so focused on it though, that it wasn't until Saturday that I noticed one of his top back molars has come in. And it's quite a ways in too, so I have no idea when he got it. Although, I'm pretty sure I'd checked only a week or so before that. It's possible that the middle top tooth finally broke through on Sunday, but it isn't making much progress still. And now he has another molar on the other side trying to make it's way down.
With all those new teeth trying to come, Caleb hasn't been sleeping well. Lately he insists that he can't sleep unless he's sleeping with me. Usually on me. And while I hate not getting anything done during naps (and going to bed extra early, only to read by flashlight), I love holding my cute sleeping baby. He sweats a lot when he sleeps and it makes him smell so good. He smells a lot like summer rain, which is my favorite smell, only more Caleb-like.
On Tuesday (8/19), my mom's neighborhood had a little carnival thing in the park. They had several different bounce houses, lots of free food (sno cones, popcorn, cotton candy, and watermelon), balloon animals, basketball and volleyball. Here's what Caleb thought of the festivities:
Laura and her kids left for Ohio today. Our kids didn't always get along, and often times we were all crazy stressed from it, but I think for the most part, we all had a good time. And maybe by the end of it, even if Caleb is still a little afraid of Agnes, I think he likes her.
But since I'm behind on updating our blog, you're likely to see a few more photos of them, even though they're gone now. Like these pictures that we took while out shopping one day, back on August 13th.
Caleb is now seventeen months old. In some ways, he's such a big boy, and yet at the same time, still such a baby. He loves to be held and cuddled (although only when he wants to be) and has been waking up at insane hours these last couple weeks only to climb into bed with me and go back to sleep once he's laying on top of me. He's completely capable of getting anywhere he wants to be, including up and down the stairs, but prefers to be carried. He's developed some amazing speed at stepping around me. Often when I want him to walk beside me, he'll quickly move in front of me and hold up his little arms, wanting to be picked up instead.
His favorite thing to do is bang on things. He's quite the little drummer. He also likes to roll his arms around each other (like you'd do when playing patty cake and are rolling the dough). He does it all the time when he's walking or standing around. I'm not really sure where he got it from. I think from watching his cousins play patty cake, but who knows. After Sara went back to California, Caleb wanted to play ring around the roses all the time (which he learned from her), but that's died down for the most part. He loves to be chased, but only by his mommy. He'll pull my finger to drag me off the couch, then once I'm standing, he'll let go and start to run, expecting me to follow him. He also loves to climb on things and I'm constantly reminding him to be careful. He's been learning to "jump," which translates into climbing up on something and then falling into Mommy and hoping I catch him.
One of our favorite games to play is baseball. The first time, we played using two little plastic toy trains. I'd roll one across the table toward Caleb and he'd use a second train to hit the first one off the table. Over and over again. We've also played using bowls on top of a plastic cup, and at the pool, Caleb used his noodle to hit the beach ball. So today, we finally got him an actual bat and ball and made him a tee using his pool noodle (which was too long anyway for such a little boy). Needless to say, he absolutely loved it!
Running toward the tee, so excited to play.
It was really hard to capture a picture of him hitting the ball, so here's a video as well. Of course, once the camera was rolling, he decided to chase the ball after he hit in, which he wasn't doing before, so you also get to see him throwing the ball.
This morning, after Caleb finished his bottle, we were laying in bed cuddling for a while. Then he took Yertle and covered my face so he couldn't see me anymore.
"Are you?" he said.
I had no idea what he'd said though. It wasn't something I'd ever heard him say before.
He moved Yertle away. "Boo."
Over and over again until I finally figured out he was trying to play peekaboo with Yertle's help. It was so cute. It surprised me because it's not something I've ever tried to teach him before. Sometimes I'll play the "Where's Caleb?" part of the game. But I usually answer with "there you are" or "there he is" and never "peekaboo."
But since he was so sure that's how the game went, I followed along. Then I tried to get him to actually say the word "peekaboo," which he did. So cute. I love how much he's starting to talk.
Getting Caleb to eat has always been a hit or miss kind of thing. Lately, I've stopped caring. I figure he'll eat if he wants to eat, but it's not going to kill him if he refuses. He's old enough to say if he's hungry.
We've been at my mom's house for a while (which is only important to this story because somebody else cooks dinner every night, either my sister or my mom, and if we'd been at home it's less likely this would have happened since I put zero effort into feeding us since it's just me and Caleb). Every night, after Caleb decides he's done eating his food, he'll reach out for my fork. For some reason, every night I give it to him, thinking maybe he'll eat a few more bites if he's using Mommy's fork (which must have happened at some point or else why would I always think that?). But Caleb doesn't want to eat more. Sometimes he just wants to play with my fork and I have to take his fork to finish eating. Maybe he likes the shiny silver color or something. Often though, he wants to feed me dinner. My dinner, off my plate, using my fork, but he's in charge of the whole process.
At lunch today, Caleb picked out some yogurt from the fridge to eat. I put him in his chair and got out his spoon. Once the lid was off the yogurt, he didn't want to eat it. He took the spoon from me and proceeded to feed me the yogurt. He ended up feeding me the entire 4 oz container of yogurt, minus one tiny bite because I insisted he had to at least taste it (and several other bites that fell off the spoon before I could get to them). So even though he didn't eat the yogurt, at least he got some practice using a spoon, right?
Then tonight, we went to a cooking class where we got to taste samples of what they were making. One of them was a mango sorbet. Caleb insisted on holding the little cup and spoon (it was the size of a sample spoon at an ice cream store). He ate two, maybe three, bites himself and then fed the rest of it to me.
I think it's cute. I don't know where this new obsession comes from. And while I'd rather my child was feeding himself since that would mean he was actually eating, I think it's sweet that he wants to feed his mommy.
(Oh, and in other food news, Caleb ate spaghetti tonight. Not very much, but still, he ate it voluntarily which is a big step for him. He typically hates pasta.)
Caleb and I left Roseville a while ago, but now even Brandon's moved on as well (up to Chico), so I thought it was an appropriate time to show some pictures of the kind of things we did at our apartment complex. These are from a walk Caleb and I went on just two days before we left.
Play in the dirt. Often filter through the dirt for acorns to take home with us.
Beat the bushes. (Probably his favorite thing to do when we'd go for walks there.)
Love Yertle. (Yertle didn't often accompany us on walks. In fact, this might have been the only time.)
More love for Yertle. (What can I say? I love when he loves that turtle. It was a very conscious effort getting him to attach to that turtle and I just think it's so cute how much he loves Yertle.)
Bark at cats.
Examine the cat a little closer. The better to bark at.
Proof he's his daddy's son. I almost never walk across the grass, due to the time I spent at BYU and their unofficial slogan "cougars don't cut corners." Every walk we went on, I was always so proud of Caleb for following me along the sidewalk and never cutting corners either. This last Roseville walk we went on, there was no sparing the grass. Daddy's boy after all.
Now that we walk on grass, we might as well pull some out too.
And when beating the bushes doesn't satisfy, you might as well use Yertle to whack a few flowers.Also last Monday (8/4), Caleb got to eat his first apple. He's had diced apples and apple slices before, but never just an entire apple to do with what he pleased. He loved it! There was a slight hiccup in the apple eating adventure when Sara traded Caleb his apple for a Cheeto she found on the floor, and then didn't want to give the apple back. So Caleb got a second apple and was happy once again. Caleb carried that apple around the rest of the day, taking bites here and there, happy as can be.
These first few are Caleb's cheesy smile. Whenever I get out the camera, I get a total cheese smile first. He loves having his picture taken (most of the time). Sometimes, when he gives me a cheesy grin, he'll just hold it forever until I finally take the picture (as was the case with this third picture).
Eating his apple:
Taking a break to play for a minute:
And back to eating that apple (notice how red his face got while playing):
This is way better than that candy everyone else was eating earlier that day!
