Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Driving across country (4/19).


Playing the recorder with his cousin Agnes (4/21).




Monday, April 27, 2009

The Reads {of Columbus}

Look who's playing at a park!


(No basketballs were harmed in order to make this playing possible.)

Our summer has officially begun. Today is Brandon's first day back at work. The drive out here was ridiculously long, but we survived it by stopping for a couple days at my sister's house in Columbus. And since today is her birthday, I thought it only fitting that I post a couple pictures of her adorable children.

First up, Agnes. She's three and is so full of love. More than once while we were there, she told me she loved me, just out of the blue.




Then there's Eliot, who's ten months old. He's seriously a poster child for why you should have a second baby. He's a super smiley baby that is impossible not to fall madly in love with. (Not to mention, he didn't mind if I wanted to take a million pictures of him.)




And lastly, there's my kid who I have to beg to let me take his picture these days.




It was freezing cold in Columbus (at least for my taste) and we ended up leaving the park because it started to rain on us. I'm sure the kiddos would have loved to keep playing despite the weather.

In Chino

While we were in California for two whole days, we went to the park in my dad's neighborhood.

These cute girls (aka my nieces) thought that digging in the dirt and pretending to build sand castles was a fun way to play at the park.




This mischievous little boy (aka my son) ran off to find his own idea of fun.


I know, it's a big shocker to you that he chose basketball over...well, everything.

At least the guys playing were really cool about it. They let Caleb play with their extra ball and even switched up their game to play half court so that he could have his own hoop.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

At the Collinwoods

While in California, we stayed with Brandon's brother Rick. Caleb had such a fun time playing with the boys. He loved cheering for everyone while we played pool, and even got to hit a few in himself. He also really loved playing golf in the front yard with Rick's youngest son Kevin (who's a senior in high school). They have a practice golf club that breaks if you don't swing right. That was Caleb's favorite club to hit with. He wouldn't trade for a different one.

Easter Sunday, we went to Brandon's parents house for dinner. While waiting for dinner, Mark (who's nineteen or twenty) kept Caleb entertained playing soccer. Then after dinner, they played some other game together involving very boy like things of beating each other with whatever was nearby. I really enjoy when there are other people around to roughhouse with my boy so that he isn't always beating up on me. (And if you want to know the key to Caleb's heart, it's definitely roughhousing.)

Playing the piano with Rick. (Brandon took this picture, not realizing I had my camera set to something funky, which added a whole lot of grain to the picture. But their expressions are too cute to pass up.)


Soccer with Trevor (who is mostly scared of Caleb and took much encouragement for him to even venture this close).





Caleb wearing his battle armor.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Roseners {on Easter}

After being in Arizona for several days, we decided to drive to California for Easter. It was a relatively easy drive, which made us think we'll be making more such trips after we move to Arizona.

We surprised Brandon's parents on Easter (pictures from there to follow eventually, but Caleb just woke up from his nap and I only had the Rosener pictures done, so that's what you get till the next time I feel like editing photos), then headed down to Irvine to see my side of the family.

Someone mentioned not having pictures of the girls with the rest of the family, so of course I had to take out my camera and snap a few.


My niece Nora with my uncle David.

Nora and my aunt Marta. Marta's baby had barely gone to bed when we got there. We snuck upstairs to see her, but that was before the camera came out.

The picture below is my absolute favorite of the day. I love the way Grandpa is looking so sweetly at Sara.


While the girls were all cuddles and smiles, Caleb was too busy being a boy to even look at me. That kid seriously loves basketball. Even basketball toys meant for a one year old.




For some reason, I absolutely love these last three photos.



Egg Hunt

April 7th we drove down to Arizona and spent the rest of the week there looking for a house. We stayed with Brandon's best friend from high school, Bon, and his wife, Jessie. Jessie watched Caleb while we were house hunting and he absolutely loved her. To the point that when he would wake up from his nap, he would ask for Jessie even if we were home again.

Saturday morning, Jessie and I took Caleb to their ward's Easter egg hunt. It started promptly at eight in the morning. We weren't that prompt (seriously, who gets up that early if they don't have to?) and got there maybe eight minutes late. It was raining. The hunt was in an orchard, so it was all muddy. Being eight whole minutes late, most the eggs had already been snatched up by the older kids and neither Jessie nor I wanted to trudge through the mud looking for eggs for Caleb.

We found one only a few steps off the path that had already been found, stripped of its candy, and then discarded. Even so, a candyless egg was still an egg and it's not like Caleb knew there was supposed to be candy inside.


(Notice the cute Valentine's bag that Caleb is using to hold his eggs. You can tell Easter is a big holiday for me.)

After finding our one egg, we headed over to the covered area where all the food was. They had an Easter bunny there. It's the first one Caleb's ever seen and he wasn't the hugest fan. I had someone take our picture (our camera is a little tricky for some people to use) and this is how it turned out. Normally I wouldn't post such an awful picture (especially since I'm in it), but it was Caleb's first time with the Easter bunny, so here you go.

After breakfast, Caleb kept asking for more eggs. Being the amazing mother that I am, I miraculously obliged. I found two more abandoned eggs (candyless again) and Caleb happily scooped them up. Then, just a foot or so away, I spotted an egg hidden in the grass that still had candy in it. I was so excited! After that I kept my eyes peeled as we walked back to our car and managed to find one more that still had candy in it.

Once we got in the car and Caleb started to go through his bag, he discovered the candy in the eggs and his excitement finally matched mine. He kept asking for more eggs, so we told him we could hide them again later if he wanted (though he forgot about it, so it never ended up happening).


Hurray for the Easter party (despite it's way too early time) because it ended up being the only Eastery thing Caleb got to do.

Missionary Ball

April 3rd, we went to Brandon's missionary reunion in Utah. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision to go, as he got the text about the party just a few hours before it started.

The reunion was held in American Fork in the cultural hall of one of the church buildings. It's been several years since Brandon got home from his mission, so the number of people he knows at these reunions has significantly decreased over the years. There were more children at this reunion, however, than at any we've been to before.

One of the other little kids there had a small soccer ball that he was playing with (that I later found out came from the nursery, but at the time thought his parents had been better prepared than Caleb's parents were for this function). Caleb saw the ball, saw the basketball hoops hanging down in the cultural hall and realized what seemed like a room full of boring grown ups could actually be a little boy's paradise.

Immediately, he asked me for a ball. I didn't have one. I searched the car, knowing that there had recently been one there, but we'd unfortunately cleaned out the car since the ball had last been there. But Caleb was adamant that he needed one. So I rolled up my scarf into the best ball possible and handed it to him. He was ecstatic.

All he wanted to do the rest of the night was play basketball. Of course, this required either Mommy or Daddy holding him up super high so he could make the ball into the basket. (Sadly, only Daddy could actually hold Caleb up high enough. Even when I got on a chair, he wouldn't throw the ball because he wasn't up high enough to dunk the ball. On the plus side, Brandon's arms were a whole lot more sore than mine at the end of the night.)





Brandon's favorite part of the game was that after dunking the ball, Caleb would hang from the hoop like a true baller.