The Collinwood Clan

Flying

2012-01-19T20:22:00.002-08:00

Just flew from Phoenix to Salt Lake. It was beyond bumpy. To the point that I wanted to throw up several times.

As we're exiting the airplane, the pilot is standing by the door. Caleb tells me he wants to tell the pilot thanks.

"Pilot," he says to the pilot, "Thanks for the roller coaster ride."

I think the pilot was amused and not offended. Caleb really was thankful and quite enjoyed the roller coaster ride.

Our Christmas

2011-12-26T13:38:00.003-08:00

I'm glad 4 is still too young to wake up early for Christmas. Or maybe it's the fact that Santa isn't real when Caleb is with me (his words), which makes the excitement not as exciting. Whatever the cause, Caleb woke up around 8:45 and we moseyed on downstairs to open gifts. We opened up our stockings, then Nana and Grandpa Bud came out of their room to join us in opening gifts. I'd wrapped the presents so long ago that I forgot what was in all the boxes and ended up giving Caleb his favorite present as the first one to open. So it took some convincing to keep opening presents after that. (Favorite gift: Pirates of the Caribbean lego set -- the mill.)

Several times Caleb said "I'm so lucky!" and "This is just what I asked for!" and of course "thank you."

We went up to Farmington for church, to Cheryl's old ward. It was like being at a Christmas concert. They had tons of violinist as well as others playing the bass, cello, flute, clarinet, and of course the organ. When the choir sang Away in a Manger, Caleb sang along with them.

We also did some visiting, including going down to Orem to Grandma's house. Caleb had fun playing with Aidan there. Up until the very end when they got into a fight over something, which ruined Caleb's entire attitude toward Aidan. Before we left, when Grandma asked if he'd had any fun, he answered no. Not at all. Which wasn't true, but it was definitely the mood he left in.

Caleb really is such a sweet boy though and most definitely loves his mommy. He tells me so all the time (that he loves me). As I sang him to sleep that night, he said to me, "You have the most beautiful singing voice in the world."

Grandpa Bill

2011-08-27T14:17:00.002-07:00

While in California, we got to see my grandpa Bill. Before leaving for the beach, we wanted to get a quick photo of him with all his great grandchildren. It was not an easy task. Well, getting nine kiddos smiling was not an easy task, but we didn't really try and instead went for the route of they are all in the picture, so it's good enough.

Caleb's Stories

2011-08-25T10:36:00.002-07:00

I'm a person that loves stories. Reading them, writing them, listening to them. Sometimes even telling them. More than anything, I love Caleb's stories. His stories often make me wonder if perhaps reincarnation is real. So many times he's told me a story about before he was "born again" or when he was a teenager. There's one he's told me more than once about going rock climbing and his family all died but he didn't. I think that one took place in Africa, based on the names of his family members. Or perhaps another planet, like Krypton.

The other day he told me one that started like this, "When I was three, before I was born again, before you were a mom, when I was three, my new mom..." and then proceeded to tell me how this other mom of his liked her bath mat to be.

Sometimes he writes his stories down (not using real letters) and I try to write down what he's saying as he writes out his story. Other times, I'll ask him to tell me a story and will type it out as he talks.

Here's his most recent story:

Once upon a time, there was seven eight nine twenty pirates in a ship. Then they had lots and lots of food and stuff at the ship. But they never had TV at their ship. Next morning, the first little pirate went out to fish for a TV and he fished and he got it. Soon they had a TV at their ship. Soon they watched movies and played games on their TV. One day a big pirate came to their ship and said, “little pirates, little pirates, let me come in your ship.” And the pirates said “not by the hair of my feety feet feet.” I mean he says, “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin chin.” And then he cannonballed and cannonballed and then he never cannonballed their ship in their water. And it was never going to sink. And they lived happily ever after. The end.

I just read Caleb his story and he added, "Yeah, that's because the other little pirates cannonballed his ship."

Be Our Guest

2011-08-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

After selling our house in July, we needed a place to stay for a few weeks (or rather, for six weeks). I asked the bishop if there was anyone in our ward that might be out of town for the summer and would rent us their house while they were gone. A few days later my Relief Society president texted me that they'd found us a place to live for the rest of the summer. A member of our ward had a guest house in their backyard that they would let us stay in. By guest house, I mean it was bigger and nicer than any apartment I could have afforded.

My favorite part of the guest house was looking through the kitchen window (the only window that faced south) to the view behind us (that was still their backyard). Mountains, horses, open space. It was beautiful, especially in the evening before the sun set.

We never did get a chance to ride the horses while we were there. Caleb said he wanted to, but I doubt he really did. Since well, even getting near one of the horses was rather terrifying. They were downright friendly.

Tidbits from Today

2011-08-12T22:42:00.002-07:00

There were so many times today that Caleb did something cute and I wanted to share, so I'm writing them all down. Or at least, what I can remember now that our day is finally over and he's asleep in bed.

My car was out of gas, so we stopped at Safeway to fill up while we were out and about today. Caleb decided to get out of the car to help me. He wanted to wash the car while I pumped the gas. Not just wash the windows. Wash the whole entire car. Even after the tank was full of gas, we couldn't leave because Caleb was still washing the car with the gas station squeegee. As I watched him, I couldn't help but think, this is one of those moments where it really is the thought that counts. He was so sweet and cute, wanting to do something nice for me. Unfortunately, a squeegee isn't really the best tool for cleaning an entire car. After we got back into the car, he was so proud of his work because we could see so much better out of the windows. (I did help him wash the car, but I would have quit once the gas was done except that he insisted we finish the job.)

We read a book about tooth fairies today. It's a book we got from the library and we've read it several times before, but tonight as we started the book, I explained to Caleb exactly what a tooth fairy is and the whole idea of leaving your teeth under your pillow or in a glass of water for the tooth fairy who in turn leaves you money. After I finished explaining it to him, I asked him if he thought it was real or pretend. He decided it was both real and pretend. What do you mean? The fairy part is pretend, but the teeth are real, he explained to me.

Caleb was pretty crazy going to bed tonight. Bedtime is something I really struggle with. It takes me a really long time to get him to go to sleep. Part of the problem is that bedtime is often our funnest time of the day. There are no distractions, just him and me being together. We laugh so much at bedtime. He always wants one more snuggle, one more kiss, one more silly. And he's so cute that I have trouble saying no. He didn't want to get into his pajamas tonight (which is typical) and I said to him, "Do you want to fight or do you want to obey me?" He chose fight. But our fight was just so hilariously funny that we are both laughing so hard and there's no pajamas in sight. Trying to regain control of the situation, I modified my statement, "Do you want to obey me or do you want a mean fight?" He picked mean fight. I tried so hard to get my mean face on, but couldn't stop laughing.

Once we were finally ready for bed with the lights out and everything, after so much laughter and silliness, I asked Caleb if he wanted a song to help him calm down. He decided he needed five songs, since he was just that crazy at the moment. So I started to sing. After five songs, much silliness, and a story about being a space ranger one day, it was really time for bed. Caleb says to me that he needs one more song because he's just a little bit crazy still and it will help him calm down a little. He was still awake when I finished, we said I love you to one another, a kiss, then he rolled over and was sound asleep.

I just love that kid. He's so precious and adorable. I'm so thankful to get to spend the little moments of life with him.

Lunch at McDonalds

2011-08-07T22:50:00.004-07:00

After the movie, we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things, then stopped at the McDonalds in the store to have lunch because the boys really wanted light sabers and at the time McDonalds had Star Wars toys. Sadly, the McDonalds inside Wal-Mart didn't have light sabers. Or salads. So we decided to go somewhere else for lunch.

Loved that they were all holding hands as we walked back out to the car:

Somewhere else for lunch turned out to be a different McDonalds because well, the boys REALLY wanted light sabers. I made them promise that if the next McDonalds didn't have light sabers, they would settle for a different Star Wars toy and that we weren't going to find a third McDonalds.

Fortunately, this McDonalds had light sabers, but only one color. But while that wasn't the desired outcome for the boys, they were quite happy nonetheless.

Of course, being the responsible caretakers that we are, we made them eat their oh-so-nutritious meals before allowing them to play with their new toys.

Cars 2

2011-08-07T22:23:00.006-07:00

After taking pictures of all the cousins together at the park, my mom and I took just the boys to see Cars 2. As we were walking (quickly -- since we were a tad late) to the front of the theater, Jackson asked if we were going to get treats and drinks and such. I told him yes, that he could have anything he wanted. He was so excited and replied that this was the best day of his life.

(Normally I edit my pictures before posting them, but these were all taken in such a hurry, that there's nothing "good" here, so I'm not bothering to edit them first. Maybe you won't even notice the difference.)

Going in to the theater (they were too quick at the ticket counter for me to get a photo):

Just inside, before we've given the ticket checker our tickets:

Getting treats -- they each got a candy, plus we got one huge popcorn and two drinks. Talk about pricey!

Caleb liked the movie. There was one part that was too scary for him. (STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE MOVIE.) When Mater and the two spy cars were tied up by the bad guys and it seemed like they were doomed to die, Caleb told me he didn't like the movie because it was too scary. Fortunately, Mater gets himself untied super fast and Caleb was back to enjoying the movie.

Nana had Eliot on her lap, so even though Caleb started out on his own chair, he quickly decided my lap was more comfortable.

After the movie, as we were walking back to the car, I had the boys pose by the movie poster.

I told them to jump, since they were so much shorter than the sign and I wanted to get more sign in the picture. But well, jumping didn't actually make them any taller.

Caleb at the Beach

2011-08-05T20:25:00.005-07:00

The one thing I really wanted to do while in California was to go to the beach and have a bonfire. Well...that didn't happen. But after what seemed like the entire day of trying to get there, we did finally squeeze in some beach time at Huntington. (We tried Balboa first and couldn't find parking anywhere. Eventually gave up and chilled at my grandpa's for a while. Once everyone made it to his place, we tried again for Huntington only to have every entrance to the beach closed off except for one -- and you could only get in from one direction.)

I think Caleb was the most excited about wearing the new swim clothes Nana had bought him. But he was also pretty excited to see the ocean. Not so much on actually going in the ocean.

Caleb was inspired by the sight of Nick and Samuel out in the water each holding one of their kids and decided that he wanted me to hold him and go out into the water.

It didn't last long as it was really rather cold.

In fact, the entire beach was freezing. So windy. So cold. We didn't spend very much time at the beach before heading back to my grandpa's house to hang out. It was just too cold. But at least we made it there. We got our feet wet. And sandy.

(I have a ton more beach pictures of the rest of the family. Too many to go through. So enjoy just Caleb and we'll see if the others ever make their way onto the blog.)

Monopoly

2011-07-28T22:57:00.005-07:00

The last day we were in California, Nana played games with the girls while they were waiting for everyone to wake up and get going. My camera found them deep in the midst of a game of Monopoly. Simpson's Monopoly actually. And only Nana and Nora were playing. Sara was the banker. And Caleb was still asleep when the game got started. But by the time I went over to take pictures, he'd woken up and joined them. Apparently, he also beat me to the punch as far as documenting the moment.

Not the most gorgeous photos, but well, I don't do mornings.

Hotel Swimming Fun

2011-07-26T11:16:00.014-07:00

All the cousins swimming at our hotel in California. I think Laura might have been the only mom who ventured in.

So Many Cousins

2011-07-25T15:19:00.019-07:00

The one thing my mom wanted to do while we were in California was to get a picture of all her grandkids together. We're not all together very often, but with this many little kids, it seemed like a disastrous idea. I volunteered to be the photographer rather than taking them somewhere to get their photo done.

When we moved to a new spot, as quickly as possible since we had other things to get to that day, Caleb picked a spot right next to Agnes. For whatever reason, Agnes got moved and Caleb started bawling. He apparently really wanted to sit next to Agnes. So even after we moved him next to her again, he was still upset. Nana hurried through and gave all the kids a kiss on the top of their heads. Which magically cheered Caleb up.

I took at least a dozen shots of each pose, in hopes of getting them all to look good in one. I don't know that we quite achieved that. But at least we now how a few photos of all of them together.

After we finished, we let them go off and play. I grabbed one quick shot of each of them (except for Claire, since my mom was standing next to me and thought she could get her to smile, which she somewhat managed).

Poor little Olive. I think she was under the impression that nobody was going to feed her ever again. Or maybe she wanted a nap. Who knows. She was pretty cranky most the trip actually, which is very un-Olive-like.

And a few more random ones from while we were at the park:

A Little Off-Roading

2011-07-23T15:10:00.008-07:00

After Samuel got home from work, we ordered pizza. The kids wanted to ride bikes and such while we waited for the pizza to arrive. But first they had to clean up the playroom. I think Caleb's biggest cry of Thursday came when Samuel told him to go back downstairs when Caleb really wanted to stay and help the girls clean up. I'm sure there's more to the story, but that's all I could get out of Caleb in between his sobs.

Soon the playroom was clean and we all headed out front. Caleb chose to ride Sara's princess scooter. It does not in any way phase him to ride something so girly. In fact, it doesn't even cross his mind that is should phase him in any way.

Sara and Agnes rode in the Jeep, taking turns driving:

Nana helped Nora get started on her bike:

The battery on the car was already low when the girls started riding, and quickly ran completely out of steam. Eliot hurried over to help out and push the Jeep for them.

Once it was the boys' turn to go for a ride, Agnes kindly repaid the favor by giving them a push. Soon Sara joined in pushing the Jeep around so Caleb and Eliot could experience the fun, even with a dead battery.

After the pizza came, I put my camera down and didn't take any more pictures that night. Which is such a shame since I missed out on Olive getting to eat pizza (and she really went to town on it) for the first time. We also had a fun, impromptu spelling bee that started out just between Nora and Nick and soon had all the older kids involved. In an effort to make sure Nora won, I suggested the word soliloquy for Nick, which he didn't know how to spell. Laura and I confessed to him later that we didn't know how to spell it either and anything he said we would have just gone with. Eventually Danny and his family got to the house and we got to see them briefly, and meet Claire for the first time. Such a cutie, but no pictures that night, as the camera was inside the house. More to come though, don't you worry.

Backyard Fun

2011-07-23T13:41:00.013-07:00

After Laura's family got to California, the cousins all enjoyed playing with one another, especially out in the backyard. Though I hear they did quite a number on the playroom upstairs. (I didn't actually see the mess.)

Agnes (5) and Sara (4)

Mia (2)

Eliot (3)

And because we all need a little more Olive in our lives:

My apologies to Nora for the lack of her cute face in this blog post -- the only pictures I got of her (besides as a background person) were swinging and completely blurry or with her hair covering her entire face so you can't actually see her. No worries, I took well over 700 photos while we were in California (for five days), so I'm sure she'll turn up somewhere.

Piano Players

2011-07-23T13:27:00.004-07:00

We went down to California last week to visit with my family. My younger brother, who lives in Tennessee these days, was going out for a visit, so the rest of us coincidentally came out that exact same weekend. Total coincidence, right? Sadly, I saw my brother very little. But we still had tons of fun with the rest of the family.

Caleb and I drove into town on Thursday. It took us exactly five hours from the time I pulled out of the driveway of our old house, after dropping Harley off in the backyard (since the house hadn't closed yet and it was still technically my backyard), until we pulled up at Samuel's house. Caleb was a total trooper in the car and we only made one super fast stop along the way.

When we got there, only Nana had arrived (plus Samuel's family, since they live in Cali and that's where we all met up). Caleb was a little shy to see his cousins again, but with Nana's encouragement, soon warmed up to them.

Nora told me she could play the piano a little bit, and I asked her to play for me. She ended up not playing, I forget why, maybe she didn't have the right book or something, but soon Nana was recruited to take over. Nora, Sara and Caleb joined her on the bench:

Nora had gotten this Woody doll as a prize (for swim lessons maybe?) and let Caleb play with it, as a way of enticing him out of his initial shyness. Caleb enjoyed dancing Woody along the piano, which had all of them laughing.

Not Really Carnival Food

2011-06-21T17:07:00.008-07:00

For my grandma's birthday party, my sister came up with the idea that we would have a carnival party. I think the carnival theme might have only gone as far as the stuff my sister actually did, but still...

Here's a look at the food from the party:

The Sweet Shoppe (with candy for the kids after they played the Midway games) and the pies

M&M cookies and caramel popcorn

More cookies, pretzel sticks, rice krispie pops, brownie bites and cupcakes

The oh-so-beautiful cake that was technically edible, but trust me, you didn't want to eat this (the cake layers themselves are made out of rice krispies and other cereal mixed with marshmallows, then frosted, then covered in fondant -- maybe twice -- then decorated with paper cutouts).

There was also strawberry shortcake that I didn't get a picture of, but it was the only thing I ate. We ended up with a ton of leftover goodies even though the party was very well attended.

Silly Kids

2011-06-21T15:19:00.004-07:00

The main reason we came to Utah was for my grandma's 80th birthday party. My sister planned this photobooth area with fun little props where guests could get their picture taken. I don't know that many of my grandma's friends appreciated the props, but these kiddos sure did!

(Caleb's cousins: Sara, Nora, and Agnes)

(Caleb's cousin Olive)

Meet Olive

2011-06-03T15:45:00.002-07:00

Caleb and I are currently vacationing in Utah at my mom's. The best part is that my sister is here vacationing right now too, which means that I finally got to meet my newest niece, Olive. Here's a photo of her that I took the other day (yesterday was it? the days all blend together):

I'm so excited that we both get to stay for a while so that my camera can love on this cute baby a whole lot more!

Knights and Sort of Pirates

2011-06-02T16:39:00.001-07:00

My mom was in serious need of some big kid toys. We went to several different stores looking for something the kids would absolutely love. It seems so often that kids don't maintain interest in toys after the first few days, so we wanted to really be sure that we were buying something they would really love and play with. I think by the last store, we were all so done shopping that we didn't care anymore what we bought. But we did end up with some great dress up stuff for the boys.

Sir Caleb:

A quick costume change

Pirate-esque Caleb:

Sir Eliot:

Bubble Wrap

2011-06-02T16:05:00.000-07:00

My mom ordered this super fancy cake stand thing with holes drilled in it so you could put pops in it if you wanted. It came wrapped in some serious amounts of bubble wrap. Needless to say, three small children were happy as could be.

And here's my cute sister and her kiddos:

Two of the pieces were damaged, so I definitely see more bubble wrap fun in our future!

Pillow Fight

2011-06-01T13:15:00.002-07:00

Nothing says good morning quite like a pillow fight.

Driving to Utah

2011-06-01T12:39:00.004-07:00

Sunday, May 29th, Caleb and I drove up to Utah and met my mom in St. George before continuing on the next day to her other house in West Jordan. The drive went really fast, despite the fact that I drove within 5 miles of the speed limit the whole time. I decided to drive up through Las Vegas instead of going around the Grand Canyon the other way and I think it helped to have definite milestones along the way.

Caleb, of course, was a total trooper. The kid loves to pee on the side of the road. Prefers it to stopping at a gas station and using an actual toilet. Which makes our stops really fast. We did stop in Vegas to get gas and while we were there, Caleb decided the car needed a little cleaning before we continued on our way.

All in all, the drive to my mom's house in Santa Clara (a suburb of St. George) from our house in Queen Creek took only seven hours, including the time we were stopped in Vegas. Not too bad, I say.

Something's Wrong with These Pictures

2011-05-31T09:25:00.004-07:00

Um, hi Caleb. What are you doing in these pictures? I could have sworn I was taking pictures of someone else.

Sweet little Caleb just had to have his picture taken. He was downright emotional about being excluded from each and every photo and insisted that he be part of the family for at least one picture.

Little Demon

2011-05-27T12:35:00.002-07:00

You should never leave the house without your wings on. They help you fly.

Even if you look like a little demon in the process. Though the flushed cheeks might be more of a contributor to that look than the wings themselves.

Swim Date

2011-05-26T22:25:00.010-07:00

We had a playdate with Naomi where the kids went swimming in our backyard. I mistakenly filled the pool with water before putting the slide in. And only after it floated back up to the top did I realize it needed to be tied down. But now that the pool was filled with water, it was extremely hard to tie down. Which made for a lot of sliding off the slide, rather than down it. But I think they both had a lot of fun.

School's out for Summer

2011-05-23T22:12:00.001-07:00

By the time preschool ended, our group looked much different from what it started as. But Caleb still loved it each and every time. To celebrate the end of their preschool year, we had a pool party at one of the other kid's house.

Here are some pics of the few remaining preschoolers, Caleb, Naomi, Kaylee and Jaxon.

Apparently It's Cold Here

2011-05-21T23:31:00.016-07:00

(I just posted several wordy posts, so this one will be heavy on the photos. Beware.)

Caleb has crazy hair. It's true. I love it long. But every now and again, I'll look at him and realize his hair is crazy long. So Friday I finally convinced him that it needed to be cut. First we cut Harley's hair and then gave him a bath. Then, since my clothes were already covered in hair, I told Caleb we needed to do his right then so that I could change into non-hair clothes. (Since any time I ask him if he wants his hair cut he either says no or not yet or not now. And any time I tell him we're going to cut his hair, rather than asking, he still says not now.)

Somehow in the course of cutting his hair, he ended up getting four popsicles (the otter pop kind). Two while I was cutting, one as a reward for being so good while I cut his hair, and the fourth as a bribe to turn off the movie he'd been watching while I was cutting his hair and go get in the bath.

Then, of course, I needed a new picture of him with his hair cut. Plus he was going camping with his dad for the weekend, so I absolutely needed a current picture of him, just in case.

When we got out of the car, there was a nice breeze. Caleb insisted on putting on his jacket (which we had brought since where they were going camping was going to be cold). When I told him he didn't need it since it was hot out (mid-80s), he told me he did need it because it was windy.

See, windy:

We moved to a different part of the wall in hopes it would be less windy.

I have no idea what the evil wrinkly nose look was for, unless it was because he was done having his picture taken. Haha, too bad for him.

Classic Caleb -- always posing:

I just love this boy!

I did mention that it's cold here, right? I mean, mid-80s, that's downright chilly. A jacket will not suffice. A hat and gloves are needed as well.

Crazy hat hair!

I'm missing this boy like crazy. At least I'm not the only one missing him. There's a certain Harley dog that has been all kinds of snuggly since Caleb left. I think he misses his little boy too.

Chick-fil-A Fun

2011-05-21T22:59:00.004-07:00

Some friends invited us to go to Chick-fil-A on Tuesday because there was going to be a party there. Caleb refers to the night as "Grace's friend-brother's party" of "Ben's birthday party" or "Grace's party." It was actually Ben's baseball team's party (and he's Grace's brother, in case there was confusion there, and Grace is one of the girls Caleb loves).

They had someone there who was doing balloon animals and face painting. With an entire baseball team (of mostly five year old boys), she was really making balloon swords with an occasional request for an animal by the sisters of the team members. Caleb got an orange sword, which came as absolutely no surprise to me.

Caleb had tons of fun playing with the other kids. He ate his dinner in a record amount of time -- I'm surprised he didn't choke on it -- so that he could go play with the rest of the kids. After being there a while, Grace's older sister decided she wanted a different balloon animal, so she got back in line. Caleb, who absolutely adores her, got in line with her hoping to get a black sword.

The line moved unbelievably slow, yet the kids persevered. When it was finally their turn at the front, the lady told them that they could only have one balloon animal, but they could have their face painted instead. Caleb was disappointed to not get his black sword. (They did leave their first balloons at the table with us while they were in line, so either the worker remembered their cute faces or asked them if they already got a balloon and they answered honestly.) When Ellie came back with a flower painted on her face, I couldn't help but recall when Caleb was 1 1/2 yrs old and we took him to a fair where there was face painting and I told the girl painting the kids not to even attempt painting his face because he would absolutely hate it, so instead she painted a little turtle on his leg. So then Caleb came back over to the table to show me the super fast skateboard he had painted on his arm. It was so funny to me that he didn't get his face painted.

Here he is when we got home, with all his goodies (in a pose he planned out in the car when I told him I wanted to take his picture once we got home):

And no, the purple princess bouncy ball isn't his. He borrowed it from Sophie when I made him leave his play date at her house and he was so upset to go. Apparently purple princess balls are a great consolation prize for having to leave a play date.

For Sophie

2011-05-21T22:34:00.004-07:00

Last week, we went to the park with a bunch of the little girls in Caleb's preschool class (including several that are on his list of girls that he loves and wants to marry). There were five girls there and then Caleb. Because he was so badly outnumbered, of course it goes to figure that at one point one of the little girls said to him, "no boys allowed." She got put on the bad list (aka Caleb was no longer going to marry her).

Then at church on Sunday (the 15th), when I went to pick him up from his Sunbeams class, he was extremely upset because the girls weren't being nice to him. We get into the car and he is nearly in tears. I ask him what is wrong and he says "nobody loves me."

"That's not true. I love you more than anything. Who doesn't love you?"

"Sophie."

Apparently she told him he was being bad, which he admitted he was, but by telling him so, I guess that meant she didn't love him. (At this point in the story, I should probably tell you that Sophie was also the one that got put on the bad list after the park day.)

So Caleb and I had a long talk on the way home from church about what he could do so that Sophie would love him. I told him he could say nice things to her, and then proceeded to give him a long list of examples. His favorite was that she was creative. We then moved on to actions he could do. First up was being nice to her and never hitting or hurting her in any way. Then as my first example on nice actions we can do, I suggested making her cookies. He got so excited at the idea. He loves to make cookies and thought this was the most brilliant thing I have ever suggested to him.

Once we were home from church, we got started on the cookies. I planned on making oatmeal raisin since we had the stuff for it and I figured if we were giving the cookies away that I might as well make a kind that Caleb won't eat. (He only eats chocolate chip cookies. And only if they're soft.) The recipe on the opposite page was for Giant Oatmeal Raisin Confetti cookies, with m&ms in them. Caleb pointed to the picture and said that's what he wanted to make for Sophie. So that's what we made.

While we were waiting for the cookies to bake, we sat down to draw Sophie a picture. He drew a picture of him and Sophie holding hands. Then he wrote his name on it, and I told him how to spell Sophie's name and he wrote it perfectly. Then he was going to write friends on it, but ran out of room so he used a little creative interpretation on where the letters go. Apparently I need to work on my pronunciation more though, because as I told him how to spell friends, he wrote "friembs."

Finally, we got to take the goodies over to Sophie. He was so super excited about it. Here he is with his picture, outside of Sophie's house:

And her cookies, which he then made me carry since they were so heavy (they were giant cookies after all):

We practiced what he was going to say to her as we drove over to her house. But once we were there, he was too shy and had me say it instead. Well, I whispered loudly to him the words but he didn't repeat them and she heard me anyway. Here's what he wanted to say to her, "I like that you are so creative and I hope you'll be my friend." Her dad, who had been the one to answer the door, then asked her if she wanted to be Caleb's friend and she shyly nodded yes. Caleb was so super excited that she said yes.

He had two playdates with her this week and they both went so well he didn't want to leave. I'm pretty sure she's back on the good list. And I am definitely in trouble when this kid gets old enough to actually like girls.

Mother's Day

2011-05-21T22:17:00.005-07:00

Mother's Day was great this year because I got to spend it with this cute boy:

He came home on Saturday, after spending the day with his dad, and gave me a card that he had made for me along with pages and pages and pages filled with orange scribbles. He had written down all the reasons he loves me. And even though there weren't any actually words, I was blown away by the number of pages he felt the need to fill. Just love that boy!

I decided to make roast for dinner since it has to be the absolute fanciest meal a person can make with the very least amount of effort. Then to our utter delight, my awesome visiting teachers/home teachers stopped by with some super yummy treats:

Here's Caleb's "that flash is really bright" smile:

And his "I moved closer to the pie, now are you done taking pictures yet" smile:

More fabulous treats (which Caleb could not be bothered to take a picture with due to his need to eat every last crumb of bread before Mommy could):

I just love his little attitude in the last picture, so I had to post it too. :)

I Still Love You...

2011-05-01T16:32:00.004-07:00

Caleb was sitting on my bed playing his guitar and singing to me in hopes of coaxing me out of Sunday nap time.

His song: I still love you even though you're not pretty
Me: You still love me even though I'm not pretty?
Caleb: Yeah
Me: I'm not pretty?
Caleb: You are pretty right now. That's why I love you first. But then when you're not pretty, I still love you.

Um, thanks. I think.

We Need Boy Friends

2011-04-28T11:00:00.002-07:00

Three nights ago, as Caleb and I were in the midst of the bedtime process, he said to me, "I'm in love with four girls." So I asked him who the four girls were. He held up a finger for each one as he counted, "Karen, Naomi, Grace." Then he realized that he'd only named three girls (one of which was his mommy) and looked to me for help in figuring out who the fourth girl is that he's in love with. So I named a couple girls that he knows. He then decided he loved them all and held up all ten of his fingers to show all the girls he loves. Included on the list of ten (though I'm not sure there were actually ten) was Nana and Mommy (again).

Then last night, as we're laying in bed, he tells me that tomorrow he's going to get married (meaning today now). He tells me that when he's big he's going to get married and live next to me but right now he's little and four so as a four boy he's going to marry Sophie, Grace, Naomi and Mommy.

"That's a lot of girls to marry," I told him. "I think you should only marry girls that are nice."

He decided that I still qualified for the list because I'm mostly nice and only sometimes mean.

Then he continued with his list, adding Camryn and Nana. (I feel like there were more but I don't remember them now and I just asked him again who he was going to marry and he didn't mention any more -- though he's rather into the idea of marrying Nana so that she'll have to come live with us.)

Apparently we have a lot of play dates with girls. When do girls get cooties? Because if he loves this many girls when he's four, how many is he going to love when he's fourteen?

Little Poser

2011-03-07T16:15:00.013-08:00

In no particular order:

And yes, he thinks up these poses himself. I'm much more of the "smile and look at me" variety.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T12:37:00.002-08:00

A Little Trim

2011-01-06T14:19:00.002-08:00

I don't know why I do this to myself, but...

Caleb's hair was getting a little unruly, I'm aware. But the truth of the matter is that I love his long hair. Love love love. So why in the world did I take him to get his hair cut? I just don't know.

Monday, we went to Cool Cuts 4 Kids, which is extremely expensive for a 3 year old's haircut, but they have video games and movies which makes it all fun. And well, video games were the only bribe that would possibly convince Caleb to cut off his beautiful long hair.

The girl who cut his hair was super nice and great with him. The only thing I didn't like about her was the fact that she cut off my child's hair. I mean, really. I LOVE his long hair! I don't know what I was thinking.

But still, he got to play a Cars video game (that was a little too advanced for him since he normally plays Wii video games and thinks that to turn you are supposed to tilt the entire remote instead of just the little control stick. But he still enjoyed it). And he had a lollipop in his mouth from the get-go. So he was a happy camper. His only comment after was that it tickled when she cut his hair.

The end result:

and one sad mommy. Who has to constantly tell her child how gorgeous he is, even though I hate that we cut off all his hair. HATE it. He's hardly Caleb any more.

Needless to say, we will be growing his hair out once again unless he begs to have it cut. And I mean on his knees with tears streaming down his face, BEGS.

The New Sunbeam

2011-01-06T12:04:00.005-08:00

Sunday was Caleb's first day as a Sunbeam! I can't believe he is old enough to be a sunbeam. I wanted to cry when I took him up to the front row of the chapel to sit with his new class. Of course, he was all smiles. His whole class was, in fact, while all around them other kids were bawling. But not the sunbeams.

After church, I made sure to get a picture to capture my brand new, all grown up, Sunbeam.

Caleb's idea of having his picture taken these days includes the use of his chair. Even though I opened the front door so we could get some light and told him to come over to me, he grabbed his chair and dragged it toward the front door. Then proceeded to pose for me:

This next one I had to take multiple times because Caleb deemed my early attempts a complete misrepresentation of his artistic style (i.e. I didn't get the foot sticking up in the frame):

And lest you think my child is an angel, here he is in true monster form:

Graham Cracker houses

2010-12-22T12:44:00.004-08:00

Pictures of Caleb making a graham cracker house at preschool. He was much more interested in eating the candy and the graham crackers than he was in decorating a house. It mostly survived the ride home, but was somehow demolished while we slept that night.

Pine Cone Reindeer

2010-12-22T11:26:00.007-08:00

I asked my sister for some Christmas craft ideas, then forwarded the list she sent me to a friend to see what sounded like it would be fun for our kiddos to do together. She picked pine cone reindeer and got all the stuff for it, so all we had to do was show up and start gluing. Caleb wasn't a fan of the hot glue gun. He'd help with the craft until he got glue on his fingers and then didn't want to do it anymore. Then after a while, I'd convince him to try again and he would participate until he got glue on his fingers again.

We ended up with two reindeer and one little Christmas tree. He liked doing the tree better than the reindeer since he could help more, but once he got glued, he was out on that one too.

Winter Hat

2010-12-15T14:11:00.000-08:00

For Christmas, I crocheted Agnes a hat. Caleb loved it immediately and asked very excitedly if it was for him. Sadly, it was super girly looking, so the answer was no. Instead, I started crocheting him his own hat. He helped me pick out the colors and I got to work. Halfway through, as I was about to switch colors, Caleb insisted on wearing his new hat. I should have quit at this point, because several rows later, the hat was much to big for him.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-26T17:00:00.006-08:00

For Thanksgiving, we had dinner at the Crowley's house. I was in charge of making mashed potatoes, so I used Pioneer Woman's recipe (which I also made for last Thanksgiving). Once Caleb got all his food, he was really only interested in eating the rolls and a tiny bit of turkey. I insisted that he try the potatoes, since he likes potatoes (or at least french fries) and I had made these ones. He took the tiniest taste, decided they were delicious (which they were) and ate the rest on his plate, then asked for more.

Caleb and Naomi got their own little table to eat at, just the two of them.

Caleb being silly:

Here's a look at everyone else that was there: Amy, Craig, Liz, Cory's mom and stepdad, Cory, and Brandon. And my nice plate of food.

Inspired by Charlie Brown, Caleb had been saying for a while that he likes pumpkin pie. So when pie time came, I made sure to get him a slice of pumpkin pie. Not only would he not eat it, or try it, he couldn't be bothered to stop watching football long enough to pose in a picture with me and the pie.

Preschool

2010-11-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

Liz invited us to join a preschool group that she was doing with some ladies in her ward. We started back in August. It's two days a week, for two hours, and we all take turns teaching on a weekly basis. Caleb really loves it. He loves socializing with the other kids as well as actually learning things. He's doing great with his letters, but they also learn numbers and shapes and colors and all kinds of other things (he's doing great with it all, but especially his letters). We have a overall theme for the month, then an individual theme for the week. They've also learned the pledge of allegiance.

Here are some photos from when I had them one day. It was fairy tale month and we did Hansel and Gretel. They also learned squares this day, so we built houses and pretended they were like the one in the story. (The only other boy in the group wasn't there this day).

(Tenney)

(Kaylee)

(McKenna)

(Kaylee)

(Tenney)

(McKenna and Caleb laughing together)

(McKenna)

(Naomi)

(Kaylee)

Hobble Creek Canyon part 2

2010-10-27T17:25:00.013-07:00

(In order to get the rest of the pictures from the canyon posted, I completely skipped any pictures that didn't have Caleb in them, despite the fact that I still took plenty without him.)

Whenever I was in a picture, I had to ask the children who were also in the picture (usually Caleb) if we were smiling or frowning, just so I could match them. Caleb often answered frowning.

No, the children were not told to be sad for the following photo, that's just how they were all day. We were begging for smiles most the time -- or tricking them out of the kids.

Jacob found a great spot a little ways up the hill for us to take pictures, so we headed on up and continued coercing our children to smile.

Me and Cristal with all our kiddos.

Sitting on a rock up the hill.

Climbing up the hill to see what else we can find.

Caleb reluctantly posing next to a small patch of red leaves.

The kids were done. They were hungry. They were cold. They wanted to go. We were headed back to the car when I saw this gate and being me, needed to go take more pictures. Somehow, the idea of climbing on the gate was appealing to the kids despite the cold and the hungry.

When my card was completely full, I finally gave up my photo quest and we left the canyon.

Jungle Jim's

2010-10-19T22:31:00.001-07:00

While staying with my mom in West Jordan, we met up with my aunt Cheryl and all her cute grandbabies and went to Jungle Jim's so the kids could play.

This was Caleb's second time to Jungle Jim's in his little lifetime, and I have to say, he liked it much better this time than he did last time. He liked having all the other kids there to play with, though he'll play with any kids that are around and it didn't matter to him that he was related to these ones. Though it does make me enjoy the pictures more, since all the kiddos in the background are Caleb's third cousins (or is it second cousins?) instead of just strangers.

On the roller coaster -- Christian, Joette's son, and Grant, Jeremy's son, in the car behind Caleb:

Flying an airplane:

Some sort of spinning thing, with Cheryl's knees:

The bumper cars, Grant and Elyssa, Jeremy's kids, in the background:

A little Jeep thing that goes around a track, sitting with Kiera, Joette's daughter:

Riding the carousel:

Hobble Creek Canyon

2010-10-18T19:22:00.018-07:00

We went on vacation to Utah. Our first stop was St. George, where the Huntsman World Senior Games were going on. Caleb got to see his Grandpa Bud swim, we did a bit of shopping, and went to a pirate restaurant that Caleb absolutely LOVED. (Although, we didn't eat at the pirate restaurant because my mom had heard the food was awful. But they had a little arcade area that Caleb loved. He was talking about it for days before we went and has been talking about it for the week and half since we went.)

After that, we drove up to Springville to see our friends, the Enszers. Caleb had so much fun playing with the kids, Mirra and Mason. Okay, he mostly loved playing with Mirra, but he tolerated Mason extremely well.

While we were with them, we drove up Hobble Creek canyon to take fall photos -- since, well, Arizona doesn't really do fall where we live.

Mirra was so freezing once we took her jacket away from her. Once her turn was over, she was the only one who could get Mason to smile.

I loved the look of these stairs with all the leaves.

Getting the kids to smile seemed to be an impossible feat, so I decided it was time to throw some leaves and have some fun. Which is when I discovered that the secret to getting smiles was to let them throw leaves at me.

We buried the kids in a pile of leaves and let them throw the leaves. They loved it!

There was a tangle of branches, so I tossed Caleb in and snapped away.

I ended up taking like 500 pictures, so the rest will have to wait...

The Conquerer

2010-09-06T13:51:00.000-07:00

Workbooks

2010-08-15T16:16:00.005-07:00

I got Caleb a preschool workbook from the dollar store. He loved doing it so much that we've since bought several actual workbooks for him. He asks me all the time to do workbooks. We put a table out in our front room, which is his coloring table and it also has his workbooks. He can sit there for hours doing workbooks (as long as I sit with him). When we first started, he hated tracing letters, but after practice tracing other things (shapes and pre-writing lines), he no longer objects to tracing letters.

Preschool

2010-08-10T20:15:00.008-07:00

Liz invited us to do a co-op type preschool thing with her and some girls she knows. Today was the first day. There are six kids total, including Caleb and Naomi, four of which are girls.

Caleb was excited to go. Then we pulled up to the girl's house that's teaching this week and he says, "That's not preschool" all upset like. I asked him what it was and he says, "That's somebody's house." So I'm not sure what he was expecting when I told him he was going to go to preschool.

Obligatory photos before leaving our house:

Right before he got out of the car:

He seemed to really enjoy it though. Here are two more pics of him and Naomi after preschool was over.

I don't know what it is, but he seems more grown up ever since I picked him up earlier today.

Woody and Buzz

2010-08-09T13:10:00.006-07:00

For Caleb's birthday, Nana bought him a Buzz doll. He loved it and would occasionally play with it. It was definitely the toy he played with the most. He just wasn't that in to playing with toys.

One day, we were at the Disney store and they were having their Twice Upon a Year sale. The Toy Story toys were all on sale. Caleb wanted Woody. We carried Woody all the way to the front of the store before deciding not to buy him (since this was pretty soon after we threw out a bunch of toys and I didn't see a point in buying him new toys if he wasn't going to play with them). At the checkout, I asked Caleb if he was going to play with Woody or if we should put him back. He said to put him back.

Soon after that, Caleb was rather upset we didn't buy Woody. He kept telling me that he hadn't said to put him back, but that he'd said to put him in the bag. I wasn't convinced enough to go back to the store and buy Woody.

One morning last month, Buzz peaked over the edge of my bed and asked me if we could go get his friend Woody who was trapped in the store. I was almost convinced.

Then Nana came out to visit us the other week and bought Caleb a Woody doll. Caleb is so in love! He plays with Woody and Buzz all the time now. He plays with Woody the most, but usually with the two of them together. And I mean, he actually plays with his toys now. If only I'd known this was the secret to getting him to play with his toys, I definitely would have gone back for Woody a whole lot sooner.

Thank you Nana!

Breakfast in Bed

2010-07-12T00:34:00.003-07:00

Some mornings, when Caleb wakes up before me (okay, that's almost every morning, but on some of those mornings...), he decides that the thing I need to get me out of bed is a little bit of breakfast.

So he'll go to his play room and grab the bin full of food/cooking supplies and bring it into my room. Then, he makes me breakfast.

Above is his "ta-da" face

Hello Beautiful

2010-07-11T17:34:00.002-07:00

Caleb and I just got back from a rather impromptu trip to California. We had a blast and now that we are home again, Caleb really misses getting to play with so many people all the time.

Before we left, I burnt some pictures onto a disc for my brother. As I handed him the disc, I felt the need to remind him that I really do love all his children. Because the camera especially loves Sara and I have so many pictures of her now. But can you blame me? This girl is so beautiful!

And she loves modeling for the camera too, though her parents claim she doesn't do it when they are taking her picture.

Church Clothes

2010-06-25T21:13:00.002-07:00

This is what Caleb wore to church a couple weeks ago. Every time he walked into the room where I was that day (because he likes wearing his church clothes all day), I couldn't help but think he looked so stinkin' cute. It's those days that he gets away with murder, because he's just too cute. Fortunately, he dresses himself almost every day beside Sunday, and his outfit choices often leave me wondering why we own some of his clothes (or rather, why some of his super short shorts are still in his drawer), so he doesn't get away with murder most days.

If you tell Caleb to go get dressed when he knows we're going to church, he'll get upset, saying no, he has to wear his church clothes. Because getting dressed doesn't mean put on church clothes, only normal clothes.

Bed Hog

2010-06-16T22:33:00.002-07:00

Ignore the fact that he looks like he's choking himself, because he wasn't...

Every night/morning, Caleb eventually ends up in bed with me. If he comes to bed sometime in the middle of the night, he often sleeps like Mommy likes to: horizontally across the bed. If he comes to bed sometime in the early morning, he likes to snuggle up as close as possible to me so that I can't roll over without either squashing him or falling off the bed.

A Picture of Me

2010-06-16T22:24:00.002-07:00

Though I don't know why you'd want one, other than because it was taken by Caleb.

Taking Another Bite

2010-06-15T16:23:00.006-07:00

Because Caleb loves his sandwiches so, I wanted to document it. I took a few photos and was satisfied with the results. But Caleb wasn't. With each bite, he kept telling me to take another picture. Then there was a moment that he tried to give me his "angry face" but it was so funny that I started cracking up, and then he was cracking up too. So even though I posted the best smiling ones already, here are a few more that I love.

Throwing out toys

2010-06-11T21:26:00.003-07:00

It’s just Caleb and me these days, living in a big new house, with nobody but each other for company, entertainment, or conversation. We have more space to live in than we’ve ever had before, but no matter where I go in the house, Caleb's there too.

Sometimes we need a break from one another. No, that’s not true. Caleb never seems to need a break from me. I love being his best friend. I love how much he needs me. But sometimes, I need to be alone. And when those times come, I often tell him to go play with his toys for a while. After all, in our new house, he has a whole room just for his toys and another room to sleep in. He has so many toys, most of which have been in storage for over a year and he hasn’t played with them in so long, they might as well all be brand new toys.

But he never wants to. Not if it means Mommy isn’t going to sit in his playroom with him. Not if it means being separated from one another, even for a few minutes.

The other day, I desperately needed a break and told him to go play. He left my room for a few minutes, but kept coming back, no matter how many times I told him to go play. Finally, in desperation, I threatened to throw all his toys away if he wasn’t going to play with them.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve threatened to throw away his toys. The few times I’ve done it before, he gave in and went and played. But this time was different. He just did not want to play by himself.

“Let’s throw them away,” he agreed.

So frustrated, I went and grabbed a trash bag and started throwing away toys. I filled an entire bag full of toys.

“Are you going to play with your toys now or do I need to throw more away?”

“Throw more away,” he answered.

A second bag. Then a third. By this point, I was dumping entire baskets of toys into the trash bags, not caring what toys were getting thrown out.

Caleb walked over to me holding his Buzz Lightyear, one of the few toys he actually plays with.

“Should we throw Buzz away?” he asked.

That was the breaking point for me. He's such a sweet and loving boy. He didn’t understand at all what was going on, but he was trying to do what he thought I wanted so that I would be happy again.

I carried the three garbage bags out to the garage and put them in the back of Daddy’s truck, telling Caleb that we were going to drive them out to the dump to throw them away later. Really, I just couldn’t bear the thought of throwing away all his toys.

The next day, I brought the bags back inside. Caleb was so excited, hoping that he got to keep his toys. We sat down together and I explained how sad it made me that he would rather throw all his toys away than play with them and that together we were going to go through them and decide which toys to keep and which to give away.

As I held up each toy for him to decide, there were hardly any that he wanted to keep. So easily, he kept saying, “Let’s give that away.” We ended up keeping a lot more toys than he said to keep, just because Mommy was too attached to let them all go. In the end, we filled up one trash bag full of toys to give away and one shopping bag full of toys to throw in the trash.

We drove to Goodwill with the bag of toys. I unbuckled him from his carseat once we got there and had him get out of the car. I handed him the big bag of toys and had him give it to the lady who was working at the donation drop-off spot.

Afterward, I asked him how he felt. He told me he was sad, but I’m still not sure he really understood what happened. I think it was harder for me to give his toys away than it was for Caleb.

An Ear for Music

2010-06-10T13:59:00.002-07:00

So Caleb and I are in my bedroom, pretending to clean, but we've been on a break for a while now. And while we're not actually cleaning, we're listening to music on my computer. I've got iTunes open and it's randomly shuffling through one of the folders. Most of it is Taylor Swift and the Jonas Brothers. There's also some Demi Lovato and Nick Jonas' solo cd mixed in there too.

Caleb gets up to go to the bathroom and a new song comes on. Caleb calls out from the bathroom, "Hey, is that Hannah Montana?" Why yes, yes it is. The one Hannah Montana song I have on my computer. I was impressed he knew who it was, especially since we haven't had television since moving to our new house at the end of April and hence have had no Hannah Montana in our life since then and weren't watching that much of the show the few months before that either.

So yeah, we listen to some pretty stellar music around here.

Peanut Butta

2010-06-06T13:52:00.002-07:00

This boy LOVES peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Would gladly eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Usually asks for them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and then I have to try to convince him to eat something else for at least one or two of those meals.

Tonight's Sunset

2010-06-01T22:25:00.001-07:00

Tonight, Caleb and I happened to be out in the backyard at sunset and noticed how pretty the sky looked. (Photo really does not do it justice, sorry.)

I went in and grabbed my camera to take a picture of the sky. Then Caleb jumped up on the big rock in our backyard and I tried to take his picture but he jumped back down again. I told him I wanted to take his picture. He said I was supposed to take a picture of the sky. So I told him I already did take a picture of the sky and now I wanted to take a picture of him on the rock. Being the angel that he is, he climbed back up on the rock and let me take his picture even though he was not in the mood. He even smiled for me. Such a good kid.

In other news, since I've been terrible at posting pictures on this blog as of late, look how calm Caleb's hair is these days. I think it's a mixture of the heat and the fact that he's addicted to showering. He wakes me up asking if he can take a shower. He showers by himself whatever days I'm not showering or if I'm just not awake enough to shower with him. We go through a lot more shampoo this way, but he really enjoys it and I figure I should encourage him in his daily showering habit. Plus that means anywhere from ten to thirty minutes that I can have to myself, which is a real luxury these days. We've also starting combing his hair after he showers, so maybe that's the trick to the less crazy hair these days.

And another random tidbit of Calebness - he thinks his eyes are green. He tells me I have brown eyes, Daddy has blue eyes and Caleb has green eyes. Sometimes I'll correct him, but usually that just starts an argument where he keeps insisting that his eyes are green. And it's hard for me to really argue that they're blue, because they've always been more gray than blue, so... There are times, however, that he'll correct himself and remember that he has blue eyes.

Oh, one more. The shirt he's wearing, he calls it his "ghost shirt" and loves to wear it. One random day, he asked me for his ghost shirt and I had no idea what he was talking about because he doesn't have any shirts with ghosts on them that I know of (maybe an old Halloween shirt, but all the Halloween clothes are elsewhere since they are all long sleeved). So I went through his drawer trying to convince him that one of the shirts in the drawer was a ghost shirt. When I pulled out this cave one that used to be his cousin Jackson's, I pointed at the little stick figure man and said he could be a ghost since he's making a funny face. Which was apparently good enough logic for Caleb because the shirt has since been dubbed the ghost shirt and he asks to wear it even when it's in the dirty laundry (but I say no). Yesterday he saw me folding it (having cleaned the laundry) and wanted to put it on, but it was an hour till bedtime so I convinced him to wait till today to wear it since then he could wear it all day long instead of just one hour. I was surprised when after his shower this morning, he remembered he wanted to wear his ghost shirt and went digging through his drawer looking for it.

a little bit of funny

2010-05-28T21:51:00.002-07:00

This is meant for my family and won't really make sense to anyone else, but...

Tonight, for dinner, Caleb and I had steak and corn. After we finished eating, we got out the tupperware to put away the leftovers. First we put the steak away. As I was snapping on the lid, Caleb moved over to start the next dish.

He said to me, "Should we do the rice?"

I tried so hard not to die laughing. He paused. Thought for a moment and said, "That's not rice." Thought a little longer. "It's corn."

Do you think it's genetic?

Man Around the House

2010-05-27T01:17:00.005-07:00

Caleb and I had pizza for dinner tonight (or rather, Wednesday night). Caleb decided he wanted to eat the pepper that came in the box. He put it on his plate and let it sit there for a while as he ate his pizza. Then he decided he wanted to eat it. I told him to wait while I grabbed the camera.

The pepper didn't even last a whole second in his mouth before he took it back out, freaking out that his mouth was hot. His eyes welled up, but he didn't cry.

Even after he finished his pizza, and a second slice, plus a whole lot of water, he still said his mouth was hot. Guess he won't be eating anymore peppers anytime soon. But with Daddy gone, someone has to do it.

Random Caleb trivia: Caleb's favorite pizza topping? Sausage. And he won't eat pineapple on his pizza.

In other manly news, Brandon often tells Caleb when he's talking to him on the phone that he has to be brave and kill the bugs for Mommy because Mommy doesn't like bugs. Now whenever Caleb sees a bug, or sees me swatting the air, or sees me flinch, he stops whatever he's doing and runs for the flyswatter so he can kill the bug for me.

When Daddy's Away...Part 2

2010-05-24T13:21:00.003-07:00

Yep, that's my princess Caleb dancing with his pirate friend Naomi. In all fairness, they did take turns over who was the princess and who was the pirate.

Caleb or Harley?

2010-05-23T20:30:00.002-07:00

There are lots of ways that Caleb and Harley are alike. So I thought it'd be fun to play a little game and see if you can tell them apart. I'll tell you a characteristic/fact and you tell me who I'm talking about, Caleb or Harley. (Harley's the dog, in case you didn't already know.)

1. Follows me wherever I go
2. Loves to snuggle
3. Likes to jump on me when I'm least expecting it
4. Thinks my bed should be his bed
5. Gets super excited when someone comes to our house.
6. Runs for the front door when I take the trash bag out of the trash can (knowing that I'm headed outside next)
7. Could happily lay on the couch all day long
8. Loves to play outside but only if someone is outside with him
9. Likes baths
10. Loves to wrestle
11. Refuses to listen to me when I say stop wrestling/fighting/etc until I yell really really loud
12. Has a love/hate relationship with the other
13. Has crazy hair (or fur)
14. Gets up earlier in the morning than I want
15. Is currently eating (it's 8:47 pm at this very second)

So how did you do? Super easy, right?

Then, on to the answers. Oh wait, that'd be both of them. For every single one. I mean seriously, can I even tell the two of them apart anymore? How did I get a child and a dog that are exactly alike? Okay, maybe they do have their differences. Like, while they both want to sleep in my bed, only Caleb gets away with it. And Harley wakes up way earlier than Caleb does -- and since he's a dog, I can just put him outside and go back to sleep, but that method wouldn't work at all with my child.

Top 10 Reasons

2010-05-22T01:51:00.000-07:00

Assuming that my child's characteristics and personality traits don't change much between now and forever (and I don't mean the things that make him a three year old, but rather the things that make him Caleb), here are the top 10 reasons Caleb will make a great husband one day:

1. He appreciates the little things and is generous in his praise.
* Today, we made cupcakes. After they were baked and cooled, I frosted them while Caleb added the sprinkles. When I handed him a new cupcake to sprinkle, he said to me, "Thanks. You're the best."
* One time, not too long ago, I wiped him up after he used the toilet and he said to me, "You're a superhero." I asked him why and he said because I had wiped him and that made me a superhero.
* Yesterday (or since it's after midnight, Thursday), I told him dinner was ready and then paused his movie. I expected him to get upset that I had turned his movie off, but instead he said, "Thanks for pausing my movie for me" and came straight to the dinner table.

2. When he eats dinner, he overly emphasizes how delicious the meal is.
* He makes lots of "mmmm" noises while he eats, as if it's just too good to keep quiet about it. And he'll rub his belly too, cuz the food is just that good.
* On the nights that he doesn't want to eat something, he'll tell me, "It's too yummy for me."

3. He notices when I do something different to my appearance and makes sure to comment.
* I took off my toenail polish today while he happened to not be in the room. Later, he was sitting in my lap and saw my feet and immediately asked me what had happened to my feet -- they weren't painted anymore.

4. He loves to help me do anything and everything, including chores. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, he's always right by my side trying to help. He even volunteers to wash the dishes for me when I'm not washing them.

5. He's really patient and calm, most of the time (though sometimes he remembers he's three).
* On multiple occasions, when he's playing with his friend Naomi and she gets upset about something, I've heard him say calmly, "That's okay Naomi" instead of getting upset too.
* He's also great at sharing toys with her if it's something she wants (though sometimes he does remember he's three, but for the most part, I'm amazed at how well he plays with her)

6. He's the first to defend the person he loves
* I can't even tell you the numerous times he's stood up for me. He gets so angry if anyone is mean to me, or does something to me that I don't like. He even yells at our dog for licking me because I can't stand it when the dog licks me.
* Wednesday we went to Naomi's house to play and there was another little boy there. Caleb got so angry at the other boy so many times because the other boy was bothering Naomi. If the other boy took a toy from Naomi, Caleb would take it from him and then hand it back to Naomi. Not that she can't stick up for herself, but that's just who Caleb is.

7. He can tell when a person is sad and will do whatever he can to cheer you up.
* A few days ago I was having a sad day. It was just a sad, sad day for no reason at all. Caleb looked at my face as I was about to break into tears and asked me what was wrong. I told him I was sad. He told me he would make me happy. I asked how he was going to do that. He said, "Well, I can hug you."

8. He's believes anything can be fixed.
* If something is broken, it's okay because, "We can fix it." He'll run to get his tools. And if that doesn't work, he's fully confident that either Mommy or Daddy can fix it for him.

9. He's an expert at expressing love
* The other day, I told him I loved him, so he told me back, then added, "You're perfect for me."
* He tells me multiple times a week that I'm beautiful or cute.
* Not a day goes by that he doesn't tell me he loves me.

10. The reason I love this boy so much -- he loves me even when I'm mad at him
* I can yell and scream at that kid and instead of hating me for it, he'll open up his arms and tell me he's sorry and that he just wants to hold me.

This started out as a post of the top three reasons, but then I just kept thinking of more. He's just such a wonderful child. "People" say two year olds are hard, but Caleb never was. "People" who agree that two isn't so bad, say three is really the awful year. Well, Caleb's only been three for two months now, but he's honestly the best kid in the world. He's so full of love and so easy to love in return. Sure, we fight every day now that it's just the two of us at home, but we also love each other immensely.

Bubbles

2010-05-15T12:02:00.001-07:00

Caleb playing with his Buzz Lightyear bubble gun that Nana got for him for his birthday.

Did you notice the "thumbs up" he's giving you in some of those pics? He fell at the library (in some rocks in the parking lot) and scraped his hand. It was "broken" for at least a week afterward.

When Daddy's Away...

2010-05-09T22:47:00.003-07:00

How you can tell Brandon has left for the summer (and Caleb and I stayed in Arizona):

Church. Week One.

Caleb went to church with his toenails painted, wearing one of Mommy's necklaces, and had pink Tinkerbell chapstick in his pocket.

Church. Week Two.

Caleb asked if he could wear his ring to church (Boots -- the monkey from Dora the Explorer) and of course I said yes. For mother's day, they gave all the women flower hair clips. Caleb wore mine to nursery. It was still in his hair when I picked him up two hours later. (And I'm talking the BIG flowers that they make cutesy hair things out of.)

I can only imagine what his nursery leader (who is a guy, and all the kids in his class are boys -- there are three different nurseries) must think.

Fighting is Fun

2010-04-28T13:19:00.003-07:00

I do have LOADS of pictures I haven't posted on this blog of late. But since it's been almost a month since I posted anything at all, you get a video to tide you over.

This is Caleb and Naomi at Naomi's new house, having fun on Naomi's new couch. Usually they just jump off the couch for fun, but their daddies were busy trying to mount a TV on the wall and hence jumping had to be put on hold. So they found another way to have fun.

If you're going to watch it, make sure to watch it all the way to the end. If you don't want to watch a 45 second video and just want the good part, watch the very last few seconds to see what Caleb thought was the funniest thing in the world.

And yes, Naomi was totally fine. I probably should have kept the video running a little longer, but I thought it was bad form that my child was laughing so much.

Strawberries

2010-03-31T22:11:00.003-07:00

Eating strawberries on our front porch at the house we rented in Power Ranch.

happy birthday naomi!!

2010-03-30T01:31:00.006-07:00

Today Naomi turns three! I've been saving these pictures just for today. They were taken last month when we went to the Phoenix Zoo. We discovered a trick to getting Naomi to smile. Caleb hid behind me and I pretended like I couldn't find him. She thought it was just the funniest thing in the whole world. :)

Happy Birthday Naomi!

Precious

2010-03-26T21:01:00.000-07:00

Because naps are a rarity. Because he's so precious when he's asleep.

Love that little face.

Nap Attack

2010-03-24T23:17:00.004-07:00

The other week, Caleb was having one of those days that just begged for a nap. So I gave him a choice: did he want to sleep upstairs (where his bedroom is) or downstairs (where the living room is). He picked downstairs. So I asked him whether he wanted to sleep on the couch or on Mommy (because we have two couches and I was on the smaller one). He chose to sleep on Mommy.

He climbed into my lap, tucked himself into a ball of sorts, and promptly fell asleep.

Eventually, he rolled over (and Harley joined the pile). Though how he could sleep in this position, I just don't know.

Precious though, isn't he?

The Cake

2010-03-23T22:23:00.000-07:00

Nana made Caleb a guitar cake for his birthday (because what good is a rock star party without a guitar cake?). I made Caleb pose with the cake while we still had good light coming through the window, even though it was hours before he got to eat any of his yummy cake.

Now on to the main event:

Almost Three

2010-03-20T23:36:00.003-07:00

Interview with Caleb on the eve of his birthday:
(All answers given by Caleb, without prompting, despite the fact that I disagree with the majority of them.)

Favorite TV show: Handy Manny (though in reality, it's probably Phineas and Ferb)
Favorite movie: Frog and the Princess (aka Princess and the Frog -- which we watched last night. I doubt it's actually his favorite.)
Favorite color: orange
Favorite food: oranges (by which he means little cutie clementine oranges)
Favorite toy: Lightning McQueen (no idea what toy he's talking about here)
Favorite cereal: Fruit Loops
Best Friend: Harley, Mommy, Nana, Daddy...and...Caleb (to clarify, I asked if he was his own best friend and he said yes. Later I asked him again who his best friend is and he answered Mommy.)
Favorite Drink: water and juice red (aka Hawaiian Punch's Lemon Berry Squeeze mixed with water -- and he will ask for "juice and water" when we ask him what he wants to drink)
Favorite Book: P.U. Zorilla (too bad it's a library book)

Last Day of Two

2010-03-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

We were out shopping all day. I knew I wanted to have a photo shoot with Caleb, since I'd taken his picture every year on the last day of that year (aka the day before his birthday). We rushed home as the sun was setting, since the lighting in our rental house is terrible regardless of whether it's day or night. As the last rays of sunlight shone down our street, Caleb gave us his very best poses:

(The thing on his hand is a mini hand sanitizer holder thing that Nana had bought him earlier that day, knowing that he had no intention of using it for hand sanitizer.)

Golfing with Nana

2010-03-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

Nana came to Arizona to help celebrate Caleb's birthday. So of course, we went miniature golfing. Caleb looked more like a hockey player than a golfer most of the time, but he still had a ton of fun. He especially loved taking the ball out of the hole and pretending he was Michael Jordan (aka Space Jam).

Sham Rocker

2010-03-18T12:46:00.000-07:00

On St. Patrick's Day, I tricked Caleb into coming outside with me to take pictures by pretending I wasn't going to take pictures of him. Then after I finished what I was doing, I tried to take his picture and he protested. He wanted to throw rocks instead. So I told him to let me take one picture and then he could throw rocks. He obliged. Though instead of one picture, he cheesed it up for me until I told him I was done.

At last, time to throw rocks.

Addicted

2010-03-15T13:41:00.001-07:00

Caleb is so addicted to television that when we tell him we're turning the tv off, he'll run in front of it and throws his hands out to stop us.

It doesn't even matter what we're watching. In these pictures, it was The Lizzy McGuire Movie.

Weird Dog

2010-03-14T20:56:00.000-07:00

Even though he has a nice comfy bed, Harley enjoys curling up in this pilates ring:

(He heard me pick up the camera, or else his head would be all snuggled in too)

At the Park

2010-03-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

(3/13) Our neighbors across the alley invited us to the park, so we headed down to the big park in Power Ranch just south of where we lived.

First things first, before even finding our neighbors, Caleb needed to play on the toys:

After that, Caleb saw some kids, including the neighbors' kid, playing in the splash pad. He promptly went to work getting drenched.

He was so soaking wet afterward, not to mention freezing cold, that Brandon had to go home and get him a change of clothes. But at least he had fun.

Even Harley thought the splash pad was fun!

All dry now :)

Troublemaker

2010-03-11T00:28:00.002-08:00

I've said it before, but I'll say it again, my kid's too cute to stay in trouble.

He gets in trouble. I attempt to punish him. Seconds later, he's usually out of trouble somehow.

Monday, he did something that really upset me (though I don't even remember what it was now -- most likely he either hurt me or he hurt the dog, those are the only things that typically make me mad at him). I sent him to his room. He didn't want to go, but I was so mad that I sent him anyway and put the baby gate up behind him so he couldn't come back downstairs. (The baby gate is actually used to keep Harley from going upstairs unsupervised.)

It wasn't long before he stopped crying and came back downstairs. He stopped at the gate, gave me the cutest look ever and told me he was ready to be nice.

To fulfill his punishment, I made him stand at the gate while I took his picture before letting him back downstairs.

A Twisted Sense of Fun

2010-03-10T23:30:00.003-08:00

Brandon just asked me to come take a picture of his truck. He bought some carpet or something from Home Depot and in order to put it in his truck, he's taken a ton of stuff out of the cab.

After removing the gas tank (which is in the cab of his truck since the truck is so old), this was what he found.

He thinks it's a rat's nest. He also found a shotgun bullet under the gas tank that hadn't been fired yet. Though it did have a crack in it. That's a great thing to be hiding under a gas tank, don't you think?

Apparently this is Brandon's idea of fun.

because she's beautiful

2010-03-02T22:30:00.010-08:00

Disclaimer before I start: this is not my baby, these are not my pictures. But I'm posting them anyway.

Claire Juliet Rosener, born January 20, 2010, weighing 7 lbs 15 oz, 19 inches long (same as Caleb, which is why I remember -- I also remember my oldest niece, Nora's baby stats, but don't ask me any in between Nora and Claire).

My mom went out to visit Claire (and her family) in Tennessee in February. I instructed her to take LOTS of pictures. I eagerly waited for her to come home and post pictures on her blog. But seriously, she did not post enough. So I complained. In response, she sent me a cd of all the pictures she took of Claire while she was in Tennessee. Or maybe, all the pictures she took in Tennessee, most of which happen to be of Claire.

So here are the ones I love the best. Because she's beautiful. And the internet needs more pictures of her.

(All photographs taken by Patti Knowlton, in case you didn't read the intro.)

I found it very entertaining that of the sixteen pictures I initially picked out as favorites, my mom had only posted three of them. I've only reposted one of them here though.

Hmmm, now I'm wondering if I can hack into my mom's facebook account and post these there. Hmmmmm....

Because He's So Cute

2010-02-26T11:57:00.002-08:00

From our rock star photo shoot yesterday.

Hard Core ... ish

2010-02-25T23:24:00.012-08:00

Caleb's a total rockstar. He really is. Except that he's so cute, he's not very hard core rock. More Disney pop. My sister asked for some rocker pictures that were less cutesy. (It's a good thing she keeps giving me all these photography assignments or I would never blog anymore.)

Guitar

Drums

Microphone

So...still not hard core. But we tried. He's just too cute.

Harley's Haircut

2010-02-25T19:55:00.011-08:00

Harley's impossible to get a good picture out of. I don't know why, I just really struggle photographing him. Possibly because in order to get him to look at the camera, I call his name or make any noise really, and then he wants to come to me. Anyway, here are a few of this straggly little puppy of ours:

Then here he is again later in the day after he had his first official haircut. (Needless to say, I don't like the haircut):

And lastly, a boy and his dog:

Valentine's Day

2010-02-21T11:38:00.021-08:00

We had a good Valentine's Day. Caleb and I got up in the morning and colored for a little while, making homemade envelopes. Then we woke up Daddy and gave out presents. Caleb got a heart shaped Toy Story tin that had candy inside. He absolutely loved it and asked if he could take it to church with him.

We came downstairs and made heart shaped pancakes. When Caleb saw that they were hearts, he was so super excited. I mean, he loves pancakes as it is, but heart pancakes were extra thrilling.

Before church, Caleb looked too cute not to take his picture. He was so good at letting me get him all dolled up, though he wasn't too interested in modeling once he was dressed.

He got a heart lollipop at church.

Naomi came over later with her parents. Here's Caleb giving her her card (wrapped in the paper we painted just that morning).

Liz and I took the kids outside for a photo shoot while our hubbies worked on dinner. Naomi is definitely a runner, so it was quite the task getting photos of the two kids together. Mostly we kept telling Caleb to chase after Naomi so he would be in the picture with her.

You can see in the first picture he's telling her to stop running.

This next photo is my absolute favorite of the whole day.

Feeding leaves to whatever it is that lives below the grate.

I'm trying to be better about taking pictures with Caleb, even though I hate being in pictures. But I love my kid, so I figure he needs some pictures with his mommy every now and again.

Loves for Naomi. I really like the second picture even though it's blurry. The reason it's blurry though is because they were just about to tackle each other to the floor. It's how a lot of their hugs end.

After that, we finally gave in and took the kids to the park, which is what they wanted from the very beginning.

A little bit of Harley love.

We saw a hot air balloon. It got pretty close to us. We tried to chase it down, but somehow, it was just too fast for us.

And a few last cute ones of Caleb.

We came back home and had dinner: a heart shaped meatloaf, baked potatoes, asparagus, and salad. Then trifle for dessert. Caleb and Naomi were in charge of stirring the pudding for the trifle, which is my least favorite part.

And because it's my favorite photo of them together, here it is again in black and white.

Plasma Car

2010-02-21T00:03:00.000-08:00

Photos from 2/8/2010

Behind the Love

2010-02-20T18:38:00.005-08:00

The week before Valentine's, Caleb and I had a little love shoot. I had these great intentions to make Valentine cards. Which didn't happen. Well, Naomi got a card, and Brandon, but that was about all.

The winning shot:

Love that photo. It was the sixth picture I took (out of 37). But since there are more, I thought you'd like to see a little behind the scenes into how we take pictures around here.

The first one here is my favorite of the rejected pictures. I just love how hard he's trying to get his fingers to do the right thing. For all these pictures, we're standing just outside our front door. The above picture I was in front of the house, with him looking out toward me, while all the pictures below, I was closer to the house and he was looking back in toward me. You can totally tell a difference in the light.

Love that boy.

Strong Man

2010-02-20T18:28:00.002-08:00

Caleb found a curtain rod in the closet of the house we're currently renting. He knew just what it was for.

Strong man!

Getting Fit

2010-02-17T19:46:00.001-08:00

I decided to buy Wii Fit, as it seemed a cheaper investment than joining a gym. And let's be realistic, how often would I ever even go to the gym?

Caleb loves our new purchase and tries his best to play the games. Since he's not yet three, he can't officially work out. Though I doubt he cares that he can't accumulate minutes spent working out. He can still play the games.

Here he is playing one of the games, trying to lean from side to side as needed:

Zoo Carousel

2010-02-11T10:38:00.009-08:00

While at the zoo, we let the kids ride the carousel. Caleb choose a wolf, while Naomi picked a zebra.

Excited for it to start.

And we're off!

He loved it! I was really surprised when both kids willingly got down when it was over and left the carousel without begging to go again. But they sure did enjoy it while it was going.

At the Zoo

2010-02-10T22:32:00.016-08:00

We went to the zoo with Liz and Naomi. (Some other friends came too but they left early once it started to rain on us -- about when we got to the baboons.)

Yesterday, we'd looked up the weather and of course, today was the only day this week that it was supposed to rain. Fortunately, it only rained on us for maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe less. And not too heavy either. So we stuck it out and spent about four hours at the zoo.

During the rainy part of the day though, we decided to stop and eat lunch and see if the rain was going to stop or not. Which it did. By then we had already seen a good number of animals, so I figured it was about time that I finally took a picture of the kids.

While we were eating lunch, there were several peacocks just roaming the lunch area looking for food.

Why is it that kids think it's funny to run away from you? Caleb's pretty good at stopping when I yell to him. He'll actually wait for me if I holler at him that I can't see him anymore.

Sitting on top of a statue of a komodo dragon.

Looking at the rhinoceros iguana.

Of course, there's always a point in the day where I say to my child go sit over there and look at me and smile.

Checking out the Andean condor.

Their favorite part of the zoo was definitely pushing the buttons.

I said something super witty like, "What's over there?" and both kids turned to look at me. I'm seriously brilliant behind a camera.

Caleb's showing me where the pronghorns are.

Looking for the Mexican Wolf, which we never found.

Tricking them to look at me yet again.

It was at this point that we figured out a trick to get Naomi to smile for the camera. More on that later...