Comfy

Caleb has been so good to me and respectful of my need for sleep throughout the first trimester. When I take naps, he just fends for himself and is careful not to wake me up. So sweet! Anyway, on warm days, he asks me to come outside and lay on the swing while he plays. It's a wonderful place to take an afternoon nap. On this particular day, I was dozing and briefly woke up to hear him say, "Ouch. Oh, we need shoes." He then went in and put his shoes on all by himself, then back out to play. Then next time I woke up he was sitting at the patio table eating a snack he had prepared for himself - an apple and cookies. Then, when I woke up for real, I didn't see him until I tried to get up from the swing and saw legs sticking out from under it. He had gotten tired, so found an old dirty pillow and curled up on the cement under the swing! I felt kind of bad, but it was very cute. What a good boy.

Abilene Zoo

Caleb and I went to Abilene last week to visit Aunt Melissa and her family. Caleb had sooo much fun playing with Kade. Unfortunately I used up my camera battery at the zoo, so I don't have any other pictures. The zoo was tons of fun though. They have a bridge going over the giraffes, so you can get eye-level with them and feed them crackers through the fence. So much fun!! Look at their long tongues!


Caleb also loved the zebras, lions, monkeys, and ducks (but nothing could top the giraffes!).


This zoo also has some random wildlife roaming free throughout the park. Here's Caleb approaching a peacock.


And for the grand finale, there were also these wierd looking bird/turkey things roaming around. They were great entertainment . . . Caleb chased them for about 1o minutes until they finally found refuge in the duck pond. Poor birds . . .

My Little Wiggler

Well I had some little complications with my pregnancy, so while I was at work yesterday my friend's sister, who works in Labor and Delivery, let us take a quick peek with the ultrasound machine to make sure everything was okay. The baby was in there just a kickin' and wiggling around like crazy! She's so cute! She looks exactly like the picture on the side of my blog, but cuter of course! Anyway, I'm pretty sure she's gonna be a feisty one. It all started in the beginning when she was so determined to live that she burrowed herself into the uterine wall just as deep as she could get. Thus causing me quite a lot of cramping and pain . . . Then we took a similar peek at her in L&D at 7 weeks. The books don't even say they start moving til 8 weeks, but sure enough she was in there wiggling like crazy. She wouldn't stop moving! And the same thing yesterday. She's nonstop. I fear for the day I can feel all those kicks . . . and even more for the day she turns 2!! Actually I can't wait . . . I love my feisty little wiggler!

Big Boy

Oh wait! I know that last post was long, but I forgot about one more random thought. Caleb is just growing up wayyy too fast!! He just seems so OLD to me lately! For one, he got a haircut which is different than usual, and somehow makes him look a lot older to me. And then that same night, as I was trying to put on his night-time diaper, he said, "No Mommy, I want to wear underpants to bed!" Well I couldn't really argue, so he wore his underpants. And successfully too. No accidents. He's growing up too fast!

Bribes and Threats

Just a moment to both complain and be thankful. I'll start with the bad and end with the good:
I hate being pregnant. This pregnancy is kicking my butt. Before you get your panties in a wad, let me just say that, yes, I am very thankful for this beautiful life growing inside of me and very excited for the baby that will bless our lives in August. That said, I hate the pregnancy part of the whole process. And you better not leave a comment saying, "I LOVE being pregnant . . .bla bla bla . . ." I've heard that too much recently and usually get the urge to punch the person saying it. The nausea is relentless. The fatigue always hits at the wrong times. I have to pee allllll the time. My emotions are COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL! Mostly the nausea though . . . grrrrr. Knowing I need to eat or it will get worse, but not being able to find a single thing in my kitchen that I feel like eating. Then if I do find something, there's a good chance that by the time I have it cooked, I don't feel like it anymore. Trying to do the dishes while holding my breath because I know every little whif of old food will send the nausea into a frenzy and possibly start me gagging (opening a sippy cup with day old milk is good at doing that to me . . .). Anyway, I just needed to tell you that I really don't like this one bit. Now to the thankful part . . . I really am willing to go through all this for the end result. I may not do it gracefully, but I AM willing to do it. I am so thankful for this baby. And for my wonderful husband and son that put up with me and support me through the process. I am also thankful for Gatorade. It does wonders. And for Banquet's "Turkey meal" TV dinners. Normal humans may not even consider these food, but I have craved them in both pregnancies. The one meal I can rely on tasting good and not making my nausea worse. Next, I am thankful for BRIBES. What a wonderful concept. Today's have included:

Mom: "Caleb, we need to try these pants on to make sure they fit before we wash them."
Caleb: "NO!!"
Mom: "I'll give you a treat if you try them on."
Caleb: "Okay, Mommy."

twenty minutes later . . .

Mom: "Caleb, we need to cut your nails, they are way too long."
Caleb: "NOOOO!!"
Mom: "I'll give you a poopoo treat AND a treat with handles if you let me cut your nails."
Caleb: "Okay, Mommy."

(For those of you who are curious, the poopoo treat is an airhead, and coined it's name from the potty-training days when they were the reward for going poopoo in the potty. The treat with handles is a dum-dum lollipop.)
I'm also grateful for threats. Maybe it would sound better to call it offering choices. Such as "Caleb you can either get in the bath or go to bed right now." or "Caleb do you want to me to shut the door? Then get back in bed." Anyway, it's just nice that Caleb's old enough now to completely understand these offers. You see, you can't really reason with a 1-2 year old, because they don't understand the concept of choices yet. But now he knows he has a choice, and I can always guarantee he makes the right one by either embellishing it with something he likes, or making the alternative something I know he won't choose. Well, thanks for listening. I know this has been long and random, but it feels good to get it off my chest anyway. Have a grrreat day. (At least one of us will . . . . hehehe, just kidding I'm all done being bitter for the time being anyway!)

Christmas!

This year for Christmas we went to visit Tiff's family in Midland. It was great to get to see everyone but Tyson, who's in California on a mission. Caleb especially had a good time with all his cousins. On Christmas Eve we all got together at Mom and Dad's house, and it was a mad house!! I think total we had 16 adults and 11 kids there. Anyway, we had a nice dinner and devotional. Then we went back to Jason and Steph's house to go to sleep and wait for Santa to come. And he did in fact come with TONS of presents between their 4 kids and Caleb. We were up at 7 to open them. Here's some pictures of the highlights.


I think we were more excited about this one than he was . . .

"The dinosaur's gonna bite you!"

Helping Uncle Jason fill the gumball machine. Jason and Steph are brave to let Santa bring that to their kids!

Tools! Now I can help Daddy fix things!

Holding his cute cousin Maira. He did the same with Colbie. We could just walk up and hand him a baby and he'd sit there dutifully and hold them. He's gonna be such a good big brother!

Watching Kung Fu Panda with his cousins. Notice the stuffed animals propped nicely on top of the couch to enjoy the show too. I don't know how we didn't end up with any pictures of Caleb with Ethan, Colbie, Kade, or Dylan, but if their parents have any, I'd love to have a copy!

Santa Land

I guess I better put some Christmas stuff up, now that it's well into January. A couple days before Christmas, we went to Santa Land. It was lots of fun with tons of lights, Santa and Mrs. Claus, the reindeer, a nativity, elves, fires to stay warm, hot chocolate, and even Sponge Bob! We also got a chance to pull out all our snow gear from Utah, since with the wind chill it was about 14 degrees that night. Brrrrr!