Party!!

Saturday we had a birthday party for Caleb at our favorite place--Chuck E Cheese's! Caleb was spoiled rotten, but, hey, he only turns 2 once! :) We were able to celebrate with lots of Caleb's buddies (of all ages! ranging from two months, to ?!!!?) and had so much fun!!

Here are some pictures of our train-themed fun:

Caleb started out the day by lining up his animals. Again. I'm beginning to think I can tell a lot by his mood by the way they are lined up. Like this time, they were all close together and facing into his room. Maybe that means he's in a good mood and when they're far apart and facing the wall, he's in a bad mood. :)



Anyway, the fun started when Caleb got some Thomas the Train balloons:



We headed to Chuck E Cheese's and Caleb took off enjoying all the rides and the dancing and singing animal shows.



Caleb wasn't the only one enjoying the rides. Party goers of all ages seemed to enjoy the rides.... :)



Caleb also enjoyed climbing into the "choo-choo" and cars that are several feet off the ground with lots of slides and fun stuff. Once again, I think Chris enjoyed it just as much!



This picture shows some of the fun equipment they had. And it's also a fun game of "Where's Waldo" for you, er in this case, "Where's Heath". See if you can find Heath having fun with all the kids! :)



And of course there was lots of food. I had to try hard to convince Caleb to stop playing and come eat! We had pizza, a couple kinds of cake, chocolate train suckers, and train sugar cookies.

I have to admit that we kind of threw a lot of it together. The chocolate suckers were done, and I had baked the cakes and cookies, but hadn't frosted anything. Then we convinced the Giani mob to come over and help us with some stuff. (Thanks by the way! You're the best!!) Then when we were done, they twisted our arms and MADE us play a game (that turned into a really long game!) Ok, so it was the other way around. I think they wanted to go home, but we made them play! Yeah, I know what you're thinking...Krista whooped up on everybody again. But actually, I didn't win this time. I know...it's shocking to me too. I won't mention who won...I don't want to start the bragging over again. Anyway, the game was lots of fun and it's always fun to hang out with the Giani mob. But the bottom line is that we started frosting and decorating everything at 1:00 a.m. Oops. We set a time limit for ourselves of 2:30a.m. We finished--maybe not with everything looking as planned, but finished none the less. :) And Chris and I had fun hanging out together and decorating baked stuff.


Caleb had a fun time opening all his presents. He was spoiled rotten!!!!!!!!







It's at celebrations like this that we also really miss all of you who would have been there that live so far away!! But we still had tons of fun! Thank you to all of you who came and celebrated Caleb's birthday with us! We feel blessed to have such great friends!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Caleb!

Caleb turned two today! I can't believe it!! We celebrated a bit today and then we're going to celebrate more on Saturday (when Chris doesn't have school and work!) Here is some of the fun we had today:

We started out the day with Caleb's doctor appointment. He is now 36 inches tall (90th percentile!) and continues to be a bit of a lightweight at 26 pounds (25th percentile). And no shots! That's a great present in and of itself!

We played with Nolan lots today and Caleb even took a 4! hour nap! When Chris got home we went to McDonalds! Caleb enjoyed his happy meal



And taking pictures of everything:

He especially must have enjoyed that Chris finished his big mac because most of the pictures Caleb took were of Chris's empty box!

We were lucky enough to enjoy many, many buses driving by the window at McDonalds. Caleb gets just a little excited. Just a little. Things to watch for--a happy dance, and a kiss:



Caleb also got to play on the slides before we left:



As did Chris (just look behind Caleb!)



We went home and made cupcakes. Caleb had lots of fun dumping the sprinkles on:



Most of the sprinkles went right in the middle of the cupcake or on the plate (which Caleb then ate). But they still turned out great and it was definitely a lot of fun!



Caleb blew out candles on a cupcake (we're having the actual cake on Saturday). He enjoyed the cupcake...





...but not the messy hands. He's so funny about that.



Caleb was so excited for all his gifts! He unwrapped them like a champ. Thank you to our family for all your awesome gifts! Caleb loved all of them! Here are a couple of his gifts--

A truck! Can life get any better? He rode in the truck, and then loaded it full of a bunch of balls:



and dumped it (into the basket! No messes for him!) over and over.



And finally! A bike! He's been so excited about everyone else's bikes--he finally has one of his own!

Even though it was cold and dark, we had to still go for a ride around the neighborhood. He's pretty good at the pedals already! Once he realized he had a "trunk" in the back, we had to go back to the house and fill it full of cars, balls, buses...everything! Then we took all his toys for a ride.

And last but not least, here is a look back at how Caleb has changed over the last two years:

Here's Caleb just a few days old:


Three weeks old:


Six months old:


One year old:


And finally, here are some of Caleb's two year pictures:





I'll have to post some of his favorite things that he likes to do these days on a later post.

Caleb is a true joy and brings so much happiness to our little family! We feel SO blessed to have such a sweet and loving and just plain good little(?) guy!

Stacking and Lining Things Up!

So a couple posts ago, I mentioned how Caleb likes to line everything up. Here's what I'm talking about:

When we go to the store, Caleb likes to organize everything in the back of the cart and line them up around the edges and stuff. At H.E.B. (a local grocery store), they have little compartments in the front of your cart (maybe for wallets or keys or?). Caleb likes to use it to stack our groceries:

Here Caleb had a can of pears, a container of feta cheese, and two large containers of mandarin oranges stacked, and trying to add another can of pears. People look at us and laugh. But I say, hey, whatever keeps him happy and busy in the store! So far it hasn't caused any injuries to his face as they fall--we'll keep our fingers crossed.

Yesterday morning when Caleb woke up, I kept hearing, "Yeah! Good job! Yeah!" and lots of clapping for himself. That's fairly normal, but it seemed especially jovial. So I went to get Caleb from his bed, and this is what I found:

All his animals stuck between the bed and the wall, and all facing the wall. Pretty funny.


He loves these animals and loves to sort and line them up. Over and over and over and over. Oh, and over and over. :)



This is some of my stuff that Caleb decided to straighten up for me:

By the way, thanks for all the Bath & Body Works stuff, Brianne!!


And here's the same picture from the other day. He likes to also line up his bigger toys. I think it's so funny--I can just see his wheels turning in his head as he does it. He put the little piano in a certain place, and then lugged the zebra right behind it. Then he looks around for a second and says, "Oh! Balls!" And put the basket of balls next in line. Then he looks around and says, "Oh! Elmo!" And then the play mat.



These are just the things I thought to take pictures of. He is not really partial--he will line up and/or stack pretty much anything. I need to figure out how to tap into this new obsession of his and put him to work (all in the name of fun--his fun, that is!) on my projects so I can organize and sort the whole house. (Kind of like my vocab homework that my brother used to do for me because it was "fun", right Kip D?!? :)

And The Award Goes To...

...the new movie that just came out called Copperfield!

But the award is for the dumbest movie ever made in the history of mankind! No thumbs up. In fact--all thumbs down. :)

Usually we put stock in imdb.com movie reviews. But this movie was rated 8.3 out of 10 stars. That's pretty high for this website. But I rate it 1 out of 10 stars. Not zero, I guess, because I jumped once or twice during the movie. Everyone in the theater was disappointed when it was over because it was just that dumb. I wasn't too disappointed. For it to be over, that is! At least it was fun to hang out with Chris and have some one on one time. And we did have an awesome dinner at Outback just before. So it was still a good night.

I apologize to anyone out there that loved this movie--just remind me next time to not let you recommend any movies to me. :)

Life

It's been a while since I've posted! Here are some of the things we've been up to the last couple weeks!

OFF TO THE RACES

This is a favorite pastime of our family. We all enjoy this one. Caleb is awesome at getting his toes right on the line. Oh, and just pretend that bag of dirty diapers isn't there. :)


DRAWING

Caleb loves to draw and color lately. My favorite part is when he tells me what he is drawing, like a "choo-choo" or "truck" or "bus".


PAINTING

Whoever came up with the Color Wonder products that only show up on certain paper should receive the Nobel Peace Prize.


PLAY-DOH

THANK YOU to the Plumlees!!!! Caleb LOVES his Play-Doh!!


SPAGHETTI FEST



Caleb and his good buddy Sal had quite the night. The pictures just don't do it justice. They both had a five o'clock tomato shadow and a bad tomato spray tan by the time they were done. They enjoyed their meal a bit too much. And we enjoyed laughing and watching them. And thanks to Joellen for feeding us her large, spherical, delicious, heavenly, exquisite meatballs. The recipe is a Giani serious top secret family recipe. However, Chris did keep a sample to take to a lab to have analyzed to try to figure out what's in them because they are really that good. Results are pending.


FUN WITH NOLAN



We've been lucky enough to be able to watch Nolan since Rachel had to go back to work. I know it's been really hard for Rachel. But we certainly enjoy his big smiles and having him with us during the day. Caleb absolutely adores Nolan and wants Nolan to do everything he does. The other night after Nolan went home, Caleb kept asking for Nolan.


BIG HELPER

I am seriously amazed at how much Caleb loves to help around the house! He is so much fun for me to hang out with!! Here he just finished putting all the cheese on pizza bagels, and is now adding pepporoni. Right before that, he helped me rinse all the dishes. Then he helped me load them all.


LINING THINGS UP

Caleb is obsessed with lining things up lately. This picture is hard to see, but first is his piano, then his zebra, then a basket of balls, then his Elmo chair, and finally the play mat. He lines up his Little People, his stuffed animals, my lotions...anything! I find little lines of things all over the place now.


CHRIS BACK TO SCHOOL




CHRIS LIKES HIS CLASSES THIS SEMESTER

Not that he hasn't in past semesters, but this semester he seems especially excited.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...er, Buses

It's been a busy few weeks, but tons of fun!

We just got back from a long trip to Utah. But first I have to back up a bit.

Before we went to Utah, we had a mini Christmas at our house on Saturday, December 14th so we wouldn't have to bring it all to Utah with us. Caleb was soooooo excited to open his gifts and it made it so much fun for us! Caleb got the "choo-choo" train he wanted and did a happy dance when he saw it. I'll have to find the video and post it later. Here is Caleb with some of his loot:



Later that day, we were lucky enough to have Chris's sister, Heather, and her husband, Dan, and four cute kids all fly in for a visit. We spent some time that day downtown visiting the Alamo, eating at a German restaurant (Dan went on a mission to Germany), and the Riverwalk:



Sunday was a busy day but we were able to do some Christmas caroling and visit some friends. Monday we ate at an English restaurant for lunch (Heather went to England on a mission), Rudy's for dinner, and spent more time downtown, including a trip through the mirror maze (which is totally fun, by the way!):







We also had some fun time just to hang out and chat and watch movies:



They headed out the next morning and we headed out that evening. Caleb LOVED the airplane and was so excited! He was really good on the plane even though it was way past his bedtime! We spent the first day in Provo having lots of fun with my brother Kip and his wife Bridget and my sister, Kaylyn, who also flew in that day. Then we headed up to Logan.

Since we were going to be in Utah for about 2 1/2 weeks, we decided we would spend the first few days with family since most were just in town for a few days. We had a blast sledding, playing games, watching movies, watching college football, riding the bus (Caleb's favorite!!), ping pong tournaments (ask Chris who won more when we played each other...actually maybe you shouldn't--it may be a sore subject! :), eating out and eating in. My parents are the best hosts and really spoil us! With awesome food, diapers already provided, great babysitting, lots of games and toys...we always love staying at their house. We were able to see a lot of my family, and all of Chris's family during our first few days there. We had a wonderful Christmas, and once again Caleb was spoiled. :)

Unfortunately, Caleb and I both got a cold (as did several of our family) at the beginning of our trip. Mine passed fairly quickly, but Caleb's didn't. About a week into it, he also started vomiting for a few days and then the fevers started and kept getting pretty high. Finally, a couple days before we left, we took him to a doctor and found out he had an ear infection. He hadn't had one before, so I guess I was expecting something different. I hadn't seen him pulling on his ear or anything, so I felt bad when we found out he had an ear infection and wondered how long he'd been living with it. So anyway, we didn't get to see most of the friends we wanted to nor do a few things that we wanted to, but we did get a lot of great family time indoors playing games, watching movies, and just having fun! So if we missed you this time, SORRY! Hopefully we'll see you again soon!

Here are some random pictures of the fun we had!

Caleb had a great time playing with his cousins. We were even able to be there for the birthday party of his cousin, Ryan. They held the party at the fun park and Caleb was able to go bowling for the first time. And I must say, he is quite the bowler! Here he is with grandpa:



And this picture is titled, "Check out the shoes!" Bowling shoes! Whoohoo!



The party included bowling, pizza, root beer, and a pinata. Can life get any better? I submit that it cannot! Here Caleb is gathering from the pinata:



Most mornings when Caleb woke up, he would put on his hat and his nice black church shoes. Quite the outfit. Here he is also sporting the "cheesy grin" Chris has been trying to teach him how to do:



Before we went to Utah, I told Caleb that we might be able to ride a bus while we are there. Logan has this great free bus system and he LOVES buses, as everyone who rides in our car with us knows - he always points and yells "BUS!" Anyway, every time I mentioned going to Utah or to grandma and grandpa's house, he would say, "Bus! Ride bus?" Here are a couple pictures of our exciting bus adventure! (Excuse the photographer who somehow missed half of Chris's face!) Funny enough...I think this was the highlight of the trip for Caleb! Cheap activity I'm willing to do anytime! :)





Keeping with tradition, here is the hanger added to my parents' Christmas tree as well:



My parents have the best view of Cache Valley complete with awesome sunsets. This is a picture from their deck. We definitely enjoyed a white Christmas this year!



Here is Caleb sitting on a Caleb-sized couch, with a drink in one hand and the remote in the other watching some college football. We're starting him out young. He was really cute and kept running around and yelling, "Go! Go! Go!"



Here is Chris and Caleb ready to go sledding. They had an awesome time!





Chris and Caleb enjoyed shoveling my parents' sidewalk and driveway (even though the homeowner's association has someone who does it for them!)



We were sad to come back because we always miss our families so much! But today we're back enjoying the warmer weather...and back to work sporting flip flops and shorts!