Carson Update

(Just for the record...Chris and I called a truce for April Fool's Day this year for the first time ever.... We usually enjoy pranking each other pretty good. This year, we decided too much is going on and don't want to do anything to cause each other to worry more than we need to. :) But that is a post for another day.

Last week Carson turned two months old! I can't believe it! We took him in for his two month check up and got the dreaded shots. At least...I dread it. Carson is now 10 pounds, 12 ounces and 23 inches long. Pretty good for two months of growing (up from 6lbs 8 ounces and 19.75 inches long at birth).

A couple days later, we took Carson for an ultrasound checkup on his kidneys. He didn't like it AT ALL. And I'm still confused about it. I thought that when we were in the hospital when he was born, they made it sound like his kidneys were doing better. But when we were at his 2 month check up and the doctor read the report to us from the ultrasound they did within 24 hours of his birth...it didn't sound like things were better. So we finally got the results back from last week's ultrasound and they are not any better. His kidneys are still enlarged from urine flowing back into his kidneys. So they referred us to a pediatric kidney specialist. We finally got a hold of them and their next opening isn't until MAY! I was pretty bummed about that. I'd rather know what's going on and the implications of it um, well...now. I guess I'm impatient like that. So I guess nothing is too urgent and we will see what they have to say in May. We do feel better after talking with our good friends the Chattertons, whose cute boy had something similar. Thanks for chatting with us guys! You're the best and we miss you tons!

This Sunday we got to bless Carson at church. THANK YOU to all the friends and family who came and made the day so special for us! Here is Carson in his little blessing outfit.

I was in a hurry and thought I'd take some pictures later with Chris and stuff...which never happened. Oh well.

So other than all that exciting stuff...we've been having lots of fun together.

Caleb is so cute with Carson. He just LOVES his brother and I love to watch Caleb talking with him. Have I mentioned that I also LOVE that Chris is done with school? He has SO much more time at home now. Time to do fun things like fly kites with us:

Life is good.

Just Can't Help It

Chris's mom (a.k.a. Grammy) gave us a couple awesome cds for Christmas. Caleb enjoys one of them in particular. He just can't help it--when I turn on the cd, he comes running from anywhere in the house to dance to it.

So fun. I just can't help it--I can't get enough of it.

Don't tell Caleb...but it's also my secret trick. If he is upstairs and I need him to come downstairs, I just push play on the music and he comes running! Thanks for the great cd, Grammy!


And then there is Carson...he just can't help it either. Anytime he can get your attention now, he will flash you one of these smiles:



And talk with you like this:

Again--so fun. I just can't help it--I can't get enough of it.


P.S. Sorry for the grainy dark video. I didn't think to un-dim (is that a word? I'm sure it is.) the lights before taking video. I'm not a photographer (or videographer?). I don't think of such things. I just can't help it.

Blissful Sleep

Caleb has always slept at least 12 hours at night--which usually means until 8:00 or 8:30am. Naps though...they have been hit and miss for a LONG time. He definitely still needs a nap, so that was never really the issue.

All along, I knew I should take all the toys out of his room. But I was hesitant because I liked him to play independently when we were upstairs too--which he definitely does! He wouldn't usually play with them at nap time, so I thought they weren't much of a distraction.

But some days he would play with them. Our rule is that he has to stay in his bed for a certain amount of time whether he goes to sleep or not. So here he is "keeping" the rule:


Minus the time it took him to go grab all those buckets of toys, I guess he was technically keeping the rule of staying in his bed.

Before Carson was born, I was rearranging all the rooms and closets upstairs. Caleb's closet ended up being virtually empty. It dawned on me one day a few weeks ago, that I should move all the shelves with his toys from his room to his closet and put a child lock on it. Now his room looks like this:

Can anyone say heaven? I wish I had done it a year ago! He has taken at least a two hour nap almost every day since!! And has been sleeping until 9am every day. Ahhh...such a welcome relief and the timing couldn't be better. He is so much happier in the evenings as well. And in the mornings, I can just open his closet door and he can play with them all he wants. Why, oh why, did I not think of this soooooo long ago?!? Please, just let it never end. :)

On those days that he still decided not to take a nap, I have always wondered how he managed to entertain himself.


He definitely manages.

Now the only thing he has to play with when getting ready for bed...



...is Carson!

P.S. I KNEW I shouldn't have posted this one. I jinxed myself...Caleb didn't take a nap today. Sigh.

The Rollie Pollies

Bug lovers, animal rights activists, those that believe in reincarnation...please skip this post.

This picture has nothing to do with the post. For some reason, I just feel this need to have a picture when blogging. So here is Caleb smiling, thinking about what he did. :)



And here is Carson, smiling, thinking about what Caleb did.



The other day we were outside playing in the front yard. Caleb was riding his bike up and down the sidewalk. All of the sudden, he stopped, got off his bike and ran inside the house. He came out with a shoe. He ran over to his bike and starts repeatedly beating the sidewalk. Over and over and over. When I asked him what he was doing, he simply replied, "Bugs, mom!" in a tone that said, "Duh, mom. This is what we do when we see a bug!"

Now normally I would definitely be amused by this. That day, though, I thought it was hilarious. You see, across the street was a group of religious people who had been going door to door in our neighborhood. They all had just regrouped across the street from our house where their cars were parked. So Caleb had quite the audience. Among them, the two nice little old ladies who, just a half an hour earlier, had been oohing and ahhing over how cute my two boys are.

I looked up as Caleb started beating the sidewalk with his shoe to see the shocked and appalled faces of most of the group. Do you still think my boys are cute? Hope you don't believe in reincarnation. That may have been your sister! I had to try really really hard not to burst out in laughter. Caleb finished his business and simply walked up to the porch, opened the front door, returned the shoe to it's proper place, and returned to his bike riding.

Secretly, I was proud. Some parents are proud when their kid does well in school...or learns to share.... Me? I'm proud that my son knows how to take care of bugs the proper way. If only his dad would learn the same thing. I've had only three years to teach Caleb, and he gets it. I've had ten years to train Chris and somehow I've failed. He's better than he used to be...but I think he still doesn't quite get it. Chris will sometimes walk by a bug in our house and keep on walking. Huh? No. That's not how that is handled. Let Caleb show you how it is done. Caleb knows how to take care of business.


Caleb has also been very busy instructing Carson on the fine art of the play mat.

Let's hope Caleb teaches Carson as vigilantly about the fine art of taking care of the bugs too.

32 and 1

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Well, old man Chris (I can say that because he is a whopping 6 months older than me!) turned the big 3-2 last week. I know. Old, huh? :) And slow. As in...I'm really slow posting about it. And we didn't even take lots of pictures. Lame.

Chris took the day off from work and we spent most of the day together shopping, eating, and playing. (Hmm...that sentence made me think of and miss the gerund fans Dip and Bibbetts a.k.a. Kip and Bridget...or is it that you don't prefer gerunds? I forget.... Either way...they remind me of you. Anyway. :) Talk about fun!! I LOVE days that we can spend all together!! The only disappointment came at Red Robin (you know we have to go get the free birthday burger--can't pass that up! Especially since we really like their food!) I've been lucky enough to be in Washington to celebrate a few of my family's birthdays at Red Robin. They always do something funny--like make them wear some crazy glasses, or stand up with a spoon in their mouth etc. while they sing the birthday song. Here, they only sang to Chris. I was all excited for them to embarrass him (not that it would work anyway--I don't think Chris gets embarrassed about anything!) But, alas, all they did was sing. It was good though.

The best part of his birthday? The long family nap.



Is there anything better in the world than taking a nap with your babies? Love it!!

I hope Chris enjoyed his birthday as much as I did!! :) We love you!!


1
Well, today Carson is one month old! Where did the time go?!?! Can someone PLEASE make it slow down? Or better yet stop? I don't want my kids to grow up! Is that bad? We've adjusted pretty well to having four of us now. Except for church. Church is hard for me by myself with Chris as busy as he is. The last couple weeks have been lessons on what NOT to do. But life goes on...I'm sure we'll work out the kinks sooner or later. :) But we are absolutely loving having Carson with us! He is a sweet boy and we can't get enough of him!! He has started smiling a lot and making the cutest cooing sounds! We love our Carson!!

Negotiations with a 31-year Old

Chris may be quite the negotiator (see his last post), but Caleb won't be out done. He has learned the fine art of negotiations at an early age.

We are lucky enough to live about two miles from where Chris works. So he is able to come home for lunch quite often. But when he comes home, Caleb isn't always ready for him to go back to work!

Here is Caleb trying to convince his dad to not go back to work and instead to watch a movie with him.

Not sure what is up with the slapping of his chest. All I know is that I was dying of laughter and had to grab the camera.

So, Caleb started by piling all the shoes that were by the front door onto Chris's lap. I guess figuring that he wouldn't be able to leave with all those shoes on his lap? Then he put the crazy sombrero on his head. After all, who would leave the house with that thing on their head? Then he added a blanket on top of the shoes for good measure. He then resorted to climbing on the red bucket to plead his case, giving such excuses as, "It's too cold outside.... Stay home and sit on the couch and watch a movie. Alright?!?" (As a side note--"cold outside" is 65 degrees--Caleb definitely takes after me as far as temperatures are concerned!)

You have to give him points for creativity and effort.

So who won this negotiation?

What's that? Is that Caleb sitting on Chris's lap with a movie on in the background?!?!

How did he end up convincing him? He flipped on the movie and sat on his lap. Chris got distracted and started watching with him. Ok, so it only worked for like 10 minutes...but all his efforts still got results. :)

(This part TMI--if you're wondering why Caleb is in his birthday suit...well.... We don't usually let him run around like that. But when he needs to go #2, he strips down to absolutely nothing and then he'll go in the bathroom and do his business. Drives me nuts sometimes when I'm trying to hurry. But I guess I shouldn't complain! At least he does his business IN the potty!)

Negotiations with a 3-year Old

Caleb was lovingly smothering his brother this morning. Carson was ready to be done with the barrage of kisses and hugs (a two-week old needs his space, man!)

Dramatic reenactment of the smothering.

Krista was doing all she could to stay off the loving attacks and I was not in a position to help Caleb at the moment, so after some verbal requests to cease, I reverted to a time-out. The conversation went something like this:

"Caleb, go to your room for three minutes."

"No time-out, dad."

"If you go now and shut your door, it'll be only two minutes."

"Okay."

"Wait, come back. If you give yourself spankings, it'll only be one minute."

"Okay. Spank, spank."

(Laughter stifled) "Okay, only one minute. Go close your door."

(Sound of door closing and clicking shut.)

Dramatic reenactment of the spankings.
(This is as much spanking as happens in our home.)

I'm sure he'll think twice before being overbearing with his brother (yeah, right!)

Mr. Mom

Chris was quite the Mr. Mom last week.

Dishes
Laundry
Entertaining Caleb
Making meals
General cleaning
Running errands
Posting pictures
Homemade bread (several times!)

He made it look so easy! He really did/does an amazing job and I love him for it!!

However...a few of those tons of kudos earned last week, may have been lost last week too. I've decided that too much of a good thing may indeed be bad. I'm not sure that Chris and Caleb spending a whole week together is the best idea anymore. :) Let me explain.

You know that certain aunt or uncle that likes to teach your kids to say or do "funny" stuff that you wish they wouldn't? And you say...wait until you have kids and I'll get my revenge by teaching your kids to do that? Well...in our case...I don't think we need any aunts or uncles to carry that out. We take care of it in house.

I was watching Caleb play with his Geo Air thing (see last post). After a while, he took the pilot out of the plane, hung his arm through the window of the plane and launched the plane only to giggle with delight as the pilot tumbled to the ground when the plane went upside down. Then he put the pilot in his seat, but left the cock pit door open...only to again burst out in laughter as the pilot plummeted to the ground below. So later, mostly in joking, I asked Chris if we should worry about Caleb and described what I saw. He was like, "uh...sorry...I showed him that." Hmmm...

I've also noticed that *someone* has taught Caleb some funny phrases--things about passing gas, or quoting Bill and Ted. And *someone* showed him how funny it is to startle the stray cats passing by in the backyard.

Now, I don't want to go accusing anybody...but.... Let's just say that if you hear Caleb saying or doing some weird stuff...or if he likes to startle your cat...I'm not responsible. You'll have to take it up with Mr. Mom.

Actually...don't tell Chris and Caleb...but I love to see how much fun they have together and watch them erupt in laughter. And maybe I think some of the new phrases Caleb has learned are kind of funny.

Caleb's Third Birthday

Caleb's third birthday was last Saturday! I can't believe he is three years old already!!! It is exciting to watch him learn so many things, but it's also sad--I wish I could keep him this age forever!!!

Caleb's biggest present was a baby brother.

Carson was born the day before Caleb's birthday.

So we celebrated early. Chris had Martin Luther King's Day off from work. So we spent the day celebrating Caleb's birthday together. We had so much fun!!

We made cupcakes together:

Caleb LOVES to help us make anything and everything in the kitchen.

This is for my brother, Kody!

Notice the kind of cake mix we used? With "pudding in the mix?" When we were kids, my brother and I decided to make a cake. We put it in the oven and it looked done on the outside even though it had only been in like half the time it was supposed to. So we took it out and sliced it up--only to have it gush all over. But we noticed the box said, "pudding in the mix," so we thought it was just the pudding that was coming out. We are a couple of smart ones. Every time I see "pudding in the mix" on a cake box, I have to giggle.

Anyway. Caleb got to open all his presents from us:



Here are a couple of his favorites:

The kid LOVES trucks!

This is a video of one of his other favorites. I was trying to explain to someone exactly what it was, but here is the video instead.

Caleb LOVES airplanes. He can be seen walking with us through any store, or to get the mail, or wherever, with his arms out like an airplane and making the sounds of the airplane. He has to show (and have them fly) this Geo Air thing to everyone that dares enter our house these days.


We also went to Chuck E Cheese as a family and then took in a movie together--Madagascar 2. That night we did the whole sing Happy Birthday and blow out the candles. We actually sang and blew out the candles about ten more times over the next few days. Anytime we went to have some cake, he would ask to do the candles/sing thing. We figured...why not?!? He is very proficient at blowing candles out now. :)

His other big present was to celebrate his birthday with the Plumlees. Caleb absolutley loves them and I know they spoiled him a bit. He came home with a big truck that I think they let him pick out from the store! What a spoiled boy!!!

Then when we came home from the hospital, he had presents waiting for him on our front porch from the postal man from all his grandparents. So we had another round of opening gifts. I'd say he made out pretty well this year, huh?!? Thanks for the gifts guys...he loves everything he got! We love you and miss you tons!

At his third birthday, here are some of the things Caleb loves:

He would live outside if I let him. He loves to ride his bike and is very good at it now. We are trying to find a bigger one for him. We found one he loved at Christmas and now we can't find it again! I hate that!!

Caleb still likes to line things up anywhere and everywhere:





Caleb LOVES to play the game Candy Land and is very good at it. I swear he gets that ice cream card every stinkin time. Not that I'm bitter.

He also loves to be a ham, just like his dad. He would make a great game show host. He likes to use the microphone and likes to "announce" all kinds of stuff. I'll have to do a post about this in and of itself.

Caleb also loves to be on the computer and is very good at it. He can navigate anywhere he wants to go using the mouse and the keyboard. His favorites are pbskids.org and the Elmo game he got from the Giani Mob (thanks, guys!)

During the last few months, Caleb has been very into his letters, numbers, colors etc. EVERYWHERE we go, he reads off letters from various signs and then asks, "What that says, mom?" It's cute, but sometimes gets tedious! :) He can spell his name...and on good days, can spell mom and dad too.

I'll have to do a post with his 3 year old pictures later, as I haven't had a chance to go do them yet. They'll have to be his 3 year plus a couple weeks pictures. We missed having a big party with lots of friends this year, but we did enjoy our little bit of family time together.

We LOVE our little man so much. He brings so much fun and laughter into our lives. He is such a happy guy and is a huge helper. I don't know what we would do without his fun and loving little spirit in our home! Love you, Caleb!!

More Carson Pictures

Here are some pictures of my three amigos:
















We are all loving the new little adorable addition to our family!!