I Don't Want To Be Takin' Two Trips...

Caleb is quite independent. When Caleb wants milk he goes and gets me his cup and the milk and brings them to me wherever I am in the house. Then after I pour it for him, he returns the gallon of milk to the fridge. I think he figures--why not cut out the middle man as much as possible? Just bring it to mom and then I don't have to wait forever for her to get it for me.

When Caleb wants chocolate milk, he goes and gets his cup, the milk, a spoon, and Nestle powder from the pantry. Of course, it takes two trips to carry everything.

Today I think he decided to cut the chocolate milk process down even further. Just load it all on my bike and push it to mom so I don't have to be making two trips.

Here we have the milk riding shotgun, his cup and spoon riding in the trunk, with the Nesquik holding on for dear life in the back.

For all you Brian Regan fans out there...kind of reminds me of "I don't want to be opening two jars!" Except for Caleb..."I don't want to be making who knows how many trips!"

Lovin' 3 Day Weekends!

Wow! I just noticed the previous post! I didn't know Chris knew we even had a blog--let alone how to post to it! :)

Chris reminded us last Friday that he had a three day weekend because of the Monday holiday! Yahoo! I had totally forgotten that he gets this holiday now!

Of course there is always some time for R&R



Friday night Chris and Caleb decided to camp out in our living room. So they set up the tent and had a good ol' time.




No girls allowed this time. Much to my disappointment since I oh so love camping of any variety. Please note the sarcasm. This video is dedicated to my brother Kerry--Caleb misses shaking his booty with you in your driveway. :)



Saturday we did some shopping and then went bowling and out to dinner with the Cheneys. I haven't been bowling in forever! It was so much fun! Thanks guys!

Caleb let us help him the first round or two and then Mr. Independent insisted on doing it himself. EVERYTHING these days is "Me do! Me do!" I was actually very surprised he could hold the ball, let alone roll it down the alley. It rolled agonizingly slow most of the time, but it never got stuck!

I've decided that I love to bowl with Caleb. Whether I knock down zero pins or all ten he is eagerly awaiting me with a high five and a "Good job mom!!"

Chris and I got to speak in church on Sunday. Always fun. :) That night the Weatherholtz came over to play games. It's always a good time when we get to spend time with them!!

Monday we went out to Love Creek Orchard's pumpkin patch with the Richards. Here is our little pumpkin climber:



Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate and they didn't have their rides, storytellers, live music, animals, etc going. We'll have to go back sometime because it looks like lots of fun! But Caleb thoroughly enjoyed playing the with Richards' kids in the pumpkin maze:

I was tired just watching them sprint it over and over!


And of course we had to stop at good ol' Bobby J's for a huge greasy hamburger on the way back. The hour plus drive each way is really pretty too. Although it did remind me of our crazy fun times when I went to girl's camp a couple years ago out there and had to drive up and back every day--one way in the dark with lots of deer on the roadsides that scared me to death! Good times, huh Rachel?!?

Anyway, we ended our weekend with friends coming over for FHE and watching some good ol' Brian Regan.

I love 3 day weekends.

His Little Prayer

I anticipated that becoming a dad would afford some tender and life changing moments as our young ones learn and grow. Some of those events have taken place, such as the first step, the first word, and the first NBA basketball game. Some of these events are yet to come – Baptism, receiving the Priesthood, and seeing the Cubs win the World Series (sorry, bud – not this year).

For a dad who is eager to see his little buddy grow strong in his testimony of his Divine nature, one of these moments occurred this afternoon. After saying a prayer and while eating lunch, Caleb spontaneously bowed his head, closed his eyes, folded his little hands and offered another prayer, including the proper address, content, and closing. My heart leapt, and we again realized why we are so grateful for such an amazing little man and for his example.

Love you, Caleb!

Dad

Nature and Nurture

If you're an insect advocate...you can skip this post. :)

As I've said before...I hate all things creepy, crawly, etc.... So one of my proudest moments as a mom is when I see Caleb grab a shoe and go after a spider or bug that has found it's way into our house. :) Maybe I've gone a little too far though...since I also find him on the front porch and on the back deck with a shoe. I just don't want them in the house!

So anyway...last night I decided that maybe I should try a little harder to help Caleb appreciate nature. Here's why: We were driving home from a high school football game (gotta love Texas for that reason!), there was a nice sunset and suddenly there were tons of birds flying around. I said to Caleb, "Oh look! Do you see all those birds?!?" To which Caleb responds, "Gonna poop on our car!" Hmmm.....

As for nurture, well, I just have to say that Chris is such a good dad. Every day when he comes home from work Caleb is just ecstatic and does a happy dance! Since Chris finished school, they always spend the first 20-30 minutes after Chris gets home doing something together. Like kicking a ball, throwing a ball, playing basketball, reading books...it's their time together. The other day Chris remembered something fun his mom did for them when he was little. He cut a big whole in the side of an empty milk jug and grabbed a big paint brush we used to paint the house. He filled it full of water and took Caleb outside to show him how to "paint" with it. Caleb LOVES it! He has spent hours painting our front porch, sidewalks, driveway, and the whole outside of the house. It's great because as soon as the water dries, it is ready for a new "coat". And I'm up for it for hours too since the weather here is so nice finally! I had not seen this activity before, but I highly recommend it! Here are some pictures of their fun:

Now I Know...

Now I know what happens when you leave your toddler alone in the bath for a minute with your expensive shampoo.... :)

He's too cute to be upset with, don't you think?!? As you can guess, we went and bought him his own Cars Bubble Bath that he is now free to use instead of half of my shampoo.

Caleb has been so funny lately. Ok, he's funny most of the time...but even more so now. His new favorite phrases are, "What is that, mom?" and "What do you need, mom?" and "You know what I need, mom?" (followed by the word candy or cookie). For awhile when Caleb gets a little bit grumpy, I say, "You must need to go to bed because you're being grumpy...." So now when I tell Caleb it's nap time, he says, "No nap mom! Me happy!" followed by the hugest grin. I love that kid.

Veggie Tales Live!

Friday afternoon we drove down to Houston to see Veggie Tales Live! Caleb loves Veggie Tales and was so excited to see the "Bob Show." Our friends, The Turners, were so nice to get us tickets. They spoiled Caleb with a glow stick and a "Bob ball" too. Caleb was a bit quiet during the first half of the show just soaking it all in. But by the second half he was dancing in the aisles and having a good ol' time.

The show was awesome and then we went for ice cream. Thanks guys, for everything! We had so much fun with you!

Here is Caleb in his new fashionable bob hat:


We were originally going to go to a baseball game and go to the aquarium and such. But because of the hurricane a couple weeks ago, every hotel room was still booked and our poor friends STILL didn't have power back on at their house! (Luckily it came on late that afternoon). So we decided to come back late that night and had to miss the fun birthday party on Saturday too.

But we didn't leave town without tracking down a Kroger that sells my coveted Cincinnati Chili. It is one of the many things that I seriously miss from Cincinnati. You eat it over spaghetti noodles and it is soooooooooooo yummy! So we were soooooooo excited when we discovered a couple years ago that some Kroger stores sell it. (Maybe because Kroger is based in Cincinnati or something? I don't know...but it doesn't matter as long as they keep selling it! :) But we don't have Kroger in San Antonio so whenever we go somewhere that does, we have to try to stock up!!



We didn't get home until after 2am, but Chris and I had a lot of fun on the drive back talking and laughing. We spent a good portion of the time devising ways to open the soda Chris bought that required a bottle opener that we didn't have. After too much time and effort, we finally got it open--only to find out it was pretty gross. :)

Hawaii

We just got back from a week long trip celebrating our 10th(!) anniversary. Our anniversary isn't actually until December, but we decided it is always too crazy around all the holidays to take such a trip, so we went a bit early. Chris planned the whole thing and refused to tell me where we were going until we were at the airport ready to check our bags. He tricked me because earlier he had given me a hint and said that we were staying somewhere on the east coast. So that's where I thought we were headed. But we actually went and stayed near the east coast of Hawaii! Chris did a fantastic job planning everything!

First of all, I have to say that it just about killed me to leave Caleb for a whole week! And if leaving him wasn't bad enough, he had double ear infections and a hurricane was supposed to come through the day after we left. Here...watch my kid with double ear infections during a hurricane while I'm in Hawaii...thanks! But our good friends, the Plumlees watched him and we knew he was in good hands. He had soooooooo much fun with them! Most of the time when we called to chat with him, he was too busy playing and having fun to take much time to chat! Thanks again, guys!

We stayed at a cool place right on Waikiki Beach (THANK YOU, Kaylyn!). It had a pool, ping pong tables, pool tables, tennis courts, a playground, tons of picnic areas, etc.



We arrived just in time to go to the Aloha Festival which just happened to be going on that day and happened to be a block from our hotel. They had tons of food and vendors and live music.

We went to the huge Swap Meet where just about everything you could imagine is sold for cheap prices. It was held at Aloha Stadium--we were also hoping to catch a Hawaii college football game, but they were playing away that week.



We went to the Polynesian Culture Center which was awesome! I really enjoyed our day there! The show at the end is very worth the price!!



We went to a Luau and the food was sooooooooo good!




We also went to Pearl Harbor



We attended church in Tongan

We went to the LDS Laie temple



To the Dole Pineapple Plantation



We enjoyed walking up and down the streets near our hotel. At night, every few feet there were different artists, musicians, magicians, dancers, singers, mimes, people making huge balloon animals, and all kinds of crazy stuff. It was so fun to check everything out! This guy was dressed head to toe in newspaper stuff and just sat totally still like a statue:



We went to the beach every day, sometimes several times a day. Sometimes we'd just walk around, other times Chris surfed while I read a book on the beach. There was also a different show every night on the beach with live singers and hula dancers.








And of course, what is a vacation without lots of card games and tons of good food!

Chris took about a billion pictures that turned out really good, but I'm too lazy to go through them all right now for the best ones. I'll have to post a slide show of them later!

We had a wonderful time ! Thanks, Chris, for all your hard work planning this trip! I think the only reason we came back was to get Caleb!

I can't believe it's already been 10 years! Time flies when you're having fun!

It's a...

It's a boy!

We are due February 5th and we are VERY excited to be having another boy! Everything looks good except they did tell us today that he has a moderate dilated renal pelvis--basically both kidneys have some urine going back into them for some reason. Or something like that. Maybe some of you could fill us in better on what that is exactly. But the doctor didn't seem worried and said that we will be watching it for the next few weeks and that in most cases it clears up by itself-- so that is what we are hoping for.

We are pretty much just giddy to be having two boys in a row!

Just About Perfect...

We had so much fun together this weekend. Chris had no schoolwork to do (yahoo!), nothing for work that had to be done, and few church responsibilities which made for lots of time together!!

We've been wanting to go on the train down by the zoo for quite some time, but wanted to go when Chris could go. So we headed down there Saturday morning. Caleb was just about in heaven!




He also got to buy a train whistle while we were there. At first he would just put his mouth on it and make the sound with his voice. But he figured it out pretty quickly and then he bugged everyone at the zoo for the next few hours by constantly blowing it. Here is a little taste of what all the lucky zoo patrons got to hear anytime Caleb was around:



Caleb did take a quick break from the whistle to feed and brush the goats with Chris:



We went out to lunch together and went home and we ALL took a late nap during the afternoon. An unheard of event at our house.

We played Candy Land together (Caleb legitimately won on his first time playing ever! Darn him! :) He proved once again that he is definitely half Nelson by showing his competitiveness. Even in Candy Land. Every time he got a good card he would say, "Oh yeah!" and such phrases. Later that evening we did some shopping together.

Sunday we were lucky enough to have dinner with the Weatherholtz and then they came over to play games. Always so much fun! Thanks, guys! (We took some pretty hilarious pictures, but I thought I might get in trouble with certain people if I posted them here, but you'll have to ask them about the cool pictures....)

Monday we went to Botanical Gardens. Here is Caleb climbing all over:



Then we went out to lunch, and hit the Kung Fu Panda movie. We were going to go swimming, but the pool we joined this summer was closed. So we did the slip-n-slide in the Weatherholtz backyard and had a barbecue there. Again, too much fun!

Overall, it was pretty much a perfect weekend together and the way every weekend should be in my mind! :)

Mac 'N Cheese Cheerio Tacos

Caleb decided to dress up his taco the other night with leftover mac n cheese and multi-grain cheerios. (Ok, I admit it...so I'm still not feeling great and both were my leftovers still sitting on the table from earlier that day.) He actually ate most of it and kept trying to convince us that we wanted some on our tacos too. He is a lot of fun and keeps us entertained.

As a follow up to the whole sleeping thing, Caleb has switched to a toddler bed and has done AWESOME! The first night before we were really prepared to do anything he was up about 4000 times. So the next night we tried a child lock thing on the inside of his door. He cried for about two minutes during which time I felt like the worst person alive. But then he got in his bed and went to sleep and has been going right to sleep every night since then for the whole night. What a sweet boy. He always amazes us with how good he really is. I feel like we avoided yet another messy time with him. He spoils us! I love that boy!

On a completely unrelated topic, we're sad the olympics are over. It's so much fun to watch! Caleb enjoyed them too. Every time the olympic theme music came on (as in every time it went to a commercial and came back), Caleb would shout, "Dance with me!" and rock out to the music. Not sure how that started, but it was really funny. Too bad I forgot to get it on video. The last time we went swimming, Caleb would put his hands over his head just like they do on tv and jump in the water. Good times. On the other hand, I'm also kind of glad they are over so I can sleep again.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, we are so totally enjoying having Chris around in the evenings again! Yahoo!