Celebrating July 4th at a friend’s house.
Caleb’s 2nd Birthday Party
This post is only about a month late. Not bad for me.
We had a blast at Caleb’s birthday party on 7/3. Great way to start the July 4th weekend. Lots of friends came. Since we were having Caleb’s party at a large park/playground nearby, Chris & I decided to have a big birthday party for him this year. I was able to invite several of the wonderful moms God has blessed me with as friends since becoming a mom myself.
This is really sad, but we have no pictures of his birthday party. Neither of us took pictures. When we saw that so many other people were taking pictures with their cameras, we decided not to bother. So, please send us your pictures!
Caleb had fun opening all his presents.
Thanks to everyone for loving us… and our amazing son. As Chris said at the party… this has been a wild two years. We had no idea how challenging parenthood would be, but we also had no idea how much joy would accompany it as well.
A Belated Father’s Day Post
This past Father’s Day, I made matching shirts for Chris and our kiddos. Here’s my cute family. The year before for Father’s Day, I told Chris we were pregnant again. A year later, we have our adorable daughter with us. A family of four…. So cute… and obviously very blessed. 🙂
Thank you, Chris, for being such a devoted daddy and hubby. As my husband would say…. Family comes first.
Caleb Etc.
Whee. Caleb loves slides. This would make pupu nervous. Sorry, pupu… this mommy lets her son go down big slides by himself all the time.
Caleb eating his first sandwich. Well, kind of. We’ve offered sandwiches before, but this is the first time he ate it as a sandwich (versus taking it apart). He even ate the dairy-free soy cheese and veganaise that I was trying out.
Caleb decided that he now likes spaghetti.
Daddy caught this cute video of Caleb playing with his car/bead toy.
ABC’s
Caleb is in bed. He should be asleep, but instead, I’m hearing this boy reciting letters of the alphabet and their corresponding sounds. I can’t get mad. His head is just full of letters. I’m amazed at how God has made children’s brains into sponges. They learn so much so quickly.
I thought Caleb was too young to learn his alphabet and numbers. Then I heard a neighbor mom talking about this DVD called the Letter Factory that taught her 3.5 year old all his letters and the sounds that go with the letters. The next week, our friend Belinda came to visit and told me she had been using the DVD on her son. So, we got the DVD. I showed it to Caleb the day after his birthday party. In 5 or 6 days, Caleb could say the whole alphabet and the their sounds. I was amazed. Every where we go, he notices letters.
Crying Caleb
We need to have at least a couple pictures like this on our blog for memory’s sake. Caleb still has a hearty cry. These pictures were taken just a few days ago. Caleb was mad at mommy for turning off his TV after one short episode of Boz. He wanted more. He obviously didn’t get what he wanted.
This shows a good view of Caleb’s teeth. He has all of them now. We didn’t even notice that he had gotten his last set of upper molars until right before his dentist appointment mid-June, and by then, they were already 1/2 way out. Way to go, Caleb… you got all your teeth before you even turned 2!
Trains
Yes, Caleb likes trains. But this mommy has held off buying him any. Whenever he sees the Metro line off the freeway, I always get the joy of hearing “Oo-oooooo†(aka, choo-choo) screamed at Caris and me.
On the rare occasion that I go to the mall, Caleb loves the train ride. Well, he loves watching it. He always wants to go on, but then doesn’t quite enjoy the ride as much as actually running on, off, and around the train. He’s always been too small/young to go on the train by himself, so this mommy has had to go with him. I hate this train ride. Caleb wants to get on so badly, but then he wants to get off before the ride is done. And I get motion sick on things that go round and round and round and round. This train goes around the track at least 20 times. Aiyah! Chris can’t take him since there’s a fairly low weight limit. So, mommy gets train duty. I have pupu to thank for all this since she’s the one who introduced Caleb to the train and bought him 20 train ride tickets.
Ok, so I bring all this up because this past week, Caleb sees the train. I’ve been telling him… “No train ride. Mommy doesn’t like the train ride. She gets sick.†This time, Caleb looks at me and says, “train. Caleb. myself.†What? You want to ride the train by yourself? Caleb says, “Self.†Ok… you sure, Caleb? So, finally, I let him get on. And, you know what? He had fun!
Happy 6-Month Birthday, Baby Caris!
Our baby girl is 6 months old today! We’ve been so busy that we haven’t even started her on solids. We pulled out the feeding table about 5 minutes ago. Our goal is to start her on her first rice cereal tomorrow morning!
I’ve also realized that I’ve neglected to blog on Caris’ milestones. It’s really much harder to keep up with all this stuff with your second child.
I started to worry a little about Caris around when she was 3.5 months old since she was only just turning from side to side (versus full rolling like Caleb did at 3.5 months). A month later she was rolling. Rarely does she stay on her back for long now. Even when she sleeps, she likes to roll onto her belly (even though she’s still swaddled!)
Caris has been doing this interesting (but effective) back scoot since she was about 3 months old. That was her first method of getting to the toys behind her on the changing pad.
She sits really well too…. except when distracted by a toy.
Now, she’s actually starting to crawl!!! (not real crawling on hands and knees, but she can get what she wants several inches in front of her with the propelling force of her knees and feet). I certainly don’t have to worry about Caris being too laidback to move anywhere. She’s got spunk, and she does try to get what she wants.
Some cute pics:
Toothless Grin No More
So, I thought Caris was going to get her first teeth a while back when she started drooling at 3 months. She decided to take her time. But, they’re here now! Her first 2 bottom teeth pushed their way into mouth world on Thursday. You still can’t really see them well… Honestly, I’m going to miss her big toothless grin. I feel like Caris is growing up so fast. Caleb’s first year didn’t feel like it went by this fast. Caris will soon be 6 months. Oh my.
I took some pictures to commemorate our daughter’s beautiful toothless smile.
I’ve got to include some of these other pictures. Caris is so cute.
Caleb in his new bed
Caleb has done really well in his big boy bed. He still doesn’t just lay in bed waiting to get tucked in at night (like what you see of kids in the illustrations of bedtime books). We have to leave, he has to get upset, and then he gets into bed on his own. Tonight, he didn’t cry or fuss getting into bed. Yay! That was a nice present for me since Chris was busy running a youth missions night at church.
Caleb…. where he’s not supposed to be…. in Caris’ bassinet (the one that Caris has outgrown and we haven’t had the time to take apart to store).
