Caleb turned ONE!

October 8-14, 2012

One-year old!!! Where has the time gone?!

First birthday stats:

Height: 31.5" (92.6%)        Weight: 22 lb 5 oz   (43%)            Head Circ: 19.25" (97.4%)   

He's still tall and has a big head but is finally gaining in the weight category. 

I'm now 18 weeks along with baby #2 and had thought I'd felt him/her move throughout the previous couple of weeks but wasn't sure. On Monday when Caleb was taking a nap, I lay down to try to sleep and definitely felt the baby move! 

We got get the mail together every day, this was his birthday package from Great Grandma and Grandpa

He likes playing with sticks

Probably watching Tangled, his favorite movie. 

Caleb's birthday was Wednesday so after Dad got home from work we opened presents. 

Here he's playing with the car toy Allen and I got for him.

Dad's special present for Caleb was two packages of fruit snacks. Caleb loved them!

Caleb loves the books that Great Grandma and Grandpa sent, especially sticking his fingers through the holes and seeing them on the other side.

After presents we were going to let him eat/destroy what was left of his cake but he mostly just painted with the frosting on the tile. We got some cute video of it and of him stepping in the cake. Maybe someday I'll put videos up again. PS Crisco-based frosting is hard to mop off the tile... just fyi.

The presents from the grandparents didn't make it until 7 pm on his birthday, which is also after he was asleep so we didn't open those until later. I also don't have pictures of those on here, but he loves them: a car track and a school bus. His favorite part of all of the toys is making them make noise.

He loves to talk on my phone. I put it on speaker phone and then follow him in circles around the house to be able to talk to people. 

I ate a clump of dirt.

At his 12 month check-up, the nurse was asking about potential lead poisoning and if he ate any non-food objects. I jokingly said something about him eating acorns... she didn't think it was funny. 

This is the only picture I got of Caleb playing with his friend Luke. He has been coming over once a week for an hour while his mom teaches harp. They are cute to watch play together!

Playing in the dirt

Playing in the trash

Saturday was our Primary Program practice and the baptism of one of the girls in our class.

Sunday there was a big thunderstorm in the morning so we went on the porch to watch (and get muddy, of course).

Sunday was the Primary Program and our class did so well! Caleb sat with Michelle while Allen and I were on the stand with our class. I only heard him once! I was watching him and he was more well-behaved than usual. He had just woken up from his nap so he was in a good mood. He  was also hungry and ate for the majority of the meeting, which helped him sit still.

Playing after church

Sunday night Allen and I worked on family history after we got Caleb to bed. We made some big breakthroughs on his side of the family, linking up ancestors!

This week Caleb started on whole milk instead of formula, laughed himself to sleep a couple of times in my arms (so cute!) and Mommy/mama is still his only real word that he says consistently.

First Birthday Party

October 1-7, 2012
On Tuesday there was a neighborhood "night out" at the park. They had a barbecue and then we played at the park and basketball court with friends.

This week I was doing dishes and I thought I was paying attention to where Caleb was as I was doing it. I thought he was playing just out of sight in the next room over and he started crying. I said, "Hold on, just a second." His crying got more frantic so I went to find him and he was upstairs.

Caleb had climbed upstairs, which he does all the time, and started pulling the toilet paper off the roll. I guess it isn't very fun when Mom isn't asking him to stop because not much was pulled off. Then he must have decided he wanted to come back downstairs . . . he goes down on his own all the time but it's while I'm walking down with him. He was too scared to come down and was just crying hysterically at the top of the stairs. It hadn't been more than two minutes but it scared him enough to make him throw up a little bit when I went to calm him.

One of our friends gave us this trike and Caleb loves it!

Whenever Caleb sees the iPod, he really wants to watch Baby Einstein. It gives me a few minutes to get something done.

I told you he loves the trike! New favorite past-time.

I pushed Caleb for a while but he decided it was more fun to push the trike himself. My back was getting tired of bending over to help him control the trike. Then Allen got home from work and set the handlebars so Caleb just kept going in circles. That was much easier.

He only stops when he hears a car or other kids playing.

I was making Caleb's birthday cake:

He licked the beaters clean (and himself messy).

You can't see how messy he was with the vanilla...

The chocolate gives you a better idea of how messy he got.

I sketched out a stencil to help me cut the cake out in the right shape.

Still a favorite past-time, throwing dirt.

And then a cold front came in for the weekend.

I bought these blocks and 20 of my favorite childhood books at a garage sale on Saturday morning.

I love them!

Sunday in between General Conference sessions we had a little birthday party for Caleb. Dr. Seuss themed (in case you couldn't tell)

I can't rotate the pictures after they're uploaded and I'm too lazy to turn it.

We had some left over cake and frosting, so I made another cake. Not quite enough frosting to hide all of the chocolate cake, but that's okay. Caleb didn't eat much of it anyway.

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

Yes, I made green eggs and ham... green deviled eggs and I dyed the ham green.

He ate a little of his cake

but he was really more interested in everyone else.

Acorn eater and mirror kisser

Sept 25-30, 2012

Caleb likes to just walk in circles around our house yell-talking. He carries things all over the house and loves putting things inside of other things. Toys in the trashcan. Clothes in the bathtub. Garlic salt in the toy bin. Phone in the washing machine. Sippy cup lid in the toaster (we keep the toaster in the cupboard below the counter, so no, he cannot climb on the counter yet). He is now also fascinated with our cupboards and everything in them. 

He's so fascinated with our cupboards that he likes to climb in them.

Our neighbors have a cat that they don't take care of, the only reason I know it is theirs is because they asked me once if I knew who shot it with a BB gun. If I had a BB gun, I probably would have by now. It always comes around our house begging for food and it always poops in our yard. I try to scare it away but it isn't scared of me. I have learned that it is scared of Caleb. He gets so excited and walks toward it, waving his arms with excitement and starts yelling and the cat sprints away as quickly as it can.

He helps me move the clothes from the washer to the laundry basket so I can put them in the dryer.

Some clothes make it to the floor instead of the laundry basket.

But he is very proud of himself for helping.

I had a doctor's appointment this week that I was dreading taking Caleb to because I knew I'd have to just strap him into his stroller for part of it, which would be sure to make him scream. My friend Michelle came to the rescue and watched him for me. It was an uneventful visit (just the way I want them to be) but I had to wait for a long time to see the doctor so I was very glad to not have to try to entertain Caleb for an hour at the non-kid-friendly doctor's office.

Speaking of Michelle, she and her husband just moved down the street from us about a month ago (?). She is expecting her first baby in December so we go on pregnant lady walks together. She is one of the very few people that Caleb will go to on his own. He will just let her hold him, which is very unusual for him. Anyway, they have a big full-length mirror in their entryway. Every time we are over there, he runs up to the mirror and kisses himself repeatedly. 

Lazy mom tip #1: when trying to change a diaper (particularly a poopy one), turn Baby Einstein on your iPod and let him watch. This eliminates his desire to roll over and run away, which also eliminates poop on the floor and walls.

We have been going to the mall play area a lot and while we're there he picks up other kids shoes and carries them around. Sometimes he tries to chew on them too. I keep an eye out for the moms asking their kids where they left their shoes so I can return them because they are no longer where they left them. Most of the kids there are bigger than Caleb but he's has yet to cry when he gets run over and knocked down.

Caleb is getting to be very difficult to take shopping. He stands up on the seat so I put him in the cart. He's happy standing in the cart and pretends to run while I'm pushing him around (it reminds me of Dumb & Dumber, "it feels like I'm running at an incredible rate"). Then he cries until I let him help me push the cart. Then he lets go of the cart and runs away through the store. 

Saturday we went to Lowe's to buy baby-proofing supplies and Caleb thought it was fun to both crawl and run all over the store.

In case you were wondering, Lowe's does not mop very frequently. Caleb helped remove some of the dust.

Here's a picture without the flash because I can't tell which picture shows all of the dust/dirt best.

Caleb's friend Luke came over to play this week. It was cute because they actually played together instead of just playing in the same room as one another. Caleb took the toy Luke had been playing with and when Luke crawled after him to get it back, Caleb dropped it and ran away as fast as he could while laughing. He thought they were playing chase. When Luke stopped and picked up the phone, Caleb started crawling after him to chase him. Eventually Luke ended up chasing Caleb up the stairs with Caleb laughing hysterically the whole way up!

I had a pregnancy brain moment this week. I thought I'd surprise Allen by mowing the lawn. It had been a couple of weeks and it really needed it but he's been busy with work and now studying for the MLC exam again. I got Caleb to take a nap and ran outside and started mowing. I was excited when I finished and Caleb hadn't woken up yet so I could go jump in the shower . . . well, fast foward to later in the afternoon, when Caleb and I were coming home from the mall, we pulled into the driveway and . . . lo and behold, I forgot to mow about one quarter of the lawn. I mowed along two sides of the area but somehow forgot to finish the middle part. 

Caleb loves to play outside and I love to be outside. But sometimes his "playing" is boring and it doesn't involve me. So I pull weeds, which also gives him something new to play with.

One day when Allen came home from work, we went to get the mail as a family. After getting the mail Allen and I were sitting on the driveway as Caleb walked around talking to himself. Apparently we weren't paying enough attention so Caleb went and sat on the Harbor Freight ads Allen was looking at. Then, we still weren't paying enough attention, so he went a few feet away from us, picked up an acorn, made sure were watching and stuck it in his mouth. And then started laughing and ran away as we asked him to spit it out.

Deep cleaning day on Saturday. It was much easier for Allen to clean the fan this time since we have a ladder. See some previous post  (that I'm too lazy to look up) about the last time we tried to clean this fan)

He still loves the vacuum.

Saturday night was the Relief Society broadcast that I watched at the church with a couple of my friends and then a big group of us went to get Red Mango. I got a lot out of a couple of the talks, especially President Eyring's. It was fun to have a night out with friends and I liked getting to just sit and talk with other women without having to chase after our children while trying to carry on a conversation. And my frozen yogurt was delicious!