Presidents' Day and Temple Trip

Happy Presidents' Day! I love three day weekends. I love having Allen home. We didn't do anything exciting, just hung out around the house.

Caleb and I fell asleep on the couch... my arm was so dead and my wrist hurt so badly when I woke up, even though it was only for 15 minutes!

Awww!

Something wasn't quite right with Caleb this week, he had major poopy diapers 4-5 times a day. That was normal when he was a couple of months old... not anymore. He was also very fussy most of the day, which made for some very long days for Mom. By 1 pm every day, I would count down the minutes until Allen was coming home. Luckily, between the fussy spells he was still adorably cute and I love him!

Earlier in the week Allen was beat boxing :) while laying next to Caleb and every time he would blow out on Caleb's face, Caleb would breath in quickly and deeply through his nose. It was so funny but I couldn't get it on video! On Tuesday we went to the grocery store and I had the windows down because of the gorgeous weather. I was wondering if the windows were making it too windy for Caleb in back. I got my answer as I heard him keep sniffing in through his nose as the wind blew across his face! It made me laugh. Even though I didn't get a video of that, here is a video of Caleb eating his foot.

Thursday Caleb and I had a play group to go to at 11 am. We were going to ride the trolley and go have a picnic in a park. Usually he takes a half hour nap sometime between 9:30 and 10 am. It sometimes stretches to 45 minutes but that's a rare and welcome occasion.

However on this day when we had plans, he played with/ate his monkey but didn't cry from when I put him in his crib at 9:30 am until 10, when I got out of the shower. Then he finally fell asleep. And slept until 11:45! Then we had to clean up blow out number two of the day and by the time we would have driven to the park, everyone would probably be leaving.

So we made our own fun... it was about 85 degrees and sunny so we spent a lot of time outside, especially since it was supposed to get cold again on Friday and Saturday (which it did).

I had already prepared our picnic, so we had a picnic on our back porch/cement slab.

I originally brought the chairs outside to sit on and put my feet up on the other while Caleb was asleep but then he woke up and they became the shade for him to lay in while I enjoyed my vitamin D.

He's just so cute!

 After our picnic out back, we went on a walk to the park. On our way to the park we watched the train go by as we were crossing the bridge. I counted to 50 cars but Caleb wasn't even paying attention so we stopped watching the train.

He was intrigued by the chain and metal bar. He did react at all to me pushing him in the swing.

Cute boy in such a cute summery outfit (it got pooped all over when we got home... but I could be a spokesperson for Resolve, that stuff gets out some TOUGH stains!)

Mom finally got back in an exercising groove and ran every day Tues-Sat! I owe a lot of the week's consistency to my new running buddy! She has it much harder than me since she pushes two kids in a heavier stroller but we keep up a pretty good pace for recent mommies. Allen went with me on Saturday and then we did some strength training when we got home and today we are both pleasantly sore. It felt great to be able to exercise and not get sick, finally!

Saturday we went with our ward's primary group to the Houston Temple to walk on the grounds, take pictures and meet with a member of the temple presidency about what happens inside of temples and how the kids can prepare to go. It was a cold day but we had fun!

Our Forever Family

Touching the temple

We also got Caleb a Bumbo this week. He had no problem sitting up in it but kept trying to wiggle his way out of it. He would lean to one side and then push off the ground with the opposite foot. He'll probably won't mind sitting in it when he gets to eat yummy baby food in it, I hope.

One last Caleb development: he has gone from simply running his hand along my face while he's eating, to now grabbing whatever skin he can sink his fingers into, twists and yanks. I never realized I had so much skin on my face that was grab-able. The inside of my lower lip has been bloodied by him twice this week so now I react much more quickly to remove my lip from his grasp before he yanks.

The Week of Valentines

Going to church

Look at how long he is in his car seat!! He's growing out of it.

Caleb started bringing his foot to his mouth this week. (wait for next week with video of him sucking on his big toe)

Hoodie time! It's 12 month size so we had to roll the sleeves up but he looks so cute in it!

This is Caleb's "pick me up" position: looks right at you, starts breathing hard, arms out to the side flapping gently and legs stick straight out with the occasional kick (depending on how impatient he is getting that you aren't picking him up).

He loves being lifted up and "tossed" in the air, especially when Dad does it every day when he gets home.

Caleb finally started cuddling on me!!! I had to get a picture. Who knew that those mirror self-portrait pictures that people take are so difficult to make look good?!

My boys!

He finally likes the sling now. He goes in this when he's helping Mom clean and cook. 

When I leave Caleb on the floor when I go get a drink or to put my breakfast bowl in the dishwasher, he stops playing with his toy to watch me. After he loses sight of me he usually goes back to playing with his toy (or he cries) but as soon as he sees me, he drops his toy and smiles up and me before doing his "pick me up" look.

Last week we had video of Caleb razzing and blowing spit bubbles. This week he started doing that while eating and gets milk everywhere! He also tries to talk while eating.

Valentine's Day was such a great day! Caleb and I drove downtown to visit Allen for lunch and stopped to get his Valentine's present on the way.

A toolbox with candy and a love note inside (he already has the tools)

We ate at Yao Ming's restaurant, which had some decent JingJiang RouSi (they called it Beijing Pork I think).

I don't really own Valentine's colors... I don't look great in red and don't particularly like pink.

Caleb was entranced by ESPN on the screen above us. 

Then we went back to Allen's office and Caleb was a huge hit. He smiled at everyone, let them hold him, drooled on them and didn't spit up on anyone. Allen got to come home early with us and then worked from home for a couple of hours. For dinner we had a home-made meal.

Caleb is in the swing behind us, he didn't get any lobster.

Much cheaper and less crowded than eating out... but still delicious!

After dinner we were sitting on the couch and Caleb was laying across my lap playing with his pacifier, when it fell and landed upside down on his nose and just stayed there until we took it off a couple of minutes (and a couple of pictures) later.

"I'm a real boy!"

Video of Caleb playing peek-a-boo and being tossed by Dad. The peek-a-boo one is really cute and has him laughing. It is while we were getting him ready for church on Sunday.

This week Caleb was still recovering from his shots, which made me feel badly that he wasn't feeling well... however, I loved that he slept better for a couple of nights. One night he slept from 9 pm-6am and only woke up once! And he took three naps that were each at least an hour long the previous day. That is some kind of record at our house!

Four Months Old! (Mostly Pictures)

Caleb's Four Month Stats: 

Weight: 14 lbs 7  oz (44th percentile)

Height: 26.25" (91st percentile)

Head Circ: 17.24" (88th percentile)

Caleb must have gotten both of Allen and I's recessive height genes because both of us are closer to the 50th percentile in height at 5'5 and 5'11. 

He has only put his foot in his mouth once so far. That was while I was cleaning up a major blowout at the doctor's office.

His feet are so long!

He can't keep his feet out of the picture. 

When Caleb can't easily grab things with his hands, he starts "reaching" with his feet and/or head. In the picture above he was reaching for the camera with his feet. If he's sitting up, he'll lean forward and open his mouth to try to get whatever he wants. 

Caleb watched his first Baby Einstein video:

Caleb was entranced by Baby Einstein, but...

...he had to keep rolling back over to make sure Mom was still there watching with him. (That made me feel so loved!)

Caleb rolled over for the first time from back to front!

Caleb and I were playing on the floor and he would get really close to rolling over but never go over all of the way. He loves to grab his right pant-leg or right foot all of the time. He tried to use the blanket for help in rolling over. 

Mom went to go check on dinner and came back to Caleb no longer on his blanket and no longer on his back!

 Caleb ate his first solid(ish) food!

This is our new table and chairs we got off of criagslist the previous week.

The bib's bigger than he is!

"Who wants rice cereal? This bib is pretty good!"

"Like I said, the bib tasted pretty good." 

He thought it tasted okay but got frustrated that it was taking so long to eat and fussed until Mom fed him. He had only eaten 45 minutes previous to trying the cereal, so I thought it was a good time to try the cereal. After this time I just made the rice cereal up with water instead of milk... he didn't like it much. We'll try again in a while. Whenever we're holding him while we're eating, he grabs for our food. I let him taste my apple because he kept leaning in to try to eat it out of my hand; he gave me a similar look as in the picture above.

Caleb found his thumb this week but does not suck it exclusively yet... he still likes his fingers and fists.

What a smiley boy!

Playing with Daddy

 Caleb can take his pacifier out and stick it back in on his own! I was really excited about that because I figured that might help him fall back to sleep at night. But he also found his thumb this week and I have watched him take his binky out of his mouth and hold it in his right hand while sucking on his left thumb. On our walk he took his binky out and threw it out of the stroller.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but Caleb loves arching his back and hanging upside down... he can even suck on his thumb while upside down.

Getting ready for the bath 

I love this little guy!

He is starting to get chubby. :) He now has the rolls on his neck that milk and spit up get stuck in.

Always grabbing that right foot.

He was sitting on Dad's lap but he kept kicking the keyboard so Allen moved him to laying on his back with his head on Dad's lap... then he rolled over!

"Oh hey Mom! Dad and I are just looking online."

Cuddling on Dad after a Sunday morning nap

Here's just one video of Caleb talking after he finished eating.