1st Tooth!

After my blog post on Friday about Caleb not yet breaking a tooth yet, I was feeding caleb his cereal for breakfast on Saturday, and low and behold...a tooth! I actually had a feeling that one was comming through. He has been having a watery/runny nose all last week and was VERY cranky on Friday, Marion told me that he wouldn't nap at all on Friday and my mom noticed that Claeb had a slight fever on Thursday when we picked him up.

I mentioned to Marion on Friday afternoon that I thought he might be teething. She disagreeed saying that wasn't the problem because he was eating fine, just cranky and not sleeping well. But there it is, one little tooth poking through the skin!

It just goes to show you that I mother knows her child. 2 1/2 years of Mother's intuition is stronger than 42 years of childcare experiance!

Caleb is Walking!

Okay, not quite by himself, but we are defiantly, getting closer! We are experimenting, discovering, and working up to the big day!

A few evenings ago when my parents were visiting, Caleb was playing with a car at Aunt Bekah's house. He was able to pull himself up and push the car, my dad quickly pulled out his phone to catch it on video. This was the first time he was successfully able to push a toy around. I think it helped that the toy obviously had wheels and kept rolling away from him on the slick tile, and it forced him to walk to keep up, but he now has the concept!

Just a quick, 31 sec video that Dad was able to get on his phone. Enjoy my growing, developing baby!

Caleb @ 9 months

I can't believe my baby is already 9 months old! Caleb hit the official day last Friday, so technically he is 9 months and 1 week. I know you probably get tired of moms saying this but it really does go too fast! I took Caleb to get his professional 9 month pictures with my mom last night (another past next week) and I might be a bit biased, but he is adorable!

Caleb started crawling at 6 1/2 months, and I took this video at 7 1/2 months, just now got around to posting it. It isn't much, and it turned out darker than I thought (guess we do need to turn on more lights in our house) but it shows him walking and of course my irritating whiny voice. I guess I know now where Brendan gets his voice from. Anyway, just a fun little video in honor of Caleb @ 9 months!

In honor of Shanda this week, I have included a "numbered list"of Caleb's recent (relatively speaking) development:

1. Caleb learned to pull himself to a standing position on our ottoman at about 7 months, now he stands wherever he can, ottomans, cribs, mommy's legs while she is cooking.
2. He loves to play with toys in big brother's room, especially since toys are always all over the floor. Even if Brother is not in the room, he knows exactly where they are and helps himself. My favorite part is walking in Brendan's room and finding them actually playing "together".
3. I am not getting my hopes up that they will be best friends just because they are close together, but my hope is that they will at least occupy each other for a few years.
4. Of course they crawling stage is still fairly new, although to watch him crawl towards the door when Daddy gets home from work, you would think he had been crawling since birth.
5. Still no teeth. Brendan broke his first tooth at 9 months and 3 days. Caleb is now 9 months and 7 days...oh well.
6. He is eating everything he can get his little hands on! I think his favorite is potatoes. I usually mix them with carrots, peas, or chicken, but no matter what it is accompanied with, Caleb will eat it. I don't think I have come across a food yet that Caleb doesn't like.
7. He is still not interested in the sippy cup. I have introduced it to him a few times with juice, but he just slams it on his tray and makes a mess.
8. Caleb is a talker, he jabbers away in his low raspy voice. Seriously, I have never heard a baby with a voice like his. I will have to get a video so you can hear his little voice.
9. We still do at least 2 naps a day (sometimes 3 depending on our schedule) and we are finally back to sleeping through the night. We stopped for a few weeks when fighting the bad sickness that was going around.
10. Caleb's growth has slowed a little, he is not growing quite as rapidly as he was for a while. No official stats, that will have to wait for the drs appointment next week. We are wearing 9 month clothing, just packed up all our 6 month clothing to pass on, but no where near ready for 12 months. He is chubbier than his brother, but not too much bigger like I expected.
11. I just love this stage in his life. He is such a happy-go-lucky baby (most of the time) and loves his brother, wanting to be in the middle of it all. I just love what out family of 4 has become!

Potty Training Brendan

This is how we are now spending our weekends. Potty Training. I dreaded this from the first time we went up a size in diapers. I had been warned, "potty training boys is so hard!" So I avoided it...until it was obvious it was time to move on to the next step. With my mother's help along with support from Marion (our Day Care provider) Brendan began sitting on the potty and actually going when asked around his second birthday. Then with the hernia surgery, baby brother, mom off work, and all other schedule changing events, potty training came to a stand still.

He will go pee-pee on the potty anytime asked, he does not EVER tell us when he needs to go, and will just pee in his pants when he needs to go. Our biggest challenge is getting him to actually sit down long enough to go poo-poo on the potty.

I have done all sorts of research on the subject. Everyone has their own opinions on the best way, best age, and best reward system in potty training. We even bought a book "Being Potty-Wise" or something like that. Our plan was to potty train in a weekend, just like the book and always trustworthy Internet said. That obviously didn't work for us. I thought about using the approach, "He'll potty train when he is ready" but then I thought maybe I was being a little bit lazy with that one. For now, we are just trying what works best for us right now, we encourage it when we can, explain to process, show him the process, make him help clean up the mess so he learns, eventually it will catch on (I hope). I am not too worried yet, he just hit two-and-a-half so we still have a little time. I would like him to be trained by the time he hits his 3rd birthday.


We decided that from now on when we are home on the weekends (and when we are able to on weeknights) we put Brendan in real underwear (Mickey Mouse of course!) and talk about being a big boy and using the big-boy potty. He stayed dry for almost all of Saturday, only one accident (pone Sat, 2 on Sun) which thanks to the Big-Boy-pants, he knew instantly that he had wet and should have gone to the potty.

I guess you can say we are making progress, I just need him to understand when he has the urge he needs to go sit on the potty.

Below is a video of Brendan as we wait to go on the potty. I'm sure this borderlines child abuse as inappropriate pictures/videos that will scar him in his teenage years that his mother showed the world (and I can only imagine what Scott will say when he sees the post) but I just think he is so adorable, and this is a milestone that every child goes through, so why not share?

You have to listen closely at his little voice, but he is learning to count to 20. Usually we do pretty well to 13, but then all the teens sound the same, he is better now than in the video (taken a couple weeks ago).

Feeding Baby

I waited until Caleb was 6 months old to start feeding solids. He turned 6 months on November 18th so we started Caleb on Rice Cereal at Grammi's house during Thanksgiving. Caleb loved food from the beginning. We were still struggling to get him to take milk from a bottle at this time and so we would mix whatever milk was leftover with cereal and feed it with a spoon in order to get him to eat it.

Now, Three months later and you would think that kid had been on solid food for a year now. He still loves to eat. In January, Scott and I mad some tough financial decisions, cutting all bills as much as we could. It was then that I realized, I could not afford to continue to feed my baby as much as he ate! (Or rather, I did not want to afford it.) So what started as an experiment, turned to a necessity. I now make my own baby food. I don't do it to be organic, or because I don't trust Gerber's products, I have just found that making my own is SOOOO much cheaper!

My new friend is the Magic Bullet. With my bullet, I can puree foods in seconds and pour them into 1 oz ice cube trays to freeze for later use. I did this a few times with Brendan, but we mostly fed him store bought food. With Caleb though, he is pretty much solely on homemade baby food.


For many of you, this may not seem like a big deal. A lot of moms go with homemade over store bought. But being a working mom, I am always impressed with myself when I am able to do these "homey" types of activities.

I can find Gerber baby food on sale for $1.00 most places for 2 3.5 oz containers, which is not a bad price. But when my son eats usually about 3 of these a day, sometimes more, the 1 pound bag of carrots for $0.99 is a whole lot better. Without all the preservatives. And Caleb really seems to enjoy it!

I puree the food, freeze it in Ice Cube Trays and then store them in Zip Lock bags. I only make food once sometimes twice a week, and it is a huge payoff in the end. Plus, we can mix-and-match different foods together to give Caleb more variety. Currently in the freezer we have: Mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, apricots, apples, bananas, peach-apple, and squash. Next time we go to the store I would like to get some new flavors to expand his food intake, like blueberries, mango, avocado, the options are limitless!

Beside the pureed baby food, Caleb is starting to really enjoy finger-foods. Soft foods that he can gum to death. Like soft-cooked carrots cut up, cooked zucchini, bits of potato, and his favorite-Cheerios. I'm really enjoys experimenting with food with him, as we learn and experience together!

Caleb KEYS

Keys to Mommy's heart...

My boys defiantly have the "Keys" to mommy's heart. When Brendan was about the age of Caleb, my best friend bought me this onesie which I just adored. (Look back to see Brendan in the same onesie.)

They Defiantly brothers:

Brendan:

Caleb:

Biggest difference at this age is that Caleb's smile is much bigger, much more "smiley" and happy baby. And I didn't really realize it until comparing pictures, but Caleb is defiantly chunkier than Brendan was!

Remembering Disneyland

So I know I talk about our Disneyland trips a lot, but when you have little ones, each trip marks feels like the first time as develop and discover new things with each visit.

Disneyland has been our place. We spend many dates there, Scott proposed there, we even went close to my due date with Brendan with Scott’s hope of delivering at Disneyland and having passes for life (a rumor we have heard and thought it would be fun).

Brendan is beginning to share our excitement and love for all things Disney. This last trip is the first time that I think he is actually remembering Disneyland. We took the boys on Sunday, January 23rd. Since then almost every day (maybe every other day) Brendan will begin the conversation:

“I fun at Disneyland”
Me – “Oh? You had fun at Disneyland?”
B – “Yeah. And gicky (Mikey) house”
(This is where I now repeat everything he says or he will sound like a broken record until I acknowledge him)
“…and Dale’s house… ” (Chip and Dale’s Tree House)
“…and Donald’s boat…”
"...and slide..."
“…and Choo-choo train…and tracks…”
“…and monsters and doors…” (Monsters Inc.)
“…and cars…”
“…and dolder-doaster…” (this one took me a bit to figure out what he was saying, he went on his first “roller-coaster” with Daddy!)
"...and turn..." (not sure if he is talking about the turns on the ride, or that he had to wait his turn to get on the ride, or something completely different. Not sure how his mind works all the time.)
“…I fun at Disneyland!”

I love that these memories are forming in his little mind and that he continues to talk about it. As you can tell, his favorite part of the day was Toon-Town. I think we might take him back again this weekend since he loves it so much!

Here are some pictures to go with the story!

Mickey's House:

Meeting Mickey:

(this is the first time we hugged Mickey instead of clinging to Daddy's leg)

Caleb Just wanted to eat Mickey's nose,

but Brendan insisted that Caleb needed to meet Mickey,

"Caleb's turn!!"

Mickey's Car:

The playground at Goofy's House:

And the famous first Roller-Coaster ride, with lots of turns!

(you may have to click on the picture to make it bigger but you can see Brendan & Scott in the second to last car. Brendan enjoyed himself but wasn't ready to go back on right away.)

Our Valentine Plans

Valentine's Day has never really been a big deal for me and Scott. And once you have kids, it pretty much gets thrown out the window.

From the time the store start putting out the red & pink hearts the beginning of January my husband constantly reminds me "I hate valentine's Day". It is defiantly a constant reminder not to expect anything or talk about plans for the day.

Usually he will end up doing something, giving me a card and usually a few flowers, but never anything extravagant.

Looking back at our relationship, I remember our very first Valentines Day together, I tried to do something special, but it just didn't turn out and after I realized how much he hated the "holiday" I gave up.

Don't get me wrong, I am not bitter or upset. I have never been a really huge fan of the holiday anyway. Growing up, my mom used to try and make it special with serving pink malt-o-meal and strawberry milk for breakfast, little valentines in our lunches, we would pick out the cards and exchange them at school.

My worse Valentine's day was probably my junior year of high school when I actually had a boyfriend. I never really knew what to give a guy in high school, but this boyfriend got me this embarrassing large display of a dozen red roses and gave them to me in front of everyone...we had barely started dating.

This Valentine's Day we didn't really discuss doing anything until the night before, then again on the day of while I was still at work. Chili's had a Valentine Day special, but with money the way it was, we decided to not spend any money, but to just stay in instead.

It was actually a nice evening. Scott made hamburgers for dinner for us, we spent time as a family, sent the kids to bed a tad bit early, and just enjoyed each other...and a history channel special on Chocolate.

It was nice, easy and simple, but nice.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This was a truly rare moment this morning as both boys sat side by side for a picture, with bother actually looking at the camera. Is that Brendan's arm around his brother?? They were defiantly showing the love today!

Well, that of course did not last too long...

Going....

Going...

GONE!!!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Caleb's First Valentine's Day.

Cousins

One of my favorite part of having my sister close by is having our kids grow up together. Growing up, we were always very close to our cousins and I wanted the same for my kids. One of my cousins, Mikey, was 11 months younger than me. And while you will still hear stories of how unhappy I was for him to come as a baby, how I would hit Aunt's belly and I would scream at him sleeping in his crib, but we still grew up very close.

I have been waiting for my sister to have a baby so our kids can be close in age. When I found out she was three months behind me in pregnancy, I was super excited! Now with such close ages, we will be able to do all sorts of things together as our kids get older. During Christmas, we got all three kids dressed in their Christmas outfits together on the couch. I Love that we will have these types of pictures for years and years to come, and as the number grows as Bekah and my brothers have more babies, the holidays and other events will become that much more fun and hectic. I can't wait!

No while this photoshoot wasn't perfect - the only way to get Brendan to sit there was to give him a present to open, and Caleb was so enthralled with Lily's dress (hairbow, shoes, ect) he kept trying to eat her, it was perfect having the three babies together. I will never forget these times we have.