My Fun Caleb

Caleb is loving his new school, but especially his new neighborhood. Chris and I have had to let go a little bit and extend his boundries when he plays outside. He loves to go down the street in front of our house and play basketball in the road with "his friends". Normally, playing basketball in the road would not be something Chris and I would approve of for a six year old. But this road is not busy at all and all the neighbor kids play in it. We've had the whole talk with Caleb about being safe, and it helps that this road is right in front of our house so we can see if Caleb is being safe and playing well.

That's where the quotations around "his friends" comes in. The "friends" he was playing with (Caleb calls everyone his "friends" - even if he's never met them. If they're kids, they're automatically his friends) are 4-6 years older than him. So you can imagine how that goes when he tries to play basketball with them. They're nice kids, they're never mean to him. But Chris and I thought it'd be best if he just play basketball on the hoop on our back patio. Then he can practice dribbling and granny-throwing as much as he wants.

There's a neighbor boy who Caleb also plays with, he's eight, and he has Asberger's. He must be highly-functioning because you wouldn't know he has it. He and Caleb get along really well. Although I'm not used to kids walking up to my livingroom window and knocking on it instead of the front door. Or interupting our dinner to see if Caleb can play, or wondering what time we'll be back from the store so he can come over and play with Caleb when we get back. Comes with the territory, literally, I guess. I'm glad Caleb has a friend to play with.

Caleb's in T-ball and loving it. I think he mostly enjoys getting out in the backyard and practicing throwing and batting with Chris. Have I said yet that I love having such a great sized (for Oregon) backyard? I love it. He hasn't had a T-ball game yet, but I can't wait to watch him play. Watching him at practice, I think he'll be pretty good.

He's a really great big brother and helper. He willingly, with a great attitude, does so many things when it comes to Anna. If I need him to play with her so I can get some things done, he's more than happy to do it. I don't know how long this will last, so I'm enjoying it while it does. :)

We have gotten into the doing-whatever-I-want, "I forgot", showing-major-attitude stage. I shouldn't say stage, this will probably be something we'll have to deal with to some degree until he leaves home. But, we're dealing with it. We have a great kid, it's just the inevitable discipline issues that rise up from time to time. Being parents isn't always fun! :)

Alright, congratulations if you read all of this. I realize it won't be fascinating for everyone but I wanted to do it for family. Have a great week!

Bear with me, please.

I've been needing to do a post about the kids and what they're doing and all of that, while I remember, and because I want to keep relatives living far away up to date on them. This first post is all about Anna.

My Sweet Anna

Anna is crawling/cruising everywhere. She's not at all interested in walking, guess she figures she can get where she wants to go by crawling so why bother learning something new? She has a love/hate relationship with Caleb...already. Sometimes she follows him around everywhere and loves to play with him and sometimes she doesn't want anything to do with him and she takes a whack at him if he comes too close.

As I've said before, she loves her food. She sits with us at the dinner table in her Bumbo and eats bits of whatever we eat. I finally have her trained so she doesn't yell at us when she wants more. Now she says "ease" (Please). I've tried to teach her some baby signs, but she's never done any. Caleb was like that too, as a baby. He talked so early that he'd rather say it than sign it. She loves to talk jibberish. It's usually non-words that end in "ish". She loves making that sound. If you ask her where your nose is, she can point to it. She can also point out your eye and she can say "eye". If you ask for a kiss, she'll kiss you - mouth wide open so watch out.

And I should point out that as much of a Mommy's girl as she is, she has not said "Mama" yet. She says "Daddy" and she has a word she uses for Caleb (something like "Daybe" - sounds nothing like Caleb). She's saving the best for last, I guess. ;)

It figures, her hair is hopeless. She has beautiful hair in the back of her head but on the top, it sticks up in funny places and it's so fine and light that you can see through it. (We call it a baby mullet.) She has to wear headbands because there's no way a bow will stay in it. Oh well, she'll get hair eventually and then I can have my fun. :)

Whenever she hears music, she dances. Bobs her head up and down, then shakes it side to side.

I can't believe she'll be a year old in a month and a half! Where did the time go?

A perfect example of her hair...

Scavenger Hunting

Well, we are moved in. Unpacked, no. But all of our stuff is now in one place and that place is our house. We're slowly whittling down the pyramid of boxes in the garage. We didn't think things through enough on that end. A week ago when we had only been living here for a couple of days, we had no towels, toothpaste, or pans to cook in. So Chris was out in the garage more than he was in the house, it seemed, looking for the necessities. The highlight of the week was finding the box with towels in it. It was one of the first boxes we tried to find and Chris had to really hunt to find it. I like to think he had fun with his little scavenger hunt. ;)

Has anyone ever told you that it takes FOREVER to line kitchen shelves with shelf liner? Well it does. It's worth it, but it feels like a complete waste of a day while you're doing it. I just had to keep telling myself that I should be thankful for so much cabinet space.

We've been slowly meeting our neighbors here. One of our neighbors, who lives a couple houses down the street in front of us, came over with his 7 year old son on Saturday wanting to know if Caleb could come play at their house. I talked to him for a good 20 minutes. Turns out he remembers Aaron and Julie (good friends of ours who we go to church with) from when they used to live in the house across the street from us. Small world. Anyway, Caleb played over at their house for a couple of hours. I'm glad he'll have some friends in the neighborhood.

Caleb lost his tooth. He and I were taking a much needed break from unpacking. We were sitting on the couch, eating popcorn and watching "E.T." when he said "Ew, Mom, what's this?" I looked down and he had his tooth in his hand. I said "That's your tooth." He was thrilled that 1) it didn't hurt when it came out and 2) he didn't swallow it.

Chris and some guys from church went snowboarding last Saturday. It had been a couple of years since Chris had been. He woke up the next morning barely able to move. Who knew you used so many muscles when snowboarding? I'm sure some of the soreness was from a little bit of falling too. :)

Baby and I are doing fine. I don't think I've felt any movement yet but then again, I haven't been paying any attention. Sometimes I forget that I'm pregnant and then I look down at the new belly that's popped out and remember. Two kids, moving into a fixer, and working makes me a little busy. :) I'm getting more excited to welcome a new baby. As most of you know, the idea is something I've had to get used to. I've always wanted three kids, but #'s 2 and 3 so close together wasn't the plan. It'll be wonderful, it's just a new experience that will take some getting used to. I'm very thankful for my family and what this new little person will bring to it.

Anna is doing well too. She's getting a little fiesty. Sometimes she'll be in Caleb's room playing with him and then I'll hear her just yell at him. It's just a "Ahhhh!" but you know she's irritated at him for something. And what an eater! She can put away the groceries and still want more. She never refuses food, ever. And she loves everything. There hasn't been a food I've given her yet that she doesn't like. It's really amazing how much she can eat. We have to cut her off a lot of times. :)

As usual, it's been a while since I've updated so this is longer than I intended. I hope you all have a great week.

House, Baby #3, and Loose Tooth

In that order.

I think we're going to try to move into the house this weekend! The last steps are cleaning and getting all the baseboards caulked. When Anna wakes up from her nap, I'm going to take the kids and get started on the cleaning part. I'm itching to get in there and clean up all the paint brushes, paint cans and supplies and take up all the drop clothes and vacuum. Plus it's a beautiful day for Caleb to play in the backyard over there. (I love that we have a big yard for him now!!)

I had my 12 week screening U/s last week and everything came back perfect. Baby is looking great. What a blessing. I had my monthly doctor's appointment yesterday. I decided to have Chris, Caleb, and Anna come with me. My doctor hasn't seen Anna since I had her so she really enjoyed seeing her. And, like he did when I was pregnant with Anna, Caleb got to help squirt the jelly on my stomach so we could hear the baby's heartbeat. It took a little while to find the baby. That was a little nerve-wracking. The doctor kept reassuring me that I was measuring right on and the baby was just a little higher than she thought. Still, the whole couple of minutes she couldn't hear anything but my heartbeat and was moving the doppler all around, I kept thinking "What if something is wrong? What will Caleb remember about this? How will this affect him if something is wrong?" Way to put my trust in God, I know. :oz Baby was found and heartbeat was good. Lesson learned that I need to calm myself down.

Caleb has his first loose tooth. It's about time. He got his first two teeth at 5 months old so I was sure they would fall out early too. Well, earlier than this. I was looking at his loose tooth this morning and realized that his adult tooth is already halfway in behind it. That's not supposed to happen right? I don't remember it happening with my sisters or me. I plan on calling the dentist this afternoon just to see what they say. Do any of you know if that is normal?

Alright I'm off to enjoy this beautiful day and get some things accomplished. Have a good Thursday!

Sooo Close...

We are so close to moving into the house I can taste it. The contractor finished putting in the windows and slider and patching up the A/C hole this past weekend. It's SO nice to not have filthy, half-functioning, non-energy efficient windows. Now we have beautiful vinyl white windows. I'm sure this is only thrilling to Chris and me. :) The flooring is in too. Chris is now working on getting the baseboards put down throughout the house. Pretty much all that's left is some touch up painting and a major clean. (Obviously that's not all that's left for the house to be considered done by anyone's standards, but it will definitely be more than liveable. The rest of the projects can be done after the kids go to bed and on weekends.)

And...I "get" to call the home warranty company today. Something in the garage is smelling like gas. It's either the 25 year old water heater or the 35 year old furnace. It's a toss up. Maybe they'll come out, look at them, and replace them both. Ha, right. The gas company came out before we bought the house and recommended either replacing both or servicing them. You can guess which option the sellers chose. So, we start the calls to the home warranty company and up go the carbon monoxide detectors.

On to other topics. . .Chris gave me my Valentine's Day gift early. (Yah, yah, I know...commercialism at its finest. But because I recieve gifts, I don't complain. ;)) He gave me a bluetooth headset for talking on my cell phone in the car. And it's pink. I love it. Now I don't have to worry about getting pulled over for taking a call.

My 12 week screening ultrasound is tomorrow. I'm excited to see the baby again. I didn't do this screening with Caleb or Anna. I know it's not a necessity because whether or not he/she perfectly healthy won't matter to us. The screening will either offer peace of mind or will prepare us for ... whatever. Either way, I feel blessed to live in a time where this option is open to us through modern technology. Speaking of my pregnancy, it's still going pretty smoothly. I'm still not in maternity pants which seems really weird to me. But it's a good thing. I haven't the slightest idea where I could find the Rubbermaid container with my maternity clothes in it. I told Chris that it's only a matter of time before I pop out and can't fit into anything so we best get to moving into that house fast.

This is long enough I think. Next post will hopefully have pictures of the house in them. It looks really great, I'm so pleased. It used to be that when I would walk into the house the overwhelming feeling of everything that needed to be done would weigh on me and I'd feel like it would never happen. But now I walk in and can see how close we are. That's a much better feeling. Okay, blah blah blah...bye!

Little Peanut

I had my first doctor appointment yesterday. My doctor was surprised but happy to see me. Little peanut is measuring at about 9 1/2 weeks. So I'm a little further along than I had thought. So my new due date is August 22nd. This means nothing. My babies are never early or on time so I certainly don't expect this one break that trend.

It was so great to see little peanut in the ultrasound. I will never get tired of that feeling, seeing my babies for the first time. He or she is an active little thing, already doing a little dance. It was adorable. My doctor and I were oohing and ahhing over it.

I've joked with Chris that this poor third baby is already getting jipped. Chris has always come to any ultrasounds I had with my babies, but he didn't come to this one. I didn't mind, and I'm sure this baby won't either, it just struck me as funny. Is this common? To have the third pregnancy be kind of "old hat"? Not the baby itself, but all of the things that come along with the pregnancy that were so exciting the first and second times around.

On a positive note, I lost four pounds. No wonder I've been feeling so frumpy in my jeans. They're loose and baggy. I really want to go get some that fit but that would be a waste of money, wouldn't it? We all know you don't get smaller when you're pregnant... I'm actually feeling pretty good too. I'm exhausted, but my nausea only comes in waves and usually in the evenings. I can deal with that. And it's nothing severe either, I can operate through it usually. I'm so glad. I was wondering what I would do with severe nausea and having a 9 month old and a 6 year old to take care of.

Alright, enough talk. Here's a picture of the peanut. Sorry it's not a good one. I had to take it with my cell phone camera because I don't have access to a scanner right now.

Lowe's

The people at Lowe's know us now. They ask us how we are and how our house projects are coming along. We're there a lot. So much that everytime we tell Caleb we're going to Lowe's, he says "Ohhhh, man..." Lowe's is evidently boring to an almost six year old.

Speaking of the almost six year old...Chris and I dread taking Caleb to Lowe's almost as much as Caleb dreads going to Lowe's. The reason is because...he's five. And he's good at it. He dances, acts like a ninja and runs up and down the middle of the isles. He takes anything in the cart that would remotely resemble a gun or sword and pretends to shoot or stab at anything - usually the air, he's not picky. If he can't find a "sword" or "gun", he will pretend to walk into things. Complete with sound effects and falling on the ground. When he's bored of that, he takes off his jacket and, using it as a pillow, lays down underneath the cart. Even though I'm sure it looks funny to other people when he does that, it's my favorite thing that he does. Peace and quiet. Well, we don't necessarily get quiet. He still keeps asking "When are we leaving?" or "How long will we be here?" I don't know why he keeps asking when the only answer we give him is "Don't know, quit asking." Or, if the asking gets too crazy, he hears "If you ask one more time, we'll make you sleep here tonight!"

Anna's not fond of Lowe's either, but she has a front row seat to Caleb's antics so that usually keeps her entertained for the majority of the time. And, in case it doesn't, I have a stash of Gerber puffs with me.

The thing I've noticed about Lowe's that I like is the women's bathroom. I know, weird. But I'm pregnant so I have to make frequent trips, especially if we'll be there a while (and we usually are). The women's bathroom is always very clean and it smells like a man's cologne.

On a somewhat different topic, I took Caleb to the Lowe's women's restroom last night. While in there, a teenagish girl comes out of a stall - texting. She puts her phone down long enough to wash her hands, then picks it back up and starts texting again. Uh, gross. What's the point in washing her hands?

So these are our trips to Lowe's. Again and again and again...