Ride 'Em Cowboy
Wheeeeeeeeee!
On Saturday, our mom's group had a holiday potluck party at a local park area. The hit of the day was the huge spiral slide and another tall (and really fast) straight slide. The kids went down again, and again, and again as Cortney captured it all on camera.
Standing at the top ready to go down!
Charlotte, Erin's little girl, and I sliding together.
Check out that drool! It's not surprising that Caleb has gotten four new teeth in the past month with another two on the way.
LOVE IT!
Standing at the top ready to go down!
Charlotte, Erin's little girl, and I sliding together.
Check out that drool! It's not surprising that Caleb has gotten four new teeth in the past month with another two on the way.
LOVE IT!
Santa Pic
2
comments
Labels:
Holidays
So as I mentioned yesterday, I took Caleb to the Bass Pro Shop to see Santa. Given his earlier antics at the pediatrician's office when the nurse tried to measure his head circumference, I fully expected to have a picture of a screaming toddler running away from Santa rather than sitting in his lap, kinda like these pictures. I was also prepared for a long line. When we got there, there were about 10 people in front of us in the line, and Caleb was fascinated by all the lights and "snow" so it really wasn't too bad of a wait. It turns out we got there just in time because they shut the line down three people behind us so that Santa could take a break. So as we started getting to the front of the line, I started talking to Caleb about Santa. I told him that Santa was very nice and that he brought presents to good little boys and girls. I walked up, placed Caleb on Santa's lap...still no tears or screaming...and here's what we got!
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! It is super cute! (ok, so I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get me one of these!)
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! It is super cute! (ok, so I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get me one of these!)
Growing Like A Weed!
1 comments
Labels:
Stats
Today we had Caleb's 15 month well visit, and I can't believe how fast he's growing. Andrew and I were thinking that he'd really shot up in the past week or so, but I was shocked when I heard that he had grown 3 whole inches since his last appointment 3 months ago. His weight gain has definitely slowed down despite the fact that he is a human garbage disposal. While we were in PA for the wedding last week he ate 3 full breakfasts one day! I was a little surprised to see that he's only gain about a pound and a half since his 1 year well visit. When you pick him up he feels like a load! Every other baby I hold seems so much lighter. Andrew and I really think this is related to the fact that C is a solid mass of muscle so holding him takes some strength when he wiggles!
Here's Caleb exploring the exam room while we waited for the doctor.
Finally the nurse came in to measure and weigh Caleb, and he freaked out when she brought the tape measure up to his head and continued screaming while on the scale. Here are the stats from this appointment:
So, what else is Caleb up to these days? Well, he's a talking machine. I swear every day he starts saying a new word. I can't even remember all the words he says now, but here are a few of his favorites: duck, bird, fish, meow, up, down, on, snack, eat, more, nana (meaning banana or any fruit really), ball, goal (when he kicks or throws the ball into his soccer goal), truck, wall, guitar (we have two Wii guitars, ok, so it doesn't really sound like guitar but we know what he means!), all done, watch, Grover, Pop Pop, Memaw. That's about all I can think of now. He's also making word associations and responding to things we say. This weekend we asked him if he wanted breakfast and he turned, ran to the kitchen and said, "Eat! Eat!"
As usually, he's sleeping like a champ. He's been doing 11-12 hours overnight and then taking up to 5 hours of naps during the day. I asked the doc about this because I was starting to get concerned, but he says it is normal, and in fact really good for him. Another word association for Caleb comes when we say, "nap" or "sleep" and he responds with "night-night!" as he runs to the stairs. It boggles my mind how excited he gets for sleep when he's really tired.
He's also kissing everything. It is just the cutest thing when he gives our cat kisses and when he gives my cell phone a kiss every night when we're on the phone with Memaw.
So after Caleb's early morning doctor's appointment and 3 hour recovery nap, we had some lunch and I decided to take him to the Bass Pro Shop for their free pictures with Santa. They have a really neat "Winter Wonderland" including all kinds of free activities for kids. Most are for kids older than Caleb, but we still had a great time. Here is Caleb checking out the trees in the wonderland.
And here he is checking out the fish after our visit to the wonderland.
We definitely had a great time at the Bass Pro Shop, and I definitely think that we'll be going again. Caleb loved watching the fish and seeing all of the stuffed, preserved animals. And the best part...it's free!
As for the Santa photo, I'm hoping to either scan or download a digital file of the photo, and I'll be sure to upload it when I do so stay tuned for that in the next day or so. Anyone want to guess whether Caleb will be smiling or screaming in the pic?
Here's Caleb exploring the exam room while we waited for the doctor.
Finally the nurse came in to measure and weigh Caleb, and he freaked out when she brought the tape measure up to his head and continued screaming while on the scale. Here are the stats from this appointment:
24 lbs (even) - 50th percentile
33.5" - above 95th percentile (doctor says he's the height of the average 2 year old)
33.5" - above 95th percentile (doctor says he's the height of the average 2 year old)
So, what else is Caleb up to these days? Well, he's a talking machine. I swear every day he starts saying a new word. I can't even remember all the words he says now, but here are a few of his favorites: duck, bird, fish, meow, up, down, on, snack, eat, more, nana (meaning banana or any fruit really), ball, goal (when he kicks or throws the ball into his soccer goal), truck, wall, guitar (we have two Wii guitars, ok, so it doesn't really sound like guitar but we know what he means!), all done, watch, Grover, Pop Pop, Memaw. That's about all I can think of now. He's also making word associations and responding to things we say. This weekend we asked him if he wanted breakfast and he turned, ran to the kitchen and said, "Eat! Eat!"
As usually, he's sleeping like a champ. He's been doing 11-12 hours overnight and then taking up to 5 hours of naps during the day. I asked the doc about this because I was starting to get concerned, but he says it is normal, and in fact really good for him. Another word association for Caleb comes when we say, "nap" or "sleep" and he responds with "night-night!" as he runs to the stairs. It boggles my mind how excited he gets for sleep when he's really tired.
And here he is checking out the fish after our visit to the wonderland.
We definitely had a great time at the Bass Pro Shop, and I definitely think that we'll be going again. Caleb loved watching the fish and seeing all of the stuffed, preserved animals. And the best part...it's free!
As for the Santa photo, I'm hoping to either scan or download a digital file of the photo, and I'll be sure to upload it when I do so stay tuned for that in the next day or so. Anyone want to guess whether Caleb will be smiling or screaming in the pic?
Kisses
I was trying to get Caleb to "Meow," which he does do right at the beginning of the video, but I don't think that you can hear it. However, when Caleb walked right up to the camera, I decided to see if he'd give it a kiss. Sure enough...
He kisses everything these days!
He kisses everything these days!
Staying In
In honor of the big east coast snow storm this weekend and the fact that I'm so sad that I missed it, I decided to stay inside today, make some comfort food for lunch, bake some cookies with Caleb, and pretend like we were snowed in! For lunch we had grilled cheese and tomato soup. 
Here's Caleb's version with diced up grilled cheese drizzled with tomato soup.
These are the first and only Christmas cookies that I'm making this year since we're in town for such a small part of December. Andrew LOVES these molasses cookies (another Jacob recipe), and he requests that I make them every so often. I have to admit they are DELICIOUS! In October I discovered Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses and thought that they'd be a great accompaniment to the cookies. Mmmmmmmmm...
Here's Caleb's version with diced up grilled cheese drizzled with tomato soup.
These are the first and only Christmas cookies that I'm making this year since we're in town for such a small part of December. Andrew LOVES these molasses cookies (another Jacob recipe), and he requests that I make them every so often. I have to admit they are DELICIOUS! In October I discovered Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses and thought that they'd be a great accompaniment to the cookies. Mmmmmmmmm...
Jacob's Coffee Cake - The Whole Story
1 comments
Labels:
Recipes,
Y3W
2003 was NOT a good year for me. I was in my last semester of college and applying to grad schools. My first interview was at the University of Pennsylvania's BGS program, which took place at the end of January. The first night there I woke up in the middle of the night with my right foot "asleep" and tingling with pain. It didn't go away for three months. The second night there, I noticed that my top, front tooth was pink. I ended up needing a root canal. I think this must have resulted from my delayed reflexes during a volleyball match in the Fall of 2002 in which I was hit directly in the face with a volleyball following a ridiculous hit from one of (perennial national powerhouse) Juniata's star players. I spent the next month driving back and forth from school so that I could have the tooth whitened back from the awful pink color it had been stained.
As you can see...things weren't going well. By March of 2003, the numbness that I had developed in my right foot had now spread to my other foot and to both hands. I couldn't feel it when someone touched the side of my foot. I was bleeding from the nose consistently, constantly exhausted, and coughing up blood. I had been to doctor after doctor, had bloodwork and nerve conduction studies done by a neurologist, and still had no answers. Of course, being my usual bullheaded self, I was determined not to let this mystery illness slow me down.
Over spring break I travelled to AZ to visit Andrew even though ASU was not on Spring Break at the time. I ended up spending a lot of time at school with him while he worked on an INSANE project for a psycho professor. Because of said psycho professor, I got to meet some of the great people that A had been spending all of his time with that semester. One of those people was Jacob. The last weekend that I was in town we travelled, with Jacob and a few of Andrew's other friends, to LA to go architecture sight seeing (ooohhhh, did you catch the sarcasm?). I didn't care, I was going to CA where I had never been before. Now remember, at this point I could barely walk for more than 5 minutes without feeling like I needed to sit down. The trip was brutal, but by the end of it I was actually feeling a bit better and was starting to think that the warm weather and walking outside were good for my mystery illness. Afterall, this was the year we had the blizzard of the century in PA.
I returned home thinking that things would be getting better soon. Boy was I wrong! Things just started getting worse rapidly! I was finally starting to think that I was dying (no kidding here). A week later my mom called me and said, "stop taking your acne medication." She had looked it up online (in a last ditch attempt to determine what was wrong since no doctors seemed to be helping) and read about its ability to cause Drug Induced Lupus. The symptoms matched mine almost exactly. So I stopped taking the stuff and within a week I was feeling much (although not 100%, more like 50%) better. So what happened during that week I was in AZ when I started feeling better...I had forgotten to take the medication with me on the trip! When I returned I was "rechallenged" with the drug, which is why the symptoms came back so much worse.
So, what does all of this have to do with coffee cake? Well as I mentioned, that was the first time I met Jacob. A year later, Jacob moved in with Andrew, and when I moved in a year after that, we all lived together until for two years until a few months after Andrew and I got married. During that time, we got accustomed to having Jacob, the master chef, in the kitchen. This boy was ALWAYS cooking something, and he's good at it. One of our favorite things that Jacob would make was his coffee cake. We always joked that we needed to make two at a time because after it would come out of the oven, we would just stand around in the kitchen cutting off little chunks and eating them as the cake cooled. Before it was even fully cooled we'd have 50% gone. By the next morning after breakfast, another 25% was gone. Factor in after work snacks for each of us, and the cake didn't even survive 24 hours. However, on those rare occasions where the cake would get to sit for a little longer, we noticed that this thing is like a good bottle of wine...it just gets better with age. So, if you make this recipe (and I highly recommend that you do), make 2 at a time!
Neighborhood Coffee Cake:
Filling:
1 cup Margarine/Butter
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
½ teaspoon Salt
1 cup Sour Cream
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
2 cup Flour
Topping:
¼ cup Sugar
½ cup Brown Sugar
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
Mix Butter and Sugar. Add Eggs and Sour Cream
Mix Flour, Soda, Salt separately
Combine dry ingredients into wet and add Vanilla
Mix Topping in separate bowl
Place about 1/4 to 1/3 of the batter in the bottom of a 9X11 baking dish and spread (I recommend using clean hands as the batter is THICK). Then sprinkle 1/2 of the topping on top of this layer.
Spoon remaining batter overtop of the layer of topping and spread (again, use your fingers and be careful not to mess with the topping layer too much).
As you can see...things weren't going well. By March of 2003, the numbness that I had developed in my right foot had now spread to my other foot and to both hands. I couldn't feel it when someone touched the side of my foot. I was bleeding from the nose consistently, constantly exhausted, and coughing up blood. I had been to doctor after doctor, had bloodwork and nerve conduction studies done by a neurologist, and still had no answers. Of course, being my usual bullheaded self, I was determined not to let this mystery illness slow me down.
Over spring break I travelled to AZ to visit Andrew even though ASU was not on Spring Break at the time. I ended up spending a lot of time at school with him while he worked on an INSANE project for a psycho professor. Because of said psycho professor, I got to meet some of the great people that A had been spending all of his time with that semester. One of those people was Jacob. The last weekend that I was in town we travelled, with Jacob and a few of Andrew's other friends, to LA to go architecture sight seeing (ooohhhh, did you catch the sarcasm?). I didn't care, I was going to CA where I had never been before. Now remember, at this point I could barely walk for more than 5 minutes without feeling like I needed to sit down. The trip was brutal, but by the end of it I was actually feeling a bit better and was starting to think that the warm weather and walking outside were good for my mystery illness. Afterall, this was the year we had the blizzard of the century in PA.
I returned home thinking that things would be getting better soon. Boy was I wrong! Things just started getting worse rapidly! I was finally starting to think that I was dying (no kidding here). A week later my mom called me and said, "stop taking your acne medication." She had looked it up online (in a last ditch attempt to determine what was wrong since no doctors seemed to be helping) and read about its ability to cause Drug Induced Lupus. The symptoms matched mine almost exactly. So I stopped taking the stuff and within a week I was feeling much (although not 100%, more like 50%) better. So what happened during that week I was in AZ when I started feeling better...I had forgotten to take the medication with me on the trip! When I returned I was "rechallenged" with the drug, which is why the symptoms came back so much worse.
So, what does all of this have to do with coffee cake? Well as I mentioned, that was the first time I met Jacob. A year later, Jacob moved in with Andrew, and when I moved in a year after that, we all lived together until for two years until a few months after Andrew and I got married. During that time, we got accustomed to having Jacob, the master chef, in the kitchen. This boy was ALWAYS cooking something, and he's good at it. One of our favorite things that Jacob would make was his coffee cake. We always joked that we needed to make two at a time because after it would come out of the oven, we would just stand around in the kitchen cutting off little chunks and eating them as the cake cooled. Before it was even fully cooled we'd have 50% gone. By the next morning after breakfast, another 25% was gone. Factor in after work snacks for each of us, and the cake didn't even survive 24 hours. However, on those rare occasions where the cake would get to sit for a little longer, we noticed that this thing is like a good bottle of wine...it just gets better with age. So, if you make this recipe (and I highly recommend that you do), make 2 at a time!
Neighborhood Coffee Cake:
Filling:
1 cup Margarine/Butter
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
½ teaspoon Salt
1 cup Sour Cream
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
2 cup Flour
Topping:
¼ cup Sugar
½ cup Brown Sugar
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
Mix Butter and Sugar. Add Eggs and Sour Cream
Mix Flour, Soda, Salt separately
Combine dry ingredients into wet and add Vanilla
Mix Topping in separate bowl
Place about 1/4 to 1/3 of the batter in the bottom of a 9X11 baking dish and spread (I recommend using clean hands as the batter is THICK). Then sprinkle 1/2 of the topping on top of this layer.
Spoon remaining batter overtop of the layer of topping and spread (again, use your fingers and be careful not to mess with the topping layer too much).
Place in preheated oven and bake 30 mins @ 350 degrees.
15 Months
0
comments
Labels:
Months
The photo shoot started out like this. Caleb was NOT interested in sitting at all. He wanted to climb over the back of the couch to check out the Wii guitars that we have stored back there.
So, we pulled the guitars out, and C was all smiles!
But not for long...
Ahhh...that's better. Now I can get a good look at this thing.
Alright, I'm done with these pictures!
Caleb's 15-month well visit is on Monday, so I'll update after that with all of his stats and latest tricks!
So, we pulled the guitars out, and C was all smiles!
But not for long...
Ahhh...that's better. Now I can get a good look at this thing.
Alright, I'm done with these pictures!
Caleb's 15-month well visit is on Monday, so I'll update after that with all of his stats and latest tricks!
Birth-grad-iversary-mas Gift
0
comments
Labels:
Holidays,
PhD
I finally picked out my Birthday/Graduation/Anniversary/Christmas gift. I had been wanting a new sapphire ring for my right hand (because I freaking LOVE sapphires and because C's birthday is in September), so I asked for one for my birthday (knowing full well that it would count as my gift for the remaining events/holidays this year and possibly next). It has only taken me 9 months to pick something out. I can't wait for it to arrive next week!
A Few More
0
comments
Labels:
Holidays
Here are two shots that we got of our family at the wedding. Hopefully the photographers got some good ones, but it is unlikely as C was pretty much done at that point.
This one is from my cousin, Keith, taken on his iPhone. I think Caleb looks like he's a Hogwarts student in training.
And another from the videographer.
Interesting how the above picture looks so similar to this one taken by the same videographer, in the same church, just 3.5 years later!
This one is from my cousin, Keith, taken on his iPhone. I think Caleb looks like he's a Hogwarts student in training.
And another from the videographer.
Interesting how the above picture looks so similar to this one taken by the same videographer, in the same church, just 3.5 years later!
Y3W - a little late
0
comments
Labels:
Holidays,
Y3W
Awful quality on this photo because it is a still photo taken from a video (thanks to the awesome videographer BC Productions Entertainment), but you get the idea. Should have more pics to post soon!
Swimming!
0
comments
Labels:
Video
After talking about staring Caleb in swim lessons since he was 6 months old, I finally got him enrolled in September just after his 1st birthday. We've been going to the Hubbard Family Swim School and LOVE IT along with our instructor Marc {who we sadly just found out will be leaving in January}. I had been wanting to take some pictures/video to share with everyone, but we kept forgetting the camera. Well, we finally took the video camera to the pool with us this past Wednesday. I've tried over and over to post the ridiculously long (25 minute) video that Andrew took non-stop during the lesson, but it just wasn't successful. So family, you will just have to wait until we see you in the upcoming weeks to check that one out. In the mean time, these pictures will have to hold you over.
At the very beginning of class we sing "The Kids in the Pool" (Ewwww...I know what you're thinking) to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus" and during this song the kids splash and kick. Here we are kicking our feet.
Then there is always a "focus of the week." Here we all are standing in a circle listening to Marc tell us about this week's focus. I also think we just got done doing an "elevator" where Caleb was dunked straight down under water!
Here we are working on getting the kids to go hand-over-hand along the edge of the pool. When they come to one of these foam turtles they knock them over. There's Marc in the background (pretty cute, huh?).
And finally, we spend some time during each class working on self-submersion. This first picture I'm trying to get Caleb to lean forward into the pool to come to me. Ignore my goofy face.
At the very beginning of class we sing "The Kids in the Pool" (Ewwww...I know what you're thinking) to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus" and during this song the kids splash and kick. Here we are kicking our feet.
Then there is always a "focus of the week." Here we all are standing in a circle listening to Marc tell us about this week's focus. I also think we just got done doing an "elevator" where Caleb was dunked straight down under water!
Here we are working on getting the kids to go hand-over-hand along the edge of the pool. When they come to one of these foam turtles they knock them over. There's Marc in the background (pretty cute, huh?).
And finally, we spend some time during each class working on self-submersion. This first picture I'm trying to get Caleb to lean forward into the pool to come to me. Ignore my goofy face.
And the final picture (and the topic of today's Y3W post) is from another self-submersion portion of the class. Each week the kids have some free time where they stand on a ledge so that they are in water up to their waist. Then they learn to "dive" down under water (self-submerging their face over the mouth and nose) to grab these rings. Here is Caleb after a particularly successful dive!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
