The Pinecone Lost

It is absolutely amazing to me how quickly babies and kids and heal. Yesterday, while playing on the porch at GranB and Pop Pop's house, Caleb was hit smack on the nose with a falling pinecone. Last night his nose was all scraped up, and I thought for sure that he'd have a black eye this morning. As such, I did not take a picture last night, but decided that I would wait until this morning to catch the whole shebang. Notice that there is not a picture associated with this post. No black eye, and his entire nose is free from scratches with the exception of a small one in the corner by his eye. TAKE THAT PINECONE!

My Fingers Hurt

"What's that?"

"My fingers hurt."

What does Happy Gilmore have to do with this post? Well, my fingers hurt from putting together all the new IKEA furniture that we bought for Caleb's playroom. I had forgotten that all of their pieces require the use of a tiny Allen wrench which beats the crap out of your fingers after assembling three huge (okay two semi-large and one small) pieces of IKEA furniture. Oh well, it looks great and perhaps even more importantly we no longer have toys strewn about the entire downstairs portion of our house. Whaddya think?

Now, don't go feeling too sorry for my poor fingers. We actually had a very nice family weekend. I feel like I haven't been able to enjoy family time for quite a while what with having to write and defend a dissertation this semester. So it was an extra-special weekend for me. Saturday morning we went to the zoo where we checked out the animals including mommy's favorite, the zebras.

Daddy looking at the zebras, while Caleb looks at mommy.

We happened to run into our friends Karina and Dave and their baby girl Grace. Karina snapped an adorable picture of Caleb who reached out for the camera at just the right moment.

Yeah, but can your kid do this?

On my first weekend free from writing or studying, our plans include babyproofing the house. Why? Because literally overnight Caleb has started showing the beginnings of mobility. It started Tuesday morning when I picked him up from GranB and Pop Pop's house. He has spent the night there so that Andrew and I could have the night to celebrate my successful defense. When C and I got home Tuesday morning, I fed him and then sat him down on his play mat. I turned my back for a moment to grab some toys, and when I looked back, he had moved to his tummy. Just to test his ability to "crawl" forward from a sitting position, I moved him back to the sitting position and watched as he indeed reached forward, rolled over his leg, and plopped onto his tummy. It wasn't graceful in the least, but he seemed unphased by the faceplant move that had just taken place. Once on his tummy, he began sticking his left leg out to the side in an attempt to push himself. In the past he had tried to do the "snake crawl" where he kicks his legs in the air and puts his arms out to the side. It is as if he thinks that he can propel himself on his stomach alone! This new "leg out to the side" thing hasn't yet yielded any forward movement, but he can spin in circles more efficiently than before AND he can crawl backwards! That's where the title of this post comes from. Seriously, what kid can crawl backwards before forwards? I think it's pretty impressive. Of course I do, I'm his mother! I'd think it was impressive if he could pick his nose, too!

At any rate, he's mobile one way or another, spinning, rolling front to back to front across the room, or backwards crawling. The days of being able to sit on the floor next to him eating lunch while he contently plays are over.

Here's a cell phone video of the "snake crawl," and at the end you can see the "leg to the side" move too. I haven't yet captured the backwards crawl, but check back soon for a posting unless he learns to go forward first.

Al Dente

To the tooth. This morning Caleb has been extremely fussy. Anytime I tried to put him down, he'd scream. After three attempts to get in the shower involving turning the water on, waiting for it to get hot, and removing my clothes only to have to get dressed and turn off the water, I finally took the fastest shower of my life while Caleb sat on a blanket in the bathroom just outside of the shower. The entire time (all of 2 minutes) he was crying and yelling. I forgot that I'd have to give myself some time to dry off and get dressed too! Fun times!

Anyway, I couldn't figure out what was wrong so I stuck my finger in his mouth, and lo and behold I'm pretty sure he's getting a tooth. Nothing through the gums yet, but I could definitely feel a tooth-like bump just below the surface. Now, the question is, how long is it going to be until I can take another peaceful shower? Tylenol is my new best friend...for myself and for C!

Amazing Song

For all the mommies and soon-to-be mommies who read this blog. At this! website you can listen and link the song with a Facebook photo album to create a slideshow. Absolutely fabulous!

7 Months

What happened to the last month? I feel like I just started telling people that Caleb was 6 months old, and now I'm having to say that he's 7 months! Gah...he'll be 1 before I know it. A few days overdue thanks to my dissertation defense date, but here are the pictures from my 7 month photo session with C. He wasn't in the best mood this day, so these were the best I could get.

Check out that drool. (To increase the picture size, click on it.)

"Hey, where'd my ball go?"

And some pictures that weren't actually taken on the 17th (our the couch), but they turned out better than the ones on his "birthday." He's wearing his adorable Phillies outfit from Aunt Dani.

It's too bad this one came out blurry.

Toes

Baseball Pics

As promised, here are the pics of C and E at the baseball game on Sunday. Thanks, Cort!

Easter Recap

WARNING: This post will be filled with tons of pictures. You may experience an adorable overload. Symptoms include feeling an overwhelming urge to smile,


Easter morning started out with Caleb sleeping in until 6:15. Now before you start thinking that this is significantly later than usual, let me say that he didn't go to bed until 9:30 the night before, and he had woken up around 4 to have his paci stuck back in his mouth. Still, sleeping until 6:15 was rather nice. That is until we realized that we'd have to rush around to get ourselves all ready for church, which started at 6:15. By 6:45 we were all changed, showered, dressed, fed, and ready to leave the house in our Easter Best. (*NOTE: Easter Best in AZ means something completely different than it does in Central PA). (*NOTE2: Andrew thought we should all look down from the camera because that was where Caleb was supposedly looking. I chose to ignore him, and apparently so did Caleb).


C showing off his "Easter Best"


After Church, we headed home so C could take a nap. This was immediately followed by a trip to GranB and Pop Pop's house for to open some presents from the Easter Bunny, two Easter Egg hunts (one for mommy and one for Caleb) and to have Easter breakfast.

Eating his card


Opening presents




Playing with his new toys. First, a stuffed choo choo that is also a book.


Mommy's favorite toy the "Frog in a Box"



And finally, an animal treehouse/playhouse.



Next up, Caleb's Easter Egg hunt. Laying on the playmat with all the eggs. How many can you find?




Sorry, no pictures of the mommy egg hunt!

After lunch, we headed home to quickly change into our "ASU Best" for the noon baseball game where we met up with our friends Cortney, Larry, and baby Easton. Don't the boys look so cute together?

Uhh...These pictures will be forthcoming since they are not on my camera.

The game ended with a loss for ASU, but we still had a lot of fun and the boys were great! We left the game and headed directly back to GranB and Pop Pop's house where we had some playtime and then Easter dinner (during which Caleb thought it would be fun to eat his foot).

Back at home for the night, we put Caleb down for a nap while Mommy worked a bit. When he woke up, we finally got to open the Easter presents from Memaw and Papaw and check out the stuff in his basket from Mommy and Daddy.

More interested in the grass than anything else.

Checking out the bubbles

All in all it was an insanely busy day, but we had a blast. Now I'm off to get some work done.

Hoppy Easter

Love, Caleb

P.S. Check back for more pics and a recap of our busy day.

Delicious Lunch

Andrew's been bugging me to make Jambalaya or Gumbo or some other such spicy rice dish with seafood. I told him that it was too expensive and time consuming, but this morning I found a great Slow Cooker recipe for Hearty Jambalaya. Who doesn't have time for a slow cooker recipe? So, after a quick trip to the grocery store on a rainy Saturday morning I made it and we were able to have a delicious late lunch this afternoon. I forgot to take a picture of the one that I made, but here's the picture from the website. Itwassoyummy!

Potluck Meetup Pics

Pictures courtsey of Karina.