Sun Swim Sun Swim

Today was a glorious day, all except the work part.  It was perfect weather here in KY, and it was the perfect day to lay in the sun.  Mama Taylor and I took our little babes to the new home that hubby and I will be renting shortly to play in the backyard.  First of all let me just tell you how excited I am to have a backyard! Finally Syd will have somewhere to run, and it will be great to hang a swing from the tree to push my sweet precious in.  Anyway, back to the point of the post...

Hubby came to the rescue first of all and came to K-Mart to load the pool I purchased Caleb into his truck, because it would not fit in my car.  We decided to get a generic plastic one because Syd can not pop that.  Anway, he took it over to the house and filled it up with water, and  laid out the blankets for a day of mama/baby fun.  Taylor and I had some good convo while the babies played.  Neither one of them we too interested in playing in the water, but Caleb eventually decided it looked like fun. I think he liked it because I got in with him.  It was a perfect day, and  I am looking forward to many more days like that this summer. 

Love how he is looking at Isabel

Don't know what this face was about

I just love his eyes

I'm Stronger than my MaMa

First of all let me say happy Cinco de Mayo aka Margarita drinking day.  We all know Mama G's love for strawberry margaritas!! Yum.  Hubster and I plan to cook some mexican fajitas tonight and drink some margaritas, after our stroll in the park that is.  I hope to get some good pics of Caleb!!

Today has been BEAUTIFUL!!!! We had originally planned to lay out at the new house we are renting and let the little ones play in the pool today, but plans changed, and we decided to go on a walk instead.  The walk was fun but I am regreting not laying out because it is so gorgeous outside.  Sighhhhh....Maybe tomorrow?? Hopefully it is pretty!

Caleb had his 9 month appointment this morning.  Hubby came with us because they had mentioned they had to do blood work at this appointment, and I am NO GOOD with that.  However, the infamous blood work ended up being a prick on the finger, and Caleb just stared at the nurse like she was a crazy lady.  He maybe wimpered one time. I think he was more upset at us for holding the kleenex on his finger to catch the blood.  Definitely braver than me.  Much to my surprise he had no shots today.  He was all up to date on his vaccines and will not have another one until he is ONE YEAR.  It amazes me that we are that close to the one year mark :*(. 

He checked out great.  He is in the 75th percentile for weight, the 50th for height and between the 50-75th for head cir. The doc estimates that if he stays in the 50th percentile for height that he will end up being between 5'10"-5'11" when he grows up.  That is about average for guys in my family.  He was also exactly where he needed to be in all developmental catagories.

The only bad news that we got is that it looks like he has 4 teeth coming in all at once.  Two bottom and two top.  He has zero teeth as of yet, but it looks like the teething process is going to hit us hard.  The doctor said he thought they would probably start poking through within the next 3-4 weeks.  I am anticipating some hard days in our future :(. 

dada and him at the appointment

random pics from the last few weeks

 

9 Months

Caleb you are nine months old today.  Wow.  nine whole months.  I have been saying all week how crazy that is.  I mean nine months as a pregnant lady felt like FOREVER, and I have literally blinked my eye, and here you are.  You are my little nine month man.  You seem more and more like a big boy every day, and less and less like my little baby.  It is so exciting and yet bittersweet to watch you grow, because I want to hold onto these moments forever. I want to always have you be my little baby who lights up when I walk into a room, who reaches for me to hold, who tries to crawl in my lap while on the floor, and who I am able to hold and snuggle and kiss.  I want to always remember who you were at this point in your life, and to cherish every moment that the future might bring.  I love you so so so much my little man. 

At 9 Months you are.....

Sleeping: Not much has changed here.  You are still a great sleeper.  You take 3 naps a day.  Two 1 1/2 hour naps and one 2 hour nap.  You turn into a cranky pants if you do not get your mid day nap (12-2), and your schedule is then messed up for the rest of the day. You still sleep through the night.  You generally go to bed at 9 pm if I am not working, and about 10 if I am working.  You wake up around 8-8:30 every morning. You are still a complete belly/side sleeper, and you now move all over your bed.  I always find you in the cutest positions.  Your favorite place is the bottom of the bed and then you turn yourself sideways.  You a basically squished between the two bumpers, but you seem to feel comfortable.  To let you know it is nap time I now play your little einsteins ipod for you when you lay down, and you just stare at the lights.  You also have a few toys in your bed that you play with to help you fall asleep/keep you company when you first wake up.  You are always shaking a rattle when I come into your room to get you out of bed.

Size: You are a BIG boy.  Well you have basically been big since 2 months, but this month you are really big! You weigh 21 lbs 5 ounces!!! Sometimes when I am trying to pick you up off the floor, I have to lift and sit you back down to get you in just the right position to pick you up.  You are about all mama can handle.  It is a huge challenge to stand up from the floor with you in my arms.  You are wearing anywhere from 9 month-12 month clothing.  We have a few 6-9 rompers that still fit, but they will not for much longer.  You are wearing a size 2 shoe (your feet are little for such a big boy), but you like to pull your shoes off.  You are wearing a size 4 in Pampers 12 hours.   You have the cutest little roles all over your body, and I just love your little muffin top that hangs over your diaper.  You definitely are my little chunky monkey!

Eating: First of all lets just say that you still love love love to eat!!! We finally got you back on track to taking your formula, and you are taking about 25 ounces a day.  Yesterday I just started giving table food to you for most of your meals, and you LOVE it.  You had been eating bites of table food all along, but now it is going to be a lot of your diet. You have had turkey, bananas, pears, toast, and cheese so far. You are still taking about 2 jars of baby food a day give or take.  You actually ate baby oatmeal cereal by itself this morning for the first time since you were 4 months! It was a miracle. You used to clinge your little mouth together and turn away, but this morning you seemed to like it.  You always say "mmmmm" after your bites and sometimes if I say yay you will clap for yourself.  You are good a feeding yourself as well. You have the pincer grasp down, and you will work those fingers until you get the food in your mouth.  So far you only feed yourself with you left hand (I wonder if that is a sign?).  You still take 4 bottles a day, and we have been trying to get you to take your sippy more.  You love to drink water out of it, but you so far have not finished your formula from it.  We will keep working on that.  You always feed yourself your bottle.  You are really hard to hold when you are eating from your bottle because you move around A LOT.  Usually I lay you in your boppy on the couch while you are eating and I sit next to you and rub your head. 

right after you ate your first table food meal

Exciting New Things:

• You are so so so close to crawling.  You get up on all fours and rock back and forth.  However, you have a little stanky leg that either sticks straight out or gets stuck under you.  If it is stuck under you, the once you get it out you fall on your belly.  You can push yourself back up, but so far you have only crawled backward.
• You are not crawling yet, but you get where you wanna go.  You scoot yourself either on your but, or around in a circle on your belly to get places.  You also roll to get where you wanna go as well.
• You always scoot up to my legs when we are playing on the ground, and you push up on your knees while holding onto my legs.  It is so cute.
• You do not like to be held for long on our laps in the floor.  You generally roll off our laps to get where you wanna go.
• You love love love to stand.  We go from sit, stand, sit, stand over and over in a day.  It makes mama tired.  We have been practicing walking your feet.  You just look at my like I am silly and laugh.
• You can pull up on the coffee table if you go from my lap first. You are still working on pulling yourself up all the way from the ground.
• You love love love books.  You always pick your books to play with, and you turn the pages.  I walked into your room one day to get you out of bed, and you are laying on your tummy, with your legs in the air crossed, and you are turning the pages to your book.  You looked so grown up that it melted my heart.
• You still love to figure out how toys work.  You will sit for a long time and play with them.
• Unfortunately, you have been diagnosed with indoor allergies. I think I have it pinpointed down to Syd, so when we move next month she will be a permanent outside doggie.
• You still roll over on me when I am changing your diaper, you usually cry, and you hate to get dressed now.  It is kind of humerous.
• You sit like a big boy in the bath tub now, and you love love love to play with your duckies.
• You have developed hard core separation anxiety.  You will no longer stay in the gym nursery or the church nursery.  We tried on Sunday, and we got through 1 1/2 songs at church before your number was flashing on the screen.  I think I am going to start volunteering in the nursery to get you used to it again.  I like that you want me around, but at the same time I know you have to learn to be independent as well.
• You started clapping this month and saying your own distorted version of "yay".  It is more like "ayyy", and you only say it on rare occassions, however, you clap all the time.  You will clap if we say "Yay".
• You said "Hi" this month and started waving.  However, you have not waved or said hi in about 2 weeks now :) haha, but I do have it on video to prove you said it.  Hi was your FIRST word.  You said it at Hillbilly Days in the park, and you melted your mama's heart. 
• You do love to say your favorite word over and over again "baaa baaa baa baaa".  You have no idea what it means, but it is sure fun to say. 
• You give high and low fives!
• You still have a very calm temper, and you are soo chill. 

"I love mommy this much"

This month has been an exciting one.  I am so blessed to have you in my life little man, and I love you more and more every day! I believe that you are going to grow to be such an amazing and loving man, and I am so excited to see what the future will bring. 

"What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see." Hebrews 11:1
 

How Am I Sure?

I have been asked a few times in life how I know God is real.  I have always had the same answer.  I would simply reply "It is not something that I can explain to you.  However, if you open yourself up to meeting God he will reveal himself to you and you will just know".  "It is a feeling and a love like I can not explain.  It is a peace like no other"
However, I know that this explanation probably travels through one ear and out the other, because it is nothing concrete.  It is nothing I can point to and say this is God. It is  just a feeling that a person has, a true meaningful, real feeling that God is real and that he is there for you. 

Thinking on this I think I have come up with the perfect explanation to explain a relationship with God, and it comes from the birth of my son.   All throughout life you hear of this "unexplainable, forever love" that a parent has for a child.  Lets just call it "parent love".  However, until you yourself have a child you will never fully understand it.  You can learn about children, play with children, love children, but will never know that "parent love" until you become a parent yourself.  I always think back on childhood when my dad would tell me "he loves me more".  I would simply reply "no I love you more".  However, now I know that he really did love me more, because he has a parent love for me that I could no understand at the time. He could try to explain that to me at the time, but I would never fully understand it until I myself felt it.   

I think back on my experience with Caleb.  I knew that I wanted children, I knew that I would love my children, but I never understood what they love would be like until it was my reality. 

I knew I loved Caleb when he was in my stomach

However, there was no love like the moment I first saw him.

That love is not a love you can describe, unless you are speaking to someone who has been through it.  It is a love like no other, a love that appeared at that particular moment in time, and at that moment you knew the "parent love" that you had heard about your entire life.  You knew that you would love that baby beyond words for as long as you were alive.

This is like my God experience.  This is how I know God is real.  When I opened myself up to him and allowed him to work in my life he revealed himself to me.  It was a life changing moment like none that I could ever explain.  I just knew that he was God, that he loved me, and that he was 100% real. 

I have no physical evidence to prove it, I do not have all the answers to the scientific questions, however, I do have a God who is holding me.  He is holding me like I did my baby, and he is loving me like I did Caleb at the moment of his birth.

His love is never ending just a like a parents, his love is undescribable just like a parents, and he is soo soo soo real just like a "parents love".

"See how much our heavenly Father loves us, for he allows us to be called his children, and we really are!" 1 John  3:1

Dada Meet-up

These past few weeks have been great hanging out and getting to know new mama's.  It is so fun to have people who are at the same point in life as you to hang out with.  This weekend we decided to finally get the hubsters together, because we knew they would click just as well as we all did.  Mama Brittney had us over to her beautiful home for a cookout and it was so much fun.  The babies enjoyed playing together, and the hub's all seemed like they got a long very well.  It was a great time!

All the hubby's trying to build the fire

On another note, we did figure out our vacay ordeal.  Unfortunately we will not be going on vacay any longer at the end of this month.  However, I did find a place for mid-July for us to vacay at.  It was only 100 dollars than the other home, which is a miracle in prime vacay season.  Even though we are bummed a little, we know that we will have a wonderful time in July.  The crazy thing is that two weeks after we get back from vacay my little man will be turning ONE!!! Goodness time is flying by. 

Also, if you get a chance just click here.....It just takes a second and it would mean so much to me if you would vote.  Thanks!!