Nathan is ONE!

Happy Birthday to my sweet little Nathan!  What can I say about you?  My snuggly boy has a special place in my heart.  I love your cuddles that you reserve just for me.  It seems I'm the only one who can make you happy, but I'm ok with that.  Don't grow up and not need me too fast!  We always thought you were our more serious kid, but your silly side is really starting to come out.  We love to play games together - like when you lay down and pretend you're sleeping, and the pop up and laugh when I say "awake!"  You LOVE to eat.  Perhaps my future foodie buddy?  It cracks us up when you laugh just to get us to laugh with you.  You like to put things in and out of containers.  You like to mess up all of the things Caleb worked so hard to organize and then run away.  You like to climb stairs, and are so close to walking.  You aren't talking clearly, except for "hi" and "mama", but I'm pretty sure you're trying to make the sounds for "ball" and "car."  Caleb adores you and wants to be there when you wake up so he can ask if you had good nappies and good dreams.  Daddy loves to wrestle with you, and you love when he plays rough.  You have beautiful big brown eyes that always have a twinkle.  Your little dimpled grin is my favorite.  And where did that blonde hair come from?

We love you sooooooo much!  And can't imagine life without you.  Happy birthday!!!

Video overload!

Ok, I've upload some videos.  Sometimes picture snapshots just don't capture all the cuteness I get to see everyday.  :)

Here David is having some fun with the boys.  They love to rough-house with Daddy.

They love to play in the sandbox.  Nathan was playing and doing a little entertaining dance.  It's a little long and slow-moving, but it's funny to me.

Caleb is so silly sometimes.  I love how I can see the idea come over him - like around minute 1:33ish.  And you can see he's so happy with himself.  I have no idea where that white-boy dancing comes from.  Feel free to steal those moves for your next dance party.

Nathan has been doing this fake laugh lately.  It's like he does it to try to get us to laugh with him.

We're back!

After a couple weeks off-line, we're back!  So much has happened, it's probably going to take a while to get caught up.  I have so many updates on each boy, our new house and other happenings - hopefully I'll be able to get to it all.  I might have to break it into a few posts.  I think for now I'll just download the pics from my camera and phone and do a picture post.  More stories to come later...

First dinner as a family at the new house.  

It was such nice weather, we got to eat outside on our patio.

First bath in the new house.

Caleb in the new play room.  He could spend hours in there!

Enjoying our driveway!  It's so nice and long.  On this day, they were watching a lawn guy mow the front circle.

Peeking around the side of the house.

Our front porch.  Nathan is holding his favorite toy - a fork.  And Caleb is doing business on the phone in the background.

Nathan loves climbing the stairs.

Our front two rooms have no furniture and lots of boxes.  It's just a big place for the boys to run around in now.  And great for zooming cars across the open floor.  It's been fun to open boxes and discover old toys.

The previous owners left their swing set.  Score!  Caleb LOVES it!

Caleb helping me make zucchini bread - apparently, it's very serious work.

He loved just playing in the dry ingredients with the spoons and cups.

"Take a picture of me bouncing the ball?"

We were all mesmerized when we got cable back.   Two weeks with no tv or internet will do that to you.  I didn't even have any videos for the boys to watch.  Fortunately, we've had lots of nice weather to play outside in.  When we got the tv on, we all just stared and said, "It's so pretty."  hehe.  But we learned we can survive just fine without it.  We watched the Texas Rangers win the pennant.  Woohoo!  Go Rangers!  We've never had a tv this low at the boys' eye level.  I think we might have to get a console that keeps it up a little higher, no?

 My parents' dog, Boomer, and Caleb chillin' after a day of hard work.

Caleb's room!  Well, kinda.  We're not really sure who gets which room yet.  We got a twin bed from my parents that will be Caleb's, but right now he's still sleeping in the crib.  Need to get some more boyish bedding.  Hopefully our child won't have to go to counseling when he's older because of how behind we are on things like: big boy bed, getting rid of the pacifier, getting potty trained.  Maybe I shouldn't be admitting these things...

Exploring the park down the street.

We live right behind an elementary school with a cool playground too.

Cute little Nathan has been sleeping in a ball with his booty up.

Our future engineer decided to pick each block up with the picker-upper-thingy and hand them to me to help build a tower.

He found his old puppy and now they are best friends.  It has been packed up for a while, so he got really excited when he found it.  He's been dancing around with it, playing on the swingset, he said the puppy wanted to go outside, and here they are eating together.  Every time it says "hug me" Caleb give it a hug.  And he's doing all the songs with it, like patty cake with the dog's hands, and pointing to all the stuff for Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes.  He's calling him Buddy, and telling him he loves him, and saying to me "He's smiling!"

We've started a new rule with eating, which is "I will take one bite."  This is to get Caleb to expand his food tastes.  He's done so well with it!  He made a fuss only the first day.  Now he'll try it, and most of the time he likes it.  Here he is devouring an apple.  This morning he ate a whole orange!

Caleb picked out his outfit of camo shorts and a rainbow striped shirt.

While unpacking, we found our winter hats.  :)

Caleb said it was his baseball hat.

Caleb lugged his chair, truck and puppy up to the top of the slide and read my magazine.

One day, Caleb looked up at the ceiling fan and said, "That's funny.  Mustaches on the fan."  Don't you see it??

That's it for now!  I've uploaded lots of new videos to YouTube.  That'll be my next post.

Sweet Spot

Mmmm.  We have finally reached our sweet spot.  Or so I call it.  I think the first 5-6 months of having a baby are the hardest.  Lots of feedings, changing, crying, no sleep for you.  They want to be able to do stuff, but they aren't able to yet.  Nathan would get so frustrated when I laid him down, but once he could sit up on his own, he was a different person.  Even better when he started crawling, and then pulling up.  So here we are at 11 months.  I think around 8-9 months is when the wonderfulness comes - routine.  The beginning of the first year is constant change.  Cutting naps, cutting feedings, introducing food, sleep training.  But now it feels like we can coast for a while.  Our schedule is so predictable.  It helps me with planning, and helps the kids function well too.  I mean, we get bumps here and there, but I can pretty much know what to expect each day and what we're capable of doing.  It also gives me time to do house stuff, we can get out and run errands and play, and I even get alone time when they both take an afternoon nap.  Nathan is down to two naps, and will stick with that for a while.  Caleb kept two naps until he was 18 months!  It'll get even better when I wean Nathan in the next couple months - more flexibility, and I can even get a day off!

I can't believe Nathan will be 1 next month!  

Here are recent pics of the boys:

Caleb playing in my parents' dog's crate.  Sending us a message - get me a playhouse!  One day Caleb was skating around the house on a plastic squirt gun.  He told me he was skate boarding.  I waffle between figuring out if our child is deprived of toys or just really imaginative.  :)

 He was walking around the house with his hands in his pockets.  When I asked him to smile for a picture, I got this cheesy grin.  :)

Mr. Cutie Pants - that's what I call him.  Apparently I do that a lot.  Sometimes it's Mr. Stinky Pants.  Sometimes it's Mr. Silly Pants.  Mr. Hungry Pants.  You get the idea.  Caleb has started to do it too.  He'll call Nathan "Mr. Grabby Grabby" when Nathan tries to take his toys.  A lot of times it's Mr. Mr. 

Our fast crawler.

Playing together.  Caleb is slightly controlling and OCD, only letting Nathan push certain buttons.  His favorite setting is the ABCs in Spanish.

Hazards of having an older brother

Nathan got his first brother-inflicted shiner this week.  His face collided with Caleb's car flying off the table at full speed...while it was still in Caleb's hand.  So yeah, basically Caleb rammed a car into Nathan's face.  He said, "I crashed it."  Poor Nathan.  I'm just glad he didn't damage his eye!

And yes, he's wearing a Thanksgiving bib.  I could say I'm just anxious for fall weather to get here, which is true; but really, that was the only bib that was clean.  :)