Growing

It just seems like my boys are growing so fast.  Gabe took Caleb to an ISU basketball game last night and I stayed home with Owen. I took the opportunity to go through some of the bins of clothes and change out what fits and what doesn't fit.  Owen definitely does not fit into the same outfits as Caleb did within the same timeline of life.  But it's been fun to go through and remember when Caleb was small enough to fit into some of these outfits.  I've got Owen's room done, now I've got to carve out time for Caleb's stuff.  I simply dread it - but it must be done.
   We also got some really cool CARS license plate-type things from someone I work with.  Her husband knew that Caleb was a CARS fanatic and scored some really cool things for him at some sort of State Farm giveaway.  We finally got around to hanging them up.  They round out his CARS bedroom theme quite nicely.

 An update on Owen.  He's 6 months now.  I can't keep him from grabbing George.  He used to sit so nicely while I took his picture next to George, but now he thinks he's a friend.

Baths are starting to be more fun.  Owen can sit up on his own now (something that has happened within the past week), so he loves playing with bath toys more and he especially loves to try and eat the bubbles.  They're quite fascinating, you know!

Happy New Year!

Well, we're officially into 2012!  2011 was a great year filled with many blessings to our family!  Winter break is over for Gabe, so he is back at school and we are back to our normal routine.  Caleb doesn't go back to preschool for another week and a half, so we've got lots of downtime to fill each day.  Good thing we got new toys for Christmas!

We headed to Highland to celebrate with my family for a couple of days.  We saw just about everyone! It was a full house.  And this was Owen's first Christmas! He mostly enjoyed chewing on anything that came within a foot of his mouth, but he did seem genuinely pleased to get the toys that he did.

My grandma came up the next day so she could give the boys their gifts.  I love Caleb's reaction in the picture.  He's so expressive - I love that kid!

Then we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day in Normal.  The kids opened their presents and had a lot of time to play with them as we didn't have anywhere to be until Monday.  Then we headed to Urbana to spend Christmas with Gabe's family at his grandma's house (a.k.a. GGMax, as Caleb calls her).

All in all a great Christmas season!

Christmas Program

If you haven't heard, Caleb was "Joseph" in the Christmas program again this year.  He had two whole lines that he had to recite and he did a great job.  We worked on them at home and did a lot of role playing.  They also practiced on Wednesday nights during Bible school.  So on Sunday morning, as the kids got dressed in their robes and were about to go out and perform, Caleb grabbed Gracie's hand and said "Come on, Gracie, let's do this thing!"   He said it with such conviction, like he'd been preparing for this his whole life.  The kids did a great job!  Even little Owen got to be a part of the program - they had the babies ring Christmas bells while the older kids sang.  Most of the babies chewed on their bells (like mine did), but it was still cute.

Mary and Joseph

Victoria, Owen and Amelia (Simon was there somewhere) ringing the bells.

The smaller children's program - the older kids did a program at the evening service.

Baby O and V playing on the floor.  Doesn'the just look monstrous? He goes for his 6 month check-up tomorrow, so I guess we'll find out.

If I don't get anything poster before Christmas - Merry Christmas!

Santa Claus is Comin' Town

The Christmas season is upon us and so begins our crazy weeks of concerts, performances and places to be!  I think my friend April posted on FB that in the month of December we had 12 concerts to attend, perform at or direct in the month of December! You must admit, that's impressive.  So here are some pics of our Christmas happenings (none of which, strangely, include any of the concerts), but here is what we've been up to:

Caleb celebrating his birthday at Avanti's before one of April's concerts.  They brought him a cake and we sang to him, which he just thought was the coolest thing ever.

I had forgotten about a huge Bob the Builder tent that our friends gave us about a year ago.  So we got it out (now that it's a little chilly to be playing outside).  Caleb had fun building a fort and playing his new computer.

Speaking of Bob the Builder

Oh look, and here's Bob's little helper!

First snow of the season! We had to eat some!

Decorating...finally! The tree had been up for weeks, but we hadn't decorated the house or the tree.  Perhaps we have too many things going on in the month of December!

A little elf in his favorite spot

Making the cool gingerbread train that Grandma gave him.  We've enjoyed stealing goodies off of this for days!

Santa and Mrs. Claus - the best kept secret in town! They come to BroMenn one night in December.  There are no lines, they always remember us, and they give the kids Beanie Babies.  And the Santa is surprisingly (and a little creepily) in character  at all times!

Christmas party at Preschool - Caleb is writing a letter to Santa with his two big kid buddies (Kelsey and Brooke).  He threw us a curveball by informing both Santas that he wanted a remote control robot for Christmas.  He was going to get a bike.  Hmmm..what to do!

Preschool Santa - no questions about why they were different - thankfully!

A Bad Trip

On more than one occassion I've tried to upload a video of Owen laughing and it just will not upload, so I'm giving up and moving on.  I was going to post this a few days ago, since that's when it happened, but I've been so caught up in getting that video going that I've put it off.
   So I went to Wal-Mart the other night to do my general grocery shopping.  Gabe had taken Caleb to the Madrigal Dinner dress rehearsal, so I was feeling good that I only had one kid with me.  The shopping trip began like any other shopping trip.  As I headed towards the actual grocery part of the store however, everything sort of took a turn.  As I was rounding the cereal aisle I nearly took out a blind woman with her seeing eye dog with my cart.  I felt terrible! I didn't actually hit her due to my cat-like reflexes, but it was close.  Then I headed to the checkout...the dreaded Wal-Mart checkout.  Three, count them, three lines were open.  Really? I huffed to myself and picked one of the three and hunkered down.  "No big deal," I thought to myself, "I have a sleeping kid and nowhere to be. I'll just be patient."  Just like that, a nice young man offered to open another line.  Perhaps this trip is shaping up to be okay.
  Not so fast.  As I start to unload my cart (I was the second one in line) I noticed that my box of diapers has what looked like pizza sauce running down the side of it.  "Ewww....wait, is that pizza sauce on my Christmas bows? on my yogurt?" I quickly grabbed my baby wipes from the diaper bag and try to wipe everything down, but he's now ready to check me out.  I explain what I've found and he graciously offers some paper-towels (the cheapest, 1-ply paper towels known to man!).  Given that there is pizza sauce on more than one thing, I begin searching for the culprit.  There, at the very bottom of my cart, is a small jar of GreatValue pizza sauce.  As I picked it up I see a large gaping hole at the bottom of the jar with sauce just oozing out.  Hmmm.  I have to believe it was busted when I picked it up and I just poured it all over my other items as I put it into my cart.  However, this also means that I've been dripping pizza sauce all over the store and have been subsequently walking through each drip with every step I took.  Lovely.
   It's not over.  So the guy asked one of his associates to go get a new jar of sauce.  She looks at me and says "what aisle is it in?" I kind of just stared at her for a minute and said, "umm, the one with all the pasta and noodles." "Oh," she says, "about where in the aisle is it?"  Do you work here? Seriously. Meanwhile, all of my groceries are piling up on the little lazy susan thing at the end of the check-out because I'm wiping all of my groceries down.  I then explain to the guy that I'm going to need a new cart because this one has pizza sauce everywhere.  "Oh yeah," he says.  Yet another associate shows up with a cart.  I'm causing a ruckus.  I move Owen to the new cart, park the saucy one aside and begin putting my groceries in the new cart.  He hits the total button, I pay for them, and done.  But I had another transaction to do of Christmas gifts.  I explain that I need a gift receipt for one of the items.  During this transaction is when I realized that I had about $7.00 worth of coupons in my pocket that I forgot to give him during the first transaction.  Argh!  And now he's telling me that he forgot to push some button to get a gift receipt.  I wave my hand at him and say "don't worry about it, just run it through." Well, now my debit card won't work.  Swipe. Error. Swipe. Error. He's got to do it.  Deep breath, deep breath.  And we're done!
    But wait, I need to go to Customer Service.  I've already spent a crazy amount of time here, why not spend more.  Normally, if I had forgotten about my coupons I would have let it go.  Saving 75 cents is not worth it.  But this was $7.00! So I went up to the counter and she told me that she could just give it to me in cash what I would have saved.  Score! Well, in that case, can I get a gift reciept? Yes, I can.  Sweet!
   Still not done.  As I'm leaving the store, I spied what I thought was the backend of my Jeep and walked briskly toward it.  Only to find out that I was walking to someone else's car and literally passed my Jeep 5 vehicles ago.  Oh my! How embarassing! At least I know that the lady I almost ran into earlier didn't see me!
  

Happy 4th Birthday, Caleb!

Today Caleb is 4 years old! I know all moms say this, but seriously, where has the time gone? I commented to Gabe about how easily I can take myself back to that day in the hospital. I suppose all mothers feel that way. It was a pretty eventful day in our lives - he made sure that December 2nd was all his - my water broke at midnight and he was born by 5:39am. He made quite an entrance!

 
To my son: You are an amazing gift from God.  You are sharp - each day you teach me that you learn so quickly, pick up so much and are smarter than I ever give you credit for.   You are particular - you love rules, especially when you are the one setting them, and you love things to be in order and in their place. I admit that your Daddy and I probably had a little to do with that OCD behavior.  You are funny - you love to make up silly words, tell jokes and when in a comfortable setting, be the center of attention. You are a negotiator - You definitely have your Daddy's gene for finding the loophole in almost everything.  While this is frustrating to your mom sometimes, I know it will serve you well as you grow and think "outside the box".  You are handsome - never have I known a cuter little red-head in my life! You are kind and patient - we worried about how you would react when Owen was born and you have been nothing but loving.  You are so kind to him and love to kiss and hug him everyday.  He couldn't ask for a better big brother.  We love you, son.  And I'm looking forward to this next year with my 4 year old - oh the things you will teach me!

I'm baaaaack!

I admit...I've been terrible.  But after seeing my friend Julie get back to her blog and after my father-in-law used one of my past posts during Owen's dedication, I realized that I really need to get back to it.  I took some time yesterday to read through my old posts about Caleb and our general life happenings.  It made me want to have the same record of what's happening with Owen during this precious time and also to keep track of how Caleb is changing.   I also realized that I used to post something at least once a week and then slowly went to one post per month.  Yikes! No wonder everyone lost interest.  But since we're past the stage of sleepless nights and we're embarking on what appears to be a fairly regular routine, I'm going to try it again.
   So without further ado, I'm going to attempt to catch you up on the last 4 months of our lives with some highlights and pictures.  We've actually been quite busy within the last few months, so there's a lot!

Owen over the past 5 months...he's a big boy!  At his 4 month appointment he was 2 inches longer than Caleb was and about 1.5 lbs more.  Caleb better watch out!

 We made some visits to friends who recently had babies.

Sam, Caleb, me, Owen, Jenny, Maggie and Tug

Gus, Olivia, Anna, Caleb and Owen

 Gabe had a lot of concerts over the summer, so it was nice to take the kids out of the house for awhile.  It's a novel idea when you're used to having a December baby.

Caleb dancing to the Batman theme that the Brass Band of Central Illinois was playing

Looking pretty fly

We also hit the Illinois State Fair and the Sweetcorn Festival.  Hooray for Daddy being home in the summer so we can do all of these things as a family.  I wouldn't trade his summers off for anything!

Caleb loved all of the rides.  He was even brave enough to go on the kids ferris wheel.

Mmmm...sweet corn on a stick.  Does summer get better than that? 

Caleb's 1st day of preschool.  He was pretty excited!  He got to go pick out his school supplies and get a new backpack.  Earlier in the summer his two "big kid buddies" sent him a letter showing their pictures and telling him how excited they were that he was coming.  His first comment about them was "they're pretty!"  Lord, help us now!

Hittin' the Pumpkin Farm!

2nd Annual Brass on Deck

Inspector Closseau on a hunt to find the pink panther.

The quintet

ISU Homecoming 2011

It was cold, but we all had a good time.  Caleb loved all of the marching bands!

 My mom was visiting with all of her ISU roommates for their anniversary of graduating from ISU.  I'm not sure she'll appreciate if I post how many years, so let's just say it was a mile marker. :) I'm sure my kids will be taking pictures of me with my friends in years to come! 

Halloween!

Owen was a giraffe and Caleb was, what else, Batman.  Anytime you ask Caleb his name, or say his name, he says "no, my name is Batman"

Eating cereal for the first time.  It was hit! But it took awhile to perfect eating off the spoon.

Caleb's 4th Birthday party

 I cannot believe he is almost 4 years old!  Where did that time go?

 Owen's Dedication

The same night that we had Caleb's birthday party we decided to do Owen's dedication.  Seemed appropriate to ask the family to only travel one time.  Especially in the busy holiday season.  It worked out.  It was a lovely service! And this time around, our kid was actually awake for his dedication.  What a nice little family!