Caleb's 3rd birthday

I just have to say that I can't believe my baby is 3 already... I know every parent feels that way, but it's even more pronounced since I feel like we lost several months of our lives this past year. I'm so thankful for him every single day... trying not to take any of it for granted.

Enjoying a cupcake treat on the evening of his actual bday (the 12th)...

Opening presents from Poppa Ed...he is honestly excited to get clothes- must be like his Daddy.

This cake gave all of us a party in our tummies!

Blowing out a special 3 candle... this was the same candle that Hannah Grace blew out on her third bday.

Having a blast in the play area of Chick fila... he thought it was hilarious when he would let his balloon float up and Kendell or Mr. Jimmy would jump up and get it. It's the little things sometimes...

Happy Birthday, sweet boy!

Random Pics

Caleb and I enjoying the train ride at the Promenade on nice Saturday....

The Jack Ryan Gillham foundation put on a golf tournament in August. This foundation supports families who have children in ACH. Our sweet friends the McCarvers sponsored a hole in honor of precious Hannah Grace.

vacation

James and I hit year #10 this summer... so we decided to venture off to Cancun. I think the last time we went anywhere alone together for any length of time was our 1st anniversary... maybe? Caleb had a great time in NLR with Memaw and Pepaw, and we talked to him pretty much every day via Skype.

View from back sliding glass door...

View from one of the many restaurants... I wonder how much it would cost to move to this resort?

Sigh...

That sigh is me realizing how much catching-up I need to do. Part of the reason I don't post very often (besides lack of time) is that I can't stand to look at this messed up blog. Every since my old background expired, I haven't been able to make it look halfway decent. Maybe Christmas break...

Sweet friends Bonnie and Becky who came out to support Hannah's H.O.P.E.

Poppa Ed and Caleb enjoying some time outside at Aunt Carla's this summer...

This was supposed to be a "cheese" that looked more like a "someone please get me out of here"!

I have a great idea.... I should cover up Smokey with sand!

Oh my...

Has it really been that long since I posted? I am pretty much a blog failure here lately... and this post is for my friend LW who is tired of seeing my bucket garden :)

Caleb is growing so fast... he will be 3 in less than 2 weeks. Here are some new things from him (among the many new things):
-He says "How bout go outside?" or "How bout we build blocks?"... quite the little negotiator, just like his Sissy was.
-He will sometimes add "or something"... like, lets play puzzles or something
-He has a knack for picking up on songs off the radio...like "California Girls"
-He runs out from the bathroom after his bath to show whoever is around that he has a naked booty.
-He is quite the little politician at church- he says hi and bye to everyone and gives out hugs left and right to people he doesn't even know.
-He says "You're my baaaaaaby"... wonder who tells him that? :)
-He loves to chase our dog Molly around and scare her... poor Molly
-He still loves to read... I will find him in his room with books spread out all around him. He can "read" several books that he's memorized.
-He loves going to "school" (Mother's Day Out)... he only goes on Mondays, but he literally says every day that he wants to go to school.
-He also loves Puggles (his little Wed. night class at church)... if it's not school he wants to go to, it's church. He will tell us what all God made... flowers, birds, trees... and me!

Such a sweet boy.... I will try and catch up eventually with actual pictures.

Bucket Garden

I'm sure this is not that impressive to many of you who have wonderful gardens... that are actually in the ground :) However, this is HUGE for me... I do not have a green thumb at all. In fact, I'm an expert plant killer. A good friend came and basically kindly did all this for me b/c I wouldn't have known where to start. It's given me something to do... I enjoy going out and watering... checking for progress. Again, pretty big for me. Nana commented that my Mammaw and Pappaw must be smiling down from Heaven- they grew lots of stuff at their house back in the day. If I don't kill these, I might graduate to an actual garden in the ground next year!

If you look closely, you will see a tomato in the top middle of this pic... and a little cherry tomato in the bottom-slightly right of center.

Still dancin...

Caleb visited with Memaw and Pepaw for a few days last week while Mommy got some work done- including painting the hall (bleh). Pepaw took this little video of Caleb's moves... now he's added the famous "ending move". That's Aunt Susan (SuSu) that gets to have a "dance party" (as he calls it).

Branson

We went to Branson a few weeks ago... Caleb had a great time at the pool and at this little kiddie ride place (as you can see below). I was surprised by how much he liked the pool- it had a shallow end, so he could walk up and down the ramp doing his weird eye stuff with the rail (I will try and get video of this sometime). He also liked to jump off the side... if you held his hands. He would not just jump off and trust me to catch him... nothing like Sissy. She would jump hoping that I wouldn't be able to get to her.

Just tell me that these faces are not full of pure joy...

Relay for Life

Catching up... as usual. We went to the luminary lighting ceremony at the Relay for Life in June... this benefits the American Cancer Society. It was another one of those terrible, but good things. I never know if I'm going to be glad I went to things such as this... but in the long run, I usually am. I told Caleb that there were lights for Sissy... and he repeated that lots of times. Thanks again to all of you who donated in Hannah Grace's memory...

Sweet boy in his stroller...

So sad that there has to be a track-full of these....

Caleb's new pool

We got Caleb a little plastic baby pool for the backyard... as I've said before, he doesn't necessarily always enjoy the water. He spent the first few minutes clinging to my leg....

Then he decided that it could be fun to splash his feet in the water... and his hands, just a bit. Hopefully he will get used to being in his pool and have a good time with it this summer.

Time flies...

Caleb in his "comfy chair"... and he looks pretty comfy.

Has it really been 2 months since I've posted? I don't even know where to start... but this is a video I took a few weeks ago. We were in the Taco Bell drive through line (I know... I let my kid eat great stuff), and all this sudden Caleb pops out with "I love Taco Bell". I didn't think I heard him right at first, but he repeated it, so I pulled out the ol' Flip cam to catch him. He definitely loves some Taco Bell... and with his little southern voice, the "Bell" has about 4 syllables. He eats an order of rice and a soft taco with no problem at all... and sometimes asks for more.

Some new Caleb things...

*He now says "thank you soooo much"

*Still says things like "Wanna hold you?"... so you say "You want me to hold you?" and he says "Ooookkkk" in this really cute, high voice like it was all your idea.

*He still loves to read- he can "read" several books all by himself. We have this whole routine where we have to lie on his bed and read 2 or 3 books every night... then he says "Momma (or Daddy) lay down with you?"

*He can now climb up on our bed all by himself... and when he's ready to get down, he says "sliiiiide down", gets on his tummy, and slides until his feet reach the ground.

*He knows many shapes... which I didn't realize until he started pointing out circles, triangles, squares, etc. that he finds in his toys, puzzles, etc.

LR zoo

We made a little trip to the LR zoo today. I would love to say Caleb had a great time... but unfortunately, it didn't go quite the way we had planned. He didn't want to ride in the stroller, so he cried until we let him out. We tried to let him walk, but he kept going way ahead and wouldn't stay with us. He cried the whole time we held his hand. I think he looked at about ohhhhh, 3 animals. He just wanted to run loose! Maybe next year...

One of the 3 times he actually looked...

random stuff

Just a few random Caleb facts:

*He loves to wash his hands and brush his teeth (but not so much if you are helping him brush)

*He's still a dancing machine

*He is talking up a storm ("Where daddy go?", "turn light on", etc)

*He likes to say something like, "I play with you?", then he says "Ok" like you were the one who suggested it and he is agreeing to go along :)

*He refers to himself quite often in 3rd person, e.g. "Good job, Bubba" to himself

Caleb, you are one of the sweetest, funniest little boys I have ever met. I hope that somewhere in there, you have some memories of your sissy... we are pretty sure she manages to whisper some things in your ear at certain moments :) You wanted to go in her room twice today which is something you never do. I wish I knew what you were thinking... but I do know that I love to kiss and squeeze your sweet face.

balloons for Hannah

Some sweet teachers at Monitor Elementary organized a balloon release to honor Hannah Grace's memory. All the 5th graders released balloons with little notes attached. These notes had her picture and the link to her caringbridge. It encouraged whoever found one to do something good for someone else. A note was found in Florida (!!!) a few days later, and the sweet woman e-mailed the school. What a special thing...

Caleb and "the haircut"

This is just a random cute picture I threw in...

So, Ms. Amy took Caleb to our normal place to get his hair cut Tuesday, but things didn't go so well. His hair ended up really short on the sides and back and longer on the top with patches in it. So, after hours of consideration at home that evening, we decided to just let Dad go to work with the clippers ("we" meaning mostly Mom- I was slow to relent). He ended up looking really cute, but I just can't stand how much of a "big boy" he looks like now!

A few new things:

*He is putting lots of words together, such as: "Wanna play?", "Wanna hug?", "Sit down with me", "Molly, hush", etc.

*He now gives hugs sometimes on his own- without us having to beg for them :)

*He can now actually count objects with one-to-one correspondence up to 10

*He's learned more colors, like purple, orange, black, etc.

He is such a good, sweet boy... our big problem with him is that he wants to stand up/jump up and down in the booth when we go out to eat. If that's the biggest problem we have, we'll take it!

My little reader

As I've said before, Caleb loves to read books. One of his favorites is Goodnight, Gorilla. We have read it probably hundreds of time. I noticed a week or two ago that he can pretty much say all the words. One part has all the animals saying "good night" in little speech bubbles- some of the print is big and some is little... hence, the different "voices" he uses. Of course, the kindergarten teacher in me is beaming with pride, so I had to share!

He's a dancing king...

Caleb's new favorite dancing tune is the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" that his stuffed spider plays. We really like the "hands on the knees" move- not sure who taught him that one. He literally dances multiple times every day...not kidding.

Caleb gets tickled...

Caleb loves the episode of "Backyardigans" where they are doing hurdles in a race... it cracks him up everytime!

Caleb's barnyard sounds

Caleb shows off his animal sounds skillz... and his funny voices.