Hello!

Caleb loved this phone that was at the Children's Museum. He really has an obsession with phones in general. Although with all the technology now he didn't really get the concept of a phone that's not cordless. He tried walking around the whole "market", while I carried around the base. He is too funny!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

Our Marriage Mentors

Allen and Robette have been our marriage mentors for one year now.   It’s always nice to have some more people on “your team”  in life.  We love spending time with them and they love Caleb like a grandson! 

Walking Boy!

It’s really pretty funny at home. Caleb just does laps and laps, in and out of rooms, round and round. He is so proud of his new skill and of course so are we! I found the video from April 26th(Remember this!), almost 4 months ago of Caleb’s first EVER steps. We have all been working hard to get him walking, from many miles in his walker up and down the street, to trying to keep him entertained and walk a few steps between Mommy and Daddy, to the last step of barely supporting him at his hips(picture Mommy, Daddy and Kristy,PT bent over holding on to him doing laps in the house!). All the hard work and tears were worth it! Praise the Lord for Caleb’s great progress!

 

We went to the park today and I had to get some walking pictures and video of Caleb! He is walking around everywhere! He is also so proud of himself for being able to stand up and squat down that he will act like he is falling so he can stand back up again!

So proud of you little boy! We had some goals for Caleb for walking. Our first was 18months , then we wanted him walking by campmeeting, both came and went with a boy happy to crawl forever. Our third(thirds time’s the charm!) was by the time Ansley was born. (and the forth which doesn’t matter now was his 2nd birthday in October!)

Walking right past Mommy(too fast to even get him in the first picture!)

Way to go C!

Let’s Dish

Amy(Emily Ann due Aug 27th), Casey(Easton due Aug 30th) and I(Ansley due Sept. 1st) are all on our countdown to baby. We decided to make a girl’s night and head to Let’s Dish to get some meals in the freezer before baby.  Our plan is to NOT eat these yummy meals until after baby arrives, here’s hoping they all make it! If you have never been to a place like this, they make the menu(you pick from several options which ones you want to do), they do all the prep work and have everything out. You assemble the meals and put them in freezer bags. When you are ready to cook them you just pull them out of your freezer, cook/bake per their instructions and VIOLA a “home cooked meal” that requires very little thought or effort. We had fun just being out of the house, catching up on a little girl talk and doing some prep work to make life after 2 kids a tad bit easier!

Casey, Amy and LA (and yes, the aprons and bandanas were mandatory and part of the experience!)

Amy making one of her meals(Jambalaya).

Casey and Amy

I am making “Jerk pork tenderloin with grilled potatoes and roasted peppers”.

If I were voting I think Easton is going to make his appearance first, then Emily then Ansley. Only time will tell!

Full Term!

37weeks baby! We have made it to the final stretch.  Although the final stretch is probably the most exciting, it is also full of the most unknowns, and uncertainties, full of insomnia and fatigue and last minute planning.

My ultrasound this week showed a very expressive little girl. She was full of smiles, pouts and funny faces. She is head down and in the right spot. She is measuring about 5lbs now which is tiny(25percentile, Caleb was 95% and born at 8lb.11oz)).I wont know what to do with a little peanut!  However that crazy placenta is still too close. 2mm too close. The doctor was ready to throw in the towel and schedule a csection. I am not ready to do that. Dr.R had a meeting with the other 3 doctors in the practice and they all agreed to let me have a “trial of labor”. Basically meaning we will try to let me labor and if the placenta starts to bleed too much then we would go back for a csection then.  My thoughts are that 1. I am hopeful that in the next few weeks we will meet the 2cm requirement/recommendation. and the 2. It is not an exact measurement using the ultrasound. For example when they measure the size of baby they could be off a pound either way. I don’t want to have a scheduled csection just because of some error or miscalculation.

If I need a csection, then I need a csection. And I will be fine with that THEN. I guess we will find out in the next few weeks.

We have routine doctor’s appointments in the meantime and will have another ultrasound when I am 39weeks.

---

On another note. The nursery is coming along quite nicely. There are still a few little(cute) details that I am waiting on to be able to call it complete but this might be as close as we get for a while.

This is the view from the door. What’s missing? The valences that we ordered like 2 months ago. They are similar to the crib-skirt but wont get shipped until the 20th for some crazy reason. Also on the wall above the crib(right) will be wooden letters that Aunt Nicole is making. Those are going to be super cute.

 

The Rocking corner. What’s missing? A set of 2 shelves on the left wall with little picture frames on them(ones we used for our wedding). And then on the right wall will be a couple or three black picture frames that will have maternity/newborn pictures in them.

The chair was also a hand-me-down. Josh was helping some friends from church move on day. One of his jobs was to take this old rocker to the dumpster. As he was walking it out he was like what they heck am I doing, and took a little detour to his car. A little love and some white paint later it fits perfectly in her room. We had the tables and lamps in our guest room prior to the renovation. I think they fit in quite nicely.

Our cute little crib. This was a hand-me-down gift from Mike, Marty and Ann. Thank you so much. We added(and by “we”, I mean Josh) white paint to the original light wood. What’s missing? Ansley!

The guest room side. What’s missing? Picture frames for the walls and of course our valence. The white iron bed has been mine since I was little and was my great grandmothers before that. And the white whicker furniture was also in my little girl room. The bedding was a find by my college roommates back in the day(TLC’s trading spaces was a big hit and they redid my room one night,haha, who knew that it would match perfectly with my daughter’s room)

A little detail that I envisioned in my head but needed the help of Susan to get it to actually turn out. Love this detail.

I am hopeful to have some of the missing links done before baby but I am ok if they are not done.  The clothes and baby gear is all ready to go and organized and I have all her cute monogrammed clothes with matching hairbows(and headbands just in case) ready to go with us to the hospital!

Why not?

My friend, Bethany, and I took the kids to a local park. We chose the park we did because it is a pretty tree covered park for the most part. We played for a few minutes on the playground but then decided to go for a little walk and explore. We found this creek. We started to just let them look at it. But then crazy me, decided that it would be ok for Caleb to squat near it and play with the rocks at the edge. Hesitant Bethany agreed to let her girls do the same. Everyone did great and stayed dry! We walked around a little more and then decided to come back to the creek.

This time I let Caleb take his shoes off and get his feet wet and play with the rocks. Innocent enough?

Well, Next thing we knew Izzy and Piper got into get their feet wet too(except their mommy didn’t “let” them or take of their shoes!). So well, what do you do when you have already got everything wet… Just go for it and have fun!

Bethany, Izzy and Piper

Mommy and Caleb

Even though it probably made our morning a little harder, it was so worth it! I love being able to just let loose and let Caleb do crazy, spontaneous, dirty, messy things sometimes!

All the kids in their only outfits.  They are all at the age now where you don’t just routinely bring extra clothes. So when we were ready to leave, it was a scavenger hunt through the cars! I just happened to have one outfit that I had changed him out of weeks ago(yes, I clean my car out regularly!) and a burp cloth(to use as a towel). Bethany had just gotten some hand-me-down clothes and managed to make up 2 outfits for her girls!

We then headed to lunch in our wrinkly, made up, kinda-look-put-together outfits! What a great morning!

Children’s Museum

We finally bit the bullet and became members of the local children’s museum.  It has been too hot to do to much outside and Mommy and Caleb needed something fun to do. We have been thinking about doing this for a while because the year pass will come in handy when it’s too cold to take Ansley outside and we are looking for something to do!

I sent Josh this picture of when we first got there. Caleb was playing in the market. The response I get: “Harris Teeter is free!”. Nice, huh! Well, it would be except that Mommy always finds something we “need”. Seriously though, he had a great time pushing the little cart and putting the plastic food in his cart. He was a big fan of apples and onions. Weird combo.

He is getting a new love for trains. It’s a boy thing I guess. He says “Choo Choo”! Which is impressive since it’s not a “b” word, I love it.

Next to the little train table is a big train. He loved it. There is a button that makes the choo choo sound. He found this hat and was wearing it on his own accord for a long time. I got the fit when I tried to take a picture, of course!

Playing in the airplane. “Buttons”

In front of the airplanes is a big open space. Today they had balls and tunnels out. Caleb walked, and I mean walked by himself from one side of the room(which is HUGE!) to the other to climb up the stairs to play in the cockpit again. I couldn’t believe it!

We had a great time and can’t wait to go back for more fun!

Oh, and the consensus from the other moms there was that being pregnant and having one is harder than having two. They said “You’re in the hardest part now!” Yippee. Whether it’s true or not I don’t care, I am BELIEVING it! (so don’t burst my bubble!)

Independent feedings.

We have been working with Caleb to start feeding himself more with silverware and using plates and bowls more(instead of just his highchair tray).  We finally realized that we were mixing up not being consistent with which hand we choose. When you sit in front of him and use your right hand it’s natural to hand(and use hand over hand teaching) the spoon to his left hand, we didn’t realized that we were doing this. But then sometimes when we would just hand him the spoon we would pick his right hand. Hand/Spoon confusion! We are aware now and purposefully use his right hand. Also we bought some new spoons/forks/plates/bowls which seem to be helping too! He is making great progress with this and feeds himself most of his spoon-able foods like his baby oatmeal breakfast and applesauce.

We also quite consistently give him a bowl of ketchup for dipping. He LOVES to dip anything(after his usual dippers of chicken/hotdogs/fishsticks he will then move on to anything else he can like his whole plum! He is getting to be not AS messy with it, although you can still catch him just dipping his finger for a little extra taste of that yummy red sauce!

The stand/squat!

For Caleb to be able to start really walking on his own, he has to be able to get in and out of standing by himself.  This video shows big progress. We had just gotten to our car from church and because of Caleb’s new found love for rocks we took a minute to stop and smell the roses throw the rocks! He did several stands/squat combos before we even pulled out the video camera on our phone! We were so surprised at his independence and determination. Get the boy some rocks!

What happens when Uncles babysit?

Many funny stories come from their babysitting adventures.

Some of their time was spent playing Xbox. How they convinced Caleb to just sit there and watch them play I have no idea!

But I think the funniest story involves the diaper change! There was a critical error in that one of the uncles(to remain nameless) decided to throw away the dirty diaper prior to putting on the clean diaper. And the biggest problem with that mistake is that he was changing Caleb on Nana’s bed! (Have you seen the new huggies commercial where the dad changes his baby on a guest bed? Think fire hose! haha)

And then there was the “can I give him the graham crackers that are in his diaper bag?” story.  The consensus was yes, which was correct(don’t ask why they just didn’t call me!). However, Caleb started “doing something funny with his tongue”, so they took it away, made sure to find the epipen(just in case) and made him wait until I got back.

In their defense, Caleb was supposed to be taking his nap the whole time I was gone, so not much instruction was given. Thanks boys!

So what were all the girls doing that left the boys alone? Spa day with Tifanie of course!

Side note: Tifanie cut Caleb’s hair(before the babysitting adventures started) and for the first time he didn’t cry! This is a big deal because usually he is purple, stiff and hysterical during haircuts! I was not where he could see me and Nana was holding him.  I think we have decided we will just have to drop him off at the haircut place from now on! I wonder if the haircut place will agree with that-half babysitting, half haircut service! ha.

Ansley Elizabeth

Well we finally did it. We picked a name for our little girl. It is such a relief and so fun to be able to finally call her by name! Sweet little Ansley, how we love you!

Here is one of the ultrasound pictures from our 34 week ultrasound. We had to have another one to check on the placenta again.  Earlier it was completely covering my cervix(complete placenta previa), at 28 weeks it had moved off but was only about 7mm away(marginal placenta previa). I was very hopeful for this to be the one but no such luck.  The placenta problem has gotten better but not good enough yet. It was 16mm away. To be cleared of the previa and not have to have a scheduled csection, it has to be 20mm away. We will check again at 37 weeks. Please pray!

We are still measuring right on with size, weight and fluid levels. Praise God.  They are estimating her weight right now to be 4lbs 9oz.

Family Baby Shower

We were able to celebrate our little girl this past weekend. What a fun time! Thanks to everyone who helped put it all together.

Hello Mommy, Goodbye Tummy!

The infamous diaper game.

The bottle chugging game. I think it was a tie between Uncle John and Uncle Scott, who put up a fight to even play the game! Way to go boys!

The belly! How big do YOU think it is? I can’t remember who got closest but I think it was one of the uncles again. I can tell you that it wasn’t Josh. His string wrapped around the both of us!

Thanks everyone for the girlie loot! It’s so fun to have some pink things, diapers and hair bows!