Moving

A little late on posting this, but we've finally set a date for moving! We'll be getting our moving truck on October 3rd and then will be leaving Missouri on the 4th. We set the date a couple weeks ago, and have been making and finalizing all the plans to make it happen. I'm still a bit in shock that its finally going to happen, I've known its been coming and wishing it'd be here but to actually have the move date set...its just weird. I'm very anxious...excited beyond belief, but extremely nervous at the same time. I've got all these ideas of what it'll be like and I'm hoping that I'm not...putting my standards too high, you know? And that I'll then feel let down. I just need to have faith and know that we'll be taken care of. So anyhow, we have been packing, planning, and trying to soak up as much as we can of being here before we go. I have a hard time letting go of things and big changes...so we'll see how I do with this move :) We'll also see how Caleb will do...being in a car for 3 days, staying in hotels, having a complete lifestyle change...for a little while that is. Hopefully I'll be able to do updates of the move, just depends how crazy things get.

On a different note, I've recently been struck with this awareness of how much we cram our lives with pointless...time wasters, information, events, etc. {on a completely different note I know}. And its just really stuck with me. All the technology that we just can't live without and must be connected to, how many things {tv, internet, phones, social events, sports, fashion, etc.} distract from our relationships with our family and ultimately God. Where does the focus need to be and what do we spend more time focusing on? What are we willing to give up? This isn't to be a downer, just something that I've been really thinking about and trying to work on :)

Some Caleb tidbits {because he always lightens things up, and this post kinda needs it}:

~Everything is still all about dogs: he finds a dog in all his books, says the word 'dog' 100 times a day, when he gets up in the morning he wants to see his dog, he even pretends to be a dog sometimes...didn't know they did that this early :)

~He makes the cutest owl sound

~His molars are coming in :(

~Loves to give high-fives and will shake your hand {and kiss it before he lets go...totally his own thing, didn't teach him to}

~Has picked some favorite blankets and stuffed animals {up till recently he hasn't cared much for them}

~Loves to play with his cars and makes car noises

TGIS

Instead of TGIF, I'm thinking TGIS(aturday). This week's been a rough one, and I'm kinda glad it's about over. And Caleb's got proof that's its been a rocky ride...

He got this boo-boo yesterday morning {picture doesn't quite capture it}, and its still a mystery how it happened. We know there was a table, blanket, an excited little boy and possibly a toy car involved. I was making the bed when he went running down the hall carrying a blanket and then I heard a crash and then, the crying. I found him sitting by a table in our living room, possible scenarios: Tripped over the blanket fell into the table, had blanket over his head and ran into the table, tripped over the toy car in the hallway and fell into the table. Who knows exactly how it played out but he was definitely beat up with a rug burned cheek, a welt down the side of his face and ear, a scratched up chin and a bloody fat lip. How he managed to do all this with one little spill is beyond me. He was over it after a few minutes of course, even if I wasn't.

The night before that he also took a tumble. He loves trying to get our dog's tail, and for the most part she plays along. She'll sit right in front of him waiting for him to get it and as soon as he tries she'll jump away. Well this particular night he was in his game and was a bit quicker than she expected. When he did get a hold of it and she would try to jump away, Caleb would end up flopping on the ground...he found this hilarious! Until they did this little act on the tile floor and Caleb ended up doing a little twisty flip and hitting his head. That left a nice little knot/bruise {didn't show up in the previous picture, hair was covering it}

The previous day {no falling this time} Caleb's breakfast didn't quite agree with him so he decided to give it back to me...my nice way of saying he threw up on me, twice. Its the first that he's gotten sick and it was kinda scary {first time mom, first time seeing babe not well}, but we made it through it. And in a gross kind of way, it was really sweet. When he didn't know what was going on and was a little scared he came to me, wanted me to make it better. Makes me love being a Mom, even if it means getting thrown up on {now in a few years when he knows what to do he better run to the bathroom, not my lap :) }. The day didn't end much better. During bath time, he learned to lean over and stick his mouth in the water. He had fun with that till he inhaled and sucked in a bunch of water. Caleb's not really much of a crier, but in this instance he was sobbing...really scared him. Took quite a while to get him to calm down.

Each of these cases on their own wouldn't have been a week changing event, but piled on together just made for a rough going week. Along with some bummer let downs with the whole moving situation, I'm looking forward to this next week and hoping it brings some more smiles and less tears.

{A few of the more happier moments of the week}

loves being outside, and watching his daddy

had fun playing with the boxes before we packed them up

Give me a sign

Figured I needed to do a Caleb update, he's learning and doing new things everyday. I've heard people say that about their child before, but WOW I didn't realize how true it was. I keep thinking he's too young to know how to do some of the things he does...but truth is he's just growing up and I'm having a hard time realizing it :)

*A few months ago at our Dr. checkup, she asked if he was saying sounds or any words...well he'd say mama or dada occasionally and we thought he was trying to say dog but he really didn't say sounds. He did though growl, scream, do motor sounds, all sorts of noises...just not word sounds. I was a tiny {very tiny} bit worried. No worries now! A few weeks ago he just started making actual word sounds and began saying some words quite regularly. Now he'll copy words we say {whether he's actually saying the word or imitating...}. Its so exciting!! But before he started all this, I had something else to be excited about. We worked on signing with Caleb from about 10 months+ and at around 12 months he started really signing and learning them so fast. So I was just excited about the signs and trying to not be too worried about him not saying words. I'm planning on doing a little counter on here to update the # of signs he knows {words are hard because like I said I can't tell if he's just copying or actually saying the word}. As of now he knows to sign food, milk, more, drink, all done, dad, tree, ball, dog, book, cheerios/o's, and...that's all I can think of for now :)

*He loves his dog. Loves to pet her, throw her ball, watch her run, listen to her whine, and tackle her from time to time.

*Loves the outdoors! If you're looking out a window, he's right by your side wanting to look too. One of the few times he throws a fit is when its time to come inside, it just breaks his heart

*Sings E-I-E-I-O whenever he hears "Old McDonald" or sees his Old McDonald book

*Nods his head yes and says "yep" to everything {unless you're telling him 'no', then he shakes is head and says 'noooo'} and he does all this with the funniest expression, usually eyebrows raised

*His hair is getting fairly long and I'm considering a cut...maybe

*He points at everything, walks around w/that little pointer finger stickin out

*Blows kisses

*Wants to read books all. day. long. and usually the same ones over and over {and over}

*Is learning his facial features {all though he still mixes them up}

*Loves shutting doors :)

Here are some pictures of the crazy boy:

trip to the park

after the park :)

{now I have to explain these last ones...no I wouldn't usually let him eat ice cream,

BUT he just got his 1 year shots and blood drawn, which was awful.

Plus it made for some cute pictures}

A Day of Cheap Fun!

You can spend quite a bit on fancy toys, gadgets, and trips to have fun...but some of the best fun is when it doesn't cost a mint! Today was just one of those days...

A bowl of water, a paintbrush and the perfect weather

He sure had fun 'painting' the deck, the door, and Mommy's feet

so much, that it was hard to get him to look up for a picture...

Caleb also found some cheap fun of his own...something that I didn't quite approve of. I thought he was playing too nicely in the living room, just cooing and babbling away. Turns out he was just talking with his new little friend. When I looked down and saw him holding his arm out with a large black thing crawling on it...I kinda flipped and started swatting away. Once it was off him I glanced around and found that it was just a cricket, whew. Caleb looked at me and smiled, his expression saying 'look mom what I found'! Lovely dear... I have the feeling this is just one of the many occurrences to come.

So here's to cheap fun!!

Home Improvement around every corner

Okay, so I'm finally taking some time to update. I know I've said several times that pictures were to come and sad to say they still won't be here. Every room is waiting for something to be done before worthy of a picture. In this post I said hopefully we'd have the bathroom finished by the weekend....and we did! Shortly after that, Jacob finished the flooring and baseboards in the rest of the downstairs and the downstairs was finished!!! What, you noticed that...was finished.Yea...about that. I should have taken pictures immediately when it was done so I could post them (but I still hadn't hung the pictures you see, would have made a total difference...well, maybe). Anyways, not too long after the bathroom was 'finished' the toilet started leaking! Jacob found out what he thought it was, bought the replacement and it was the wasn't going to work with our toilet. So when Jacob went to buy a different piece the guy there at the store said make sure and check that your toilet doesn't have a hairline fracture, because that could cause the leaking too. Well, it does. Ugh!!! So now we may have to buy a new toilet and install that one (hopefully with no problems, and hopefully our floor isn't ruined from this water issue). So I should have taken the stinkin pictures even if I didn't have the room totally decorated, but that's just not my style. Moving on...to the other things we've been working on. Jacob's main focus lately has been on curb appeal. The usual mowing, trimming, weed eating...the not so usual :) deck washing, mulching, re-rocking our driveway (bought 22,000 lbs of rock...yea, that's a lot of rock!), cutting down the forest growing up our back fence...seriously the way things grow here is insane (Jacob had just cut it down last summer, and it was already taller than me by far). He's also been doing some other jobs that aren't really visual, but things that need to be done (fixing squeaky floors, rerunning wires, yada yada). We've also repainted the kitchen cabinets and replaced hinges. Most recent was the stairs, they needed to be sanded and painted, and Jacob installed a hand rail. While Jacob's been at work Mom and I have been making frequent runs to our storage unit we got a couple weeks ago. Trying to get rid of a lot of the stuff in the back unfinished part of the downstairs. I also just finished turning our office (which seemed to be the cram room...you know the room you stuff things into when people are coming over} into a guest room with a little work area. I think its pretty cute and I'd love to share pictures, but it still needs a few things done {you'd think I'd learn my lesson, because maybe tomorrow there will be a hole in the roof and we'll get a bunch of rain....just kidding!}. Today I went along and scrubbed doors {those spots everyone seems to touch and they get all grimy...what? that doesn't happen in your house? oh...}, baseboards and the kitchen appliances {got some good ideas from this blog, and tried the toothpicks...worked great!}. The list of to-do's seem to be getting smaller and I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel {not the bad one, a good one...like all this work has an end in sight}.

Sorry this isn't anything real exciting and I feel like its all I talk about or think about is house work, but it really is our life right now...just the way things are for the time being.

To end on a more fun note, quick little blurp about Caleb. He's getting more and more daring, mischievous, mobile, strong, understanding, and character. Pretty much he's turning into a toddler, and I'm not quite sure I'm ready for that. I've had some near break downs of 'what happened to my baby boy', I can hardly remember him being a tiny baby. Away from the sad thoughts...and positive! I'm shocked at all the things he's beginning to understand. Like talking about daddy during the day, he'll run to the front door and wait for a minute to see if he's there. And all these words he now knows {knows not says}, if I talk about the ball, fish, etc. he'll go point at or get them. Things I didn't even know he knew. Everyone says its like this from now on, constant growth and learning more and more everyday. Another one of his big things has been growling, some of you may have heard him do this before...but this is a different growl. This is a monster/dragon growl, like it hurts my throat if I try and copy him. And he does it all. the. time. Funny kid.

Here's our growling fun lovin boy:

We'rrrre Baaaack!!

After a day of packing, rushing, good-byes, glares, trying to entertain a one year old within a 2 foot area, changing multiple diapers within that same area (one of which I didn't change in time and he ended up peeing out of and then I had the wet pants...), trying (unsuccessfully) to get a very tired babe to sleep...you guessed it in the same 2 foot area :), landing at the airport at 1:00 am with still a 2 1/2 hour drive home, we were quite glad to finally be home and go to bed at 4 am Thursday morning. We had a great time visiting with our friends and family on our trip to Washington. It went by fast, but was a great break from all house work. We were gone for 10 days, so to tell all that happened on our trip would take several posts, so I'll just touch on the highlights.

We stayed at Jacob's parent's house and all of Jacob's brothers were able to come visit too (he's one of six, 5 boys and 1 girl...Jacob is the oldest). That was a lot of fun, watching the brothers interact. Now that they're older and have their own identity and aren't ready to kill one another, they seem to really get along and can hang out and do things together. It was also fun to watch them with Caleb. I never would have pictured these guys being so excited about a baby, it just makes me smile seeing them as uncles. Which leads to another thing to talk about...Caleb had an extreme culture shock :) He's been use to our house hold of three people, quiet environment, and isn't really ever around a multitude of people. There were about 11 people staying at Jacob's parents, and there were always more people over during the evening. So...not a real quiet environment and definitely a multitude of people! He was extremely clingy and wouldn't hardly let anyone touch him for the first few days :( it was a bit frustrating. He got better as the week went on, although I don't think he ever really reached his real self. We kept telling everyone, at home he's so funny and smiley. I hope they all got to enjoy some time with him anyways.

While we were there, Caleb turned One! and all I kept thinking was 'we took you home from the hospital just a year ago'...seems to hard to believe that the time has flown by so quickly. What a fun year its been. A baby changed my life in more ways than I could possibly have imagined :) Since we were visiting, we got to celebrate his birthday with all our family! He had a book theme party {he loves his books!}, here's a few pics of the fun event:

Caleb's personal cake to devour

Caleb enjoying his cake :)

Yes, he stuck his face in it...

Present time!

Notice his shirt ;)

There's the babes: Caleb, Olivia and Jaxon

I certainly enjoyed my time there too! I've been in some desperate need of girl time, and I think I got my battery charged enough to last me a little while. I got to catch up and get to know my sister in-law {Adriane} a little bit better, and am so excited for our friendship to grow! My brother in-law's girlfriend {Jenna} was also able to come up and visit and hang out. Thanks to Jacob, the girls were able to go in town a few times to get Starbucks, pedicures, do a little shopping, sunbathe...it was glorious!

{Adriane, Me, Jenna}

Jacob's parents house is a 'hot spot' for socializing (they live 2 seconds away from the church, so after night church/practices/whatever, people go to their house to hang out), so we had several nights of game playing {I love games!!!}, laughing, movies and just overall fun times! Really missing some of those people... Caleb managed to fit in some socializing with his peeps too :) He got to see his cousin Jaxon (who is 2 months younger), Olivia (is 3 months older) a friend from church who is such a cutie, and a few other babes from church. It was so fun watching Olivia and Caleb together, she just wanted to hug him and talk to him...and he just couldn't get away fast enough, so she just ended up chasing him around and around. Hopefully next time they're together he'll be more into playing with other kids and won't be rude to the sweet girl ;)

The trip definitely gave us a big umph to get going on the downstairs. On our second day home mom and I painted the downstairs and the stairway (which was quite a sight...I had a brush taped to a broom stick and was balancing on the stairs, haha). Jacob's almost got the flooring done and has the next two days off to hopefully (by his timeline) finish the bathroom...we shall see. Here are some pictures of the downstairs construction:

view of the bathroom from the outside, it's a pocket door

the shower

the ground where the big hole was last update

the toilet will go where the silver circle is on the ground, it kind of has a privacy wall between it and the door to the bathroom {which is to the left of the picture}

Hopefully there will be more pictures to come {soon!} of the finished bathroom!

Celebrations, Construction and Crafts

This last weekend was a very special one for our family, Jacob and I celebrated our fifth anniversary and we celebrated Jacob as a Daddy for his first Father's Day! Jacob and I were talking about how it doesn't seem like we've been married for 5 years already! And how 5 years sounds like such a long time, yet it really hasn't been...if that makes any sense :) And can I just say, I love my husband and am so in love with him! What a great and wonderful man God has blessed me with. Its also so amazing seeing him as a Daddy and how much he loves and cares for Caleb. This weekend was enjoyable and relaxing {which doesn't happen that often lately...the relaxing part that is}. Since we had some days to celebrate, Jacob took off working on the downstairs so we could all spend time together. Speaking of the downstairs, the latest updates. Starting the end of May Jacob began finishing the downstairs {at least what we're planning on having finished in order to sell it...then the buyers can do the rest}. The biggest project in all that is putting in a bathroom. He's done an amazing job at figuring out what to do and coping with running into problems he hadn't anticipated. The bathroom is almost all plumbed, all the walls are up for the downstairs and most of the dry wall is up. We're aiming to have the downstairs done before we leaving in 2 weeks for our trip to Washington {Yay!!! Can't hardly wait to see family!}, cross our fingers that there's no complications!

The bathroom:

{we're farther than this now, but this was the latest picture}

Now what have I been doing {besides chasing this kid around everywhere, and saying no 100 times a day}, yep you guessed it? Crafts!!! {it was the only choice left from the title} I've fallen in love with Blogs and free tutorials!! Here are some of the projects:

The shirt dress, from MADE:

turn a men's dress shirt into a girl's summer dress

A little make-up bag:

This one is a combination of the 90 minute shirt and freezer paper stenciling:

The shirt is made from one of Jacob's, and the freezer stenciling is AMAZING and fun!!!

More freezer paper stenciling:

Some birthday things:

another 90 minute shirt. I put a 1 appliqué on each item and did the stenciling on the back of the onesie.

A birthday present for Caleb:

I have a few more things that aren't all the way done yet, or are a gift for someone {and they might see it before I give it to them} so I'll post those later. I'm loving making things, and its sooo much cheaper than buying stuff!! Now it's just finding the time to do them, and keeping track of all the neat ideas.

Real quick, an update on Caleb and then I better get going. He is definitely getting a mind of his own! Which is fun and frustrating at the same time. It's neat to watch as he processes through things and has his own little agenda of what he wants to do. BUT its not fun when he doesn't want to do what he needs to, like...get dressed, eat, get his face washed, not play with the electrical outlet. He's also developing an entertaining sense of humor. He walks around most of the time, crawls mostly just to get to something to help him stand up. He now knows 4 signs {milk, drink, dog, and food}, we're having fun working with those :) And he just got two more new teeth, for a total of 6.

I hope to have more to blog about in the upcoming weeks, with house renovations, our trip and a little boy turning One!