Proud of His Mommy

This weekend, we had Justin's sister Shawnie, and her daughter Kortnie (age 6) come to town and stay with us. On Friday morning, Caleb excitedly woke me up, and said that I needed to pick him up because he had just told Kortnie that I can hold him and she didn't believe him. He kept saying it over and over, so when Kortnie came upstairs a few minutes later, he couldn't wait to show her!

I knew I was proud of myself for this accomplishment, but I didn't realize how excited Caleb was about it. I had Justin take these pictures today so I could show how strong I have become lately and how happy it makes me to hold my "little" boy again. I haven't felt strong enough to do this since he was nearly 3 years old!
 

P.S.  Don't laugh at our fashion-faux-pas

St. Patty's Day outfits. We mis-matched on purpose. :)

Still One of a Kind

As promised (and cont'd from the last post), here are ages 3 and 4 of our one of a kind kiddo...

{SUPER funny in my opinion!}

Age 3

When Caleb turned three, he got a tricycle for his Birthday.  Riding his tricycle was his all time favorite thing to do that year.  So what did I do when winter came and he was really bored? Let him ride it around in the house! Problem solved.

One summer morning, Caleb decided that it was time for the neighbors wake up call. He walked out onto the porch and started singing a most beautiful melody... 

This is the age where Caleb "took over" Rusty, the little stuffed dog that is actually his grandma, Alison's. She got the dog from a dear friend, so it is special to her, but Caleb doesn't care.  He has taken him over like he is his own, and he takes him everywhere he goes. We even lost him at a little store a few months ago and the whole family was stressed and sad about it. Several visits and searching at the store paid off, and Caleb got his little doggy back. Sigh!

This is also the age of Caleb's first crush on a girl. About a year ago when we were asking Caleb who he wanted to invite to his birthday party, he said "DOLLY!!!" So we started asking questions about this blond haired, cherub-faced little doll in his preschool class. And he definately had a crush! After that, when he saw her visiting our neighbor across the street with her mom, he would run to our window or door, open it and yell "Hi Dolly!" Adorable!

Random short video:

Age 4

Caleb has done lots of funny and unique things at age four. For example, he has plenty of toys, but he usually chooses to play with little knick knacks from around the house, like a bottle cap and a spoon for example.  He usually plays with them around the kitchen counter while he walks around and has the knick knack #1 chase knick knack #2 around the kitchen (or whatever he imagines they are doing). And he makes loud and funny sing-songy humming noises while doing it. This is hard to explain and probably even harder to picture, but I really like it because it keeps him entertained for a long time, and is oh so good for his imagination.

I started a game with Caleb when he was three called "I Love You as Much As..." We take turns and it goes something like this... Me: "I love you as much as all of the stars in the whole sky!" Caleb: "I love you as much as all of the Thomas Trains in the whole wide world!" (But we're both usually more creative/crazy than that.) It's pretty silly but we have a lot of fun playing it. For a Father's Day video for Justin last year, I had Caleb say things that he loves his daddy as much as...My favorite response was "Daddy, I love you as much as when you take me to the slippery store to get a "Slippery" (Slurpee) and a sprinkle doughnut."

Another very unique thing about Caleb is that he has a "Running Man" on his hand. This creative kid turned his index and middle fingers (that held up would make the # 2) upside down and discovered it was like a little man that has legs, and named him Running Man.  He plays with him everyday, and tells everyone about his Running Man.  One day he decided that he wanted to show him for his preschool show-and-tell, but then changed his mind when I teased him about how to put Running Man in his backpack. Oh my silly Caleb!

Caleb has quite a few friends, and lots of them are girls.  One of his favorite friends to play with is Emily, who is in the second grade and almost 8 years old. They usually play with their stuffed animals together at her house, and Emily's parents tell me he always behaves well which says a lot for a 4-year-old. (Wish I could say that too for him!) Some of his other closest friends right now are Nike, Miranda, Davis and Spencer.

Since Justin and I are both pretty clean people, I do wonder where our little guy gets his messy genes from.  We are constantly cleaning up after him, or asking and begging him to clean up after himself.  He can turn the whole house upside-down just in the time it takes me to take a shower.  Couch cushions all over the floor, shoes, socks, dirty clothes, toys, food, you name it! He even rips his preschool projects into shreds when he gets home!

Gotta love him. And we do. Every single bit of him!

One of a Kind Kid

I know, I know. I always blog about Caleb. This post 

(and the next one I'm doing) are no different!

Since I didn't start blogging until last year, I thought it would be fun to create a few posts to help Justin and I to always remember many of the adorable and funny things that Caleb has done in the past 5 years. (He's really almost 5!) Since the moment he came into our lives, Caleb has made us laugh everyday with the silly, quirky things he says or does. He has made us two very amused and happy parents, as you will see in some of these pictures and wonderfully funny videos.

  

Baby (Age 0-1)

Caleb was the cutest, happiest baby ever! He had this adorable blond fuzzy hair that stood straight up at all times. The first year of Caleb's life may just be my favorite year of all time. I think I took more pictures and videos than I have in my whole life put together!
 

My favorite video won't upload for some reason but you may have seen it from when Justin posted it on facebook. We also sent it in to Funniest Home Video's but we're not sure what happened with that. It's video of Caleb sleeping in the jumparoo and jumping at the same time and it is so funny! (because he wakes up and smiles at me, then falls right back asleep, while jumping the whole time.)

Age One

Caleb would climb up onto the coffee table and talk loud jibberish while throwing his arms out at times for emphasis (or something!). We would joke that someday he is going to be an orator/public speaker. This cracked us up.

I started giving Caleb (two daily) gummy vitamins when he was one, and everyday he would go and stand by the high cupboard that they were in, and reach his arms up in the air because he wanted them.  While I was getting them out, I would inevitably say "okay, but you only get two today!" so he would learn he couldn't ask for them again that day.  Little did I know that he thought I was telling him the name of the candy-like bears.  When he started talking more, he would reach his arms up and and say "Do dooday, do dooday, do dooday!!" (Two today, two today....) Ha ha! We still always say this around our house and laugh about it! {This is one of my favorite video's we have, but it's too large to upload.}

Even at the young age of one (and older), Caleb would throw many of his bottles out of his crib when he was done with them. One day I noticed that most of our bottles were missing, and that's when I discovered that his newest hobby was to push his bottles through his crib bars and between the wall so they would end up underneath the crib and hidden by the bed skirt. STINKY!

Age Two

Another hilarious thing that Caleb use to say was the word he used for "milk."  We were never really sure where this came from, but for milk he would say "WAME (now make a kiss sound!) The only thing I can think of is he tried to say it one time and this is how it came out, so he stuck with it...for like a year! I also think that the loud kiss sound at the end was Caleb's way of making up for the loud 'k" sound at the end of "milk." So funny you have to see for yourself...

One day when I was changing Caleb's diaper on the ground in his bedroom, he pointed to the word "TOYS" on his toybox and said each letters name while he pointed at it.  I was astonished! How did he know his letters already; he had barely turned two?! He did the same thing a few weeks later when we were at our family reunion at snowbird, as he pointed to each letter of the sign that said SNOWBIRD. (The family was impressed!) I think he learned his letters watching morning cartoons...thank you Super Why!

A month before Caleb turned three, he was jumping on the couch as usual, and decided to jump off this time. We weren't in the room to see it happen, but he bonked his head on the coffee table and got a big gash on the outside of his eyebrow.  So off we went to Instacare, where Caleb got about 12 "skitches", as he called them.

(I will post ages 3 and 4 in a few days...they are even funnier!)