Attention Fellow Bloggers

I finally found a website where I could print out my blog! I've been looking around for a while trying to find some way to save my blog forever...and I found it! It's called http://www.blog2print.com/ It's so simple. Just go to the website, choose your blog host (ex: blogger), download your blog, then order it! You can choose a hardback or softback. I got mine in the mail a few weeks ago and was so excited! Now, I did not print my whole blog. I only did the first year. I think it cost around $40 with shipping. When I went to download the second year I think it was going to cost me $80! So, I'm splitting up that year into two separate books. Remember that for those of you who have been blogging for a while. It's like printing a photo book from shutterfly, it costs more for hardback and a certain amount per page. But it was so easy! You don't have to sort through pictures and posts. It plugs them into the book for you. Go check it out!

This isn't my personal book, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like.

Caleb's Birthday Part 1

We had a small family party to celebrate Caleb turning 2! I remember having Ethan's first "friend" party when he was 2 and it didn't go so well. The kids were just running around not playing together and he didn't want to open presents. It was all a bit much for him. So, we decided to just stick with a family party this year. I really wanted to do a Wiggles theme since he is so obsessed with them but I couldn't find that anywhere. I was in Party City with Caleb looking around and he was saying, "Goggles, goggles?" I found Curious George and told him he could have a monkey party. He said, "No, Goggles!" in a sad little voice. But, that's what we had to settle on. I did find a Wiggles cake at Kroger. I got the last set for it. They said they don't order that anymore because no one ever asks for it anymore. I'm so glad that Caleb is into something that is out of style!

Here was the set up. Luckily all of the colors went together.

The cake was ok. I thought it was a little sloppy. Not as cute as the picture in the book that I picked it out from. Caleb didn't care. He was so excited when he saw his Goggles cake! He's been playing with the big red car ever since that day.

He had plenty of help opening presents. Poor Ethan wanted to open them all.

That's Ethan's scary dinosaur face. My aunt got Caleb a dinosaur that made noise and freaked him out. Ethan thought it was awesome. Caleb has warmed up to it now. He points to it and says, "sinasaur!"

Love the face. I think he was over the pictures by that point. He just wanted that ca off the cake.

He blew out the candles all by himself, against Ethan's wishes. He couldn't wait to touch that icing and taste it!

Poor baby couldn't get any cake! I had to go get a sloppy shirt to change him into first. (Those are my four neices around the table.)

Finally...yum!

Look at that big boy using his fork!

Once he had a few bites of cake and ice cream he drove his Wiggles car all over the table.

Bass Pro

Here is the rest of the post about Bass Pro. This was the first year we went for the Christmas set up. The kids always love to go to the "fish store with the boats" anyway so why not add some Christmas fun! Everything was free which is always nice. There was a carousal, nerf shooting guns, remote control cars, pics with Santa, coloring, and letter writing to Santa complete with a mailbox that delivers straight to the North Pole! The kids had a lot of fun and didn't want to leave. I was just glad I didn't have to pay for the screaming pic of Caleb on Santa's lap!

Caleb was much too busy to stop for a picture. Ethan put him in a headlock, I mean held him for us to take a pic.

Ethan had fun with the giant remote control monster trucks. Poor Caleb thought he was making it move with his remote. Oh, the innocence.

Ethan really liked this remote control car. It was big racetrack with a car that went around really fast. I thought it was a bit boring. You just hold down the button and the car goes in circles.

Coloring Santa pictrures. Caleb wasn't much into it.

Ethan wrote a letter to Santa. Actually, it was just one word with his name at the bottom. Want to know what he asked for? A frisbee! He's never once asked for one. He said, "My frisbee flew into Chopper's yard (the dog next door) and I didn't get it back so I need another one." Makes sense I guess. Look at how intently he is writing his letters. He always makes that face when he's focusing on writing.

Caleb "wrote" his letter to Santa too. It was one little scribble then he was off to do something else.

Putting his letter in the mailbox for Santa!

He always has to climb on the 4 wheelers.

Riding on the carousal together.

Caleb changed his mind and wanted to ride a reindeer. Who wouldn't?!

Shooting a ginormous nerf gun.

Caleb loves to climb in the tents. One day we will get one of our own.

I think their favorite part of going to Bass Pro is climbing on all the boats.

Caleb was climbing on them saying, "I drive!"

Santa Pics

I'm not sure why, but for some reason I don't think Caleb enjoyed seeing Santa this year. Does the picture give it away? Maybe it was him looking terrified and saying "No ho ho!" and holding a death grip around my neck. Poor little critter. On a side note, did you notice Ethan holding his right arm like he still has a cast on? Weird....

Luckily the people at Bass Pro were nice enough to let Ethan take his own picture which turned out really cute. More pics to come from Bass Pro once I upload them. Dad scanned these for me.

My Tiny Baby is Two!!

I can't believe my tiny baby is turing 2!!! Seriously, the last two years have gone by so fast that it's hard to remember what he was like as a baby. Sounds strange, but true. Just this last month he seems to have lost the babyness and moved straight on to being a big boy. He is talking so much and saying new things every day that I can't keep up. His newest saying "What the heck?" Thanks for that one Ethan. He has some favorite TV shows: Goggles (Wiggles), Coos Coos (Blue's Clues), Tyloo (Cailou). The Wiggles are by far his favorite. I have a video at the bottom of this post of him singing part of the theme song. I think he has seen them all and can sing all the songs. Too bad it's not really popular anymore. It's so hard to find Wiggles stuff!

The biggest news...he is finally sleeping through the night!!! He started sleeping better about a month or two ago. We didn't really change anything, he just started doing it. First he'd sleep till 0600 and then he'd get up for the day. Then he'd make it to 0630 and so. Now he averages getting up around 0700. Still a bit early for Mommy but at least I don't have to get up 3-4 times a night! He has also stopped crying when he wakes up...most of the time. Now he wakes up saying, "Ma---ma!" So cute.

He wanted to wear Ethan's Spiderman costume from last Halloween. He fit into it pretty well!

He used to be my good eater...not so much anymore. You never know what he's going to eat day to day. He used to love hot dogs, now he won't eat them. He used to love oranges, now he won't eat them. He still has his staples that he will probably never give up like beefaroni (yuck!) and chicken nuggets. He still gets excited when my mom sings the beefaroni theme song "Hooray for beefaroni!" It's pretty cute. He has also decided that he is too big for his high chair. He now sits at the table with us on his booster seat. It presents new challenges because he is not used to eating off of a plate. He starts out fine but before I know it he's saying "here mama" and handing me his empty plate because he emptied it on the table.





There's the nasty beefaroni...and Monkey (or Buntey as he calls him). He only had him for a little while at lunch on this day. I had to take him away before he was covered in the orange nastiness!

I thought this picture was so cute. We went to Christina's (a mexican restaurant in Southlake) one day for lunch. He enjoyed some mac & cheese and a few bites of taco.

He still has the "cheese" face. He is holding a Woody doll. That is his new obsession. He loves "howdy howdy" and Buzz.

I wish he could wear these pj's forever! They are SO CUTE!

He was being silly one day and pulled his shirt over his head and ran around the house like that.

Practicing his medical skills, cookie monster style.

Um, ya. The painting didn't go as planned. There was supposed to be paper involved.

He is still getting into everything. I really can't leave him alone for a second. It seems like there are so many things that he does and I find myself saying "Ethan never did that." I think maybe Ethan didn't do some of these things because I was always with him because he was the only child I had. Now I feel so preoccupied with keeping the house clean and getting the kids ready to run errands that sometimes Caleb is left to entertain himself...which equals getting into mischief! Here are some pics to prove it.

If the laundry room door is open, he will run in to the bathroom and use the trashcan as a step
and climb on the counter and yell, "Mama, come 'ere!"

Here's what happens when I'm in my bathroom putting on my make up and thinking to myself, "Hmmm, I wonder what Caleb is doing. I haven't seen him in the last few minutes."

He has re-arranged my flowers so much that I've given up on them trying to look "arranged". He also stands on the table and twirls the light fixture. Geez...

(You can tell by this paci that this pic is a few months old because he hasn't had one in a long time!) This is what he does when I cook. I have since put a child lock on that drawer.

Yep, another few moments alone and I come in to this. He was having his own little party.

This video is a couple months old but I thought it was cute.

This isn't the greatest version of him doing it, but here he is singing the Wiggles theme song.

Just a little clip of him playing in the playroom.

Happy Cast Off Day!

We took Ethan to get his cast off after 4 weeks of living with it. Several times he said he liked it and didn't want to take it off. But by the time the appointment came he was happy to get rid of it. We loaded him up with some Lortab before we left. He was a little scared of the saw at first. I'd be scared too! It was really loud and did appear that it was going to slice right through his little arm! He was happy to have the cast off...until he saw the pins hanging out of his arm. He looked up at me and said "Mommy!" in a sad little quivering voice. I lied and told him it would be ok and that the doctor would have them out in no time. First the doctor twisted them around a few times to loosen them from his bone. Then he took a pair of needle nose pliers and wiggled them out one by one. They didn't slide right out like I had imagined they would. Some of them took some force. He never fully cried. He just whimpered and choked back tears...while I choked back vomit. Ya, the NICU nurse almost tossed her cookies. The tech warned us that sometimes people pass out when having pins removed but I said, "Oh, I won't pass out. I'm a NICU nurse!" Then when that first pin started coming out of his arm I broke out into a cold sweat, got a knot in my stomach, and had to do some deep breathing. Of course I didn't tell anyone. I had to maintain my cool "I'm a NICU nurse" face. It didn't help that I was holding his arm and could feel grinding in his bone.

Anyway, he got two bandaids for some bleeding at the insertion site and then we were good to go. He was very quiet in the car and held his arm. We went straight to the store to buy him whatever he wanted! He picked out two "guys" as he calls them: Wolverine and The Thing (aka Rockman per Ethan). We went to my mom's to pick up Caleb and before we knew it he was playing with his guys with both arms but still guarding the broken one anytime Caleb came around. The doctor said he needs to be careful for the next 6 weeks because if he falls on that same spot it will most likely break again! It's the injury that keeps on giving!

He cast and pins. I found Caleb trying to put the cast on his foot like a boot.

I think they look like bent nails. The bent part is what was hanging out of his arm. I can't believe these were in my tiny baby's arm!!

All fixed up. I think those bandaids are going to have to fall off because he won't let us touch his arm.

I was suprised that it was still bruised after 4 weeks. But, it was black right before surgery so I guess it looks good. You can't tell in the picture but most of his arm is peeling and bumpy. Maybe a heat rash? I'm just glad the whole ordeal is almost over!

Halloween (Part 2)

I was very lucky to have someone work for me on Halloween this year so I was able to go trick-or-treating with the boys. We went to the Harvest Party at our church, came home and grabbed a quick bite, trick-or-treated around the neighborhood, then handed out candy. It was a busy day! I think we trick-or treated with half of our class from church. It was fun and a little stressful trying to keep up with my own kids! Mondo and I finally decided that I would watch Caleb and he would watch Ethan. It was mass chaos but made for some fun memories!

This picture would've been great but the lighting was messed up. I love Caleb's little monkey hands covering his mouth. Ethan only wore the mask and claws for pictures. I was sad because the claws were his favorite part of his costume but he didn't want to wear it over his cast.

I just thought this was funny.

Silly Caleb. His feet look ginormous in this picture!

This was an attempt at a cute outside picture...it wasn't happening.

All ready for the Harvest Party!

Caleb had fun on the little bouncy slide.

Ethan started out on the small bouncy slide just to see if he could do it. It was so sad to watch him climb up. He was putting his head on the ladder to balance himself and then pulling up with his left arm.

This was an attempt at a group picture on top of the little slide. I think they were a little too heavy. It kept sinking in the back and Caleb was falling over. It was pretty funny at the time.

He finally got brave enough to try the big slide (Mommy and Daddy finally caved). That's Tyler next to him.

These were only some of the trick-or-treaters we had! Left to right: Caleb, Maddie J., Maddie P., Caroline, Ethan, Tyler, Will, Maggie, Christian.

We had three super heros again this year.

Caleb was brave enough to take candy from a witch!

Look at Ethan's poor cold shoulder. I should've put a shirt on underneath his costume. See Caleb trying to eat his candy with the wrapper still on?

Showing me his loot.

This is a bad picture but can you see all of those people and strollers lining the street? They were ALL with us!

When we got inside the house, Caleb climbed back in the stroller and said he was going to Nana's!