Caleb- 6 months

-Weight: 14lbs 12 oz
-Length: 26.5"
-Diapers: size 2

-Clothes: 3-6 month size

- Sleeping:
Daytime: He's still taking 3-4 naps throughout the day. We not on a set schedule yet, but they are typically around 9am, 11am, 1-2pm and hopefully around 4pm. He naps in the car seat, stroller, pack-n-play, and sometimes in his crib.
Nighttime sleep has been wonderful! He has started going to bed much earlier, around 6:30, especially if he doesn't take a late afternoon nap. Usually he's sleeps until about 3am, eats, and then goes back to sleep until 7am. He is sleeping in his crib on his tummy.

-Eating: Caleb eats cereal and fruit for breakfast. We've introduced rice and oatmeal, and apples, pears and prunes. For dinner he eats cereal and a vegetable. For the vegetables he's had carrots, sweet potato, squash, peas and green beans. He definitely has a preference for the orange veggies, but he does pretty good with them all. I am making most of his food, but we do give him store-bought food at times. I plan to start giving him a solid lunch this week at well. He is still nursing about 6 times a day as well.

New milestones:

• He's a roly poly now. Easily rolls from his back to his belly. He can go from his belly to his back, but I think he forgets he can do it. This was a wonderful milestone, because he started sleeping much better when he rolled to his tummy.
• He's pretty much sitting up on his own, although I try to stay close because he still topples over.
• He's started clapping a little. Not really on command, but you'll see him doing it from time to time.
• He's getting close to crawling. He can move a bit by scooching (sp?) because when I put him on his blanket to play, I find him a few feet away when I come back. Here's a video of him moving just a bit. It's not great, but I didn't want him to hit his head on the table :)

Other notes:

• He loves the jumperroo and loves to jump while someone is holding him.
• He can't keep his eyes off Caiden, loves to laugh at him playing.
• He does not like to sit still. Always wants to be moving, wiggling etc.
• I've introduced water in a sippy cup, but he's just playing with it right now.
• He always pulls his socks off and chews on them- yum!
• He's discovered the iPad- Yikes! see the pics in the collage below.
• He's very ticklish. Whenever I change him out of his jammies, I tickle his belly and he just laughs and laughs! Here's a video of him laughing. Please ignore the other noise in the background :)

Here's Caleb as he's growing:

And the comparison to Caiden

Here's a look at what he's been up to this month:

Visit with Santa

Last Friday, while mom was in town, I took the boys to Bass Pro to get their photo taken with Santa. Neither one cried, but they didn't look too thrilled either. I didn't love the Santa this year- he was much "nicer" looking in the past :)

Here was 2011: (a much jollier Santa- but creepy looking elf!)

And 2010: (I'd say this was a decent Santa!)

Trains at North Park

Eric's mom, Vickie, came in last weekend to visit. (although, there was an ulterior motive to have her come watch the boys while we went to Eric's Christmas party!) We wanted to do something a little fun while she was here so we decided to check out the Trains at North Park. It's a really neat train exhibit they do at Christmas time and since Caiden is  obsessed with trains, well- that's a no-brainer.

Dallas Fair Park for the State Fair

The Cotton Bowl

Reunion Tower (the lighted ball)

The new Margaret Hunt Hill  bridge. Here's dorky tidbit of info: This is a new bridge in downtown Dallas that Calatrava designed. He's a Hispanic architect that's also designed bridges I've seen in Seville, Spain and Buenos Aires, Argentina

NY's Grand Central Station

One happy little boy

Washington D.C- Lincoln Memorial

San Francisco- Golden Gate Bridge and Fishermans' Wharf (There are even tiny sea lions in the water!)

And of course, Caiden found Thomas and Percy

A Pinterest Project: Candy cane wreath

Of course I've been finding TONS of DIY projects and crafts for the holiday season on Pinterest.  Ive got a couple more in the works, but this is the first completed one.

The original source of my pin is here.

Several ladies from Plum Moms Club came over to tackle this one with me. I decided to change them up a tad because I couldn't get the middle to form a circle. So I decided to cover it up!

Here's some of the girls hard at work:

And we kept the kids occupied with a little Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

So here's my finished product:

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, although I don't know how durable it is. But I guess for about $3 if it falls apart I won't shed any tears!

So Thankful

You might recall that we were stuck at home for Thanksgiving 2011 because I was on modified bed rest during my first trimester of pregnancy with Caleb. We were so grateful to be able to travel to Iowa this Thanksgiving and visit Eric's family. Eric was able to take the whole week off so we didn't feel like we had to rush around! To top it all off- it was BEAUTIFUL weather (for Iowa)!  It got really cold just in time for us to go home :)

We flew into Des Moines on Sunday and spent some time hanging out with Amy (Eric's sister) and Vickie (his mom).  Monday, we drove a couple of hours to Jefferson where Eric's dad and step-mother live. Caiden loved playing out in their big back yard and patio!  We could hardly keep him inside all week!

Tuesday, we drove another hour or so to Gilmore City where his grandparents live. They don't live on a "farm" per say, but there is farmland directly behind their house and the population is just over 500, so it's quite different from DFW! They were so excited to finally meet Caleb! They grilled us a yummy lunch with tons of food- do all grandparents do that? they always seem to make enough food to feed an army! Later, Grandpa got out his old tractor to show Caiden, but Caiden was a little scared with how loud it was.

Wednesday, we spent the day back in Jefferson. Eric's half-sister, Emily, invited us to her house where they are raising some pigs and to her husband's family's farm where they have goats, and cows and lots of cats. With all the animals, Caiden just wanted to chase the poor cats around :)

Thursday, of course was Thanksgiving Day, so we headed back up to Gilmore City to spend it with Eric's grandparents, mom and sister.

Caiden played and watched the Macy's Parade with grandma.

Later Caiden went outside to help move some pumpkins around.

Caleb was festive until his massive blowout!

And Vickie and Caiden crashed out after lunch.

They teased me for taking pictures of the food, but man was it good! And, as usual, there was a ton of it!

This is my favorite picture of them all. I asked everyone to go stand outside just so I could take it. Doesn't it seem like back in the day everyone took pictures standing in front of their house?  Maybe not, but it seems that way to me.

It was such a great week- no major travel problems and lots of good time spent with family!

Extra special THANKS to Doug & LeAnn for letting us use their van all week to save us the expense of getting a rental car.

A Pinterest Project: Baby shower gift

The pin:
beverage-carrier-gift-tote via Positively Splendid (Side note: This is an awesome blog with such cute ideas and very easy to follow tutorials. I've actually used some of her other ideas in Caleb's nursery)

I LOVED this idea when I saw it on Pinterest, but wasn't sure when I'd actually do it. First, since we don't drink bottled sodas I didn't know where to find a drink holder. Luckily my friend brought us drinks from Sonic one day and voila... a perfect beverage holder.

I found out the color scheme of the baby's nursery and got some scrapbook paper and ribbon in those color. Here's how it turned out: (I forgot to take pictures before I wrapped it in cellophane and I wasn't about to undo it :)

Caiden- 2.5 years

I feel like I haven't posted anything about Caiden developmentally in forever, so since October was his "half- birthday" I thought I might record some things. It might be kinda random, but oh well.

He is 30 lbs and 36". He wears mainly 2T clothes although some brands are huge on him.

He is talking SO much! I amazed everyday by something he says. He's talking in full sentences with 6-7 words. Most of these sentences are in English (boo), but there are usually Spanish words thrown in. The first few months after Caleb was born I really dropped the ball on speaking Spanish, so I'm upping my game now! He understands everything I say, but I want him to respond in Spanish rather than English. Still a work in progress of course. Some of his favorite/common things to say:
-"that's right"
-"me or my do" when he wants to do something himself
-Thomas, he's the cheeky one (see below)
-"I need..."
-"We can.." if asked "do you want to ...."
-"I love you to the moon, mommy" also "to the estrellas (stars)" and "to the avion (airplane)" :)

He LOVES Thomas the Train right now. He knows the name of almost every train and can even sing the theme song. He's still somewhat a fan of Mickey Mouse, and is beginning to like Handy Manny.

He loves baseball. He would ask to watch Rangers baseball every night and now that the season is over, he doesn't know what to do! He doesn't seem to be getting into football as much.

He is still doing great in his swim class. He is getting close to being able to take an independent breath and rolling to his back from a forward swim. They are also learning to dive from sitting.

He enjoys his preschool. His favorite friends there are Emma, Abby & Austin. And he adores Ms. Pam and Ms. Jill. I can tell he's learning so much already.

He can put his shoes on (not always on the right feet), and is working on getting dressed himself.

We haven't started potty training yet. I'm thinking maybe after the holidays.

He can count to 10 in English and 20 in Spanish. He knows all the colors, mostly in Spanish. He is starting to recognize letters of the alphabet.

He has the best vision and is extremely observant. He is unbelievably good at spotting a Target sign/logo, a plane in the sky or Thomas the train.

He is OBSESSED with the moon! He wants to go out and see it every night.

He's the sweetest boy. He loves to hug, give fist bumps and high fives.  He says he loves so many different things. You can even show him something new and he'll say "I love it!"

He adores his baby brother. He is so kind and gentle with him. He cheered him on when Caleb was learning to roll and always wants to help stir Caleb's oatmeal.

I'm sure there is much more I'm forgetting, but this post has been sitting around forever and needs to get published.