Some fun around the house...

When he has on all his tools & accessories, he says he is"bob the builder"

He found nathan's hat & gloves and wanted his picture taken. He still loves to play with the gloves on, and gets a litte irritated when nathan has to wear them to work :)

Carly is now everywhere and pulls up to standing, on everything! She even does a little "dance" - she gets on her knees and bounces and waves her arms around.

She makes an incredibly nasty mess when she eats, and now she only eats topless. She is a great eater, she's just gross! I also got her a little pair of pink tennis shoes so she doesn't scratch her little toes up in her walker outside.

Caleb is still doing pretty good with her. He wants to pull her and poke her... he wants her to play like him, but other than that, they are doing great! He's pretty helpful too, if he's in the right mood.

Halloween

we spent halloween at the crass's as we do every year now, for the past 4 or 5 years. our small group does hot dogs, smores, drinks, and candy for the neighboorhood, and we take off to a little trick-or-treating. since it was raining and cold, carly and i stood under the tarp while nathan and caleb went trick-or-treating. you can see the driveway lined with our small group's pumpkins, and an up-close of the one nathan carved.

The Pumpkin Patch 2009

Last week, nathan took a long lunch and we headed to the pumpkin patch at oakes farm. this has become a family tradition at our house and this was our third year going. it took us a while to get there becuase we took a wrong turn... but we eventually made it. this year, we nearly had the place to ourselves. the first thing caleb wanted to do was slide downt he enormous slide they had built. he climbed the stairs and slid several times and then got brave. he decided to go down on his belly and smacked his chin on the ground as he came out - and then he was done! so, then we took the hayride to the pumpkin patch, all by ourselves. and i couldn't decide on a few pictures, so you'll have to look at all of them :)

Carly is 6 months!

Carly is 6 months old! (well almost 7 now) She did great at the doctor's office and loved that paper they sit on. it's easy to hold and makes lots of noise! They were happy with her development and growth, so we don't have to go back until 9 months. Here are her stats:

Weight: 15lbs 13oz (48%), down from 74% from 4m

Height: 25.25 in (32%), down from 57% from 4m

so she's a little more average this time, and we are ok with that!

here's a couple pictures form papa & aunt ginger's visit. somehow papa managed to stay out of the pics - well, so did everyone but carly and aunt ginger!

Camera Broke

so, at caleb's birthday party, my camera broke. for the past couple months, we've only been able to use nathan's phone to take pictures. which is most of the reason there have been no blog posts for that time either. here are some cute ones of us in orange, and obviously we had a little trouble getting carly with her eyes open.




and then, this is what happens when you turn your back on the 3yr old with the baby for second...

Caleb's 3rd Birthday Party

Caleb's birthday party was mostly a success! We ate and the kids played, and caleb got gobbs of fun new toys! we borrowed my brother's bounce house - which of course, was a huge hit! He got a spiderman bike, tools, a tractor, an eric berry jersey, and a nice chunk to add to his college fund! he has no idea how blessed he is to have so many friends and family that love him. Thank you all for making his birthday special for him.

He did, however, play so hard he puked - nice. and then we couldn't get him to sit down to cool off. oh well... it was his party, i guess he could puke if he wanted to! and our dear friend kate decided to try out carly's swing... we also had some fabulous cupcakes: orange / dreamsicle and lemon with green grass icing and chocolate bugs. thank you k-town treats, sorry i can't find the pictures of those... but they were awesome... both to look at and to eat!

bedtime snack = bedtime laugh

after a long, exhausting day with both kids and a slight headache, i was in bed when nathan got home last night. we decided we were a little hungry (and i couldn't go to sleep) so we went to get a bowl of cereal to take back to bed.

when we got into our room, i tripped over my own pants (got my toe stuck in a hole near the foot) and i lunged across the room. i threw a bowl of cherios and a cup of water up against the window to stop myself. i got water, milk, and cherios everywhere - the window, the blinds, the wall, the floor, the pack & play, including all it's accesories.

when i looked back nathan was covering his mouth and cracking up at me. after the first few minutes of laughing (i cried a little), then we spent the next 10 minutes cleaning all of it up. i have a feeling we will be finding random cherios in the room for the next few days.

earlier that day, i thought i should throw those pants away because i almost fell twice - once in the bathroom (face headed toward the bathtub) and the other one was while i was holding carly. needless to say, those pants are in the trash. it's a little unfortunate because those were very comfy pjs, but we did get a good, much needed laugh!

Football Saturday

i'm pretty sure that caleb's is still confused with all the different football teams that are loved in the sweet household. we've been practicing for months, now. when we see orange we say: go vols! when we say the blue and yellow, we say: go blue. and then there is the lions cheer: let's go lions, clap clap, clap clap clap.

so we got up saturday morning and put on our UT jerseys, since they were playing first. caleb was unhappy with the term: jersey, so we called them: football shirts - whatever kid! once the game started, he did good with the "go vols" and he thought it was cool that all those people on tv had on a football shirt too. he even perked up when he heard rocky top and announced: that's rocky top. yea it is!

then michigan came on. so we talked about what we say when we see the blue and yellow, and here's where the chaos started. he said... go blue and go yellow. go blue vols. go blueberries. nope, just go blue. after a little while he settled with just "go blue."

and i discovered later, that he thinks ANY music played during a football game is rocky top. but that's ok, it's a good starting point.

Post Partum Depression

i guess it was 3 years ago, to the day, when i knew that something had to be wrong. i had this cute baby that i didn't like. he cried a lot, and i was prepared for crying, but occasional crying, intertwined with long, loving glances, inspirational feeding sessions, and sheer joy radiating out of my soul. i found myself exhausted, and i don't mean a little tired. i was exhausted at my core. what was i doing wrong? why wouldn't he stop crying? where was my mother's intuition? where was my "i love being a mommy" feeling, or my "this is so worth it" attitude. i began to feel ashamed because i was obviously failing as a mother - everyone else was happy and had it together.

what i later found out is that babies cry, and sometimes for no reason, and sometimes they cry a lot! they left this part out of the birthing class, and the books. why had no one told me this was going to be excruciationg at times, and that i wouldn't always know what was wrong with my baby, and that some babies just fuss for no reason? (the medical term is colic) and that NO MOM has it all together.

this time around i got a baby who cries a lot less and sleeps a lot more, and thanks to good family and friends, and therapy, i now know that some parts of being a mommy are just hard, but that they do get better. i find myself being greatful that i like this baby, that i enjoy being around her, that she is not just a chore that never goes away. man, that sounds terrible, but it's the truth. having depression is like nothing i've ever dealt with before in my life. it felt like my ability to function had just been stripped away without warning or hope of return. i felt like i was losing my mind. i can remember praying that God would get me through the next 5 minutes. i remember feeling like i must be the only one in the world who felt this way. was it chemical? or the combination of difficult circumstances? i think both. i can now look back and be greatful for the lessons i've learned in the past 3 years, mostly in humility and grace.

i hope as moms, we can remember that NONE of us have it all together, that this is hard sometimes, and that we all do what we think is best for our kids. and by the way, that we do have different personalities and different children, so it's likely that what works in your house won't work the same way in mine.

i pray that if you are feeling depressed, you will not let yourself be isolated. when we close up and pull away, that's when the enemy gets in and makes your life worse - i guess i can say here: a living hell. let's use mommyhood as encouragement and not as a comparison. i promise, the more you talk about what you struggle with, the more you will find that others struggle the same way, and learn that we aren't all that different.

every time i look at him, i'm reminded of the huge amount of pain and grief that i endured, but am also reminded of the incredible amount of growth and healing as an outcome. all of this has made me a better mommy, wife and friend. and now, i wouldn't trade him, or the past 3 years, for anything in the world.

exersaucer

so we got the exersaucer down from the attic since carly was standing up a lot. we put her in it and she likes it. i love this thing... i can set her in it and have a good 15 minutes to get something done while she entertains herself. the older she gets, the more time she'll spend in here... yay!









oh, by the way... this is NOT how their legs go.... this is. she's so funny - she had no clue, she just hung there!