Christmas, part one

We have officially celebrated our first Christmas eve and Christmas day for December! I love that our Decembers now include two Christmas celebrations (well this is only the second year but I hope its a new tradition!). My parents came out this last week to be with us and my sister's family. Although we say "we are not shopping the entire time!" we, yet again, ended up shopping each day away it seemed like. My parents don't have an "off" switch when it comes to buying for the grandkids. They sure get spoiled with Nana and Pawpaw around. Caleb has a new wardrobe, an awesome red wagon, legos galore, hot wheels and Justin and I got some much needed new clothes! Amidst all the shopping we did squeeze in a trip to Chuck E Cheese, Temple Square lights & City creek (to see Santa), a movie, baking and of course our awesome 'Christmas eve' party.

Needless to say it is far too quiet in our home now and Caleb is having serious Nana and Pawpaw withdrawals. Especially pawpaw, Caleb gave him more kisses than I have ever gotten! Maybe it has something to do with the mustache...

Now its on to Christmas, part two. Still lots of baking that needs to happen but all the shopping is pretty much wrapped up. We hope you are all having a merry wonderful time and enjoying the Christmas spirit!

Caleb loves to point at everything these days

Nana (the original Emma) and Emma

Pawpaw and silly man Matt

The "stare"

the 'Christmas eve' spread

Matt helping Caleb look at the camera

Caleb making a silly face

And Caleb siting on Santa's lap. Not a huge fan... when it came time to take pictures with all three of the kiddos Caleb had really had enough.

Thanksgiving / twenytwelve

We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with Justin's sister Amanda (& her family) and her in-laws again this year, this is our third year joining their family for Thanksgiving...maybe a new tradition?? I feel like the best way for me to get into the holiday spirit is by cooking...well baking really. So I made a few things and took up to the amazing feast we had.

We have so much to be thankful for every year and this year the blessings have just poured upon us. Justin got a great new job, we were able to purchase our first home in an awesome location, Caleb is continually growing and developing and I am so thankful to stay home with him each day. We have great health and so many loved ones and friends in our life. Anyway...the list is never ending. 

Since my child is losing patience with me being at the computer I wanted to quickly post some of my favorite pictures from Thanksgiving...

Caleb loves playing at our new railing

The impressive table spread

This begins the photo shoot of Caleb being silly during dinner.

"I'm not listening.."

Caleb, where's your nose?

Where's Caleb?

He's mastered the peek a boo game

And he LOVED the candy corn

And the slushy (a Blackham tradition)

And just to mention... we went downtown SLC to walk around Temple Square the Saturday night following Thanksiving. Although it wasn't too cold, there were a lot of people and Caleb was not a fan. So we quickly walked around and enjoyed the lights but definitely will be going back before Christmas comes. 

train ride to the lights

that dern coat bothered Caleb the entire night but at least it kept him warm!

much happier with the coat unzipped!

Hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season, time to get into full blown Christmas mode!

Our home

I haven't taken pictures of every space in our home... I should probably do that before too long. But here are a few pictures that I did take last week. Caleb's room is put together (except for hanging pictures on the walls) but it isn't included in these pictures, sorry!

Speaking of Caleb...he is finally happy again (for good hopefully). This last couple of weeks have been rough between a cold, possible sinus infection, an ear infection, the side effects of the antibiotic, teething...he has been a constant fussy noise in the background unless I am holding him. Now that he is happy and content playing by himself with his blocks I can finally blog! Whew.

So here goes the [brief & incomplete] tour:

The "before" picture. This is what the view from the den to the kitchen was when we first moved in.

Another shot of the same view, including the staircase

View from the kitchen down to the den

Oops...don't know how this cute picture snuck its way into the tour...

Our master bedroom, we painted the room from a mossy green to this grayish blue color.

Upstairs guest/hallway bathroom

Although we have taken out some of the clutter in this room, it still pretty much looks the same. This is the front room, which will be a sitting room down the road (need to lay hardwood floor throughout this level, from front door through to kitchen...and get furniture!)

The kitchen...plans are to have cabinets refinished and new countertops put in...but those plans are a ways away. You can see the left side of a door on the right side of the picture. That is the door to the backyard and patio. Not included in this picture...the garage access door, it is on the same wall as the fridge.

Sorry for the dark picture! This is the eat-in kitchen area.

The "after" photo of our renovation. The railing and walls need to be painted still.

The new view from the den to the kitchen. The door on the right side of the photo is to the unfinished basement. On the wall right of that door is the laundry room and another guest bathroom. There is also a guest bedroom off the den.

View of den from kitchen.

So there it is. Its a work in progress but thankfully not so much work that it is a constant stress. We are so happy to have our first home!

The one-eyed [two]-horned [crawling blue brownie] eater

Title: Special liberties taken from the original classic: Bopper Big, Flying Purple People Eater lyrics *Caleb LOVES brownies by the way.

We got Caleb a cute blue monster costume this year from Old Navy (with the goings-on with our move, I am glad I bought it well in advance or else we may have totally overlooked Halloween this year-and that would have been such a shame since I love it!) ...anyway I definitely didn't have the time, energy or motivation to make a costume again this year. We were planning on going downtown to visit Justin at work and participate in his work-sponsored family activities but with Hurricane Sandy wrecking havoc on the East coast and causing problems with GS's servers, it also created problems at Justin's SLC office. So the activities were cancelled, bummer.

So instead we packed up and headed to the Living Planet Aquarium for their Halloween festivities. Caleb loves looking through the displays and tanks at the colorful fish. He wasn't such a fan of wearing his costume while in his stroller but I can't blame him, for it to be the last day of October it was really warm out. After the aquarium we came home and made pumpkin jello jigglers and mummified hot dogs and passed out candy to the kids that came by.

Caleb and his cousin, Emma. 

The front of our home! We have quite a bit to do in the whole curb appeal department!

I think, or I know (in my opinion), it really isn't worth getting a costume for a child that doesn't walk or talk and especially if you aren't going out in public on Halloween. But it is worth it for pictures-sake and the memories. But I am looking forward to next year when Caleb is walking and hopefully can say "Trick or Treat"-it will definitely make the holiday more fun for the whole family.

And just as a quick update on Caleb... ever since we moved into our home he has been taking off developmentally. He can move around however he pleases, although most of the time that means scooting on his bum. But he can transition from laying to sitting to crawling and he does it frequently. He tries crawling up the stairs but has only made it past the first step once. He is pulling himself up to standing in his crib constantly now and that is much easier for him since he has learned to get into the kneeling position. We had some genetic testing on him which took 4 weeks and we got the results back this Monday that everything is normal! That was a relief. We transferred his Kids on the Move file to the Jordan School district program (Jordan Child Development Center). They come out on the 14th to begin physical therapy with him again. I think our goal now is just to get him walking! Or at least that is the only goal left on our original IFSP that he hasn't achieved. I can't get over how big he is getting either. I love seeing his progress and how he is figuring out things on his own.