Crunching leaves

I love Fall! October is one of my favorite months, the weather turns brisk, the leaves turn beautiful colors then fall to the ground for another one of my favorite things...crunching leaves, and of course it marks the beginning of decorating season! Decorating my house that is... first Halloween decor, then Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines Day...etc. And I'm one of those weird people that really enjoys Halloween. Caleb's costume will soon be revealed, if I ever get the motivation to finish the hardest part of it lol.

Anyway, Justin and I decided to head down to BYU yesterday afternoon to enjoy the changing colors and beautiful weather. I LOVED Fall even more when I was a student at BYU. I remember walking up to campus and being surrounded by golden and red trees while the leaves crunched under my feet and the smell of dried leaves filled the air. Well BYU must water their trees too well because for the most part the leaves were still green, and BYU maintains their sidewalks too well because what leaves had fallen were neatly swept away to the side of the sidewalks. Nonetheless, it was an awesome visit.

They tore down my freshman dorms (Deseret Towers) and in their place built some gorgeous new dorms, hello? Can I be a freshman again! I would love to live in those beautiful buildings. Also Justin and I have very fond memories from when we lived just south of campus of walking to the duck pond that somehow attracted tons of ducks. So we parked at the Wilk and decided to head down to the duck pond. Along the south end of campus was also a brick trail that had such great potential when I was at BYU for being a great scenic walk. Well BYU has outdone themselves! We took that brick path and all along the path is now a gorgeous stonebed stream, complete with waterfalls! And the duckpond got an upgrade as well, with a new wooden walkway around it.

Might I add, Caleb loved the campus as well. I told Justin that Caleb was destined to be a BYU Cougar, but I don't think Justin was too fond of that idea. We'll see :-)

Anyway here are some of the gorgeous shots we got from our little walk:

Four month check-up, already?!

Our precious lil' guy is already four months! It's so hard to believe! And it is amazing to see how much he has changed since his last check-up. Caleb is no longer our tiny newborn, he is so long he doesn't fit in between the armrests on my rocking chair in his nursery any longer. He smiles constantly (just not for the camera) and just this last week he began to squeal when he gets really excited/happy. Justin and I can't imagine our lives without this sweet, amazing boy. We love him so much! I am so blessed to be able to stay home with him all day.

Here are a few other updates on Caleb:
- He doesn't get nearly as upset as he used to so going out during the day is much more pleasant. I try to get us out at least every other day to see the world :-)
- He is starting to take on more of a schedule during the day. He wakes up between 7-7:30, eats around then. Takes his first nap around 8:30-9, then his next nap is around 12:30-1. He is starting to go longer than two hours between feedings, and later in the afternoon/early evening he may take a 30 minute catnap before bed. His bedtime is around 7 or a little earlier and just within the last week he has started waking up between 12:30-1:30am for his first feeding then 5am for his next feeding. I figure he must be going through a growth spurt because he was going 9.5 hour stretches at night between feedings. Needless to say this has been a hard adjustment for mom! I am hoping he will go back to his long stretches soon.
-We are starting Caleb on rice cereal but he doesn't seem to be a big fan thus far, I don't think we will push too hard until he is 5 months then we'll really focus on him eating solids.
-Caleb is a fantastic toucher/grabber. He loves playing with the toys that hang from his play yard, his stuffed puppy and any blanket. He will touch your hands/arms when you change his diaper and buckle him in his carseat. He also loves faces, he constantly plays with my face (& Justin's too) when we are holding him craddle-style.
-Caleb still LOVES his fists. He wants to suck on them constantly and when he isn't sucking on them he is either trying to get them to his mouth or stares at them very intently. When he is going to sleep in his crib Justin and I will check on him, just to find him staring at his hands as they are clasped together. He gets side-tracked when nursing if he sees his fist in his peripheral. Silly guy.
-He prefers putting himself down for his naps (hallelujah!). I was fighting him to take naps a few weeks ago and he would just get more and more upset. The next day I decided to just put him down in his crib for his nap, within 10 minutes (of completely being silent/content) he had passed out. Mom loves this preference!

And his four month stats:
Height: 24" (18% percentile....I know can you believe how short he is considering his dad is 6'3"!)
Weight: 14 lbs (33% percentile)
Head circumference: 41 1/2 " (31% percentile)

Although his stats say he is on the smaller side, he seems so big to me and Justin!

Tummy time!

Mom makes me do tummy-time every day. I like it for a little while but after a few minutes I get tired. So I cry to let Mom know I've had enough. For some reason she likes to take pictures of me doing tummy time (I don't know why), here are some of me doing tummy time last week:

See I'm happy here, and might I add, I look darn cute, right?!




Then here I am a minute later:




Then I start to get tired, but Mom still doesn't move me:



So to get my point across I have to cry:



By then I'm really tired, so this is what I do:
I have to give mom the stink-eye sometimes, I don't understand why she has to take so many pictures of me:



Here I am the next day, I used all my strength and lifted my head quite high:
And then I got tired again, so I let mom know I was done:


So she picked me up and tried to get me to smile but I don't like to smile for the camera...

But I still am really cute...
Oh and here I am with my fist, I really love my fist, it is sooo fun to chew and suck on!

Anyway, here are a few other of my favorite pictures from another day last week. When mom gets ready I sit in the bouncer in the bathroom and play with my giraffe and lion. I like to take my favorite fist and hit them, they move around a lot when I do that. Other times I just like to look at them.


And one last picture of my adorable, chubby feet! They peeked out from my blanket when I was napping last week and, of course, mom took a picture of them!




That's all, I'm off to play with mom!

Caleb

A mother's love

You know you love your child when you are willing to get rid of this (did not kill it!):




To protect this sleeping beauty:







**And yes I acknowledge that it is completely gross to have such a big bug in my house. We have had the worst problem with spiders, mosquitos and other weird bugs (see above) this summer! While I hate winter I do look forward to it getting rid of our bug problem!

[Virginia] Beach Bums

Seeing as how Caleb is only 2 months, there are a lot of 'firsts' that he is experiencing right now. We planned as a family to go to Virginia Beach to visit family and be there for my Mom's birthday (it was a mile-marker birthday but I won't say the age lol). So here are some of the 'firsts' Caleb experienced:

~First flight on an airplane (and got his first Delta wings). Altogether there were 4 flights we were on and Caleb did great on each one. He slept most of the time. And when the loud speakers would come on with the flight attendants making an announcement and wake up Caleb, Justin had the perfect solution:
Flying with a plush blanket, a comfy bobby pillow and getting to wear Bose headphones...that beats first class flying! No wonder he slept so soundly :-)

~First encounter with the beach! Unfortunately Caleb was too young to really enjoy how fun the beach is. Instead of digging in the sand, he stayed under the tent, in the shade, and slept most the time. Next year will be more fun :-)
Our Chubby beach bunny:

~This was a first for Caleb, Justin and myself: First time being in a hurricane! We had impeccable timing for this trip, right when Hurricane Irene was hitting Virginia Beach. It also hit the same day as my Mom's birthday. It wasn't too bad, just rained all Saturday and was a bit windy. It somehow managed to knock the power out almost immediately Saturday morning. But it was fun being stuck inside with all our family for my Mom's birthday, we played games, had cake, and still celebrated. Plus having a generator made it much better :-)
(One of the houses boarded up, ready for the hurricane. Good thing they boarded up too, this place-Sandbridge Island-got hit harder by the storm, including two tornadoes)

~First trip to the zoo! We went to he Norfolk Zoo and it was really neat! I have been to several zoos but this one you actually felt like you were in the habitat with the animals and you could get really close to them too. I didn't get any pictures of Caleb at the zoo, but he did great in his stroller.


We ate some great food, got to see family we haven't been able to see in far too long, and enjoyed soaking up some sun. We were mostly excited for Caleb to meet his Aunt Angel, Uncle Donnovan, cousin Jasmine and great-Aunts Betty and Brenda. It was an especially great trip for Caleb and really fun me for me and Justin as well!

2 month check up

A couple weeks ago Caleb went in for his 2 month check up. He looked great! He weighed in at 12 lbs (68th percentile) and 23 inches (60th percentile). He also got several vaccinations, surprisingly he really didn't like the oral vaccination, which we knew if he didn't like that he probably wasn't going to like the shots at all! And we were right, poor guy cried and seemed shocked by the pain but was back to happy within a couple minutes. Our little Caleb is growing up right before our eyes. We can definitely see the weight gain and his increase in length. He is starting to coo constantly and is quite the smiler. We have a few games we play with him that involves him moving his arms and they are guaranteed smile-makers. He really is a happy child, only crying when he is hungry or fighting sleep. He is starting to grab on to things too! There have been a few instances when he has been in his carseat that he has picked up his pacifier on his own. He loves this colorful rattle he has and will reach for it as well. He is a dream to put down at night, we will say prayers then sing a song and place him down in his crib awake and he goes to sleep almost instantly. Now if we could just get to sleep longer stretches at night! He will go about 6-7 hours in between feedings but since he goes to bed around 8pm that means I am up at 3 or so then again at 6ish (usually his wake up time is 6:30 which really needs to be later!) lol . But we really love this guy, he is so fun to see learn and grow and such a sweet boy. Here he is after his 2 month checkup:

Pregnancy pictures!

No don't worry, I'm not pregnant again! To back-track in time just a little bit, when I was about 37 weeks pregnant, my good friend, Kayla, was sweet enough to do a photo shoot so I could have some pictures to remember my huge belly by (is that something that I want to remember though...jk). Here are some of my favorites (they photography was excellent for all of them but I wasn't the best looking in all of them haha).