Caleb's 1st Birthday

In some ways this last year has been the hardest ever...sleep deprivation, hormonal craziness, adjusting to being a stay-at-home mom. But without a doubt, it has been the happiest and most fulfilling year of my life and of our family's. We are so blessed to have Caleb in our family. He is so full of life and happiness. He is curious and investigates everything in sight. He has the most hilarious stare that he gives everything he is unsure of, Justin and I even get it from time to time. Who would have thought the baby that cried so hard he stopped breathing would grow into this gleeful, happy infant (who truly rarely cries, just fusses loudly). He makes being a stay-at-home mom a sweet job!


 
Here are some updates:
+ Weight: 19 lbs 2 oz (6th %tile)
+Length: 29.5" (33 %tile)

+ Caleb has three words in his vocabulary now: Dada, Momma (granted he doesn't say this very often), and Nana
+ Caleb is pretty great at feeding himself with his little pinchers. He loves cheerios, bread, well... he is really a big fan of any normal food, its baby food that he doesn't care too much for now. He hasn't warmed up to cow's milk unfortunately. I'm hoping he starts to enjoy it soon, I'm ready to be done with formula!
+ Caleb loves sitting up and playing with his toys. He can still navigate around on the ground to get what he wants, but he does it in a mixture of rolls and scooting on his back. Not a crawler yet!
+ Caleb LOVES the pool. He is so content floating around in his baby float, I don't keep track of time but its long enough for his toes to turn into prunes!
+ Caleb has started clapping and patting his belly and doing all sorts of silly hand movements.

 We had a birthday celebration for Caleb last Saturday night. We had pizza & cupcakes, opened presents then we took the party to the pool! It was such a fun evening and even better, we were surrounded by all our family and friends. Thanks for coming everyone!

An American Tale: Blackhams Go West

The week following Justin's graduation, we had planned our family vacation to San Diego. It worked out perfectly, Justin's last day at Pinnacle was on June 6th (he was able to leave early) and we headed on our trip that evening. (We unfortunately got bad news from Toyota when we took our Highlander in for a check-up, a major part was malfunctioning and the car wouldn't be fit for a road trip. However, Toyota said the part was still under warranty, yes!, and they would cover the cost of a rental car while our car was being repaired, yes yes!. So although we didn't want to pay extra for a rental car it was such a blessing. We had a bigger SUV, we didn't have to put miles on our Highlander, and we didn't have to worry about cleaning our Highlander out when we got home).

So aside from that setback, we were all packed and ready to hit the road. Of course, road trips with an infant don't go as quickly as you think they would. And to be honest, I am not the best at road trips either, my small bladder makes for frequent stops. Poor Justin! He is used to his nonstop drives to Chicago. Anyway, we were making a stop in Vegas to break up the length of the road trip. We got into Vegas around 11pm Wednesday night. We stayed at our favorite place-the JW Marriott, its west of the strip, in a quiet part of town, and is such a nice resort. The weather was beautiful and we spent Thurs and Fri soaking up the sun at the pool and enjoying our evenings around town. We took Caleb (in his stroller) to the Vegas Strip Thursday night. There was so much happening that Caleb was enamored the entire time. We didn't realize how many escalators and stairs you have to navigate around when you take a stroller but it was better than carrying him the whole time! We did our usual stops, the Bellagio Conservatory and fountains and we added a couple new stops this time: the flamingos at The Flamingo Hotel and a sundae at Serendipity 3. There were so many nice people commenting on how cute and good Caleb was. We haven't taken Caleb out of Utah much, where a baby is a common occurrence, it is cute to see how non-Utahans gush over babies. Our time in Vegas went by too fast but we hit the road Saturday afternoon and made our way to San Diego.

The amazing Bellagio Conservatory. They change out many of these flowers daily. There was a ladybug made of red carnations (at least 300 of them the sign said) and they were changed daily!

Caleb was so enthralled by everything, he had to sit up in his carseat for most of the Vegas strip visit

Caleb was mesmerized by the fountains

We arrived in San Diego Saturday around 9:30pm. We got up and attended a local ward's Sacrament meeting, went home and napped then went to the Mormon Battalion and the San Diego Temple. The Mormon Battalion in Old Town is amazing. The Church has done an awesome job with the message given and the interactive movie they show. Plus Justin's great (not sure how many generations it is honestly..) grandfather helped with the Mormon Battalion and later settled Spring City but his gun is kept in the glass case at the Battalion. How cool is that?! The Temple was gorgeous, albeit, I am still partial to the Logan Temple :-)

Other activities from the week... driving up the PCH, shopping right at the US/Mexico border, visiting Point Loma tide pools, walking around Old Town, a quick visit to the Coronado beach (we stayed on Coronado and loved our location!), and trying to swim at our pool. The unexpected thing about San Diego was how chilly it was! Not only was it chilly but since we were on the coast it was cloudy most every day. Sunday was really only our sunny day. We wanted to swim in our pool and spend time at the beach but it was just too cold unfortunately. (Made us wonder why we didn't stay in Vegas the whole time!) But we still enjoyed our family time and sightseeing.

What's that there in the sky Caleb?

The Mormon Battalion

Caleb getting in his nightly read before bed

This dessert was as delicious as it looks. From a popular place called Extraordinary Desserts. I wish we could have tried everything they had! This was a "Fruited Chocolate Tart"...the fruit was so good with the chocolate!

Point Loma tide pools

Old Town was so bright and vibrant... or maybe it was because we hadn't seen the sun much! I loved the Spanish style buildings and atmosphere

Old Town had a shop that specialized in root beer and beef jerky. Justin was in heaven with their 'smooth' root beers

Our sundae from Ghiradelli. Don't worry...although Caleb would have taken that big of a bite for sure, we didn't get it all to him...at once at least.

Coronado beach

View from our balcony

It was a wonderful trip!! Caleb was a sweetheart the whole time. We were worried about the car rides and him sleeping in our room in his pack n play. He couldn't sleep at first in the car but got used to it towards the end of the trip and he slept even better on our trip then he does when we are at home. I am guessing we wore him out pretty good! But I was so happy to come home at the end of the trip!

Graduation

At the beginning of June we were able to celebrate and participate in Westminster's graduation ceremony. Friday night, June 1st, Westminster's MBA program met downtown SLC and held a pinning ceremony for their graduates. It was a great evening and we were blessed to have Justin's Dad come celebrate with us all weekend long! I loved seeing Justin being honored and celebrated for this achievement. He worked so incredibly hard to reach this goal.

Such a cute picture.. Caleb was about 4 hours past his naptime. He was so quiet and patient during the graduation ceremony, but just couldn't fall asleep. Grandpa Blackham held him  in the football hold during the exit processional (while the bagpipes were playing!), and danced him back and forth which was all that this tired babe need to soothe him to sleep!

I crack up over Caleb's eyes in this picture.. he is so silly

Saturday afternoon Westerminster held their graduation ceremony at the Maverick center. The Joneses, Whitmers, and Justin's Dad joined us for this. Granted it was a long afternoon, but I was thrilled to see Justin walk across the stage in his gown. It was awesome having so much family there to celebrate with. It has been the support of all our family that made it possible for Justin to get his MBA.

Deep thoughts..

Remember Jack Handy and his jewels of 'deep thoughts'...
"Children need encouragement. So if a child gets an answer right tell him that was a lucky guess. That way he develops a good lucky feeling."

Well I have been thinking lately...self-analyzing and reflecting.

Since I have become a stay at home mom I feel much more offended by crude things. I am not sure if it is because I am now a mom or if as a stay-at-home mom I am in our sweet home most of the week. The world is really a nasty place sometimes. I don't feel as overwhelmed with the need to have the nicest hair, newest trend of clothing or any of those things-which I used to be very much into. I have been able to put greater importance on things that are not of this world. I understand what it means to be 'in the world, but not of the world'. Makes me worry about when my children start school and are immersed into the worldly aspects of this life. I hope I can set a strong foundation for them so they know what things really matter and what things simply do not.

Another aspect of being a stay-at-home mom... my conversations are pretty limited. At least two-way conversations. I talk a lot to myself and Caleb though (I'm a crazy). Thus I have become borderline completely socially inept. It's pretty embarrassing how awkward I can be when trying to carry on a conversation with someone. Or heaven forbid, I have to teach Relief Society...super awkward.  I have been trying to work on confidence, speaking clearly (Thanks Kate Middleton for your example! ha), and doing better with small talk. However, more often than not I will say something that has me blushing for the next few days with shame. I wouldn't blame people for not wanting to talk to me.Will it get better? I sure hope so!

Baby weight. Can I just say I would almost rather get pregnant again and again and get my child-bearing years over with so I can get back down to my pre-Caleb size? I get bummed when I think of getting back into shape, only to get pregnant again and lose it all over again. Before I had Caleb I heard of women who became even smaller after having children, wishing thinking, not the case with me sad to say!

Caleb is awake... time to go party with him. He has his two bottom teeth now, by the way. Just a hair of each tooth is above the gum line, but I can sure feel them. He has another word to his vocabulary also.. "nananana". Nana Froneberger is going to love this. He has said "momma" on a couple occasions but not solid just yet. Have a great Tuesday!

How do you measure up?

 I was glancing at the growth chart for boys this afternoon, wanting to know how Caleb measured up (length-wise) I grabbed a small measuring tape. Who knew it would become his favorite toy ever. (And I have no idea how long Caleb is, accurately-speaking, he moves around too much!)

Here is Caleb and is bestie:
(so sorry they are all sideways, I don't know why my blog rotates them)

Changes

In my below post I mentioned we have a lot of changes happening right now.. so here is the nitty gritty...

And just as a preface, although it is hard to have your life completely uprooted and everything changing all at once, we feel extremely blessed as a family for the opportunities that have come our way recently. It's the season for change!

First of all... TUESDAY May 22nd, a few hours after I blogged about Caleb, his first tooth made its appearance! You would have thought I just won the lottery with how thrilled I was. FINALLY! Its his bottom left tooth, you call definitely feel it and when he sits still for longer than 2.5 seconds you can catch a glimpse of it breaking through his gums. This has unfortunately led to fussiness and hard nights but I don't mind, bring on the teeth!


Justin accepted a new job, downtown Salt Lake City, with Goldman Sachs. He will be approving transactions of stock exchanges (I may have this completely wrong, hopefully he will correct it if needed, he has told me several times what the position is but for some reason I can never remember it). He begins June 18th! We are thrilled for this opportunity and that it is a position that Justin was very interested in.

Since he will be working downtown, we are having to move to Salt Lake County. Pleasant Grove has been so good to us, we are going to miss it! We aren't quite sure about this change... I think we will be moving into an apartment for the time being, to get used to Salt Lake County then we will be buying a house. And just a little sad side note, we found out recently that our sweet home (that we are renting) is in foreclosure, or close to it. We had no idea so when we found out it was a scary shock. Apparently the mortgage company has been sending a lady out to check of the status of our unit (vacant or occupied) for 8 months! Yikes! Our plan was to stay in this condo until later in the summer then start house hunting. I doubt that will be the case now since we are in a time crunch with our condo now. Bummer. But I am excited to start house hunting!

Oh and Justin is graduating, officially, the first weekend in June! Woohhoo! I am so proud of him and so happy we are still in Utah so he is able to attend his graduation ceremony. Such a huge accomplishment! And one other quick note..(please don't be mad at me for posting this picture honey..)

Left: Jan 13, 2012  /   Right: May 22, 2012

He is in amazing physical shape right now! (If you are not a family member, you can read that as: He is so stinkin' hot!) Just another reason I am so proud of him. He set a New Years goal to get in shape and he has beyond surpassed that goal. Which is much more than I can say for any of my New Years resolutions...

We are also taking a family vacation to California before he starts his new job. I am thrilled for that! Uninterrupted, beautiful family vacation! I'll post pictures when we return. This might be my last blog for a while, until things get settled down towards the end of June. As soon as we get back from our trip, its full on apartment hunting.

We never thought we would be staying in Utah, but in the end we are so happy to have a good job and be in the position to start looking to buy a house. Its funny how things work out sometimes, eh?

11 months

We have a lot of changes happening in our little family right now. First of all...

Caleb turned 11 months yesterday, which means in one short month he is going to be one! I can't believe how quickly time has gone by. Here are some updates on him-

+First word is officially "dada", which coincidentally he started to say when Justin was out of town for a week for a business trip. He says dada and any gibberish that begin with the "d" sound. Sometimes he just says "d" over and over again. I love that he is learning to communicate!

+He has mastered the art of rolling over, and over, and over. I think this mastery has put crawling even further down the list, as he can now get to whatever he wants by rolling over and over.

+He is laughing a lot more these days, especially when he is tired!

+He has his own mind that is for sure! If he doesn't want his bottle he is not shy in letting us know. Most of the time, he prefers to have his fingers in his mouth, so a bottle just disrupts his finger-biting/sucking time. His bottom gums are quite swollen, but still no signs of little teeth breaking the surface.

+Caleb rarely cries, when he wants something he whines in the funniest way then looks at me to see if he is going to get what he wants. If he is tired or hungry his "talking" becomes much more vocal and loud. If we are out and he gets tired or bored, all we have to do is hold him and he is content.

+He is finally on a good bedtime schedule. For a while he was sick (ear infections, colds, etc.) so it disrupted his routine but he is now 7pm-6:30 for bedtime. He is a sweetheart though, if we keep him out later than his bedtime he won't really fuss at all.

+Weighs a little under 19 lbs. He is getting so long! His feet are very close to dangling over the end of his car seat.

+He loves trying new foods. We are giving him small pinches of what we eat. Mozzarella sticks, bread, bananas, brownies, cookies, pasta, ice cream, mashed potatoes...he gobbles it all up.

+When I am singing songs to him before naps or bedtime, he takes his pacifier out of his mouth and tries to put it in my mouth. He gets a big kick out of this. Not sure if its confirmation that my singing is as bad as I thought it was... even he is trying to hush me!

+We went to a petting zoo last week and the goats kept trying to nibble Caleb's toes, he was enamored by the animals!

+He loves sitting up and playing with his toys. His balance is getting better everyday to where I don't worry when I walk away from him that he is instantly going to fall backwards.

There are so many more things I wish I remembered at this moment to record. He still makes me and Justin laugh daily, smile constantly and we count him as our choicest blessing in our family!