BRRRR!!!!!

So I guess I'll just resign myself to the fact that I am no longer a weekly blogger. My apologies to the loyal readers out there. In my defense, I had grand ideas of what I was going to accomplish during my last week on maternity leave. But the weather had other ideas as Caleb did not have school Tuesday or Wednesday. We've had fun but I certainly did not tackle many of the items on my "to do" list. Oh well!

To backtrack a little, here's a picture of Caleb trying to catch some snow on his tongue. He has seen this on Caillou, but it did take me awhile to figure out why he was running around with his tongue hanging out. This was during the few flurries we got several weeks ago.


My sister and Brian, her fiance, gave Caleb a Cars sleeping bag, pillow, and nightlight set for Christmas. We busted it out one chilly day. Caleb is not so much for covers but he did like sitting on the sleeping bag.

Harper's big accomplishment: SMILING! She continues to show us her sweet sweet disposition and is really "talking" and smiling these days. Here's a photo and great video too.

We should just call Caleb "Mr. Puzzleman" because he cannot get enough of his puzzles. This one is his current favorite - a Cars (shocking, I know!) 24 piece puzzle. He is always so proud of himself when he finishes it!

Last week we met up with friends at a local park for some fun and fresh air. It was certainly not Caleb's best display of making good choices and obeying me as I had to chase after Caleb many times and hope that our friends had an eye on Harper's stroller. But the boys did have fun, including feeding ducks and geese.

I took Harper and Caleb to the doctor this week as both have had ongoing colds and I wanted to make sure they weren't anything more severe. Caleb is weighing in at 34 pounds and Harper's boasting 13 pounds 2 ounces. No shrimps here!! (Oh, both kiddos are fine - just typical winter yucky colds).

Last weekend, my mom's side of the family came to town to celebrate belated Christmas. It was a great time and Harper got another use of her Christmas bow.

Here's a group shot:


Caleb's cousin Julia is one month and one day older than he is. It was the first time in quite awhile that they had seen each other but they had fun. Caleb had a tough time sharing toys (again, shocking, I know) but my mom kept reminding him that the toys at her house were actually her toys and she was sharing them with everyone, not just Caleb. He wasn't sure how to respond to that :) We ate our way through the weekend, including Sunday brunch at First Watch. I love that place!

One of the presents Caleb received last weekend was this Cars chair. He was not at all keen on sharing it with his other cousins but was sweet enough to want his sister to sit in it when we got home. She looks thrilled, huh?

In honor of Miss America last Saturday night, Harper dried off with her princess towel this week. My friend Jana gave this to us and it is too cute. It's big enough that Harper will get some great use out of it.


The winter weather came in on Monday afternoon while Caleb was at school. Here's a shot of Harper all bundled up against the ice and sleet. Thankfully, our friend Heather was home early from work so I left Harper with her while I ran to get Caleb. Can't you just see me trying to get the stroller in and out of the school in the ice while trying to keep Caleb from running into the parking lot?!? Glad I didn't have to tackle that one.

Tuesday afternoon we were getting a little stir-crazy so we braved the elements and headed over to Grandma's house to decorate cookies. Caleb had a blast sprinkling and eating the cookies.

The evidence:

As I mentioned at the top, I head back to work next week. I have missed my co-workers and am going back at an extremely busy time. The nice thing is that I'll go back for two weeks then take another two weeks off to get settled into our new house. Then I'll be back "for real". Things with the house are going well - we have stained hardwood floors, carpet, all tile is in and grouted, etc. There are lots of little things still to do but our builder still thinks we are looking at being finished in about 10 days. We shall see. Hopefully this weather doesn't delay us too much.

Oh, if any of you have a Peg Perego infant carrier that you're not using and want to let us borrow, please let me know. After much research, I bought the Peg side by side double stroller. Many message boards said that you could make the Graco carrier work in the Peg stroller. I don't know who those people were or if their kids are still living because it is very very precarious to put the Graco seat in there as there is nothing to latch or lock it into. The one time I used the stroller I rigged a bungee cord to hold Harper's seat in. It won't be a big deal once Harper is big enough to sit in the stroller by herself but in the meantime, I cannot safely use the stroller I spent an absurd amount of money on. Let me know...

Have a great week and stay warm!