Week 51 and a Birthday Bash

Like most of the last 52 weeks, this one revolved around Mr. Caleb. As we prepared for our "laid back, no big deal" party (really, those were my intentions), I realized I can't just do a "laid back, no big deal" party for my first child's first birthday. It still was reasonably low-key but I had to plan and coordinate the smallest details...shocking I know.

We started out the birthday celebrations on Wednesday, when we met some friends at Ted's Cafe Escondido (love it!!) where Caleb opened his first ever birthday presents.

But before Sunday's shin-dig, I enjoyed a pampering party/girls night out with my Sunday School friends. We had a blast, just chatting, exfoliating, and eating, even if some less-than-glamorous pictures were taken (see below).

OK, I know you want to see the birthday party pics so here they are:

Caleb in awe of the balloons (why do we even spend money on toys and other gifts?!?)


Our friend Brooke did an awesome job on the cakes, don't you think? Especially considering she tackled them in one evening with three kiddos running around and only one batch of margaritas. She did the sheet cake with turtle then Caleb's own special turtle. Thanks, Brooke, you're the best!!

The decorations courtesy of Aaron. The banner was painted by my former student aide from school. How cute is it!!


Where's Caleb??

"Who put this bag on my head?"


"I hate hats and you're trying to pass it off as a birthday present!"


The turtle cake before...

...and after. Actually, he didn't last long with the whole cake-destroying thing. I don't know if it was the weird fringe around the outside of his tray table, the trash bags he was sitting on to protect the highchair fabric, or the texture of the cake between his fingers, but he was pretty much done about 5 minutes into it :)

Two presents I love: my new walking cart and the ball pit. If you look really closely in the ball pit picture, you can see his molar. Yep, after two months of under the surface blood blisters, all 4 molars have finally pushed their way through!

And we received a family membership to the zoo, so you better believe we'll be making some trips there when the weather warms up a bit. Yeah!

After a fun party, we went to Cheddar's with our friends that drove in from OKC. Caleb was amazingly well-behaved for as little sleep as he had gotten. In fact, he might have been delirious by the time bathtime rolled around. Here's where he crawled to after his bath (usually he makes a beeline for Aaron in the office):

I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to the family and friends that have been part of Caleb's 1st year. Stick with us...it's only going to get better :) And thanks to those that drove from out of town (do Broken Arrow and Sapulpa count??) to be part of today's celebration.

PS- Boomer Sooner, huh? I thought they might be pulling for the BSC Championship after laying such a whooping on Mizzou. Oh well, guess we'll settle for the Fiesta Bowl. Caleb received several fun OU items today, including a great football. Yippee!

PPS- This week includes Caleb's actual birthday on Monday, which he will celebrate with his friends at school, 1 year check up and immunizations, 1 year photo shoot with our friend Betsy, and our Sunday School class Christmas Progressive Dinner. Should be a fun and busy one.

PPPS- Caleb still is fighting the same darn ear infection. Our pediatrician put him on another antibiotic and if it's not cleared up by his appointment this week, we'll probably need to go see an ENT. All I said was if we have to get tubes, I want it done by December 31st since we've already paid our deductible this year :)

Have a great week!

Week 51- Thanksgiving

It's hard to believe that Thursday was Caleb's last "first holiday". This time last year, we were patiently (OK, impatiently) waiting Caleb's arrival. Here he is in his handsome Thanksgiving dinner outfit.

We left early Thursday morning for Kansas City. Caleb had a great time with our relatives, especially his cousin Ada that's 2 months younger than he is and Quinn who is 3 1/2.


Perhaps Caleb's favorite thing about Thanksgiving was the lime he found in Aunt Debbie's fruit basket. He was very rarely without it. My mom jokingly said she was going to take back the birthday presents she bought him to get him a bag of limes. She was kidding...I think.


Friday morning the girls went shopping (some purchases for Christmas presents, some for ourselves!). That night the whole gang (15 of us) went to the Plaza to see the lights and eat at an Italian restaurant called Buca di Beppo. It was loud and hectic but good food. Plus I got to stop in at the MAC store, which is always a bonus for me. The Plaza was cold but Caleb and Quinn were bundled up against the wind and frigid temps.

My dad has been working on teaching Caleb "close your eyes, open your eyes" for several months now. He finally got it this weekend. It is hilarious as you can see in the video below.

Saturday morning we woke up to light snow fall. Caleb and his cousins thought it was pretty fun.


We stayed in KC through Saturday watching a wonderfully victorious Bedlam game and then stayed to watch the MU/KU game. I didn't really have a preference on who won that one but our family in MO are huge Mizzou fans. Of course now we will play them in the Big 12

Championship next weekend. Should be an intense and interesting showdown. Makes me nervous to hear the sports commentators say that it's difficult to beat a team twice in a season. We shall see.

Busy week as we prepare for Caleb's birthday party next Sunday and his birthday on Monday. YIPPEE!! I can't believe it's almost here.

One Year Blogging Anniversary

As Caleb's birthday draws closer, I am reminiscing about a lot of things. And tonight it dawned on me that I started to blog about this time last year. I've enjoyed the last 20 minutes reading through the very entertaining posts I wrote in Nov. 2006. It's funny how you speculate on how life as a parent will be but (as you moms know) YOU HAVE NO CLUE how life will change. Anywho, if you want to, look back at my archives and see what a difference a year makes.

PS- How come no one told me my face was sooooo bloated? YIKES!

Week 50- Under the Weather (Again)

Poor little fella woke up with a low-grade fever Wednesday morning, which I attributed to teething since his one-year molars are getting thisclose to coming in. If it hadn't been a totally necessary day for me to be at work, I would have just stayed home but we had several big projects I had to finish up. So off to school we went, then around lunchtime Caleb's teacher found me and told me his temperature was around 103. Yuck! I picked him up from class and he hung out with me for awhile until Aaron could come get him. I knew he was feeling badly because he just sat in my lap while I worked. If he was up to par, he would have been all over the place, exploring every nook and cranny.

Aaron picked him up and hung out at home with him while I wrapped things up then I took him to the doctor. Caleb was diagnosed with ear infections and a respiratory 'bug'. Instead of 10 days' worth of oral antibiotics, they were able to give him one shot. He wasn't very happy with that shot but it's much better than trying to get him to take medicine multiple times a day for over a week. He was still feeling badly Wednesday night but was much improved Thursday morning. His only continuing issue is runny diapers, which might be a result of the high-powered antibiotic?? Here's a shot of him passed out in his high chair. He never snuggles with a blanket- another sign that he wasn't feeling 100%.


The big projects I was conquering at work were part of Visiting Day that happened on Friday. It's an annual event where family members come to campus with the students to tour, watch a school program, eat lunch, etc. I had several marketing pieces that had to be complete in time for the event. Even though Caleb was a little under the weather, we had a fun time seeing his friends from class and their families.


Here are some cute pics from throughout the week, including one of Caleb toddling around the house like a dork with his onesie and dark socks on (reminds me of a neighbor we had growing up that would mow his yard in dark dress socks and shorts), posing with a new hat and mitten set (he loved it; can't you tell), and passed out at our friends' house during the OU game (I wanted to cover my eyes too!!).






Friday night I headed to OKC for my friend Mandy's birthday party. It was a blast!! It was at an aerobics studio that teaches lots of different classes. The class we took was for pole dancing :) Don't worry, it wasn't "skanky", it was a lot of fun and a great workout. I am seriously bruised and sore. I think I am going to try to put together a group of girls from here to go after the holidays, so let me know if you're interested. Below are a few pictures, including one of the birthday girl inverted on the pole. (I had no skills so didn't even attempt it!).

For my weekly football recap, I really thought my Chiefs might pull out a miracle today against the Colts and, you gotta hand it to them, they did much better than expected. And I don't even want to talk about those Sooners. Yikes! We had a fun party with some friends but did decide we can't watch any other games at their house as it might be bad luck.

And, my friend Nicole's brother passed away last night. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers, especially with the holidays coming up.

We are heading to Kansas City on Thursday for our annual Thanksgiving holiday with Dad's side of the family. Plaza lights here we come. Gobble gobble, everyone!!

Week 49 - Loving the Walker

Will be quick tonight as I am feeling under the weather and our camera is having issues downloading pictures. We had a good and pretty uneventful week. Pictures below are of fun with cool whip (yeah!), playing on the back porch in the nice weather, and "chillin" in front of the fridge.

Caleb's newest fun toy is his cart that he pushes around (and around and around) the house. It was great to watch him figure out how to slow down when transitioning from carpet to tile and how to turn corners. It's so fun to watch those wheels turning. We're not totally comfortable with him just taking off by himself so one of us is always close behind.


Here's another funny video clip. Caleb has started making this hooting noise that he started one day when he heard the dogs howling. I think we laughed about it enough that now he just makes the face all the time, even when he's not doing his whistle/hoot.


OK, that's about it. My mom is back from a short mission trip to Mexico as of 9:00 tonight. It's always nice to have mom/grandma back on Tulsa soil.

Have a good one!

Week 48- Costumes and Getting More Adventurous

As you can see from the previous post, our little turtle had quite a time on Halloween. Especially when he got to hang out with his friends the duck, skunk, dog, scarecrow, cow, and fairy princess. It was too funny trying to get all the kids lined up and cooperative for a group picture. Here are some other funny pictures from the night and a video of our not-so-slow turtle.










Thursday morning we got up and went to the park with our playgroup. Most of the toys were too big for Caleb to play on and he still thinks that playground mulch is for eating, but he did get to swing for the first time. It was a little cooler than I expected and evidently the hood on his outfit was just for looks because it was way too snug for his noggin but it kept his ears and head covered. We ran several other errands that day and some on Friday too.

The reason for the errand running was that we had family pictures at Woodward Park on Saturday morning. I know it comes as a shock but I was stressing over what we would all wear. There's a delicate line between coordinating outfits and matching outfits and I didn't want to cross it :) I eventually found cute stuff for all three of us to wear and we had a fun time shooting the pics with my friend, Betsy. She said she'd have a sneak peak of some of our photos up by the end of the week so I'll post a link next weekend. Can't wait to see them.

Caleb is getting more and more adventurous and spirited. Last week it was climbing up the ladder; today I found him trying to boost himself up on the baker's rack shelf.

He is totally transfixed with our home phone and our cell phones. I left mine on the coffee table today and he picked it up, put it to his ear, and said, "heeeeyyy" over and over. It was pretty cute.


Don't want to jinx him but it seems Caleb's runny nose and 'old man cough' are finally clearing up. Or at least he wasn't near as congested as he has been for the last 2+ weeks. We did church today then came home to watch my Chiefs throw a win away to the Packers. It was even more painful because San Diego lost so we could have taken the lead in the AFC West instead of being tied with the Chargers. OU is back in the BCS Top 5 and I think KU will definitely fall to OSU or Mizzou so hopefully we can maintain and work our way up a bit farther.

Oh, I got my hair trimmed and colored on Friday. It's a fun reddish auburn color now. Hey, it's fall...why not. If I wasn't already ready for bed, I'd have Aaron take a picture to post. Oh well, you'll just have to wait until Betsy posts some of our family pictures.

Caleb's cousin Julia celebrated her 1st birthday on Friday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COUSIN!! There are adorable pictures from her party on the link called "Tiffany" in the column on the right.

Here are a few great pictures our friend Alissa captured at our hayride a few weeks ago.






Have a great week!

Quick Halloween Pics Post

Just a few pictures from Halloween to tide you over until this weekend's post. Enjoy!