Life as a Walton

4th of July, Other Summer Things, Back to School (out of order, sorry)

2010-08-27T14:08:00.013-05:00

So, here's the rest of summer. A little out of order, I know. Sorry.

We traveled to Tulsa's new ONEOK stadium to watch the Drillers play. It rained, we got there late, the kids didn't sit still, but oh well.

We had friends over for our annual 4th of July cookout on the 3rd. Unfortunately, it rained all day and our favorite fireworks in Kiefer, OK were postponed. Everyone still came over and we ate WAAYY too much. Harper G and Ellison in their matching dresses. It's hard to believe there's only 6 months between them. But even crazier that even in two years, it won't matter at all.

The kiddos outfitted for church on 7/4.

We hung out at my parents' house for fireworks. They have a neighbor that spends a small fortune on fireworks and the parking's not nearly as crazy as some of the big shows all over town.

Harper and her "mee-maw". She can say grandma and has done it for a long time but recently switched to "mee-maw" despite our best efforts.

Caleb was cautiously excited about helping Dad with fireworks. At least he's not ready for Roman Candle wars quite yet.

Self-serve frozen yogurt stores are popping up all over town and we are not immune. Our favorite is Peach Wave in West Tulsa. I won't say it's a bribe but we do use it as a reward after three good days of school, for example. It's also an easy dinner, because Caleb fills his bowl to the brim despite my best efforts to control the situation.

Caleb with his Deer Class teachers. He had a FABULOUS YEAR in the 2s and is excited to be moving with one of his teachers to the 3s-5s Wing.

Caleb and Aaron headed to Red River and Eagle Nest, NM and Boise City (Aaron's home town) to see his parents at the end of summer. They took a long weekend and had a blast. We girls stayed home because I was singing a duet at church that Sunday. I told Aaron he was welcome to take both children with him as he drove 20+ hours in a 4 day span but he declined. Wonder why??

The four Waltons (A, C, and A's parents) had a blast. And, quite frankly, they wouldn't have been able to do as much if we were there. They went hiking...

playing...

fishing...

...and tubing down the bunny slope of Red River. They also got to hang out with Aaron's sister and her children, who were there for part of the time.

While the boys were away, Harper Grace spent quite a bit of time with Grandma and G-Dad but had one momentous occasion with mom: her first haircut. While it was really just a trim, Miss Tara still packed up the first lock for Harper's memory box.

The following video is something I will probably look back and laugh at next week, next year, in five years, and in twenty five years. It totally summarized the morning of getting ready for the first day of school. TYPICAL!!

They pulled it together enough to pose on the front porch.

Hugs!

Not sure if either of my children knows how to WALK anywhere.

Caleb and his best buddy Anthony playing in the Purple Class, which will be their home for the next two years. Riverfield begins multi-age classrooms at this age, giving children a chance to follow then lead as they become very comfortable in their environment and with their teachers and classmates. At first, Caleb wasn't sure about being Purple. His preference was green or orange, but they don't have those classes. We are excited to be with his wonderful friends and teachers!

She started out the day quite pretty. And ended up like this: Harper G is a Frog this year, which is what Caleb was for his toddler year too. She has one of the same teachers too. Ellison is also in the class as well as several of Harper's Butterfly friends from last year. The class spent a majority of the summer in the unoccupied Frog class, so this transition was no big deal for Miss Priss.

What you can't really see in this picture is that his forehead and tummy are covered in orange marker. And it was so sweaty outside that his underwear soaked up the running orange color. The heat was also the reason Caleb took off his cute button down and was sporting this undershirt that's a size to small (it hits about 2 inches above his navel). Imagine my joy (horror!) as I jog with my friends past his playground after school and see him with about 5 inches of skin hanging out (his new shorts were a bit too big), yelling "Mom, I colored myself!"

Not to be outdone by her brother, Harper came home from school two days later looking like this. But she's awfully cute with her singing.

Grandma had a coupon for the zoo and we had a free day, so off we went, despite the 100 degree temps. I am not sure what we were thinking but we did have the zoo pretty much to ourselves. Even Caleb, who is usually totally oblivious to the heat, was asking if we we could "take a break in the shade for a little minute." We definitely enjoyed the cool of the covered train.

You can't see it here, but the elephant was super close.

Which brings us to today. The weather has turned cooler (still not at all cold, but much better) and we stopped off at a park in Jenks for awhile this morning.

Hopefully the cooler temps are here to stay. It's hard to train for a run when it's miserably hot outside (our next half is in KC in mid-October, then the Tulsa Run 15k, the the Route 66 1/2 in late November). My group of friends ran a 1/4 marathon a few weeks ago. We had not been training like we should and the heat and humidity were oppressive. Needless to say, we did not set any PRs but it was fun.

So I am now officially caught up. But tonight we're headed to the first Riverfield football game of the season and tomorrow night is a practice cookout for OU tailgating (we have season tix this year!!) so I'm sure more pics will need to be shared soon. But for now - hooray, I'm caught up.

PS= Congrats to my cousin Tiffany and her family, who welcomed baby Jude a few weeks ago. Can't wait to see you all soon!

A Mother's Bragging

2010-08-25T19:34:00.003-05:00

I know, I know... two blog updates in one week. What is the world coming to?? This one's quick. Just two short videos of Caleb and Harper G's newest accomplishments. Enjoy!

Harper has evidently been catching on to the phonics work we've been doing with Caleb. Pretty funny!

We've been studying Jonah church-wide this month. Here's Caleb's first memory verse.

The Beach and the end of summer!!

2010-08-10T09:38:00.009-05:00

I will make this quick, since it is 1:45am and you all really just care about the photos anyway.

SUMMER WAS GREAT FOR THE WALTONS!! We had a blast mostly just hanging out around town. The big summer purchase was a Hasty Bake Grill. If you ask Aaron about it, be ready for a 30 minute diatribe about how it's so much more than a grill. All I know is that the food prepared on it is super tasty. We went to a prime steak house in Tulsa last night and, despite the price tag, came home agreeing that Aaron's steaks taste better! Here's Daddy's helper ready to go!

Most of the time, I take the photos around the house. So, imagine my surprise when I downloaded a set of photos and found this along with several similar ones. Yes, this is HG playing with my underwear. It was laundry day and I am hoping for everyone's sake that she found it in the clean pile.

Our dear friends Mike and Kristin came to visit recently. Mike has finished all his med school and they are now back in OK! We are glad they are just a short jaunt down the Turner Turnpike now.

The highlight of our summer was our big family trip to Destin, Florida. There were 17 of us from my dad's side of the family that occupied two great condos in a resort right across the street from the beach. We drove and the kids were great in the car. We borrowed a friend's portable DVD player and didn't have to use it at all on the way down and only watched one movie on the way back. Here's Caleb's reaction to our first walk down to the beach, which was right as we pulled into town.

We pretty much spent all day every day either at the beach or at the pool. At first Harper wasn't sure what to think about all the dirty sand and kept asking me to wipe off her hands and feet. She quickly acclimated and was all about "walking, walking" up and down the beach.

Lots of toys to keep them occupied.

Several times, Harper Grace spent at least 20 minutes just filling up the bucket, dumping it, and starting all over again.

Sandy booty!

G-Dad relaxing, probably after a long and tiresome walk with Caleb to look for shells. We were very fortunate to have NO OIL on the beach or in the water. There was lots of seaweed, but that's way better than oil.

Hanging out under the cabana. Not that she ever stayed still for very long. It was a great trip, but not near as relaxing as the ones we took before we had children!

3 of the 4 of us on the beach. Caleb was playing ladderball with the cousins. Aaron purchased this hat on the trip. I think he really thought it was cool. Hmmm.

Watching the waves.

Bathing Beauties - Aunt Deb, Mom, Me, and HG.

Harper took a nap in her pack-n-play each day, but often enjoyed extending it a bit more as she rested with her G-Dad.

We went to dinner one night and had to check out the temporary tattoo stand. Caleb chose a monster truck. SWEET! Now if only that's the only tattoo that ever graces his body.

Caleb telling some story, totally oblivious to the large heron (crane??) behind him.

Aaron takes his seafood (OK, all food) very seriously!

Photo time - looking precious and not at all ornery.

The Long/Walton/Beauchamp clan.

Silly silly.

Back home, our little mama loves to take care of her babies. We purchased this car seat and she carts it all over the place. Caleb likes to take out the baby and fill it with as many cars as possible. Guess how well that goes over with his sister?!?

Caleb has continued his swimming lessons this summer. Between lessons, a week in Florida, and time in our backyard and friend's pools, he is really improving in the water. Each week on the way to lessons, he chooses a different aquatic animal to swim like. Most times, it's common things like shark or dolphin. Last week it was a blue and yellow striped fish, to match the pajamas he wore the night before.

Earlier in the summer, a group of girlfriends went to a wine tasting class at a local restaurant called Calistoga. This particular lesson was on sparkling wines (do you know you're only supposed to call them champagne if they are from the Champagne region of France?). We had fun (as far as I can remember - ha!) and the culminating event was the sommelier "sabering" the cork off the bottle.

OK, I promise there's more to come - end of summer, first days of school, etc. - and I won't be delinquent about it. Just wanted to get this out there since I've gotten some complaints. Hope all is well with each of you!

Wisp Clips

2010-07-29T19:24:00.002-05:00

I am working on organizing photos, etc from our trip and the end of summer, but in the meantime...

Check out wispclips.blogspot.com for some really cute clippies for little girls with fine/thin hair. Tey don't fall out!! They also have a facebook page that you can "like". Lots of giveaways too! The maker is a great stay-at-home mom friend of mine that's trying to make a little side money. Thanks!

Playing Catch Up and Catchin' Some Rays

2010-06-25T11:55:00.026-05:00

Here's the last two months in review:

On April 25th, I completed my first 1/2 marathon. That's right - 13.1 miles of running. My goal was to finish in 2:40 (not a fast time but steady and in keeping with the pace I'd been training at). The race was AWESOME!!! Here are some photos:

The first 8 miles were absolutely a piece of cake. The most challenging was probably mile 11, but that's because my running partner and I missed the flag for it and I thought mile 1o was just lasting forever. My final time was 2:34:43, which was a pleasant surprise. Aaron and the kids, his parents, and my sister and bro-in-law were all there to cheer me on (my parents were in Kansas City).

Here we are at the finish line. Sorry the pic's so small - I took it off of Facebook. It was a pretty chilly day for late April but great for running. We enjoyed some cheeseburgers and chocolate milk at the finish line then a champagne toast back at the hotel. Also enjoyed a ice cold beer while in my ice bath, figuring I was already freezing so what was a few more degrees of cold!

The weather quickly warmed up and we've spent lots of time outside. Here's Harper G running around (does she do anything else!?!) with a mower Caleb loved to play with at her age. Apparently, he wasn't quite ready to part with it, as seen by the expression on his face.

In April, Caleb had some major dental work done - 4 fillings and 2 crowns. Before you can ask, yes, we do brush his teeth religiously, and no, we didn't fill his bottle with Dr. Pepper when he was an infant. The dentist recommended being completely under for the procedure. He did a great job and is very proud of his silver teeth. We're just excited that the crowns are on teeth that he'll eventually lose.

As the school year came to an end, both kiddo's classes had what Riverfield calls "culminating events." Caleb's class had been on a yearlong investigation to learn more about the school's mascot, Big Blue. They planted a garden outside their classroom with blue flowers and worked with the school's art teacher to construct a bird bath and other garden ornaments out of clay that they formed, glazed, and fired. Big Blue's Garden Party celebrated the end of this investigation, complete with an appearance by the mascot, autograph signing, and popsicles. Caleb's in the grey and navy striped shirt (the one that's about a half a head taller than everyone else).

Getting some love from Big Blue.

Harper and her other Butterfly friends celebrated with a Garden Party of their own. Families came to school on a Sunday afternoon to plant shrubs and flowers and create a butterfly-shaped mosaic stepping stone for the Butterfly garden. They also got to explore the Toddler classrooms, which was great because Harper's older infant class moved into a vacant Toddler class for the summer so they're getting a jump start on next fall's experiences.

Another end-of-year event at Riverfield is our Street Party, where the 5 student rock bands (we have Oklahoma's only school rock band program) perform on a stage on our back field with some original, classic, and current rock songs. Caleb and I went - here's his game face.

Caleb and his BFF Anthony rockin' out.

Alissa, April, and I ran the Full Moon 5k a few weeks after the 1/2 marathon. I cut quite a bit off my time, which was nice, and the free beer and live concert afterward were fun too.

The weekend after Mother's Day, Caleb and I ran in the Oklahoma Aquarium Fun Run. It was just a few miles from our house on a rainy morning. Caleb was awesome! With the exception of a few walking steps, he ran the whole mile!! The thing he was the most unsure of was pinning his racing number to the back of his shirt. Grandma and G-Dad came to cheer us on.

Caleb received a t-shirt and ribbon but was most excited about the chocolate milk at the finish line.

Later that day, my girlfriends and I got together with our moms for a "Moms and Mimosas" brunch. It was potluck-style with some super tasty dishes. My mom wasn't feeling all that well but did make an appearance. It was a fun way to celebrate the best moms ever (well, my mom being the best and the others coming in a close second). Also, you might notice the blonding and chopping off of my hair. I was tired of in-between, not long, not short hair. So Tara, my hairdresser, chopped it off and made it a fun summer color.

The kiddos on the last day of school. Since we go to Riverfield in the summer too, our schedule isn't too different for June, July, and August.

As a point of reference, here's the first day of school last fall.

We've been working on letters and letter sounds with Caleb. Apparently Harper's picking up some of it too :)

We've had a great summer so far. Here's photo of Harper, Ellison, and Landon at a concert at a local park. The big kids didn't come prepared for the splash park section of the park, but that didn't stop them from getting soaked!

Caleb's new favorite hobby - urinating outside. This was the first time we caught him. He asked Aaron, who was inside, "Dad, can I make the grass yellow." Aaron thought he said, "Does it make the grass yellow?" to which he responded with an affirmative "yes." And here's the result. (Wonder when he'll realize he doesn't have to pull his pants and underwear all the way down?)

We've enjoyed lots of time in the backyard with our little pool; it's just big enough for a raft for me to float in while C and HG nap. And now...you know why I've been a blogging slacker: I spend potential update time vegging in the wading pool.

Harper's not exactly sure about the water in a bigger pool- she doesn't want to spend time in her float but isn't content with me holding her. She loves our little one though.

Owen, Aidan, and Caleb swimming at Aidan's grandma's house. Caleb has really turned into a little fish this summer and is making great progress at swimming lessons too.

Both kids are loving summer at RCDS! They come in water clothes each morning, play in the water on their playgrounds then change to regular clothes. Here's grown-up Harper Grace and a classmate playing in the home living area of their new classroom.

My friend Mary-Catherine teaches Spanish at school and is working most of the summer in Caleb's class. As a result, he's picking up lots of Spanish and is pretty proud of himself.

Last weekend was Father's Day. Aaron's big present was a Hasty Bake Oven. Google it if you've not heard about it. Trust me, you don't want to ask him about it or he might not stop talking for a few days :) I think we'll really get a lot of good use out of it; you can grill, smoke, and even cook (yep, as in bread, pizza, and cakes). Hopefully the temps will not be too unbearable this summer so we can break it in nicely. We celebrated later in the day with my parents and Morgan and Brian. Shout out to Dad and Aaron, two of the best Daddides in the world!

Our friend Charity taught a cake camp this week and saved a special Tow Mater-shaped cake for Caleb. Note the patronizing "Mom, hurry up and take the picture so I can eat this ASAP" smile. And, you'll see that Harper G destroyed her piece of cake too.

Harper is certainly coming in to her own. Her vocabulary expands daily and she's getting to be quite the drama queen.

She's also learning lots of songs. This is a little hard to get at first, but I promise it's Twinkle Twinkle.

She mastered naming and pointing to various body parts awhile ago but this is the first time she's cooperated on camera.

OK, the end of this post is a little Harper-centric. However, overall, she's gotten a lot less blog time than Caleb. So here's little Miss Thing working on her jump jump jumping.

Other items of note:

Congrats to our friends Ashley and Kyle, whose baby Kate arrived a few weeks ago. She's beautiful and I can't wait to get to OKC to squeeze her (and you guys)!
Also, way to go, Damaris, on making Top 10 at Miss OK yet again. This was the first year for me to not help with the teen pageant. It was very nice, though very odd, to not live at the Mabee Center during pageant week.
If you want to order some Pampered Chef or host a party, contact my sister. She is now a consultant and would love to sell you something!
And a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our god-daughter, Ellison! She turned one last weekend and had a fabulous party the weekend before (if you can judge fabulous by having enough candy to make a certain 3 1/2 year old puke!).

Hope you are each enjoying your summer. We're off to the beach in a few weeks. Or, should I say, we're scheduled to be off to the beach but the oil spill could alter those plans. We'll figure it out, I guess. Stay cool out there!!

Hello Out There! Running, the Big 3-0, Easter, Etc.

2010-04-19T08:44:00.003-05:00

The Olympics were wrapping up about the time that I posted my last post. Bedtimes were forgotten for all 4 of us as we watched the most Olympic coverage possible. Here's my favorite three people crashed out.

It didn't take Caleb very long to pick up on the Olympic theme.

As I've mentioned in past blogs, I have been training for the OKC Memorial 1/2 Marathon, which is next Sunday. Since I last updated, I was diagnosed with a small tear in my meniscus (knee) and couldn't run more than a mile for about 3 weeks. I was quite concerned that I'd not be able to do anything but walk the 1/2 (and, of course, I'd already paid the entry fee for the race). After much PT, rest, and prayer, I am happy to say that my knee is just fine with little to know pain and swelling. Here's a picture of part of the group that I run with. We're slow but steady :)

As you begin to add miles, one common recommendation is to take an ice bath after your longer runs. After a particularly grueling 9 miles of hills (the toughest in the history of the Fleet Feet training program, according to most), I bravely attempted the ice bath. I think Aaron and Caleb got a very sadistic joy out of adding more and more ice cubes to the bath!

Harper talking up a storm. My personal fave phrase:

Caleb and Harper working on "parallel play" (aka not screaming and fighting while in the same room).

One thing I love about Riverfield is the concept open-ended materials. For example a piece of plastic birthday cake can really only be a piece of plastic birthday cake but an empty spool can be a number of things. And apparently, so can an empty tampon box :) It is very handy for carrying around his Cars.

I signed up for e-mealz.com to help with dinner planning and grocery budgets. Some people (hint hint, Aaron and Caleb) are too picky for about 1/2 the week's suggested menus but they are super simple recipes, like this pizza roll that Caleb helped me with.

We finished another season of soccer, this time with several friends from church. Very fun, especially now that the moms (and dads) can sit on the sidelines and chat instead of being out of the field with the kiddos.

One thing that became clear during soccer is that Caleb will probably not be a champion sprinter. The odd thing is that I swear he's faster at home when I tell him it is time for a bath. Maybe he'll be more of a distance runner like me!

One day after soccer, several of us went to Incredible Pizza. Caleb and Owen loved the simulator ride.

A new experience for us - finger painting. And, shocking, Caleb wanted to use only the yellow and green paints.

The same trip to Michael's that produced the finger paints also included this special hat for Harper G.

Caleb has picked up an eclectic mix of "favorite" songs - Benny and the Jetts, All You Need Is Love, Life Is a Highway, We Will Rock You, and this little gem:

Caleb demonstrates his "cranky face." Funny when he does it when you ask; not so funny when
he's trying to be a real cranky face.

For as cautious as Caleb was in his younger years (like 3 is SOOO old!), he is growing more and more brave. Aaron was grilling out and came back out to the back porch to find Caleb climbing along the outside of the decking.

Harper chatting it up:

Well, I survived my 30th birthday and lived to tell about it! The day itself was great - shopping with mom and the kids, then dad joined us for sushi lunch. That night, we were going out to dinner with my family and, much to my surprise, Aaron had coordinated to have a group of friends join us. This was no easy feat, especially since I didn't decide where I wanted to eat until about 3:00 that afternoon. He called everyone to invite them that day, decorated with lots of balloons, and even found a bakery in town that would make a truly black cake (not just dark brown). It was beautiful! And it was a mess for adults and children alike.

The weekend after my birthday, a group of girlfriends headed to Edmond for a girls night out at a place called Nothing But Class. As you can tell from the picture below, the evening included dinner, a few margaritas, and a pole dancing class. It was a lot of fun!

What those pictures don't show is that I actually was fighting a stomach virus. Aaron and Caleb were down with it as we left town. I hadn't been feeling great but was thinking "mind over matter" (thanks, mom, for that hint growing up). Unfortunately, my stomach didn't get what my mind was trying to say and I threw up several times in my friend April's Land Rover on the way to OKC, recovered enough to enjoy dinner and some dancing, then threw up again on the way home. It was still a blast of an evening though!

Many of Caleb's church friends have spring birthdays (crazy that his friends are FOUR years old) so this is the start of birthday season for them. One of them was a super-hero birthday, complete with handmade capes and masks and a special super-hero name for each attendee. Caleb was Shape Fire. He wasn't too sure about the costume at first, then really got into it. And, I'll admit we've worn the mask to Walmart - it just wasn't worth the fight.

Easter was great this year, with wonderful weather and healthy family. We woke up and checked out our Easter Baskets. Incidentally, is the Easter Bunny the one that brings the basket of goodies, like Santa and stockings, or is that from parents and the Bunny hides the eggs?

One tradition is for our community to have an Easter potluck breakfast and everyone brings their children. After all, you've paid good money for their cute clothes and you have to show them off to more than just the nursery workers :) Caleb and his buds had lots of fun, even starting a mambo dancing line through the class at one point.

Our god-daughter, Ellison, who is getting soooo grown up.

Caleb waiting oh-so-patiently to take family photos before he can go hunt for eggs at my parents' house.

On the hunt:

Harper initially wasn't aware that there was anything inside the eggs. Once she figured that out, she switched to the "find an egg, open it, eat what's inside, then go find another egg" method.

Harper G is a total parrot. Our friends Bob and Mimi taught Caleb this when he was about Harper's age. She loves to do it now.

Trying to get HG to wear her sunglasses since it is full-on spring time now.

Caleb wears his glasses all the time - at school, during nap, in the car, etc.

Harper is perfecting many animal sounds. But her cat impression gets the most requests by us and everyone else.

Yesterday was my sister's 1 year anniversary. Happy 'Bershrey, Mo and Brian. To celebrate, I'm posting this photo taken at their wedding that I just found on my FB photo page today. I am pretty sure it's the last photo taken of just the two of us in like the last 6 years - ha!

This morning, Caleb goes in for extensive dental work. Turns out the one cavity we could see was only a part of the problem. By noon, he'll be the proud owner of 2 silver caps and at least 3 other fillings. Thankfully, he'll be out under an anesthesiologist's care and all teeth involved will fall out at some point. For the record, I did not put soda in his baby bottle or anything. He rarely even gets juice! The dentist says it could just be genetic; perhaps I should take Harper in before it gets out of control. I'm sure she'd be sooo cooperative!

2010-02-11T19:38:00.001-06:00

Valentine's, Dry Bedtimes,and Other Accomplishments

2010-02-11T17:36:00.009-06:00

The weather has been all over the map (pun intended) lately. Warm and springy one day, wet and rainy the next, then cold and snowy. We've not received the snow that many areas of the country have but the general consensus around here is that it is TIME FOR SPRING!!

Caleb received his bike for his birthday but hasn't had much of a chance to ride it, unless you count going around and around in circles in the garage. One nice day, he and Dad took it out for a spin. So far, the tricky part is that, unlike the trikes at school, these pedals don't go backward. On this bike, if you push back, you brake. Frustrating to him, funny to us :)

The snow started coming down one afternoon and just kept coming and coming. Very pretty. There were lots of birds flying around and Caleb was worried that they wouldn't have any food so we put out some pieces of bread. The birds were not impressed. That, or they didn't want to come near the crazy howling beagles that were running around the backyard. Because I only have a point and shoot (like I'd have a clue how to use anything fancier!), this photo didn't come out like I'd hoped, but can you see the cardinal hanging out in the tree?

In true "good mom" fashion, I found a recipe for snow ice cream and Caleb and I made it. It was very yummy, and, of course, we had to add a few drops of green food coloring.

Harper didn't "harvest" the snow with us, but she did enjoy the feel and texture of it.

Since Aaron didn't get to play in the snow with Caleb when it was on the ground at Christmas, this recent snowfall was all about the boys playing in the backyard. It took forever to get bundled up and Caleb didn't have his "real" mittens because they were at school, so we improvised, wearing some fleece ones that are too big for Harper and putting Ziplocs secured by rubber bands over them.

Dad helped stake Caleb's claim on the fence. We are working on identifying letters. So far, Caleb prefers non-vowels as he says his name is spelled "CLB"

I'm not sure who had more fun, Caleb or the dogs.

What better way to warm up than with some hot (or in Caleb's case lukewarm) chocolate?

I noticed a few weeks ago that Caleb had a dark spot on his tooth. We scheduled an appointment with a dentist. Despite his nervousness, Caleb did a great job letting the hygienist count his teeth then polish and floss them. The dentist said he did have a cavity and referred us to a pediatric dentist. We visited her this week and, based on the dental work he needs done, you would think I gave him Coke in his bottle when he was a baby or something. Lovely. This office does recommend putting kids Caleb's age completely under with an anesthesiologist. So that is scheduled for later this spring. I think I'll start taking Harper Grace now, if we're gonna have these sorts of dental troubles.

In late January, Caleb mentioned one night that he didn't want to wear Pull-Ups to bed. Aaron and I exchanged looks like "We soooo don't want to be changing sheets in the middle of the night" but we gave it a try. He was a pro! We gave some incentive the next night, saying if he could keep his underwear dry for 7 nights in a row, we would go to Incredible Pizza. I personally thought it would take forever to make it happen. Nope, he has not had one accident in the bed and it has been almost a month. Way to go, buddy! Incredible Pizza was very fun (and very crowded) on the night we went. Grandma and G-Dad joined us and they spent time with Harper Grace as we helped Caleb with his games.

Get those Gators!

Harper is into everything, exploring and nearly giving me a heart attack on a daily basis. She has no fear and tends to not watch where's she's going. She, like her brother, can get very focused and intent on figuring how things work.

She loves the stairs, so we're always on guard to make sure the baby gate is closed.

When I first downloaded these videos, these were a pretty accurate representation of Harper Grace's walking ability. It is fun to see how far she's come in a few short days.

Have I ever mentioned that Harper Gracie loves to eat? With the exception of mushrooms, we've yet to find a food she won't inhale. Not only does she out-eat Caleb, she out-paces him too. At a recent school meeting, Harper ate two pieces of pizza. Caleb ate 1 1/2 and was still eating when it was time to go.

For Valentine's Day, we made some cupcakes for our family. Caleb was a big helper in the making and in the decorating...and in the swiping of frosting off the top of cupcakes. Now you know why they were for family only, too many germs to share with anyone else.

For our Valentine's date, Aaron and I got a sitter and went mattress shopping. My mom did point out that there was a connection between Valentine's Day and mattresses but I quickly changed the subject. We upgraded to a king (and will never go back!!!) and were so pleased with the products and customer service at Mattress King, which sells Sealy and Stearns and Foster. It has come in handy lately as, more often than not, at least one kiddos winds up in our bed by mid-morning.

I am continuing to run, talking two good friends from school into running the OKC 1/2 marathon in April. We are training with Fleet Feet and LOVE it. I swear that I never never never thought I'd be running like this and actually enjoying it. We run several short runs throughout the week then a long training run at 7am on Saturdays. Two weeks ago was the Sweetheart Run 10k (6.2 miles). Alissa and I finished at about a 10:54/min pace. Not too shabby. It was very very cold, as in so cold that the iced-down beer at the finish line was actually about the same temperature as my hands.

To end this blog, let me just share a special little excerpt from a day in the life of our family. Anyone wanna join in our craziness??

2010-02-11T14:40:00.001-06:00

CHRISTMAS and NEW YEARS!!

2010-01-31T15:40:00.018-06:00

Here's post-birthday December through New Years in a nutshell :)

Caleb's class visited the Philbrook Museum's annual Festival of Trees. We had never been and it was very neat - all sorts of trees made of all kinds of materials plus an entire floor of gingerbread houses made by local schools, churches, Girl Scout troops, etc. It was a challenge to explain to a group of 2 and 3 year olds why they couldn't eat the candy off the houses though.

Caleb and his friends play spot each other on either side of one tree.

One pre-holiday purchase was a stuffed dog that danced around to Jingle Bell Rock. He was an instant hit with Harper G.

We had several Christmas parties to attend this year, including our church community, Covenant. It was a tasty dinner at Ti Amo's and then, because so many of us had babysitters for the evening, we headed to a casino to dance. (Don't I love being Methodist!!) In all actuality, we didn't stay long - I've been spoiled by all OK restaurants being smoke-free that one step in the casino nearly did me in. But we did dance a bit :)

We tried four different times to get a good family picture to use for Christmas card purposes. My friend Alissa was so kind to meet us and tons of pictures just to make triple sure there were a couple decent ones in the bunch. Never a good one of the four of us but this one's pretty priceless.

Because I work at Riverfield, I had a two week Winter Break just like the kiddos. We took part of that time to travel to very west Texas to visit some of Aaron's family. Along the way, we spotted this truck with our friend Lauren (former Miss America) on it. I had seen it on a billboard but never speeding down the highway. Caleb was pretty excited to see the face of someone he knew on the side of a truck.

Our first stop was in Brownfield, which is close to Lubbock to see three of Aaron's great aunts. Though they are all getting up there in years, they still each live independently and were very hospitable to us. It was a challenge to keep Caleb away from all the breakable things but he and Harper Grace were very sweet and the aunts were good to put up with the increase in volume and activity for the day. Aaron's parents met us in Brownfield then we all headed to Farwell, TX - home to Aaron's half sister Lori and her family. It is so far west that it's about 10 minutes away from Clovis, NM. Lori, Gary, Stacey, and Bri live on a farm; it was a different experience for Caleb to not see any other houses around and to get to ride in Uncle Gary's big red tractor. We celebrated early Christmas with Aaron's family then headed back to Tulsa, just in time...

...because the next day bad weather began to move in, but not before Caleb could make his first trip to a movie theater to see the Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel. His friends Owen and Aidan joined him and all three were quite well-behaved.

The bad weather moved in on Christmas Eve day but we already had plans with some friends to go to early Christmas Eve service then to dinner at our favorite Mexican place, Arizona. You'd think I would get a clue when my sister, who was coming in from OKC, said she was glad they made it in one piece. Or when Asbury canceled the late services, then all services. Or when the restaurant we were going to closed early. Pshhhh...it's just snow and we have a 4 wheel drive truck, right? So we arranged to still meet our friends at the only restaurant that we could find that was still open. The snow was coming down but nothing horrible...until we sat down at the table and looked outside to see snow blowing HORIZONTALLY across the window. We quickly ate our dinner and the 10 mile drive took us about 90 minutes. OK, maybe I won't be so brave next time.

Once we were safe and sound, Caleb and Harper Grace put on matching pjs for yet another photo session. A few cute ones but we never did get both of them to look at the camera at the same time.

Caleb and I wrote a note to Santa and made cookies (or, in the spirit of truthfulness, placed cookies on the baking sheet).

Before he went to sleep, Caleb confirmed that when Santa came, he would put presents under the tree. I told him that, because we didn't have a tree up this year, Santa would put his presents around the piano, with all the other ones that were already there. That seemed to satisfy his 3 year old brain and off to bed he went. But apparently Aaron was sure Caleb would be scarred for life without a Christmas tree so, once the kiddos went to bed, we went about setting up the tree and all the 100+ ornaments that went on it. Plus "Santa" had several presents to assemble so we didn't go to sleep until 4am on Christmas. Once we did go to bed, we didn't sleep very well because we didn't want to miss Caleb's reaction when he came in and saw this:

He was quite excited (but not quite as excited as our aching bodies and sleep-deprived eyes would have liked). There is a great video clip that should go RIGHT HERE but it is long enough that I can't get it to upload but I am ready to post this blog so I'll keep working on it for next time. (Anyone know of any free editing software? I just need to cut out a few seconds of the video for it to upload?)

Christmas day got off to a slow start because my parents and Morgan and Brian couldn't get here as early as they would have liked due to the foot of snow on the ground. Once they got to our house, we enjoyed stockings, brunch, presents, appetizers, and dinner in the space of a few hours so that we could stay on schedule. He was very eager to open his stocking but had to wait until my family arrived. He had asked Santa for "lots of cars" and was concerned when they weren't left along with the trampoline. We explained that Santa might have left some surprises in his stocking. Whew! There were cars in the stocking...Santa does exist!

Caleb was a great present-distributor, making sure all the presents were placed in the right pile.

G-Dad helps Caleb open a gift.

Harper initially slept through the gift-opening time but had her own extravaganza once she woke up.

The day after Christmas, we did some shopping. After returning home, it was warm enough that Caleb and I went to play in the snow. He had a blast, but mainly tried to eat it.

Harper's good hair day: This is what it looks like after I take a ponytail down. YIKES!

We enjoyed our annual Christmas gathering with our "other family", the Wilsons after they returned from a Caribbean cruise (must be rough, eh?). Caleb was stoked to get his marble race track!

Harper is pretty much fearless, walking around everywhere and climbing anything she can. I told Aaron that I'm willing to bet we go to the ER with her before we do with Caleb (aka Mr. Cautious).

My big big boy. He looks 3 going on 13 in this picture, I think.

We had some friends and their kiddos over for New Year's Eve. It was a lot of fun, especially because C and his buddies are now old enough to play upstairs and keep themselves entertained. Now Harper, on the other hand, was a bit of a pain - unsure of all these people in her house and needing a nap. She fell asleep sitting on the couch between Aaron and me about 11:30 and Caleb was still going strong when we finally insisted he go to bed about 1am.

Harper on January 1st -looking a little worse for the wear!

Caleb and his fancy green New Year's hat that he picked out. (What?? Caleb pick out something green? That's odd! Ha!)

Well, that's it for now. Now I just need to download, sort, upload, and document the last 5 weeks (is that all!?!?). Happy belated 2010!

Next Up: The 1st and 3rd Birthdays Post

2010-01-29T15:45:00.007-06:00

If I thought last December was chaotic with Caleb's 2nd birthday, Harper Grace's arrival, then Christmas, I didn't know how good I had it (because at least there was an excuse to be a slacker!). Despite all sorts of preplanning, I was still scurrying around to get the last minute details taken care of.

Because Caleb's birthday was on a Thursday, we celebrated in class on Wednesday. We gave a book about drums to the Deer class and brought a cookie cake to share with his friends.

On his birthday morning, we woke Caleb up and had him follow footprints (green ones, of course!) through the house and to the garage to find his present. He was pretty excited!

This was our first year for a friend party. Though several girls were invited, it ended up being an all-boys affair at Pump It Up, a local bounce house. Here are the fellas watching the safety video.

Caleb going down the big slide. It's hard to see but he has an expression of 1/2 terror, 1/2 joy - priceless!

Posing in front of his Rocket birthday cake (as in Rocket from Little Einsteins, in case you are familiar with pre-school TV shows these days). Thanks to our friend Lauren for a great cake. Her mom is a great cook/caterer. The apple didn't fall far from the tree, eh?

Struggling to find a balance between actually looking in the direction of the camera and doing this over-cheesy smile. Let me know if you have a suggestion.

We didn't open presents at the party but the boys all enjoyed a turn in the Birthday King inflatable throne.

The following Sunday was a "dog party" for Harper and Caleb for family and our family friends. I found this cute dress at Kohl's for super cheap. Have a 1 year old that wears 18 month clothes that might want to borrow it? I'll be glad to lend it. Drool stains have been removed :) You can't see them very clearly in this photo, but Harper debuted her pigtails at the party. Her hair is getting much longer in the back; I don't want to cut it but am trying to avoid the "mullet" so pigtails it is.

Caleb lovin' on his god-sister Ellison.

The joint party cakes were done by Icing on the Top here in Tulsa. I'd seen some great work by them including my sister's wedding cake. It was not easy to come up with a theme that was both girl and boy, not too young for a 3 year old but not too old for a 1 year old. So, dogs it was!

Caleb wasn't sure about Harper getting her own cake when he had to share the big one with everyone else. Notice his offer to "help" - ha!

On Harper's actual birthday, the three of us went in and sang Happy Birthday to her to wake her up. Girlfriend is definitely not a morning person!

Harper received lots of great toys and presents from our family and friends, and especially with Christmas right around the corner, I figure she wouldn't feel shorted (at least this year) if we gave her something practical for her birthday. So, Sit and Stand stroller it was. Before Harper was born, I researched like crazy (hard to believe, I know) and found a side by side stroller that I really liked. We used it a few times and it is great for the zoo or on a walk but not so much for the mall or somewhere like that. It fits through doors but not around clothes racks, etc. Especially now that Caleb is older, I think this Sit and Stand will be great. If you know of someone looking for a double stroller, we'd be happy to sell the side by side to them. It would be especially great for someone with twins, where both kiddos need to be in seats.

Similar to her brother, Harper's second go-round with a birthday cake was a lot more animated...and messy. Here she is going after it.

Close to the end of the cake destroying mission. Right after I snapped this pic, she actually put her toes in her mouth to suck the icing off them. That's how you know it's been a great birthday.

A few other random things:

Harper began really using a push cart to get herself around. We had it out a lot earlier with Caleb. Poor second born in a new house, we left it upstairs for a long time because we didn't want it to scratch up the wood floors and be noisy. The sacrifices we make as parents to allow our children to walk!!

As part of the preparation for the dog-themed party, I went on a hunt for a dog bone cookie cutter. I COULD NOT find one by itself so I invested $10 in a bucket of 100 various shapes, letters, and holiday cookie cutters. Both kids thought they were toys and made quick work of laying them out all over the floor. And you better believe I counted as we cleaned up to make sure all 100 ended up back in the bucket.

Caleb has never minded getting his haircut but has always felt more comfortable (read: doesn't throw a fit unless he's) sitting in my lap. Last time we got a cut, I mentioned that once he's three, he would be sitting in Miss Tara's chair all by himself. Well, the day came to get a haircut and he did wonderfully. In fact, he's the one that reminded me that he was going to sit like a big boy.

I am sure I've mentioned before that I like to help at Riverfield's Friday Nights Out or Sleepovers, especially if I get to hang out with my buddy. However, Caleb's never stayed overnight so I've only signed up to work until 11pm. In early December I took the plunge and we stayed the night. Yes, I did invest in an air mattress. I was definitely re-thinking my decision when Caleb and his friends started this up about 5 minutes into the evening!!

Things actually went very smoothly after that, though I will say it will be awhile before I agree to stay overnight with a room full of 2 and 3 year olds.

OK, birthday posts taken care of. Maybe I'll tackle Christmas ones tomorrow! Yeah for updates. Feel free to show some love via the comment section!

How To Eat an Elephant...One Bite at a Time!

2010-01-07T14:34:00.017-06:00

(I guess the date displayed on this post goes back to the day I started to upload some pictures to it. SEE! I do have good intentions!! Anyway, don't think you're computer has been shortchanging you; I only actually posted this blog update - and the one above it - today, January 29th.)

To take the advice of the old elementary school joke, I've decided to tackle the mounds of Thanksgiving/Birthdays/Christmas photos, videos, and memories, and blog about them a little at a time. So, here we go:

Harper Grace's hair grew long enough to start putting a pony tail on top of it, short and thin as it may be. It was perfect timing because she had stopped leaving her hairbows and bands in. Hooray for a new way to accessorize. Of course, Aaron rolls his eyes because now I have to go buy small bows to clip in with the pony tail holders (which, incidentally are small enough to be those rubber bands that go on your braces).

Not to be outdone, Caleb wanted me to put a ponytail in his hair too. Harper's gaining on him, but his hair was way thicker than Harper's when he was her age. Totally not fair!

On one of several trips to the mall for Christmas shopping, Mom and Caleb rode the merry go round. A big treat because Caleb's mean ol' mom never lets him ride it. Partly because sometimes it not there, partly because the germs that must be all over it gross me out (why did I only become a semi-germaphobe after I had children??Hmmmm.), and partly because I never figured out what to do with Harper if I was there with the kiddos on my own.

A breakfast staple around here is Weight Watchers pumpkin spice muffins. At least two of us eat one every day so we go through them pretty quickly. They are super easy - just pumpkin, spice cake mix, and water - and both kiddos love to help me with them. Caleb with the dumping and mixing and Harper with the beater-cleaning.

Caleb is growing more and more independent. Where he used to go to the bathroom and then ask for help to get his underwear and pants back up, now he's got it all by himself. Sometimes are a bit more successful than others. He wore them like this the rest of the evening. Aaron was suffering from sympathy chafing and kept asking Caleb if his undies were bugging him. Guess not enough to fix it.

Harper is adding words by the day. Here's her version of "Caleb".

For Thanksgiving, we headed to Kansas City with many members of my dad's family. It was such a large group that we didn't all fit under Aunt Debbie's roof, but it was still the place to hang out, play, eat, and watch football.

My two kiddos playing together...and without a scream or tear to be heard or seen! (Note Harper's scrunchy hair. Think hers is going to have some natural curl too!)

Caleb and his "fings" (we're still working on that darn "th" sound). Thanks to my cousin-in-law Andrea for the fabulous photo.

I have always loved KC, partly because it is a great city (and that was before I knew about Nebraska Furniture Mart!) and partly because of all the great memories associated with it. It is so cool to me to see Caleb in Aunt Debbie's huge back yard, playing around and going on hikes like I used to. Caleb seems so big and grown up sometimes, but look how little he looks in comparison to the yard and house - still just a little fella!

Here's a cute video of Caleb with his cousins Luke and Culley.

Aunt Debbie gave all the cousins matching hats and scarves. Funny to see Harper's screaming face and Cousin Cash (the little little baby) slipping from his brother's grasp. Oh the memories we're making!

The day after Thanksgiving, we all headed to the Plaza and at Baja 600, one of my very favorite restaurants. My generation of cousins had a photo moment outside.

Family photo - hey, at least three of the four of us are looking at the camera.

A traditional holiday purchase: matching Christmas PJs. This year's had hats - Harper wasn't sure about hers until she saw big brother wearing his too.

One blog down, several more to go. This will get us started though, right?? I've heard that the first year with two kiddos is crazy, but that if you can make it through, then it becomes much easier. We shall see, I guess :) Hopefully it will be a breeze and I'll be a regular blogger again!

Happy 1st Birthday, Chickadee!

2009-12-10T08:55:00.003-06:00

Yesterday was Harper's first birthday! It has been a whirlwind year, but we wouldnt' change it for the world. And, all my friends with kiddos close in age swear that if you can make it through the first year, you are good to go. Which should mean life will be smooth as silk from here on out, right?!? HA!

I will post more pictures of the parties (Caleb's, joint, school parties, etc.) later but wanted to

show our birthday girl at school yesterday and then at home last night devouring her cake.

Thanks, Sister G, for making our lives even better than before! WE LOVE YOU!

Happy 3rd Birthday to Our Buster!!

2009-12-04T00:35:00.005-06:00

A quick shout-out (that's now a day late since it's after midnight) to our totally wonderful, fabulous, and special first born. Caleb celebrated his 3rd birthday today, Dec. 3rd. It is so hard to believe that he's growing so fast. The picture above is from this morning, just after he woke up (as indicated by the crazy hair and sleep-lined face) just after receiving his big present from Mom and Dad.

Here's a photo from each of his other birthdays:
A few hours after being born. What a crazy adventure that was!

Eating cake on his 1st birthday. He wasn't too certain about cake-eating at his party but got after it on his actual birthday.

Enjoying cake again on his 2nd birthday. Just a few days later, he went from being our little boy to seeming like a giant compared to the newborn Harper.

Eating cake tonight at his party. I couldn't tell if he was tired after jumping and running around, in a sugar coma from all the junk we ate all day, or suffering from a concussion after falling off the bench backward.

More to come as the festivities continue with a joint party for family. This post was just to keep me from being a total slacker :) Happy b-day, Caleb Scotty Watt-y. I love you!

The Holidays are Coming!!

2009-11-05T15:21:00.016-06:00

Hard to believe that Christmas is 7 weeks away but the weather here has been BEAUTIFUL for the last week- more like spring than fall. Holidays also mean two big birthdays are on the horizon. LOTS TO PLAN FOR ME! YIKES!!! Let's get to the fun stuff: the photos!

As Harper gets more active, she and Caleb interact more and more. It is very fun and, for the most part, peaceable. Enjoying a great fall afternoon one Sunday with the window open.

Riverfield is built firmly upon the idea of kiddos being outside as often as possible to learn and explore in the outdoor environment. This photo was taken by one of Caleb's teachers earlier in October and featured in the daily "Today We" update that's emailed to parents and grandparents. The leader of the pack...or just not listening to instructions when the teacher said to stop (who knows!).

October = big events for my family with both parents' birthdays and their anniversary. For Dad's birthday, he took off work and we headed to the State Fair. We had a great time, especially in the petting zoo area, despite this photo of Caleb. The camels were awfully big and not afraid of people.

Harper had a good time too. This was one of the last outings where she would keep her bow in her hair. It's been a good ride and I'm pleased she left them in as long as she did.

I didn't even talk to Caleb about the rides at the Fair because I thought he would be too nervous to try them. We walked through the midway on our way back to the car and he was fascinated. He and I rode the caterpillar roller coaster together and then he rode the small train all by himself; what a big boy!

Riverfield's first homecoming football game on our own field was in October. It was a very chilly day after a really rainy week but we still had the game and all the activities, including a schoolwide pep assembly in the gym. Here's Harper and Daddy hanging out.

And Caleb and his friends jamming along with the drumline.

There were quite a few of Caleb's deer class friends at the day's activities. This is Caleb's good buddy Anthony. Caleb didn't want a tattoo but later asked to get his face painted. While in line, I asked him what he wanted to get. "Green," he said. "Green what? Like a frog? A turtle?" I said. "No, just green" so we painted his whole face "just green" then traveled 5 hours to our family reunion in Kansas City with the green face paint. :)

Harper is more and more animated. The wave was first in a series of "firsts" in the last 6 weeks.

One rainy Friday, the dogs were barking like crazy in the backyard. I went out to bring them in and found that they were going nuts over these tiny little turtles. One was scurrying away but the other was tucked inside its shell. We brought both to the back porch for further investigation.

Our friends came over to watch OU/Texas with us. Though the game certainly didn't end like we wanted (or the Sooner season, for that matter), Owen and Caleb had a blast. I can't think of once in his life that Caleb has worn a hat for more than 5 minutes but Owen was wearing one so Caleb wanted to also. No clue where we found this pretty orange hat but it provided lots of entertainment that day.

Granny and Grandpa gave them a great book on our visit to their house earlier in the year. Caleb loves to "read" it to us.

While they are too young to protest, I will continue to dress the kiddos in matching holiday pjs including Halloween. However, taking a photo of them together is nearly impossible. Harper is constantly on the move and, though Caleb means well, his strangle hold on her only aggravates the situation further.

Harper is feeding herself a larger variety of "real" foods. Here's an experiment with fruit cocktail and cool whip.

After several wet and muddy football games at Riverfield, I invested in some galoshes. Caleb, apparently, is quite fond of them too.

For the 3rd year in a row, our friends from Sunday School had us out to their property for a hayride and bonfire. Each year, the crowd of children gets larger and larger. It is very fun to watch our friends' families grow up with our children.

The host of the bonfire is a Tulsa police officer. You can imagine the fun that Caleb and his buddies had in the cruiser. Hopefully this will be the only time that Caleb's in the back seat of a cop car!

Harper has had ongoing ear infections in the last few months; she finish a round of antibiotics and have an ear infection in the next two weeks. We went to the ENT on a Tuesday, her ears were clear and he wanted to get tubes in while they weren't infected, so two days later we were at a local outpatient hospital getting her tubes. Just like Caleb, they gave her "goofy juice" to make leaving us and going to the OR a little easier. Funny girl!

Unlike Caleb after his tubes, Harper was a challenge when waking up from anesthesia. She was groggy and grumpy but took a great big nap when we got home and woke up happy as a clam.

Aaron had taken the day off, so he and Caleb tackled the pumpkin carving. We had located a set of Cars templates and Caleb thought all 8 designs would be going on his pumpkin. He was a little disillusioned that only one would fit.

While C wasn't so eager to get his hands dirty with pumpkin innards, Harper was very curious.

Here's the finished product...nice job, Dadda! Lightening McQueen never looked so good!

I think I had just started my "Couch to 5k" running program when I last blogged. Well, my friends and I kept at it and made it to our goal race: the Tulsa Run. We had run several 5ks around the school so knew we could actually run that far. However, I had not accounted for the hilly path through downtown that we would be taking. We made it though! Because it was a chilly morning, Harper and Aaron stayed home and Caleb, my parents, and my sister came to cheer me on. Caleb and Mom missed me going by because Caleb had to "take a turn" but their support was much appreciated. After we got home, Caleb pinned on my race number and ran around the front yard for awhile.

Harper had her own kind of race.

Another new trick- blowing kisses. She also can say "dog" and will "ruff" like a dog if you ask her what a dog says but we couldn't see to capture it on camera because every time we ask Harper, Caleb thinks he needs to answer too. Yes, Caleb, we know that at almost 3 you know what a dog says. :)

Halloween ended up being a gorgeous day, almost 80 degrees. We joined friends at the Boo Ha Ha parade on Brookside mid-afternoon. Here's our little flower.

She LOVED the drums, cars, sights, and sounds of the parade. Maybe because she could actually hear them with her tubes in. She has said 5 or 6 more words since her procedure.

Caleb and his friends were Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. Of course, Caleb had to wear green so he was Theodore. Here are our cute Chipmunks checking out their candy. The costumes were so cheap (our friend Leslie found the men's turtlenecks at thrift stores and the brown sweatpants were $8.) but I couldn't believe how many people kept complimenting us and saying how adorable they were. We were wishing we would have entered them in a costume contest.

Later that night, we went to "Simon's" house to eat pizza and trick-or-treat in his neighborhood. The last two years, we've gone to the church for their event so this was the first time doing the whole "knock on the door and say trick or treat" thing. We moms weren't prepared for all the etiquette lessons needed like saying please and thank you, not ringing the doorbell a million times, taking turns ringing the doorbell, not grabbing candy out of the person's bowl, etc. It was fairly exhausting keeping up with these excited boys but lots of fun.

Harper on the move. She lost her headpiece as we were walking (totally mom's fault, sorry!) but looked cute here.

After the trick or treating, we moms dropped the kids off and headed out to look for Harper's missing costume. The dads were apparently a little over-involved in the OU game because here's what transpired while we were away!

The weather has continued to be unbelievable. We took several walks, including Harper's first venture out in the wagon.

Here's Aaron's most recent work with the photoshop app on his iphone. Not too shabby; but the subject is adorable to start with!

We've been enjoying Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" lately. In a scary testament to how much your infant takes in, here's what we found out Harper can do!

Other items of note:
- I ran another 5k this weekend - took 2:40 off my Tulsa Run time. Signed up for a 4 mile run downtown next weekend. No aspirations for longer runs at this point, but I am really enjoying the activity (and the fun t-shirts!).

- We've had fun times with friends including a lake weekend in Arkansas and a girls retreat with my friends from Covenant. Yippee!!

- Caleb's potty training has been very successful. He is in underwear all day and at naps and has had several overnights with dry Pull-Ups. Knock on wood but never would have thought potty training would be this easy.

- The OU season is down the drain but it is still fun to get together with friends to watch.

- Our god daughter Ellison started at Riverfield a few weeks ago. It is going well so far and is very fun to have a 3rd little person to check in on during the day. Plus, Caleb loves to tell me when he sees her during the school day. She and Harper are in different classes this year but the younger and older infant classes are integrated when they reach Toddler classes next fall. Watch out boys, here come the cuties!

- Our thoughts and prayers have been with the Hedrick family over the last several months. Truman, their 9 year old, was diagnosed with bone cancer in his leg this summer. He has undergone several procedures and treatments, including an above-the-knee amputation two weeks ago at MD Anderson. Their boys used to go to Riverfield and they go to church at Asbury. Please send your prayers their way. For more information visit www.caringbridge.org/visit/trumanhedrick

- I entered both kids in the Gap Casting Call contest. If you want to, please go to http://family.go.com/gapcastingcall/entries/cswhgw12/ to vote for Caleb or Harper as the fan favorite.

Have a great week!

In the Swing of Things

2009-09-18T15:47:00.017-05:00

We're several weeks into the fall and things are getting "normal" or at least "routine" for us. Caleb is flourishing in the Deer class and Harper is adjusting to life with her teachers and friends in the Butterfly class. She was a total champ the first few weeks of school but has since hit the fun and friendly times of stranger anxiety so she spent a better part of the last two weeks crying in her class. She is definitely coming around and her teachers said she had a great day on Wednesday. I also chalk some of this up to teething (two big ones coming in up top) and an ear infection we didn't know about until I took her for her 9 month well baby visit on Thursday. Send in your nominations for Mom of the Year now!!! Oops!

One project that Caleb has really helped with is our Amish Friendship Bread batter. He was so good at mushing up the bag each day and especially with preparing the batter to give to friends and baking the bread we kept. We have another starter bag so we're going through the routine again. If you're looking for Friendship Bread, let me know and we can get a starter to you.

Fall in the Walton house means FOOTBALL!! We've had a blast at two Riverfield games- one victorious, the other...not so much. This is the 3rd year for us to play football but the first to have our own home field, which was completed over the summer. It is such a pretty venue, with trees and barnyard surrounding it. Caleb is loves to cheer (it was "Go Raisins" at first, but we've cleared that up to "Ravens" with a little practice) and both kids love to listen to our drumline.

School has not been without its bumps and scrapes for C and H. Caleb's affinity for his rain boots and his teachers' OK to wear them even when not needed has equaled a fall or two on the gravely playground. This one was especially lovely:

Harper has enjoyed her share of bumps and bruises as well as she experiments with pulling up on things and cruising around. Caleb seemed to be more cautious than Harper is at this age. She has no fear and doesn't mind plopping back down on her booty if she gets in a pickle.

She has six teeth now (4 on top, 2 on bottom) and she's also mastered waving.

And saying "Dadda" ("Mama" was a long time ago):

And "Ball" (this was on her 9 mo. birthday):

Over Labor Day, we took at trip out to Aaron's parents' house in Boise City. Yes, folks, you can drive 7 hours and still be in Oklahoma :) We hadn't been there since Caleb was young, and despite a hailstorm and a run-in with some baby ticks, we all had a great time. Caleb slept by himself in another room better than he sleeps at home. Who would have thought! His favorite part was playing with all the cars that his Dad played with when he was little.

Here's Harper finding her way around Granny and Grandpa's house.

Caleb gave up his pacifier at school last winter without a thought. But at home, it was part of the bedtime routine and we weren't ready for the fight. Then one of the two pacis went missing and then Caleb threw up while keeping the other in his mouth (DISGUSTING) so we had to throw it away. So we were without a paci and that was the end of it, no fits, no crying, no bargaining for a new one. Aaron and I were filled with dread when the missing orange paci was found, but after we told him it was too dirty from being under the nightstand for such a long time, he threw it away himself. What a champ! Gives some credence to the idea that kids will be ready for these big milestones when they're ready (though it's easier to say that when he's 2 1/2, not 5!).

Several weeks ago, we babysat our god daughter, Ellison. I was at a Weight Watchers meeting (more on that later) so for a few minutes, Aaron had a sleeping Ellison, a screaming-for-no-apparent-reason Caleb, and a puzzled and fussy Harper (oh, and two howling dogs) all to himself. Would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that. For the most part, it was a very calm evening and Rob and Heather might actually let us watch her again sometime :)

Fridays mean fun time with Grandma most weeks as my mom doesn't work at the church on those days. Recently, Caleb has been spending the night on Thursday with Grandma and G-Dad and then we'll meet up Friday for errand running or some activity. On this particular day, we walked and played at a park in Broken Arrow. The weather has been very cooperative (up until this last rainy week) this fall.

I think I've mentioned our new fabulous Reasor's grocery store before. Not the world's best prices (though they do have good sales) but one of my favorite things is that the carts are made to seat two kiddos. It won't work forever, but for now, it is a wonderful alternative to having to put Caleb in the back of the cart where he gets into everything until he's so smushed by groceries that he couldn't move if he wanted to.

I tend to focus on the kiddos mostly in this blog because they are more interesting and I have waaaaayyy more pics of them than of myself. But, I will show my "before and after" photos of the haircut I got right before school started. I had intended to lose some weight and then celebrate by chopping my hair off but the weight wasn't going anywhere and my hair was getting on my last nerve. So, I did the opposite: chopped 8 inches off my hair then started losing weight. When summer's relaxed dress code at school was over, I was faced with the reality that about 3/4 of my closest was filled with clothes that didn't fit. Not OK because I was not going to go buy new things in a bigger size. So, I re-joined Weight Watchers and have been counting points and tracking what I eat. And I joined some co-workers and students in jogging two days a week (then one day on my own) with the Couch to 5k running program. So far I'm about 10 pounds down and hope to be about 10 more by the holidays.

Here's a funny photo of Harper. She is way to big for this bouncy chair but I've yet to figure out what to do with her when I shower and Aaron's not home to entertain her. She's quickly outgrowing the Exersaucer and it is too wide to fit through the bathroom door anyway. So for now, she just tries to bust of the chair while I take the world's fastest shower.

In the struggle to find somewhere for Harper to "land" while we attempt to get things done around the house without letting her endanger herself, we purchased this Jenny Jumper. She generally loves to bounce up and down while standing on your legs or in the Exersaucer but has yet to really embrace this toy. She'll tolerate it for awhile and only if you are in close proximity, which makes tidying the house or starting the laundry a bit of a challenge.

As OU fans, we were crushed by their first week defeat but put on our gear, paid a silly $40 fee to watch it on pay per view, and cheered loudly as they defeated Northern Idaho. Yippee!!

The big accomplishment of the night was Harper learning the touchdown signal. It took awhile and thankfully our fine team allowed us many many chances to practice it as they kept scoring (maybe we should have started it the week before against BYU!). Caleb was a very good example and encourager.

Here the video and a still photo of our cute little fan. This week she added "ta-dahn" when she does the motion. Yeah, she's a prodigy, right?? The humorous part is she's not really sure why she's doing it but knows that it gets a great reaction so she keeps doing it at random times. To which Caleb tells us, "We're not watching football right now".

If we thought tossing of the orange paci was a big deal for Caleb, we had an even bigger one in store for us this week. Here's the scoop:

Yep, what we've been practicing at home we took out in the real world of Riverfield Country Day School (and beyond) as he wore underwear!! He's only had two accidents so far (knock on wood) and hasn't had any problem telling us he needs to go when we've run errands, etc. We're still doing nap and night time with a diaper (not that brave yet), but we're well on our way. Hooray for only buying one size diapers!!! Harper, we'll start working on you next month- ha!

The rain foiled our plans to go to the zoo with our friend Owen on Friday but we did go to the OK Aquarium, which is close to our casa. Caleb really enjoyed it, if by enjoyed it I mean ran around and made a lot of noise with his friend, and occasionally freaked out about the big fish and sharks swimming toward him. Harper was pretty oblivious to it all and just chewed on her dolphin toy the whole time.

You should have seen the totally puzzled look on Caleb's face when we walked up to this tank and saw the man in the scuba suit inside. Apparently they do a lot of cleaning and feeding on Friday mornings. It was as if Caleb couldn't tell if he was a real person or just part of the display. He ended up knocking on the glass and trying to get the guy to wave at him.

Finally, a "cheeeessseeee" when he was actually looking at the camera. These days, I get the word while he looks in the opposite direction, or a glance at the camera with a goofy face. Somehow I think this struggle is only beginning.

Oh, Aaron wants me to tell a funny story on Caleb. Last week after swimming lessons, they were in the locker room drying off and changing clothes when Caleb sprinted toward the urinals and picked up the urinal cake. Because I didn't know what a urinal cake was, the initial grossness of the story had waned a bit by the time Aaron fully explained it to me. But, apparently it is really gross.

I have a super-cute video clip of Caleb and Harper playing together but it's a little long and won't fully upload. I'll look into it and hopefully post it soon. It's so cool to watch them interact more and more as her awareness of Caleb and their relationship increases.

We are busy busy and I'm sure you are too. But aren't you proud of me for updating within the month!?!? Yippee! Happy fall, football season, harvest, Halloween, etc!!

School Begins!!

2009-08-24T18:45:00.020-05:00

School started last week, and maybe--just maybe--I can turn over a new leaf and try to be better about updating the blog. We also finally got my laptop and our wireless internet set up so now I don't have the excuse of not being able to get to the office and get it done. We shall see, I guess, but I do have good intentions :) As much as it goes against my natural bent, I am not going to worry about putting these pics in chronological order. Take it or leave it, mkay?!?!

At first I was kinda regretting the double stroller purchase because the one we bought didn't work with Harper's infant seat. But now that she is big enough to sit (or sleep, in the case of this picture), it works out really well.

Several weeks ago, Harper discovered her tongue. She spent about 20 hours a day poking it in and out of her mouth. How she managed not to chomp down on it, I'll never know. She has since moved on to new tricks but this stage was pretty funny.

Harper has started eating real foods like bananas, Cheerios, and Puffs. As shown in the picture, she is not perfect about getting things into her mouth 100% of the time.

I can't remember if I posted this or not yet but this was from back in May when we were over at a friend's house for a birthday gathering. All the boys decided they wanted to take a turn in the potty. Caleb did and was so excited about washing his hands afterward that he forgot to let me put his diaper and pants back on. Yes, he did streak through the living room naked, but we eventually got some clothes back on.

Caleb started swimming lessons this summer. He is still young enough that a parent has to be in the pool with him, so Aaron wins that opportunity. He was a Dolphin but has now graduated to being a Flipper. Between swimming class (Flipper), soccer (Cottontail), and school (Deer), Caleb is hooked up with the animal names.

We didn't do any real vacations or traveling this summer but we did venture to Porter for the Peach Festival. It was a toasty day but the kiddos enjoyed the parade and we all enjoyed the peach cobbler, peach tea, peach smoothies, etc.

We finally got Harper's name on the wall - just in time to remove the crib bumpers since she's pulling up on everything these days. So it was enjoyed briefly before the "look" of the room changed.

In July we went with Owen to the Splash Park in Jenks. It was an overcast day so it was a bit chilly but there weren't very many others there either so they had the park almost all to themselves. Oh, and photographer friends, be slightly impressed (emphasize slightly) in that I adjusted the picture settings to action so I could catch the raindrops in it.

Here is my new favorite pic of the kiddos. Those of you that are facebook friends have seen this, but I thought I'd post it here too...because it is just that darn cute!

Not only is Harper on the go with speedy crawling, she loves to pull up on anything and can even cruise around holding on to things. If Caleb was our careful child, then Harper is our "no fear" one. This was from the first few days of her pulling up, she now is bold enough to reach up and hold on to the top railing of the pack-n-play.

On the 4th of July weekend, we had some friends over for dinner and then all went out to the great fireworks in Keifer, OK. It's not too far from here and it is not as crowded - and is a much better show - than the ones I've seen in Tulsa. Caleb and I were hanging out on a blanket while Aaron and Harper watched from a lawn chair. She got a little fussy about10 minutes into the show but it wasn't because of the noise, it was because she was settling down to sleep...sure enough, she passed out in the middle of those huge booming fireworks.

Group shot from Keifer fireworks show.

Harper and Caleb in Keifer.

No real story to go with this, just a cute picture of Harper posing for the camera.

Harper now has 4 teeth, with more coming soon if the runny nose, drool, and slight temperature are any indication. Here's a pretty good shot of the bottom two.

On summer days when Caleb would play in the backyard pool, Harper liked to hang out in her Exersaucer on the back porch.

Caleb practicing his bubble-blowing skills from swimming lessons at home.

This is Harper with her god-sister, Ellison. Though they look a lot different in size now, the six months between them won't be a consideration in even two years.

Right before school started, a friend organized a tour of Krispy Kreme for the kids. Harper spent time with grandma while Caleb and I went to see how donuts are made. It was a bit challenging to keep the hands of ten or more 2-5 year olds in the right place, but we made it through and everyone got to decorate their own donut at the end of the tour.

Harper has officially transitioned to a "big girl" carseat. Still rear-facing but she outgrew the carrier/base option, despite our best efforts to squeeze her into it. It is Caleb's old Britax seat but we bought a cute new girly (waterproof!!) cover online to make it a little more "Harper". For Caleb, we switched to the Graco Nautlius 3-in-1. I am really pleased with it so far, for all you consumer moms out there who are about to outgrow a carseat but aren't ready for a true booster seat yet.

Two weekends ago, Harper was baptized at our church. Lots of family and friends were there to share in the special time with us. Caleb did a great job listening and being a good big brother, and he even told his sister, "Harper, I like your water hair." after the pastor had baptized her.

After church, the group of us all went out to First Watch to celebrate Harper's special day.

The evening before Harper's baptism, we had our semi-annual gathering with the Wilsons, thought it is now Wilson, Long, Beauchamp, and Walton. The Wilsons hadn't seen our new casa, so they ventured out this way and we enjoyed dinner and conversation together. We meant to get a big group picture but forgot, so here are two of my precious ones:

As of the 17th, both kiddos are at Riverfield - Caleb is in the Deer class and Harper is a Butterfly. Both are having great times in their classes and have FABULOUS teachers! Harper is blessed to have Ms. Canty, who was Caleb's favorite teacher when he was a Butterfly two years ago. Here's a few pics from the first day of school. Note the attempt to coordinate their outfits. I hadn't even thought about that complication but am already in search of clothes that would look good together for their school pics in case they end up in frames next to each other. HA!

Harper's hair is finally growing. It is still too short to do any pigtails and long enough that I bet the hairbands and bows I use pull at her little baby hairs. Here's a special hair day, this was right after nap.

Last weekend our Community had "Fallapalooza" - a kick-off to get our members and families geared back up for church activities as summer ends. Caleb will tell you that his very favorite part was the Jupiter Jump...and the cupcake...and the balloon guy.

Caleb has been working on his jumping jacks. Here's his most recent attempt.

This captures Harper's newest "silly face" - she breathes heavily through her nose and crinkles it at the same time.

Hmmm, what else??? Morgan and her hubby just moved to a new apartment in Edmond. It is closer to school for Brian and closer to Mo's new job at LifeChurch, which she just loves.

I am back on the Weight Watchers wagon and am even jogging a few days a week with friends at school. As far as result go, we shall see, I guess.

Though we didn't do much traveling this summer, we'll begin making up for it soon. Next week we will head out for extended Labor Day travel as we head to Texas and the OK panhandle to see some of Aaron's family. Then later, we'll go to KC for a family reunion, OKC for a wedding, and to the lake for a weekend too. PLUS...NFL and college football is about to start in earnest. So much for getting things done on teh weekends, eh??

Laptop battery is dying so I am going to spellcheck and publish this. Sorry for the two month delay. You still love me, right??

World's Worst Blogger

2009-06-25T13:34:00.021-05:00

In the past, I have given some of my blogging friends a hard time about not keeping up-to-date with their blogs. I can throw stones no more. Quite frankly, not even sure how many of you even check this any more since I've been so delinquent. A thousand apologies and here's the last two months of pics and happenings in the Walton house.

If you're in a hurry, peruse these first few pictures of Harper to get the gist of things. She is growing so fast and you can see the change from sitting in the Bumbo to almost crawling.

Shortly after my last post, we celebrated Aaron's birthday. It was a really rainy spring and early morning on the 30th, we awoke to find our neighbor's huge tree crashed in our yard. Thankfully, it did no damage to the house, deck, or even fence. It took a few weeks to get it removed but provided lots of entertainment for Caleb and the dogs in the meantime.

Here's Aaron's birthday spread. It was fun to have Caleb old enough to really "help" with the shopping. He picked out special presents (Cars figures that Dad could conveniently "share" with him) and did a fairly good job about keeping secrets.

Here's sweet girl wishing her Dada a happy 31st!

I got adventurous one night and tried to give them a bath together. Not quite ready for that as I spent the whole time trying to keep Caleb from splashing Harper in the face in his excitement.

It's old news now, but we introduced Harper to the Exersaucer and it was love at first sight. Caleb took a little time to warm up to it when he was little, but Harper just dove right in.

When it was still a decent temperature outside, we continued to enjoy fun on the back porch.

Here's a shot of Caleb after playing in the backyard hose. Thankfully, my cell phone was a little dark so you can't tell that Caleb is buck naked talking to Aaron on the cordless phone, which is sitting on the picnic table bench.

Caleb and I also enjoyed the rest of the soccer "season". He has now graduated from Thumper to a Cottontail.

My sister graduated from OCU. Yeah, Mo! She is now working full time at American Cancer Society and loving married life. The 4 of us crashed at her house last weekend during a wedding in OKC. She and Uncle Brian were great babysitters, puke (Caleb's) and screaming (Harper's) didn't deter her. She says we can come back :)

One May weekend, many guys from our community (what Asbury calls Sunday School classes) left to play golf in Arkansas. Many of us moms (and the dads that didn't go) took our kids to Blue Star Mothers to volunteer to create care packages for soldiers stationed overseas. The boys were a big help in putting together bags of candy for the servicemen and women. Of course, whoever gets Caleb's bags is going to wonder why they only got green candy!

13 people from our community traveled to Ecuador on a mission trip. We were given bracelets to help remember to pray for the team. Caleb really enjoyed wearing them. The trip was a big success!

Harper began eating cereal mid-April. She loves the eating process (shocking, with thighs like hers, I know!). Here's a shot from her first adventure with cereal. She would get very indignant if you tried to take the spoon away from her. So, what did we do? Let her have that one and get another one to actually feed her with. See, we're learning the second time around. Wrenching the spoon out of your infant's hand is not the hill to die on :)

Here's a short video of Harper eating it up!

Caleb loves hanging out at Grandma and G-Dad's house. They recently inherited a new toy for him from some friends. This model certainly has been upgraded from the ones we played with as kids.

Caleb's trusty Cars rain boots bit the dust this spring after much use at school during the rainy weather. I ordered him some new ones (which, of course, didn't come in until after school was over) but he has loved wearing them...most times with very creative outfits!

The boots appear again. This time with some Elmo underwear (still working on that process, by the way) and an old hunting hat of Aaron's.

As you've probably noted in these pictures, Caleb's hair was in desperate need of a cut toward the end of the school year. It was really cute when it had the right product in it but not very practical for summer days. Here it is at the worst (notice it almost covering his ears):

And here's the "after" at a friend's birthday party. Much better!

Pageant week came and went and we survived!! Aaron was really torn (not!) but did not attend the Miss pageant prelims in the evenings, which meant the kids had quality time with dad. For his first real time watching both kids, and doing it Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and all day Friday and Saturday, he was a trooper!

Around pageant week, both kids celebrated their 1/2 birthdays. Here's Miss H (or Harper Gracie or Sister G, as Caleb affectionately calls her) on June 9th.

And here's Mr. Grown Up a few days after his 1/2 birthday. The nice thing about having their birthdays so close is that checkups can be done at the same time.

Asbury has paired our young community with an older adult community as a way to bridge the gap between generations. We've had several activities with them, including an indoor picnic. These grandparent-aged folks really enjoyed watching our children run around, and we were appreciative for the extra hands helping wrangle them in the church's Community Life Center. It was the weekend of Flag Day so we had a little parade around the room while singing patriotic songs.

I never thought I'd be the mom that put their baby girl in a bikini, but it does make a lot more sense as far as diaper changes go. Harper hasn't actually gotten in a pool yet (we bought a cheap one at Walmart but Aaron won't let us put it up because of the new grass he's trying to cultivate in the backyard...BOOOOOO!!!) but she looks adorable in her suit!

Last Friday, our friends' daughter, Ellison Kate was born. She is too precious! And even though we missed her birth because we were in OKC for a wedding, Rob and Heather are still going to let us be her godparents. Thank you, Rob and Heather, for entrusting us with this wonderful responsibility. We can't wait to watch our kids grow up together!

As I mentioned at the top of the blog, Harper is soooo close to crawling! She can get up on all fours and rock back and forth or scoot herself along on her belly.

Not to be outdone by Harper's video airtime, here's Caleb giving the camera his best "cheese".

This last pic pretty accurately sums up the last few days at our house. Starting with Caleb's fever late Sunday and a trip to the after-hours clinic that could find nothing wrong and cleared him for school, followed by sleepless nights with a cough and continued fevers, a re-check with our pediatrician that confirmed ear infections for both (no wonder Harper had been fussy!), four prescriptions, lots of vomit as Caleb refused his meds and a 104+ fever controlled finally by suppositories, and ending (hopefully) with two shots for Caleb so we have one less prescription to give him. Gotta love motherhood, right?!?

Other things: Harper's bottom teeth came in almost two weeks ago. She was several weeks later than Caleb, but his were really early. Her nose had been running and she'd been really slobbery for almost a month, but they finally popped in on June 14th. She's been very difficult to get a picture of with her teeth.

Caleb is very proud of his Grandma, who is in Africa on a mission trip. He will gladly tell you that his Grandma is in Tanzania giving people medicine to help them feel better. What a sweetie! Of course, he also told me yesterday that he was talking to Jesus on the phone and that Jesus had green cupcakes for him.

OK, think that's it, though I'm sure I've missed great stories in this attempt two wrap two months' of activities into a blog post.

Have a great weekend. We are off to explore the brand-new, huge Reasor's that opened just down the road from us. Yeah!

Snow, Goat Vote, Easter, and...oh...A Wedding

2009-04-24T16:03:00.016-05:00

Part of the problem with waiting so long between posts is that it takes forever to sort through pics and decide which ones make the cut. I have four weeks' worth of photos to go through and many of them are quite cute, if I do say so. Here's the last month's wrap up:

We had a semi-random big snow. It was perfect for snowballs and snowmen though we didn't do either. Caleb insisted on going out on the porch to check it out...and was then miserable when I couldn't get his soaked feet out of his pjs fast enough!

This is a sneak peek for events featured later but Harper's dress for Easter and my sister's wedding came in and I had to get a few shots of her in it. There's a Bumbo seat under her but it really is a poofy dress.

You may have noticed the pink chair in the "week picture" looks similar to the denim one used frequently in our posts for the last few years. Caleb's Pottery Barn Anywhere Chair got a new look- a hot pink cover for Harper. And he got an upgrade- a big new red chair.

I also got to spend some quality time with my friend Kim. She was in town and Harper and I joined her and James for dinner. Though I am sure Caleb and Adalie would have had a blast together, it is amazing how much more "catching up" you can do when there aren't 2 two-year-olds competing for your attention.

Here's Caleb's version of "Row Row Row Your Boat". Disclaimer, they did teach this at school but he had to change it up a bit to add his spoon into the lyrics.

The true start to Miss OK season begins with Contestants Day. It was in Tulsa in early April. Harper joined me for the day's activities and, like her brother, got her picture taken with Lauren Nelson, a former Miss America! the first of many pageant events for Miss H, but I swear I am not going to be some crazy pageant mom.

Here's a funny video of Caleb running around in a trailer at Nebraska Furniture Mart in KC. Aaron, his parents, and Caleb all traveled up there to get our new furniture. Long day but totally worth it...we now have a sofa to sit on!!!!

Harper turned 4 months on April 9th. She did great with her immunizations. She weighed in at 16 pounds and 25 1/4 inches long. Our big girl is wearing mostly 6-9 month clothes now. To celebrate her 4 months, she decided to roll over. She had been working on it really hard for several weeks and finally made it over. Looking back at the blog archives, Caleb rolled over at 4 months and 2 days. Of course, we have his first roll overs on video and we've yet to capture Harper's. She is so fast at it that you can barely set her down and she's flopped over. We could have started Harper on cereal when she turned 4 months and we've had it in the pantry for awhile but have been so buys that we've yet to give it a try. She is super interested in eating though and gives us these big eyes when she watches us eat anything.

The Saturday before Easter we ventured out to a local church that had advertised an egg hunt with over 50,000 eggs. It was very well organized and lots of fun. Here is Caleb waiting for his age group's hunt to begin.

Caleb and I took off hunting quickly. Or, more aptly, I hurried Caleb along, encouraging him to wait and see what was actually in the eggs when we were finished instead of stopping after each egg.

I also attempted to have Caleb pick up more than just the green eggs. As noted in the picture, he was only on the lookout for green ones (the pink and orange ones are two that I added to his basket when he wasn't looking). I get that he loves green ("Mama, green is my very favorite.") but at what point does this become OCD :)

As we continue to settle in the house, there are things that just don't have a good place yet. One of them is my jewelry organizer. It is on a hanger and we've put it on the end of a hanging rod in the closet. Unfortunately, it is perfect position for Caleb to get into it. Here he is trying on all my bracelets.

We determined that we would go to 8:00 Easter Service to avoid the crowds at 11:00 and so we could do an egg hunt and lunch without totally wrecking Caleb's nap time. Unfortunately, this meant getting everyone up at an insanely early hour of the morning. Plus it was pouring down rain and really cold. Here is Caleb's cheery Easter morning:

He perked up a bit after some milk and getting the goodies out of his Easter basket. He then "assisted" Harper in getting her items out of her basket.

Our Sunday School class had a family breakfast potluck on Easter morning. Everyone came in totally bedraggled but no worse for the wear. Many of us decided that we deserved a mimosa or bloody mary after the struggle to get a family put together, egg hunt ready, baskets loaded, get through the downpour, and get to church. Our friend Alissa got this halfway decent pic of our family.

After church we went to my parents' house for lunch with Aaron's parents and my parents. Because of the weather, the hunt was inside. Those that have followed the blog for several years will be interested to know this was the first year that Aaron, Mo, and I did not hunt. Maybe it was because Caleb was old enough to grasp the concept or maybe because I was just so distracted and exhausted by getting to kiddos ready, etc. that I knew I wouldn't stand a chance, but I wasn't really sad to see the tradition go.

Harper is more and more fun and personable. She didn't go to the sitter last week (thanks to all that helped pinch-hit for 3 days) and this week Amy commented how much she had changed in just a few days.

I knew that I had a photo of Caleb in a big bed at about the same age/stage, so I captured this one of Miss H. Think they're related??

The babysitter's girls tell her all the time how much more Harper enjoys her tummy time than Caleb ever did. He HATED it but she really seems to enjoy sticking her neck out as far and high as she can and taking everything in. (And, yes, we've upgraded to the next size of bow!)

I think I've posted before about Caleb's class working on an investigation to name some new goats in the Riverfield barnyard. They came up with a big list of names, other Pre-School classes helped narrow down the list, they made campaign posters and ballot boxes. Then the whole school came by their playground to cast their votes. On Friday, the Frog class held a big Name Reveal Ceremony, with much of the school in attendance. The winners were Pluto, Pickles, Nibbles, Cupcake, and Belvedere. After the naming, Caleb's class hung around for snack. Most of the toddlers were more interested in feeding their snack to the goats.

Belvedere was the name given to the baby goat born about a month ago. Isn't he cute!?!

Miss Coulter is one of Caleb's teachers. Many times on trips out to the barnyard, she will fetch (or attempt to fetch) Belvedere so the children can pet him. Only because she is a friend and co-worker do I feel obligated to post this funny video of her trying to corner the baby goat!

Success! Coulter catches the goat and the Frogs are so excited to shower him with affection.

Friday night was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner for my sister's wedding. It was pretty chilly and very windy so the rehearsal for the outdoor wedding was short and sweet. Dinner was at Brian's family's church and was tasty. It was the first time Caleb and Harper got to see their cousins, who were mostly all in the same outfit from Children's Place. Here are Caleb and Quinn cheesing for the camera. I think Quinn thought it was going to be a still photo since we take video on our digital camera.

There are four two-year-olds in our extended family. Here are Ada, Julia, and Caleb having fun jumping around

This is the crew from my dad's side of the family. I wish we had video of all the adults attempting to corral them and then get them to all look at the camera. It was pretty funny and not very successful but you get the general idea of how cute our kids are.

Harper and her Dadda. She loves me but she really lights up when she sees Aaron.

I am sure there will be lots of pictures posted on the official photographer's site (http://www.ashleyannphotography.com/) but for now, here's a shot of Morgan's wedding courtesy of my cousin Chelsea. It was sprinkling for a good part of the ceremony itself but cleared up just as the minister said, "You may kiss the bride." It was a beautiful ceremony and a fun reception. Congrats to Mo and Brian!!

I know this has been a novel and I really will try to do shorter posts more often. Now that our office furniture is in, we hope to move all my "stuff" downstairs and onto a new laptop that will hopefully make blogging easier. On the other hand, the wii fit that Aaron gave me for my birthday is now installed and we've been spending ample time on that too. I'll give it my best shot.

Have a great week!!

Time is Tickin' Away, Tick Tick Tickin' Away

2009-03-26T13:50:00.012-05:00

Besides being the title of a great DC Talk song, this blog title really sums up life these days. While I feel like I am able to at least keep my head above water, I do wonder where the days, hours, and minutes go. I think my to-do list will never be complete and that I add twice as many new tasks as old ones I check off. Which almost tempts me to not even make a list but those of you that know me know that I could make it about 1/2 a day without my lists :)

Here's cutie patootie- staring at her hands and figuring out how they work. She already has a pretty lengthy attention span, not to brag or anything, and will really be attentive to books we read or shows that are on TV (don't call DHS on me yet, she doesn't get to watch all that often).

We had some snow several weeks ago after a few days of 80 degree weather - gotta love Oklahoma in the spring. Here's Miss H in her colorful handmade hat (thanks April!).

Here's Caleb enjoying the big white flakes.

Caleb's new favorite hangout place is our bed. This is perhaps because we still have no furniture for him to sit on downstairs so the bed wins by default. The good news is that when we were in KC a few weekends ago, we ventured to Nebraska Furniture Mart and found most of the items we need. Just FYI, if you are looking for great deals and an almost-overwhelming selection (82 acres of furniture, seriously!), it is worth the trip.

Speaking of KC, we went there for my sister's bachelorette bash. We had a great time and I think the party girls got more sleep than Aaron and the kiddos did at Aunt Debbie's house, bless their hearts.

With the warm temps, we've spent more fun time out on the deck. This was Caleb's green shirt for St. Patty's day. Harper also had green on but spit up all over her outfit as I was getting the camera out. She spits up so much more than Caleb ever did. She doesn't really seem uncomfortable but I sometimes wonder about reflux because it can be an hour since she's eaten and everything will just come right back up.

Harper continues to be more and more engaged in conversations and likes to make eye contact and interact. She was especially convivial (big word award!) on this night but quieted down a little by the time we got the camera out.

We did quite a bit of spring/summer clothes shopping the last few weeks (which now seems pointless since it is very cold and rainy with snow predicted overnight). Caleb also had to get some gear for his upcoming soccer experience. More on that later! Anyway, here is Caleb in one of his favorite new outfits.

Here's a pretty recent pic of Harper. I covered up her "business" for modesty's sake but you do miss the impressive leg rolls and big belly. Girlfriend doesn't miss too many meals!

We had to get creative with babysitting during Spring Break since our regular sitter was gone but I still had to work. So H hung out with grandma one day. They had a great time but Mom did comment that Harper was awake enough that her list of to-dos didn't see much action. This was no newsflash to me (see opening paragraph) but was funny because I took Harper to work with me the day before and she literally slept for 4 1/2 hours straight. Harper on a walk with grandma.

When Caleb and I went to pick up Harper, we went on a walk and stayed for dinner. Grandma had a great helper to push the stroller.

One night this week, Harper was up while we were getting Caleb settled for bed. Here's a typical nutty night at our house. Caleb's running commentary cracks me up. And, as you can see, Harper is getting thisclose to rolling over. Aaron and I agree we don't remember Caleb making such a concentrated effort to accomplish this.

Caleb has been doing a great job on the potty this week. We certainly aren't ready to be diaper free but he's gone on the big potty at least once a day everyday. At school, they are going to start asking him if he wants to "take a turn" when the other kids do. To encourage the process, I bought him some big boy undies this week. He was very proud and wanted to wear them on top of his diaper but I told him that's not how it worked. We'll see how we continue to progress.

I am sure Caleb will ring my neck one day for posting this and that maybe the blog police will shut me down for using inappropriate language, but this video is too funny not to be shared. I'll just say that Caleb had a lot of fruit and veggies over last weekend and was a little "raw" in the diaper area, if you catch my drift. And I attended a continuing ed class once where the speaker said it was very important to use proper terminology with your children regarding their private parts. Bet you can't wait to push play, eh?

So Caleb and his friend started the Lil' Kickers program yesterday at Soccer City. I had let Owen's mom know about a good sale at Kohl's and we joked about how the boys would show up in the same outfit. Then they really did - ha!

Here's Caleb in action. It is a very fun class and I got lots of exercise. This is mainly because Caleb wasn't using his best listening ears so I had to keep chasing after him to get him back to the group. I definitely determined that we'll get there right on time next week so he doesn't have a chance to run around like crazy then have to calm down and listen to his coach.

Here they are stomping on bubbles.

The funniest part of the session was when they were playing Red Light Green Light. The coach would say, "Green light" and everyone would take off. When she called, "Red light", Caleb would stop, but then yell out, "Green light" himself and take off, and then his teammates would follow. No matter how many times I tried to explain that only the coach got to say "Red light" or "Green light" it didn't matter. We will be working on this before next week :)

Other funny things that Caleb has been up to:

He is a total parrot. He has entertained us with "Here's the deal" (something I say all the time) to "OK team let's go" and "I cannot believe it!" (courtesy of Little Einsteins) and "It's such a beautiful day" (that would be from my mom), and my fave "That's a good idea, mommy! Good job!".
When we went out to eat with friends last weekend he said "Bye Rob, bye Ha-ha". When I asked him about saying bye to the baby in Ha-ha's belly, he said, "Bye Harper!". Well, kinda...
He is really getting into pretending. He'll say "let's pretend mama's car is Rocket" and then want to buckle his seat belt and blast off. Or he'll say, "Pretend to be a fish" and make a fish face.

And in a paragraph of venting, I have been insulted on Harper's behalf twice recently. Once was when we were at Walmart and an old lady was being friendly to Caleb while Harper was asleep in her carrier in the cart. Then she told Caleb he sure was cuter than his little sister. Say what?!?! And the second one was today when an insurance guy came by to take pictures and measurements for our home owner's policy. The guy said, "Hey little fella" even though she was dressed in a pink and brown outfit. We will be changing insurance providers soon, I assure you. I am trying not to have a complex about this but will apparently be permanently affixing a bow to her head and will dress her only in frilly pink dresses.

We had a fun time out last night with my friend Heidi and her hubby in celebration of our birthdays (we share 3/25, but are just a few years apart) at In the Raw. Yum! My birthday present from Aaron and the kiddos is a wii and wii fit. We've not actually purchased it yet but I am super excited. I am sure the wii will have me in supermodel-worthy shape in no time, right?

One more thing: Congrats to my longtime friend, Meagan, on the arrival of their bundle of joy last week. Can't wait to see him in person at Mo's wedding!

OK, enough writing. Have a great one and stay warm!

Lots of Catch Up

2009-03-09T22:21:00.013-05:00

Here' s the last three weeks in a nutshell...enjoy!

Harper grows more and more animated every day. This means she is not sleeping as much and is letting us know when she is dissatisfied with things more often, which means my scant free time is even less now :) She is still a smiling, sweet girl.

Because there's still no living room furniture, we spend a lot of time up in the game room. Here's Caleb and Harper enjoying some Little Einsteins.

We've set up our computers in the guest room for now (until we find office furniture we like). The dogs liked to jump up on the bed and sit in the sunshine. Caleb wanted to join them one morning. I've since banned the dogs from the bed because, even though it wasn't expensive bedding, it is new and I imagine our guests would like to sleep on a dog hair-free zone.

Here's a picture from last fall that I just came across. Our Sunday School class had a tailgate party to advertise our class. It was in the church parking lot and was a family event. Here are Caleb and his buds.

Caleb and I ventured to the park in our neighborhood shortly after we moved in. He really liked the slide.

This big hill is right by the park. Caleb and I decided we would climb up it to get to the path on top, rather than walking around. We got about 1/2 way up and I realized it was quite a bit steeper than it looks, but we made it.

Here's the walking path around the lake. Our house doesn't back up to the lake but we do have a nice view from our front door between our neighbor's houses.

Morgan celebrated her 26th birthday on Feb. 21st. She had her first bridal shower that afternoon then we all went out for bowling that night (her request). It was a lot of fun and Aunt Debbie and our cousin Jill came in from out of town for the festivities. Thanks to Debbie for the banana bread (long gone) and Jill for the pictures, pizza, and gin and tonics at the bowling alley.

Here's a video of Caleb when we first started bowling. His enthusiasm waned quickly but he was very excited at first.

Week 12, I realized Harper was big enough for the Bumbo seat. Yeah, another 'holding area' for her.

There is a donut shop on the corner by our house. Caleb saw a firetruck there one day and asked what kind of store it was. A few days later, Caleb and I had a special treat together when we stopped by the donut store on our way to school. I think everyone at Riverfield heard about Caleb's green sprinkle donut that day.

We've had crazy swings in weather but enjoyed an 80-degree day a few weeks ago at the zoo with our friend Owen and his mom. I think the boys might have enjoyed the playground just as much as the animals.

I didn't realize my camera was still on video instead of photo, but the result is cute I think.

I bought Caleb his own chair for the patio. However, on this day, he was enjoying the chair inside.

Finally, we took a picture of the front of the house. It is now painted with shutters and gutters on (minus one that needs to be re-done because it was built the wrong size). The garage is to the left, you just can't see the driveway.

Harper really likes to chew and suck on her hands. I don't know if she's pre-teething (Caleb had his first tooth at 4 months, I think) or if she's going to be our thumb-sucker.

Gotta love Girl Scout cookie time. This is Caleb's "I am a cookie monster" face. (Notice him squeezing in to the Bumbo seat. He keeps calling it a potty. I'm hoping he doesn't try to use it as such.)

We spent several nice evenings out on our porch recently. It was warm enough to leave the doors open so Aaron could be working on a project inside but still talk with us. I really love having all the mature trees; it's so cool to wake up and hear birds chirping.

Caleb hung out at Grandma and G-Dad's last weekend and also enjoyed their porch. Busy busy guy.

Caleb and Harper snuggling. He continues to be so sweet and thoughtful with regard to his sister. And she is interactive enough now that he'll make a face at her and she'll laugh at him, which makes him laugh back at her. So cute!!

Forgot to mention last time that Harper had her 2 mo. check up. She weighed in at 13 lbs. 13 ounces and 24 1/2 inches long. That is off the charts for both, but a little smaller than Caleb at his 2 mo. check up.

What else do I have to report? Let's see...I was sick as a dog last week with body ache, high fever, chills, cough, etc. etc. The worst was Thursday but I was feeling much better by the weekend and now just need to shake this old lady cough.

When you have a second, check out http://www.riverfield.org/ and notice the renovated site, complete with a picture of the cutest toddler ever seen. I didn't have a thing to do with that picture being there, I promise.

This weekend is my sister's bachelorette party in KC. It should be a fun time but I do feel somewhat over the hill. I can just see me sitting in the car saying, "You guys go on in, I need to sit in here and pump for awhile." Ha!

We are making furniture progress- ordered a dining set and purchased and assembled a kitchen table and chairs. I think our main issue with the living room is that we're not totally sure how we want to set it up and what pieces we want (couch and love seat vs. couch and two chairs, etc.). We do have our piano in the alcove now. THANKS to the Reids for keeping it for the past several months at their house.

I am sure there are many many things or cute quips and quotes that I am forgetting. I hate it because this is supposed to be my outlet for such things and when I only update every other week or so, I forget them. Sorry kids, you have a bummer of baby book :)

Have a great week!

Change Change Change!

2009-02-17T11:23:00.017-06:00

When you don't blog for three weeks, you can look back over the pictures taken in that time and note lots of changes that have happened in just that short span. In this blog installment, you'll see changes in Miss Harper's growth and development, changes in the weather, and changes in our address -- yeah!!

We got another big snow/ice storm a few weeks back, but as quickly as it came, it warmed up so we could actually play outside.

Harper all bundled up.

Apparently Lightening McQueen loves the snow too.

Mowing the snow (note sippy cup and Lightening along for the ride)

Here's Mr. GQ in his Sunday best.

Harper is already working the pouty lip. It's so cute, you can't help but laugh.

The weather warmed up enough for us to make use of our Zoo Pass (thanks G-Dad and Grandma). Caleb's friend Owen met us there and they had a great time. The zoo was virtually empty and the weather was wonderful.

Harper enjoyed the zoo too (this is my new favorite pic of her).

Not too many pictures were taken in the last 10 days or so as we prepared for the big move. Has anyone seen Caleb??

As we emptied the freezer I found a loaf of yummy banana bread my Aunt Debbie had given us last fall. We defrosted it and it was a HUGE it with Caleb. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner...any time was a great time for "Aunt Debbie bread". Hint hint to Aunt Debbie who heads to OK again this weekend!!

Friday night was the first night in the new house. Here's our empty old house (we close tomorrow).

And here's the empty new house. We can't put anything on the wood floors for two weeks. Guess that gives us an excuse for not having any living room furniture picked out (or office, or formal dining, etc.)

As you might have noticed in the last picture, Caleb has discovered Little Einsteins and LOVES them. Here's him going along with the characters as they help make Rocket go "Presto...superfast!"

There's a lock on the new fridge that keeps Caleb from dispensing ice or water. Guess the manufacturer didn't think about a way to keep toys out of the tray :)

This is finally starting to feel like home. We unpack more boxes each day and I'm actually taking this week and next off of work to get things organized around here. It was very strange to be kid-free today. A HUGE thanks to Aaron's parents who came in town for the last 10 days to help us get moved; we could not have done it without you!!

Happy birthday to my sister, who will celebrate her 26th this weekend. Who knows when I'll blog again so I wanted to give an advanced shout-out.

Congrats to my friend Carrie, who welcomed Baby Gage last week as well. This makes 4 kiddos for her; don't know how she does it!!

Hope all is well with you. Have a great week!

BRRRR!!!!!

2009-01-28T22:29:00.009-06:00

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!

Great News!!

2009-01-14T13:27:00.005-06:00

YES- You are looking at a "SOLD" sign in the Walton's front yard!!!
We had someone call for a showing on Saturday afternoon, call to see it again Sunday afternoon, and make an offer that evening that we accepted. YEAH! The inspections were today and, as of now, will close mid-February. This should work out perfectly as the new house should be done 10 days or so before that. Thanks for all the prayers and keep them coming so that everything works out smoothly with the completion of the new house and the details of selling this one.

Harper has been introduced to the world of the pac-pac (pass-pass) as we call it. She's still struggling to keep it in but Big Brother Caleb sure likes finding it and making sure she has it with her, like even when she's peacefully sleeping - ha!

Speaking of Caleb, he is certainly fulfilling all the two year old "symptoms", namely the selective listening thing (think that's something that males never fully recover from!!) and getting into everything! Here's what Caleb found one night when I was gathering the trash to take outside. I am not sure if it is any less gross that it's empty?!?

We had an exciting but short-lived event over the last few weeks: Caleb went #2 in the potty. He's never gone in either his little potty or the big potty but wanted to try it this particular night before his bath. He was holding on to me so tightly to keep from falling in that I think the strain is actually what forced the success, but - hey -we'll take what we can get. He was very proud and wanted to show Dada and Harper and then call Grandma to tell her. We've tried a few times here and there as he shows interest but no such luck on the repeat potty event.

Harper is spending longer periods of time awake but still taking great naps (like right now!) and is sleeping well through the night. We had a couple of times when she slept straight through the night but is back to waking up once, which I can totally live with.

We spent several fun times with my parents last week. Caleb saw a commercial for a monster truck rally on TV and was very excited. We decided that at $32 a ticket for a show that didn't start until Caleb's usual bath time where other onlookers could be potentially shady, we would not attend the rally. BUT... two of the trucks did come out to Reasor's in BA so Caleb, Harper, G-Dad, and I loaded up to check them out. Caleb was very excited but didn't want to get too close to them. And, based on the folks in the huge line for autographs, we now know where all the "State Fair people" go after the fair is over :)

After the monster truck fun, we headed back to our house to watch the OU-FL game. Here's a cute picture of the siblings. Between all the bowl games and the NFL play-offs, Caleb was pretty much over football and couldn't have cared less about watching. Oh well. He'll get some time off soon.

I would love to be able to get on here and share in the glory of my Sooners winning the National Championship, but we all know how that worked out :( I feel badly for the team and for poor Bob Stoops and his propensity to lose the Big Games. Eager to see what Bradford decides about entering the draft or not. Guess we'll find out tomorrow. Here's Harper in the AD throw-back jersey.

Friday afternoon we ran errands with my mom then stayed at their house for dinner. Caleb and G-Dad enjoyed some quality time in the garage, doing manly things like sweeping and checking out the various sizes of screwdrivers.

Here's Harper's one-month pic. Cute as a button, right?

Here's another sweet picture from earlier in the week. She is totally un-phased by the door bell, dogs barking, Caleb's screeching, etc.

As she grows, I think Harper is beginning to look more and more like her own person and not so much like Caleb. You can certainly still tell they are related but here are two pics of them in the same shirt. Can anyone guess who's who?

Think that's about it for now. Have a great week!!

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T10:36:00.007-06:00

So I could probably title this post "Catching Up" but something tells me I'll have to use that in the future so I'll stick with "Happy New Year" this time. Things have been wonderful and only somewhat wacky here in the Walton household. I'll try to be brief and, again, let most of the pictures speak for themselves.

The weekend before Christmas, Aaron's parents and his sister's family came in from out of town to celebrate. Aunt Lori went to OU so we figured what better way to welcome our visitors :) Yes, we do have a crimson bow for such occasions. And, yes, I did feel like I needed to put it on for Harper's first trip to the mall so that no one thought she was a boy.

Sunday evening we went to Aaron's other sister's house in town for Christmas dinner and gift exchange. Caleb got to sit at the "big kid" table with the other cousins and did very well. He especially liked hanging out with his cousin Addie.

We had a slight issue with Caleb overlooking his own presents on Sunday night because he preferred what other people were opening (sorry!!). However, he did come to enjoy the tool set and other gifts throughout the week.

Caleb had been fighting a runny nose and cough for about a week but Sunday night he coughed throughout the night, coughing so hard at time that he made himself sick. Aaron was taking off work Monday anyway since his family was in town and our wonderful pediatrician got Caleb in first thing Monday morning. Turns out he had bronchitis and needed to stay far away from Harper (and anyone else wanting to stay well for the holidays). Needless to say, Aaron's parents and family cut their visit short and headed out Monday afternoon.

Tuesday Aaron went to work and my dad came to the rescue to entertain a cranky, sick two year-old who was already dealing with not being the center of attention. I think Dad heard "No, G-Dad" or "G-Dad, stop" so many times he was convinced that Caleb didn't like him any more. But my sister got the same treatment when she came to play the next day so his feelings weren't too hurt. We pulled out several new toys in an effort to keep Caleb (and everyone else) sane, including these great foam blocks. Caleb was all about sorting them by color or shape.

Caleb was no longer contagious and feeling much better by Christmas eve. We ventured to the church's children's service and Caleb did very well in "big church", though he did have a hard time with using a whispering voice. We realized we had yet to take a picture as a family of four, so here it is. Nothing great or glamorous and it was followed by Harper screaming bloody murder because she woke up starving and Caleb having a messy diaper. So we cut short the idea of going out to eat with my parents after church and just went to their house for leftovers.

In the hustle and bustle of Caleb's birthday, Harper's birth, house stuff, etc., we hadn't really talked to Caleb about Christmas, giving and receiving gifts, stockings, Santa, Jesus, or anything. So we gave it the cliffs notes version and Caleb helped with making cookies for Santa.

As we were getting out milk, Caleb spotted an orange in the fruit drawer and decided Santa needed a healthy option too. He colored a very nice note for Santa and Santa even wrote him a thank you note in return.

I searched high and low for matching pjs for Caleb and Harper. No easy task to find 0-3 and 3T in something gender-neutral but I found these at Children's Place. Caleb was very excited to be matching with his sister. He slept very well and was excited to wake up to an overflowing stocking and a Handy Manny tool bench with real things to fix. My parents and sister joined us for stockings and a casual breakfast.

Christmas evening was spent at my parents' house. We thought something other than the traditional ham or turkey would be fun so mom attempted Cornish hen. I think she was more frustrated than the rest of us but they took much longer than planned to cook and there were several of us (namely me) that were weirded out by a whole bird just sitting on the plate. Aaron loved it and thankfully took all of mine. I'm much more interested in all the tasty side dishes and desserts anyway. There were a ridiculous am out of presents to open for just eight people - 4 of us, mom and dad, and Morgan and her fiance Brian. Caleb grew tired of it quickly but found other ways of entertaining himself, like climbing up on the ottoman and jumping to the couch. Oh the fun that's in store for us for the next 16 years!

His favorite present of the evening was his new red guitar (pronounced "gee-tar"), complete with guitar pick, which we promptly lost. He has enjoyed serenading all of us this last week.

I just realized this was all about Caleb so far but that's mainly because Harper didn't do much over Christmas but eat, sleep, and make dirty diapers. I am sure she'll get lots more coverage when she starts doing crazy things like ottoman gymnastics. In all seriousness, she is a WONDERFUL baby and - knock on wood - just goes with the flow unless she is hungry. Thank the Lord for that!

We got her newborn pictures in that we ordered from the hospital. The scanner is packed up somewhere so forgive the picture-of-a-picture quality here. Too cute, huh?

Last weekend we hung out with several of my high school friends that were in town for the holidays. Elijah and Adalie are both three months older than Caleb and they all have younger siblings now so it was definitely a zoo keeping up with them as they jumped in the jupiter jump, played outside, and got into everything else, too.

Adalie was great to share her toys with the boys. I am not certain it would have gone so smoothly had we been at our house. Here's a great shot of the boys in her hot pink Barbie Mustang. I am thinking they won't be so thrilled with this cute picture when they're in high school.

The zoo in action: trying to get six kids and three adults to look at the same camera at the same time. Marilyn and Kim, it was so great to see you and your children!! Harper was totally silent and peaceful in her carrier the whole 2+ hours we were there...until we tried to take the picture. Ha!

Our friend Bopha has started a business embroidering things so I utilized her services to create Big Brother/Little Sister shirts for Caleb and Harper. We waited until the end of the day so it was 'now or never' before Caleb went into the bath. Hence the reason Harper is less than thrilled.

I took these super cute pics of Harper last Sunday. The light was just right into the window so I tried it without flash (a tip from my photographer friend Ashley). Harper was cooperating nicely, even though I could hear her pooping like crazy. Unfortunately, this outfit did not last past these pics as she totally blew out the back of the onesie and the waistband of the pants. By the way, these bows/headbands came in the mail direct from the maker but did not say who they were from (I did not order them myself). So, if you gave these to us - thanks!

Caleb is still all about the puzzles. This night in particular, he was in to everything else so Aaron piled up all his puzzle pieces and challenged him to get them all done as fast as he could. He LOVES these puzzles and will sit for a very long time doing them over and over again.

Mr. Imagination got into one of the utensil drawers and decided he was using our extra-long spatula as a hockey stick (or "cock-ie" as Caleb says). And evidently my shoes are perfect for skating on the tile. I love watching his wheels turn as he figures things out.

Last night we hung out with some friends and brought kiddos with us. It was a lot of fun, and we all four made it until midnight.

Hope 2009 is wonderful for your family! Lots of continued change for us, including a move to the new house in the next six weeks or so. Please be praying that we sell our current one soon - I am getting antsy about getting it sold soon so we don't have that hanging over us while getting excited moving in.

Have a great week. I will try to be better about keeping up with the blog. It takes less time to do a week's worth of updates than two weeks and a holiday, right?!?

Harper's First Week

2008-12-16T13:33:00.013-06:00

So, I started this post over 24 hours ago. Partly because there are a million pictures and partly because I am now a mom of two, it has just taken that long to get everything together.

Things are going great so far at the Walton house. Caleb and Harper are getting along very well and Harper is pretty much all about eating and sleeping, including many long stretches through the night. (I know, I've just jinxed myself!) But enough about writing and on to the photos:

LAST PREGGO PIC

IN THE OPERATING ROOM

HARPER WITH HER STATS

CALEB MEETING HARPER

CALEB GETTING PRESENTS (Being a big brother rocks!)

PHOTOS OF HARPER AS AARON TRIES NEW CAMERA SETTINGS

THE RIDE HOME TOGETHER (very curious)

CALEB HOLDING HARPER

He is being a totally great big brother so far. Very sweet and tender.

HANGING OUT IN CALEB'S BED
Note the sharing of lots of cars with sister

HARPER'S FIRST BATH - CALEB HELPING AND CURIOUS

HARPER'S FIRST BATH - CALEB SILLY AND LOOKING FOR ATTENTION

CALEB WEARING MY PANCHO

CALEB FOUND A NEW TV-WATCHING CHAIR, THE GLIDER

HARPER SAYS, "WASSUP?"

THE FUN PART OF HAVING A GIRL - A BOW THE SIZE OF HER!

PEOPLE HAVE ASKED IF THE TWO LOOK ALIKE. YOU BE THE JUDGE-

THIS IS CALEB

THIS IS HARPER

CALEB

HARPER

So far any of Caleb's reactions to Harper's presence have not been directed toward her, but just attention-getting in general. It is a tough balance to make him still feel important and special but not just keep Harper in the Moses basket all day either. The big test will be tomorrow - our first day at home just Mom, Caleb, and Harper. I am divising a plan, especially for nap time and nursing time. Prayers requested, suggestions welcomed :)

The weather around here is still so yucky. Our sweet Covenant friends have risked life and limb to bring us dinner (or risked the life of the 742-DINE guy!) this week. We are getting very spoiled by all the yummy food being brought to us.

I feel badly as I already missed taking a picture of her first pediatrician's appointment. Aaron assured me that this did not qualify me as a "bad mom". Harper also had her first chiropractor appointment. Not to get on a soapbox but I think chiropractic is wonderful and it has made a big difference for myself, Caleb, and now Harper too.

I will have to figure out what day works best to update the blog. Or, who knows, I may just get to it when I can! Will also need to balance Caleb stories and photos with cute Harper pics. Huh- the little details you don't consider when expanding your family -ha!!!

Have a great week and stay warm!

She's Here!!!

2008-12-09T21:42:00.006-06:00

Harper Grace Walton joined us this morning at 8:26. We weren't quite expecting the monster that we got, but what a beautiful gift is was. When we went to the doctor on Thursday, she was measuring just a couple of ounces under 8 pounds, so we assumed that she would end up around 8-5... Or, how about 9-5... Yes, exactly what I said (Aaron) to the nurse, "what did you just say?" And, the nurse repeated for me, "9 pounds, 5 ounces." Wow. Bigger than Caleb; we would have never guessed. Caleb continues to be off the growth charts, so who knows what we've got on our hands!

When the word got back to Riverfield this morning, (Caleb was at school) several people went into the classroom and mentioned that "Harper's here!" or "the baby is here", which sent Caleb into a panic of excitement, running to the door wondering where she was, and then into a meltdown when he couldn't find her! So sad... But, aside from a couple of meltdowns, he had an overall good day at school and was very excited to make a trip to the hospital to see "HarpHarp Grapes" that the doctor took out of mama's belly.

(Caleb w/ Aunt Mo)

Emily is doing great, recovering from the surgery, so I'm sure you'll hear more from her when we get home Thursday. Sorry this is short, but I've got Caleb asleep, Grandma is on her way, and I'll be back to the hospital!

How humbled we are by the blessings that God has placed upon us.

As "Eeyore" says, "Thanks for noticing..."

Goodnight.

Birthday Week Update

2008-12-08T22:18:00.005-06:00

Sorry that this will be so brief but I figure I'd better cut the blog short and go get my bag packed since we have to head out for the hospital tomorrow morning at 6am.

Great birthday week for Mr. Caleb. See captions above each pic:

Opening presents from parents early Wednesday morning

Class snack time to celebrate his special day

Class project- making an ornament out of natural materials that will hang on the tree in their playground

Caleb trying to squeeze his 32 pounds back in to the baby carrier

Caleb climbing up on the crib to practice peeking in on Baby Girl Harper

Caleb's family "party" - opening presents with Grandma, G-Dad, Granny, and Grandpa

Caleb enjoying his car-themed cupcake-cake (pre-icing photo)

Caleb after enjoying his cupcake-cake, giving a high five

There are several video clips that I hope to get around to posting but they take so long to upload that you'll just have to be satisfied with these.

OH, and for all of you that have asked for belly photos, here is one we took last Friday night after our Sunday School Christmas party. Not going to win Miss Photogenic any time soon but not horrible either. Gotta love shiny face (though I've always battled that, regardless of pregnancy!)

Well, depending on when most of you check this, we'll have another Walton in the world by the time you read these very words. Crazy crazy, but very exciting. Keep checking as I am sure Aaron will post pics and info as soon as he can.

Have a great week!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BUSTER!!

2008-12-03T22:35:00.003-06:00

Today is Caleb's second birthday!!!

It was a very fun day that included Aaron and me coming to his class for birthday celebration during snack time. He had his favorite pizza (or pa-peetz as he calls it) and a race car birthday cake for dinner. We had been working on telling people "two" when they ask how old he is but didn't think to go over the idea of saying "thank you" when people wished him a Happy Birthday. So they would say it and he would just look at them like "yeah, ok" and walk off.

A big present for us is that Caleb finally said his name clearly and intentionally three times in a row. He has held off on doing this forever- he knows exactly who he is but whenever you ask him his name, he just gets this ornery smile on his face and refuses to answer or says "baby". Tonight we were singing the Happy Birthday song and at the end of each line, he added "Caleb". Yippee! Of course, he'll probably not say it again until his 3rd birthday but it was a precious moment for us tonight :)

Here are three pics- one from today, one from last year, and one from our first day home from the hospital (I know it's not exactly on Dec. 3rd but all the hospital shots from his birth are super blurry for some reason).

To Caleb: we are so thankful for you! The adventures you've taken us on so far are nothing compared to where we'll go from here, I'm sure. WE LOVE YOU!!!

Happy 'Giving!

2008-12-01T21:58:00.006-06:00

Hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We enjoyed a dinner with my fam Wednesday evening then they headed out to KC and we stayed put (blame Miss Harper for missing out on the Plaza lights and great shopping). It was a very nice holiday weekend, though.

Caleb helped me prepare some tasty treats early in the week - spiced pretzels. I thought he'd really get into the shake-shake-shake part but he just wanted to walk around holding the baggie. We'll make enough batches between now and January that I'm sure he'll get the hang of it.

Thursday morning we woke up and watched the Macy's parade. It is so fun that he's now old enough to "get" some of these holiday traditions. Caleb was very excited about the different balloons he saw and pointed out every drum and trumpet he heard as the bands passed. The best part was definitely at the end when Santa made his appearance.

Thursday afternoon we went to BA for Thanksgiving dinner with my "other family", the Wilsons. I grew up babysitting their boys, two of whom are now in college and the other is a high school freshman - I'M OLD!! When they knew we'd be family-less on Turkey Day they invited us over and we had a great time. Caleb's most favorite part was riding the golf cart. He wasn't too sure about it at first (the look of doubt on his face when they coasted down the grassy yard instead of the driveway was priceless) but the riders came back in one piece, with Caleb yelling for "more hills". We've heard about "golf cart fun" at least once a day since then.

Secondary to the golf cart ride, Caleb was also very excited about the early birthday presents he received - a "big guitar truck" and a "Go Sooners shirt", as he calls them. Thanks Wilsons and Pa & JJ for the gifts.

We drove through Rhema on Friday evening but did not get out so didn't have any good photo opps. Caleb really liked it though and we'll hope to go again sometime this season.

Caleb's getting quite creative with his songs. We've never really worked on ABCs but he's picking them up (or at least the first few letters and a few recognizable ones in the midst of a bunch of gibberish). Enjoy!

After meeting some friends for dinner over the weekend, Owen introduced Caleb to the concept of playing the games that are in the arcade part of some restaurants. The best part, as Owen's mom pointed out, is that they don't realize that we didn't put any money in and they aren't really playing :)

Aaron traveled to OKC to pick up Caleb's big boy furniture and borrowed our real estate companies big box truck (just one of the perks of being listed with the Briggs Team). Caleb was fascinated by it, especially when it would "beep beep" in reverse. We bundled him up on Sunday and let him stomp around in it for awhile- he was in heaven.

Sunday night Aaron put together the new twin bed. We shot a video of Caleb discovering the new addition to his bedroom but it was over 5 minutes long and I gave up on uploading it successfully. So here's a picture instead.

Harper is still hanging in there and there's been no action so far. Hopefully she'll hang on for another week so that the scheduled C-Section thing pans out :) We actually took some photos for Caleb's second birthday and a few maternity ones over the weekend (figured we might one day want more than a fleeting shot of my belly in the background of a few Caleb pictures to commemorate this second baby). Hopefully we'll get some proofs back soon and we can post them here. Caleb was in a very silly mood; it was cute for awhile but then was just frustrating because he was not interested in being still or looking at the camera. I don't know how you photographer-types deal with it!

Of course this week's big news is that Caleb turns 2. I'll save that for another post!

Have a great week!

PS- BOOMER SOONER, BABY!!!!!!!!