Our Chunky Monkey

Caleb had his six month check up this morning. He is 27 inches long and he weighs 17 pounds 6 ounces. He also had to have 3 shots in his thighs. No fun! Our pediatrician is very pleased with Caleb's development. He even commented on how well Laura Anne talks and how polite she is. I was a proud momma!

My curiosity made me check Laura Anne's first year calendar to see how much she weighed at six months. She was 15 pounds 8 ounces and she was 27 1/2 inches long. Longer and lighter! They also had the same amount of hair at this age! Interesting fact.

Well, we all had a good weekend. Chris watched the kids while I attended a scrapbooking event. I was able to get a lot of scrapbooking done and the kids behaved great for Chris. It was nice to get away for a little while and I didn't worry about the children, believe it or not! Once I get some pictures of my scrapbook, I'll pass them along.

6 Months Old!

It hardly seems possible, but Caleb is 6 months old today!! Double his lifetime and we'll be celebrating his first birthday. But let's not think about that yet! His 6 month check up isn't until Monday so I won't know how much he weighs or how long he is until then. But here's the rest of the news:

• He is eating cereal and peas now. He seems to like it. Laura Anne loves to help me. See some pictures she took on her blog: click on "Laura Anne's blog" at the right.


• He can sit up...kind of! He can hover by himself for a few seconds, but still topples over a lot. It won't be long before he's sitting without support though.


• His eczema is a constant battle, but we're doing our best to keep him comfortable. I'm on my non-dairy, no eggs diet, and our goal is to wean him to a bottle with Alimentum formula eventually. (Alimentum is a special formula made for babies with food allergies.)


• He did finally take a bottle again last week. He has accepted almost one a day since then, so that's great news. When he gets more accustomed to it, we'll replace my milk with the formula.


• He isn't so lazy about rolling over now. He can roll pretty much across the room if we don't watch him. He just keeps going and going!


• He slept for 7 straight hours one night this past week! It's not the norm, but he's doing better.


• He's now trying to scoot across the floor when he's on his tummy. He picks up his tummy and tries to bring his knees up. He's not really getting anywhere yet, but I'm sure it won't take him long to figure it out!

Crafts And Signs

Okay, so I've discovered some fun things recently. I wanted to share these for those who enjoy doing different activities with your children. First, Family Fun magazine is awesome. We've been receiving it in the mail for over a year now and it's chock-full of neat things to do/make/eat, etc... One of the crafts recently featured was this yarn octopus I made for Laura Anne. It's so easy and cute and CHEAP!! Laura Anne loves it and and when she saw I had a few different colors of yarn, she asked me to make her another!

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My sister-in-law introduced me to this blog and it's really cool. It's called Make and Takes and this lady is full of ideas for crafts and fun things. If ever you are bored, check out her blog to find something fun to do. There's no shortage!

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I'm a big fan of sign language. It has always intrigued me and we taught several signs to Laura Anne when she was a baby. Once she started talking, the signs unintentionally took a backseat. But now that Caleb is here, I'm excited to start teaching him and re-teaching Laura Anne so she can help teach Caleb. I have read (specifically in Baby Signing 1-2-3 by Nancy Cadjan) about the benefits of teaching babies sign language, and am now convinced that Laura Anne talks so well because we taught her how to communicate through signs early in her life. She's a super fast learner and has learned several new signs just within the last couple weeks. Well, a couple Saturdays ago, we discovered a show on PBS called Signing Time and it is so neat. All of us enjoy watching it together. The lady who teaches it also sings, so she'll teach a handful of signs and then sing a song using all the signs. It's really fun, and Laura Anne enjoys making the signs. Check it out! And if you want to buy the videos, do yourself a favor and check Ebay for them as opposed to buying them from the website. They're MUCH cheaper! I'm hoping to be able to buy some in the near future.

I know I have put a lot of links in this post, but I think it's useful and fun information. I hope this is helpful for some of you! And now, I'll leave you with a cute picture! :D

Okay, two pictures!

So Proud

I would just like to say how proud I am of my younger brother, Ryan, and his achievements. He is attending college at the University of South Florida studying Creative Writing. He is doing very well. In fact, one of his professors was so impressed with a poem he wrote that she suggested that he submit it, and a few others, to be published! He wrote his poem on his blog. Please take a look! I know you'll be as impressed as I am. Way to go, Ryan! You make your big sis proud!

He's A Big Boy!

Caleb tried rice cereal for the first time yesterday. He did pretty good with it and finished what I fixed for him. Here's a cute video of Laura Anne helping feed him.

He's not so sure about this:

Mom, seriously. Do you think I'm going to eat that stuff?

Turns out, that stuff isn't so bad after all!

Reading Time

Caleb loves to be on Laura Anne's bed. Here they are enjoying some Cars books together:

She loves to read:
He loves to chew:

My Beauties

Sometimes I just can't get over how pretty and grown up Laura Anne is. And I can tell Caleb is going to be a hunk, too!

Couch Fun

They were just having some fun sibling time together. I couldn't resist snapping a few shots!

Shame On Me!

I cannot believe I forgot to mention some very important birthdays! So much has been going on around here, it just slipped my mind to blog about them! So....

Happy birthday Kristina! (August 30)

And to the big 2 year-olds (August 31):

Happy birthday Joshua!

Happy birthday Peter!

Happy birthday Isaac!

One more!

Happy first birthday, Alana in Alaska! (Sept. 10)

I hope everyone had great birthdays! We love you all!

Love, Chris, Brianna, Laura Anne and Caleb

Bath Babies

I found this picture of Laura Anne in the bath, taken on the day she turned 5 months old. So I thought I'd try to get the same shot of Caleb on the day he turned 5 months old also. He wasn't very cooperative, seeing as how he always has something in his mouth. So we tried again several days later. They look a lot alike, don't they?

Laura Anne:

Caleb:

Perfect Eyelashes

I could just melt. His eyelashes are beautiful.

SURPRISE Party Pics!!!

Ellen and I planned a surprise pool party for Chris on Saturday. Chris arrived before any of the guests did, but we all still had a great time. We had a couple families from the church show up and the kids enjoyed splashing in the pool for a while. Then we all enjoyed a nice barbeque dinner---pork chops, chicken, corn on the cob, baked beans, deviled eggs, salad, chocolate covered strawberries and of course, cupcakes! Ellen and I (mostly Ellen) also made party favors. They were little paper party hats filled with candy. They were super cute!

The dessert table:
Laura Anne and her buddy, Joel. They love to play together!

Party Pics

After a yummy dinner of spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread, we played a nice game of Disney Candy Land. Laura Anne did a very good job of picking a card and moving her game piece to the appropriate color. After Jerry won the game, we put candles on the hangman cake and sang happy birthday to the birthday boy. Caleb and Laura Anne enjoyed watching him open his cards and gifts. Overall, I think Chris enjoyed his birthday! But another surprise was waiting....