A Huge Blessing

Thanks Aunt Jen and Uncle Steve for the huge box of clothes for me! My mommy and daddy won't have to buy me anything at least until next fall! Thank you so much! I love you!

Love, Caleb

Visit From Family

My brother and his family came up for a short visit last weekend. The kids had a blast together, especially jumping on the air beds. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of that because one of the beds was blocking the door to the room!

Here's Uncle Steve reading a book to Laura Anne:

Aunt Jen played a game of Sorry! with Steven and Laura Anne while Joshua and his daddy snoozed on the couch:

Silly cousins:

The little boys with their plugs:

Caleb was telling Joshua all about it:

Playing with play dough:

It actually snowed while they were here! The boys were so excited:

Snow on their Florida van:
A lovely lunch with the cousins::

Silly Pictures

I'm not exactly sure what was going on here, but it's cute:It's fun to watch how big he gets! He used to be so tiny in her lap!
Here they are, trying on their new winter hats:

Face Massage

Caleb was giving Chris a face massage recently. He wasn't very gentle either, as you can see in the second photo. Then Laura Anne had to get in on the action. It was so cute. It ended with a tickle fest!

Not Me! Today

Again, here's my list of things that didn't happen to me recently.

1. I did not lose the envelope I was going to mail my sister's birthday card in, so her card is not still sitting on the table waiting to be sent. Her birthday is not tomorrow so she will not be receiving a card from me until later this week!
2. I did not reconnect with an old friend last week. I was not very excited and grateful to have found her. We absolutely were not very best friends who did incredibly goofy and fun things together.
3. I am so not excited about Thanksgiving, because we are not going to visit family in Tennessee. Caleb is not going to get to see his great-grandfather again for whom we named him after. I am not going to get to see my mom and stepdad and sister and brother. And I'm really not looking forward to seeing my cousins and aunt, uncle and grandfather. That just doesn't sound like any fun at all.
4. It's not me that's ready for Caleb to be weaned. After all, he's so interested in nursing, why would I even consider weaning him?! And I absolutely don't mind at all that I can't eat pizza and ice cream, or have my favorite drink from Starbucks because of his allergy. (One little nugget of truth: I'm losing weight and saving us money because of this diet. I guess that's something to be thankful for!)

Date Night!

Chris and I had the opportunity to go on a date Friday night! We dropped the kids off at a friend's house and for the next 3 1/2 hours we had a relaxing dinner, quiet conversation and a lovely stroll through the mall. It was so nice. The kids behaved wonderfully at the babysitter's and Chris and I enjoyed the quiet time to ourselves. We decided we need to do this more often!

My lovely flowers:

Sale Of The Week

I found these cute tennis shoes for Laura Anne at Wal-mart. I paid two dollars!

Not Me! Monday

Alright, so I decided to give this a try. I was introduced to MckMama's blog and have to read it everyday now. Her story is so cool and she has a talent for writing. Go check out her blog sometime.Okay, so here we go. Just take note that there may be tiny trace of sarcasm throughout the rest of this post.
It is not me that is on a non-dairy, no eggs diet because my son does not have an allergy to milk and eggs.
It is not me that, because of the diet I am not on, decided to research egg substitutes for cooking and found out that you can use applesauce instead. Therefore, it was not me that tried to make brownies using applesauce instead of eggs and found out that it does not work. So I did not throw away a whole pan of brownies.
It was also not me that thought I could make pudding using rice milk instead of cow's milk, and found out that that doesn't work so well either.
I am not the one that wants to write children's stories and always has several ideas floating around in my head.
I do not have a headache from my ears ringing so loud I thought my eardrums might explode.
I do not like the show Heroes, so I am not going to go watch it with my hubby.

Belly Laughs

Who would've thought that kicking plastic grocery bags could be so funny?

Laura Anne's Cross

Laura Anne was drawing on her chalkboard this morning and I heard her say, "it's a cross". So I went in her room to have a look. This is what I found:

She's also big into drawing lines. When this one turned out this particular way, she said it was "bumpety":
She's so cute, I can hardly stand it!

Trying To See That Tooth

So I was trying to get a picture of his new tooth. I think it was too small to see. But the pictures turned out cute anyway.

I could barely see it in this picture, but I think the glares on his gums make it a lot harder to see:

Tagged!

So, I was tagged by my friend, Jackie, and I'm supposed to tell you 7 weird things about myself. This was so hard, because I'm just so normal. I had to ask my hubby for help. So anyway, here goes:

7 weird things about me:

1. When I eat Frosted Mini Wheats, I turn all the pieces frosting side up before putting milk in my bowl.
2. I have a new obsession: Hoops and Yoyo.
3. My eyes are different colors. My right eye is part brown, part green. My left eye is mostly greenish blue with a few tiny tiny specks of light brown.
4. I do not like talking on the phone. I dread making phone calls to...anyone except my husband and my mom. (Okay I like talking to my family, too) :o)
5. I dip grapes in peanut butter. And speaking of peanut butter, sometimes I'll have a spoonful of peanut butter and sprinkle sugar on top. Mmm.
6. Indoor mall playgrounds disgust me. When I see one, only one word comes to mind: GERMS! Yuck.
7. According to my husband, I sing really loud when I don't think anyone's listening. (And apparently I have passed that trait on to my daughter, but she sings loud when people are listening. And, if I may add, she has a great vibrato.)

I'm tagging the following people: Allison, Tiffany, Sunny, Dawn, Aimee and Ashlee

Meet Cherry Blossom

See this cute little teddy bear? We got him from a special package of Snuggle fabric softener several months ago. I had forgotten about him on account of he was buried in the toy box. Well, Laura Anne recently discovered all the "forgotten" toys in her toy box and has since become reacquainted with all of them. Note my enthusiasm on this matter.Anyway, when I spotted this teddy bear among all the other toys strewn across her floor, I said,

"Oh, he's cute!"

Laura Anne answered, "that's a teddy bear."

Me: "What's his name?"

Laura Anne: "Cherry Blossom"

Where in the world would she come up with a name like that?! It's awful cute, though, so this little bear will forever be remembered as Cherry Blossom!

In other news, Caleb is officially teething! I first had my suspicions on Tuesday. Yesterday (Thursday) I got a glimpse of his gums and, sure enough, there's a little dent with a tiny white speck on his bottom gums! Yay! He loves his teething rings, especially when they're right from the refrigerator. It's quite impossible to get a picture of his first tooth right now. (Believe me, I've tried.) Once it cuts through the gums I'll work on getting a picture or two.

My Famous Husband

Chris recently had the priviledge of designing a CD cover for our music minister. Dan recorded a solo piano album and he asked Chris to design the label! How exciting! I'm so proud of Chris and the work he did. Dan's CD is now published and he is selling them, although they are not in stores yet. If you would like a CD, let me know. You'll love it. Dan is extremely talented. Here are pictures of Chris' work:

** Notice Chris is mentioned at the end of the list!**