Who Says Boys Don't Like a Little Bling

A couple weeks ago we took Caleb to the mall to see Santa Claus. On our way out we went through Dillard's where Caleb wanted to ride the escalator upstairs. As we were looking around Caleb spotted a pair of shoes that he insisted on trying on and I'm not really sure how but he instantly knew they lit up and nothing would do until he tried them on. I told him to take them over to his Daddy to try on :-).....

These things were blinged out to the max and lit up and sparkled all over the place and I'm sure that Caleb would have been very happy to have taken them home. The sales lady was very nice to let him play around and try them on (no, we didn't not ask her to go get his size we just tried on the display).

Janson

Yesterday was a sad day at the Winberry house as we lost our grey cat Janson. While there are a few of you that didn't know we even had a cat there are others that didn't realize we actually had two as Janson was rarely ever seen by others outside of our immediate family. Poor little guy definitely was the living definition of a scaredy cat and even though he was a part of our family for 10 years he never really warmed up to anyone except David.

We are so sad for our loss but in some ways realize it is a blessing to him as he has not been happy for some time and we were often afraid that Jordan, our tortoise colored cat, would go before him and leave him utterly and totally lost by himself.

It's very sad to think that Jordan is now the last of the 5 original, yes 5, cats that we had living with us at one time. I guess I should go back and give a little history........

In October of 2000 David's sister and her family were in town visiting us at our old house in Lowell. The kids discovered 4 kittens in one of the empty lots around our house. It appeared that they had either been abandoned by their mother or dumped off by their owner. We decided to take them in with the understanding that we would find homes for them as we did not have any intentions of keeping all of them. However, if I'm being absolutely honest we didn't try very hard and days turned into weeks, week into months and we still had them. David and I had always wanted a grey cat so something possessed us to go to the pound where we crazily decided when you have 4 cats what really is one more and this is when we made the decision to bring home a 6 week old grey kitty to join our already large heard of cats.

From the get go Janson was always a little different and while he liked our other cats well enough he was just always very scared and something was always not quite right about him. I have seriously never seen an animal so skittish. He was more of our night crawler as he didn't really come out much during the day but seemed to enjoy being out at night.

After a few months we lost Cali, our calico kitty, to a car accident; Cana, our black and white cat, was killed right as we were moving out of David's parents house into the house we are in today (we stayed with them for a while as our house in Lowell sold earlier than expected and our new house wasn't finished yet) and this left us with Jasper, our all black cat, Janson and Jordan.

One day after only being in our house for a few weeks we couldn't find Jasper so David decided to go across the street to see if our neighbors had seen him and if he might have accidentally wandered over to their house and gotten locked into their garage. David said as soon as he asked if they had seen our cat our neighbor immediately burst into tears and her husband had to come to the door to let David know she had accidentally ran over him (they didn't realize it was our cat). She later came to the house bringing flowers and apologizing through teary eyes which was so sweet and I felt just as bad for her as I did for ourselves as I know she felt horrible and this was definitely not the way either families had planned on meeting one another.

I'm sure that Jordan will be fine as she has always had a bit of spunk to her even though she was the runt of the group. Even though we didn't see Janson very much as he typically stayed out of sight I'm actually more sad than I thought I would be and hate to know that he is not out hiding in our garage some place. While he was always very scared of us he still always let us know in his own awkward way that he liked us and he will be missed.

The Crew

Cali & Janson
Cana

Janson & Jasper

Jordan
Janson

Baby It's Cold......Inside?

While some of you are wishing for a white Christmas with lots of fun billowy white snow our household is praying that the temperatures stays in the upper digits. Yesterday I started the first day of my days off until the new year so luckily I was home to discover that our downstairs heater was not working properly and didn't seem to want to kick on. At one point the display on the thermostat went blank and wouldn't even show anything and then randomly came back on. Needless to say we called someone to come take a look at it as we are hosting Christmas at our house.

While we hoped for the best the repair man told us that the blower on our downstairs heating/air unit had gone out and unfortunately they do not keep the part in stock and......wait for it..........the part will not be in until MONDAY!

The other nice piece of news was finding out the cost of a new blower, let's just say I'm very, very thankful that we took to heart the things we learned in our Financial Peace classes and that we have an emergency fund.

We are very thankful that our upstairs unit is still working but are going to have to have them come take another look at it because the pilot light keeps going out. We went and purchased a couple of space heaters, are bundling on the layers, trying to keep a positive attitude and are creating some crazy memories. So if you are reading this and are coming to our house for Christmas you better bundle up :-)

If You're Happy and You Know it Stomp Your Feet...

On our way home from lunch after church we made a quick stop by Payless to pick up a pair of shoes for Caleb. I've been meaning for a while to take him shoe shopping as I knew the shoes he has been wearing were to small for him. We weren't really in the mood for an all out shoe shopping hunt/trip so we thought we would just run in and grab something that he could play around in and would later go shoe shopping for some dress shoes, etc. I knew his shoes were a bit small but it wasn't until after we had his foot measured that we realized we had been shoving his size 9 1/2 foot into a size 8 shoe! First of all 9 1/2, really! Second, mother of the year right here, poor kid, I'm sure that hasn't been very comfortable!

We let Caleb help pick out his shoes and as he was looking around he quickly spotted a pair that there was no talking him out of.

I can't say these were even close to my first choice as I'm really not a fan of shoes with characters on them but if you could have seen how excited he was you would understand why I quickly decided it wasn't about me and that these would be finding a new home at our house. You might be thinking that it's because they have Buzz Lightyear on them but to be honest I'm still not sure that he even realizes that they have a cartoon character on them. His one and only point of focus is that they light up when you stomp them.

As soon as he saw them he told us that he wanted them and he exclaimed that they light up. I on the other hand didn't see the clearly labeled box and told him that they didn't light up. He quickly corrected me that they did when you stomp your feet, and sure enough they do.

As soon as David put them on his feet he started singing "If you're happy and you know it.....". David kept trying to get him to stomp his feet so he could see them light up but Caleb just kept singing and ignored David's request. I at first thought Caleb just wasn't obeying until I stopped to actually listen to what he was singing. I then informed David that he was waiting for the part of the song that says "stomp your feet" and sure enough he had to sing through the song and wouldn't stomp his feet and make the shoes light up until he sang "If you're happy and you know it stomp your feet" :-). (I wonder if someone had these on at church this morning)

Caleb couldn't be more happy about his new shoes and insisted on not only wearing them out of the store where he proceeded to jump around and watch himself in the reflection of the store windows but he also wore them to bed tonight. :-)

I love his excitment over his new pair of shoes and have had so much fun watching him enjoy them. They may not be my favorite pair of shoes but he couldn't be happier.

Tool Time

Tool belts are just a little overrated don't you think......

I walked into the bedroom Friday afternoon to find that Caleb had created his own tool belt.

Who Needs a Tom Tom When You Have a 3 yr Old

Since I was off today I took Caleb to meet his Nana for BSF (Bible Study Fellowship), typically she takes him so this was the first time for me to meet her at the church and I wasn't 100% where it was. Nana had given me directions so I had a general idea of where I was headed and I looked it up on Map Quest right before we left the house so I knew which street it was on. While we were driving Caleb asked if we were going to Nana and Papa's and I let him know that we weren't but that we were meeting Nana at BSF. I told him that he would have to help show me where the church was since I wasn't sure how to get there. It just so happened that we were at the part where I was a little fuzzy on the directions. Caleb matter of factly told me to 'go over the bumps' (aka the railroad tracks), after we crossed them he said 'go this way' and pointed to the left which I knew was the right way, next he said 'turn here' and pointed right but it wasn't the name of the street that I had seen on map quest so I headed up one more street to the street that was provided in the directions I looked up, all the while he is in the backseat protesting I had gone the wrong way. I later realized that the street he told me to turn on also passed by the church. As I was trying to figure out where to park I asked Caleb where does Nana usual park, as I was turning into a space he said 'right here' which is exactly where I was headed, I figured he was just saying that but a few minutes later Nana pulled up beside us. After I told her the events that had just occurred regarding Caleb giving me directions she informed me that where we parked was where they usually park and the street he directed me to turn down was actually the street they take. Crazy! Who needs GPS, all I need to do is start asking Caleb for directions :-)!

Shutterfly

Can you believe that Christmas is just right around the corner! It seriously seems like we were just wearing shorts and hunting Easter eggs and here it is time to start thinking about carrying down the boxes of Christmas decorations from the attic. While I've been super disorganized here lately and am not really sure I'm ready to start thinking about decorating for the holidays I am excited that within the next few weeks I will start finding Christmas cards from friends and family in my mailbox. It may be silly but I LOVE getting mail and especially love the holiday season when Christmas cards start coming in. I love getting to see how everyone's kids are growing up and especially enjoy those of you who are over achievers that include an annual Christmas letter with your cards. One thing that is super fun to me is seeing just how long of a chain of Christmas cards I can make.

For those of you that are a little more organized than I am right now you need to check out Shutterfly and some of the cute holiday cards ideas that they have for the season. They have some really cute card ideas to help you share some Christmas cheer and show off pictures of your family. The best thing is you don't have to fight the crowd or leave the comfort of your cozy blanket you can just put them together on-line and have them shipped directly to you. I love the picture card idea and can't wait to get busy taking pictures in order to create one of the folded Christmas cards this year. Hope you enjoy Shutterflys site and are able to find the perfect design for your Christmas cards this season.

Here are a couple of cute ideas that I'm currently thinking about using:

3 years old

Is it really possible that you are 3 today? I know that people always say that the time goes by fast but I had no idea just how quickly you would grow up. I'm so glad that I was able to take off work today and spend the day with you. I hope that today was a very special day for you and that you had as much fun as I did.

Here is a recap of our day together:


This morning we started things off with a trip to Krispy Kreme where you were able to see them make the donuts and ended up eating two donuts. You asked me for a third but I thought that two was probably plenty. You picked out a chocolate glazed donut with sprinkles and then they gave you a glazed donut for free since the "Hot Now" sign was on.

After we left Krispy Kreme I asked you what you wanted to do next and you said you wanted to go to the bookstore and play with the trains. Instead of going to the bookstore we went to Dilly Dally's where you were able to play with the train table they have set up.

Our next stop was K-Mart. I don't remember signing you up for their birthday club but evidently I did because I received an email with a coupon for $5 off a $5 toy purchase for your birthday. You had fun getting to go up and down the toy aisle in search of a birthday surprise. After talking you out of the First Act snare drum (you already have one but told me that you need 5) you decided on a car hauler. It was fun getting to see you look at all the toys and decide on which treat you wanted.

After K-Mart we headed to Wal-Mart to pick up a cake mix and stuff to make dinner. On our way there you asked if we could wash the car and since it was your day to pick what we did we stopped by Boomerang Car Wash and drove through the tunnel and washed the car.

You were a big helper in the kitchen this afternoon and helped me make your birthday cake that we enjoyed later tonight with Nana and Papa.
After Daddy got home we went to Chuck E Cheese where we cashed in your birthday coupon for 20 free tokens that we received for being part of their birthday club. You had a lot of fun running around playing and at the end of the night cashed in your tickets for 3 mini dum dum suckers.

Nana and Papa met up with us at Chuck E Cheese and afterward joined us at our house for taco soup and cake and ice cream. It's kind of funny that we started off the day with a chocolate glazed sprinkled donut and ended the day with a cake shaped and decorated like a chocolate glazed sprinkled donut.

Happy Birthday Caleb! Daddy and I love you lots and lots and hope that you have had a very special birthday. You are so full of life and energy and are such a joy and blessing to us.

Right Choices Corn Maze

Today after church we met the Keys and took a road trip to Missouri to the Right Choices Corn Maze. This was our first time to go so we weren't exactly sure what to expect.

We started out by first checking out the pumpkins.


Here the boys are trying to pick up the pumpkins.

The boys enjoyed getting to ride down the slide on potato sacks.

They also got to check out some of the animals on the farm.

It was a little warm out so the boys had to stop and get their sip on while we waited for the tractors to come back around for the hay ride.

Caleb loved the tire swing and probably would have been content riding on this for the majority of the afternoon.

I really thought Caleb's favorite event of the day would be the cow train but I was surprised when it ended up being the corn box (get it sandbox, corn box). He LOVED playing in the corn and literally threw himself into it and swam around.

At one point we looked over and he had taken off his shoes and was using it as a shovel. Definitely all boy and I have to give him props for his inventiveness.

Then he decided it wasn't enough to just have his shoes off he now needed to take off his socks.

We finally got him out of the corn box to go and take a ride on the cow train. He picked the very first cow right up front after the tractor. I asked him if he wanted to ride by himself or if he wanted Mommy or Daddy to ride with him and he said he wanted to ride by himself.

Of course no family outing would be complete without a total melt down and fit. This one occurred at the very end of the day and in case you didn't know it even corn mazes have a "time out" spot. (This picture totally cracks me up and is sadly one of my favorite. How pathetic is it that we made him set in time out at the corn maze. Hey it's all about "Right Choices" remember.)

Thanks Keys for letting us go with you!