Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails......

26 Months in the Making

2012-02-02T19:46:00.010-06:00

Surprise! If you haven't heard yet we are expecting baby #2. This is such an answered prayer as we have spent the last 26 months praying, waiting, crying, sometimes angry (yes I'll admit there was one month that I finally admitted to God that I was just angry) and learning more and more about God's timing and how He is in control even when we don't understand or always want to accept it. It has definitely been a roller coaster of emotions to say the least and we couldn't be happier that God in His great glory has blessed us with another child.

I am around 13 1/2 weeks and the pregnancy bump has made it's appearance which means I'm in that fun in between stage where your pants are getting tighter and the rubber band expander
trick is starting to not work but yet you wonder if it's too early to make the leap into the full blown world of maternity pants. I'm starting to think I may just make the full leap as maternity pants are definitely a lot more comfortable at the end of the day.

I found out on December 6 but David didn't find out until December 9 as he was in San Fransisco for work and I wanted to tell him in person vs. over the phone or via text. I couldn't wait for him to get home and decided instead of blurting it out, which is what I did when I found out I was pregnant with Caleb, I would go a different route. I remembered seeing this cute Christmas chalkboard at a local boutique and had originally (before I knew I was pregnant) talked myself out of getting it but decided this would be a cute way to share the news. Christmas decorations were already in full swing at our house so it didn't seem out of place when David came home and saw this added decor :-)

At first he didn't get it and he said when he first read it he was trying to figure out why I wanted a diaper bag but as he kept reading it sunk in what I was telling him. Needless to say he was very excited and told me he was glad I didn't tell him over the phone and thought this was a neat way to share the news.

So far Caleb seems to be happy with the news that he is going to be a big brother and much to my surprise if you ask him he will tell you he is going to have a baby sister. He is very interested as to when the baby will be here and keeps asking us how many more sleeps until she is here (no we do not know yet what we are having).

We really debated about sharing the news with our family at Christmas time since several of them were with us on Christmas day but it was just too early for us and I'm one of those crazy ones that has to hear the heartbeat first before I share the news so they had to wait until last week before they were let in on our secret.

Today I had lunch with my friend Dallas and she brought us our first baby gift. It was such a fun surprise and reminded me once again that this is for real, we are really going to be having a baby!

I give all glory to God and feel truly blessed. Thank you to all our friends and family who have shared a listening ear over the last couple of years and have lifted us up in prayer. While I often catch myself wishing that Caleb and this baby were closer in age once again I am reminded that while I may not always understand God's timing He is in control and has a plan. It was such perfect timing as this past Sunday at church the sermon spoke toward that Acts 17:26 "....... he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live". While I may have wanted this baby earlier it is God's perfect plan for us to be receiving this blessing now.

May David and I never forget this 26 month journey and all that we have learned and may we never take for granted the blessing that God has given us in the gift of two wonderful children.

God is good!!!!!

Facebook Updates

2012-01-15T15:26:00.004-06:00

I totally stole this idea from another blogger but thought it would be fun to cut and paste some of the facebook updates of funny things Caleb has said or done that more than likely never made it to my blog.

I just asked Caleb how he has so much energy. He informed me as if it was a no brainer "because I drink milk and juice". Hmmm.....maybe we should just drink water tomorrow. -Nov. 8, 2011

Caleb keeps thinking that he needs to sport some pink toe nail polish like his mom. Yesterday he took matters into his own hands and proceeded to "paint" them with a pink marker (so wish I would have taken a picture) - July 10, 2011

Sounds like I need to go rescue the cat from Caleb :-) - Jan. 21, 2010

In his little announcer voice I just heard Caleb exclaim ....."Ladies and gentleman, I'm proud to present to you the Imagination Movers" - Dec. 18, 2010

Caleb spent the night with his Nana and Papa last night while David and I had a date night out with friends. When I picked him up this morning he asked "Where is your friend Daddy?". :-)
- Dec, 18, 2010

Caleb keeps going through the house gathering things up and putting them in a box telling me "it's garbage day". He also keeps telling me that his toys are "junk" and that he needs a sack to put them in. I think someone may have watched Toy Story 3 one to many times. - Dec. 3, 2010

Oops just said "stupid" and my 3 yr old quickly reminded me I shouldn't say that and said I needed my mouth washed out with soap. He even volunteered to do it. - Nov. 21, 2010

Gingerbread House

2011-12-17T20:21:00.010-06:00

Caleb was super excited to put together the gingerbread house this year and asked to do it just a couple of days after Thanksgiving. This year the boys did most of the work while I mostly observed. I did help put the "lights" on around the trim of the house. We cheated and bought the pre-assembled house which works out so much better for impatient little helpers who don't want to wait on the house to set before decorating (who am I kidding, I don't want to wait on the house to set up and be ready either)

Of course plenty of icing was eaten during construction and a few candies ended up missing in action as they were also consumed.

Caleb really enjoyed getting to help put the decorations on by himself. Here is is deep in thought getting one of the candies ready to put on.

Silly Boy!

I think the boys did a great job and I love the little red hot hedge on the side that Caleb came up with all by himself.

Gift List

2011-12-03T09:55:00.002-06:00

We were putting the tree skirt around the Christmas tree this morning and David asked Caleb what else goes under the tree. Caleb's first response was the nativity set he was playing with. David asked him what else goes under the tree and he finally said "presents" so then we started asking him what the following people below were going to get. Here is the gift list he came up with all by himself without any help.

****Caution, Spoiler alert*****

Daddy: Glove (meaning a baseball glove)

Mommy: Bathing Suit

Grandma: Milk Crate for your bike (?????)

Pappy: Star Wars movie

Grammy: Ginger Bread House

Papa: Toy Car

Nana: Bicycle and Helmet

Caleb: Baseball Glove

Who Says You Have to Pick One Costume

2011-11-08T18:45:00.014-06:00

If you ask me what Caleb was this year for Halloween I would have to say an Imagination Mover/Fireman/Spiderman as he couldn't pick just one costume and instead picked three.

1st Costume:

I really thought I had at least one more year to get to pick Caleb's Halloween costume and that next year would be the year that he would start getting to choose his own costume but I guess I was wrong. I really wanted him to be an Imagination Mover (this is one of the kid's shows he likes to watch) but he evidently had other plans. When I asked him about wearing his Imagination Movers outfit that we had purchased earlier in the year when we saw them at the Walton Art Center he informed me that this year he was going to be Spiderman and that he would be an Imagination Mover next year. Where did that come from?! Luckily we already had a Spiderman costume that someone had given us last year. I thought about forcing him to be an Imagination Mover but I decided I needed to let go of this decision and let him decide so I was really surprised when he informed me that he was going to be an Imagination Mover for trick or treating at David's office. He had told me leading up to that day that he was going to be Spiderman. I thought he looked super cute and was so glad he made the decision to wear it (ok maybe I asked several times leading up to the event if he would wear it but he was always persistent that he was going to be Spiderman).

He looked so big strutting around the ISD building at David's work collecting candy. He did a great job of saying thank you and was very polite and would only take one or two pieces of candy even though you often thought by the way he would kneel down by the candy bucket like he was going to dive in and grab a whole handful but always just took one or two pieces.

He loved getting to hang out in his Daddy's office and naturally had to get up to the computer and do some "work". He also had fun writing and erasing things on the white board. We had a great time and Caleb enjoyed a train ride in the parking lot, playing in the bouncy houses, going down the huge inflatable slide, eating corn dogs and funnel cake and drinking lemonade. The lines were crazy long but I'm so glad we went.

2nd Costume:

I don't have any pictures but for Caleb's "school" party he decided to be a fireman. This was last year's costume and for a short time he wanted to be this again this Halloween but I told him he had to pick something else for Halloween night.

3rd Costume:

Caleb was super excited about Halloween and was really excited to get to go trick or treating with Gavin. This is our third year to go trick or treating with the Pitts and Baileys. They were so sweet a few years a go to let us invade on their tradition and we love it. Caleb held to his decision of being Spiderman and wore his costume with great pride. I was surprised that he actually wore his mask for the majority of the night. He cracked us up by running to each house as if he was afraid that they might run out of candy before he got there. He has been on a gum fascination lately and the first few houses he kept asking if they had any gum. He probably would have asked every house this but we told him not to ask and to politely take what they gave him.

He had a ton of fun and enjoyed passing out candy to the trick or treaters just as much as collecting candy. So glad that he enjoyed Halloween this year to the fullest.

What I Love About Fall!

2011-09-09T10:16:00.002-05:00

In no particular order......

Razorback football
Opening up the windows in the house and letting some fresh air in
Soups and Chili
Carmel Apple hand soap from Bath and Body Works
Craft Fairs
Celebrating Caleb's birthday
Celebrating friends and family members birthdays
Pumpkin Spice muffins
Fall decorations
Pumpkins, Pumpkins and PUMPKINS (LOVE THEM!)
Mums
Grilling out
Planning Halloween costumes
The leaves changing colors
Halloween and Thanksgiving

Go Hogs!

2011-09-03T21:12:00.004-05:00

We are very excited that Razorback football season is finally here! While David was working at the game tonight Caleb and I ventured off to a local boutique and lucked out on them handing out these super cute Razorback cupcakes. How cute are these!

"School"

2011-08-29T19:18:00.024-05:00

Today was Caleb's first day at "school" (aka Kid's Day Out). He has been really excited about getting to go and based upon our conversations today it sounds like he had a good time.

As soon as he got out of the car he was on a mission to get to his classroom. He did a great job of just walking right into the building and down the hallway toward his classroom. He was a little shy when he gave his teachers their gift but he did it all by himself without me having to coax him.

Here he is showing his teacher where his cubby is for his lunch box. It was so cute watching him put his things away but made me a little said to see how he is growing up.

When we went for Orientation last week Caleb kept walking around the room taking it all in (aka looking for the toys ). I was waiting for it......he came up and asked me "where are the toys" :-). I reminded him that this was "school" and he wouldn't get to play the whole time. Today when we came into his classroom the teacher was getting some blocks, cars, etc out of the closet. Caleb got so excited and said "there they are!". He quickly settled in to playing and I guess was ready for us to go.

He evidently did not take a nap during rest time and quickly fell asleep on our way home.

I did really well and only got a little teary eyed when I was telling him bye and letting him know we would be back to pick him up later. I'm so proud of him and am so glad he had a great first day!

**********************

Here are a few more pictures that remind me just how much he is growing up. Tonight while I was getting dinner ready he came in to watch me peel potatoes and asked if he could help. I helped him do part of one potato and then gave him the peeler (I use a carrot peeler instead of a knife) and his own potato to work on. He really liked getting to help and commented on how he was helping me make dinner.

I think he did a really good job peeling his first potato without any help.

GNO

2011-08-28T22:53:00.007-05:00

Just got back from GNO at Crosschurch with Anita Renfroe and Mandisa! This was just what I needed, it was a great evening of fellowship, laughter, some tears and praise. So glad I got to spend tonight with 3 of my peeps.

4th of July

2011-07-07T10:11:00.019-05:00

We had a great 4th of July and I'll have to say I'm a little sad that it is over and it is time to start putting up all of the red, white and blue decor.

I started off the 4th by making some treats and fixing up a little gift sack of them to take over to our new neighbors that I had yet to welcome to the neighborhood.

Earlier in the week I put together some little treat bags for Caleb to give his friends that came over that afternoon. I found these little sacks in the dollare bin at Target and couldn't resist buying them and figuring out some little fun way to use them. I seriously wanted to buy more of them for future use but refrained (still kicking myself a little for that decision).

I loved this little dragon fly that decided to join our party.

We were so glad to have the Henderson and Walkers over to help us celebrate the 4th (sorry no picture of the Walkers). It was so good to get to hang out and just enjoy some time together. Caleb was so glad to get to see his friends.

I love this super cute cake that Dallas made. I had seen this on a blog but didn't even want to attempt making it so I was so glad to find out Dallas made one. It was so fun getting to cut into and reveal the fun surprise of a flag inside. Love the fun and festive touch it added to the day.

The kids (including us big kids at heart) had a lot of fun with all of the fireworks. We started things off with some poppers, party pops, smoke balls and some other fun day time fireworks before it started getting dark.

I wonder if Papa has already started working on football drills with Caleb (ha). Every time Caleb would run into the smoke he would drop his shoulder like he was tackling someone.

Once it started getting dark we moved the patio furniture and headed out to the front of the house to enjoy the fireworks show. It was a great night to be out and was fun getting to see all the different fireworks that were going off on our street and in the surrounding neighborhoods.

I think it was a good time had by all and am so glad that we are blessed with some great friends.

Red, White and Blue

2011-06-30T09:29:00.039-05:00

I'm not sure why but I have really been into the 4th of July this year. Typically it isn't a holiday that I decorate for outside of a few flags but this year I decided to pull out some red, white and blue.

I thought I would be a little crafty and turned some toilet paper rolls into firecrackers. Cheesy.....maybe but I think they are fun.

I've had this little candle holder for a while and it's been one of the few things that I do put out each year. I decided to dress it up a little this year and added some ribbon.

I also decided to make a wreath for the front door this year. I toyed around with making a few firecrackers and adding to the wreath but decided not to, who knows I may change it up a little next year and add some.

I found these little flags in the dollar bins at Target for 3/$1.00. I love that aisle and always have to stop and check it out.

I didn't get a picture of it but I love how every year our POA purchases flags and puts one by the sidewalk in front of each persons house in the neighborhood. It's always a nice little surprise to wake up one morning and there they are. I love the very first day they put them out because they are lined up down the streets and just seem to give a sense of pride.

Good Times!

2011-06-27T22:04:00.029-05:00

Wow, I just downloaded 399 pictures off our camera so to say I have some catching up to do is a bit of an understatement. So let's get started with our super great weekend with friends......

This past Saturday we helped celebrate our friends little boy's 1st birthday. I can't say enough about how cute his party was. My friend Kimberley did an extra special job putting his party together. Here are some pics of all the fun.

Levi with his cake
Love all the things that Kimberley made for the party (I hate I forgot to get a picture of the cute balloon wreath on the front door)

Each of the kids got to take home one of these fun freezer mugs

Kate being silly eating her skittles

the boys being boys

The birthday boy and his mama

David sitting in for John in the Pittman's family photo (this cracked us up)

The kiddos also had a great time playing with the toys inside.

It was a perfect night to just hang out outside. The kids enjoyed trying to catch fireflies and even were able to capture a little frog. We had so much fun hanging out with our friends on Saturday that we ended up getting together again Sunday night. Hey, we didn't want them to have to eat all of those left over cupcakes by themselves. Thanks Keys and Pittmans for a great weekend!

All Things Valentine

2011-02-14T20:28:00.037-06:00

I'm so glad that I decided to take the day off and was able to spend the day with Caleb. We had a great day together!

In preparation for today Caleb and I made some Valentine treats yesterday. Caleb helped me mix the batter up for the cupcakes and put the sprinkles on.

Leading up to Valentine's day Caleb and I made a couple of Valentine cards and some decorations to hang up in the kitchen. I also picked up a package of window clings that he enjoyed putting on the canisters in our kitchen. This year I decided to get a little crazy and make a wreath for the front door. I love the way it turned out! I hate that I used my good Christmas wreath as a base because I really don't want to take it apart and wish I would have used one of my cheaper wreaths. Not sure what I was thinking other than this one was easy to get to.

Before starting our days deliveries today we started our morning off by going through the McDonald's drive through and picking up a couple of breakfast burritos. I decided it would be fun to pay it forward and purchased breakfast for the lady in the car behind us and had the cashier tell her Happy Valentine's Day. It was fun seeing her reaction and was fun shedding a little Valentine's Day cheer.

After McDonald's we headed out on our route of morning deliveries. First we surprised my Mom at work and took her and the ladies she works with some Valentine goodies.

Next we made a detour at a store close by my Mom's work. I always refer to stores where Caleb needs to keep his hands in his pockets and not touch things as a "mommy store" so before we went in I reminded Caleb this was a "mommy store" and he wasn't suppose to touch anything. He did a great job and told me "this is a beautiful mommy store" and wanted to know if we were going to give the lady working there a Valentine :-).

Next up on our deliveries was Nana and Papa's house. We almost missed Nana as she was pulling out of the drive as we were coming up the street but she saw us and turned around so we were able to give her and Papa their surprises. Nana and Papa surprised Caleb with a card and gave David and I a card that Caleb had helped Nana make.

After our morning deliveries we picked up a couple of free tacos from Taco Bell (I had coupons) and headed to the house to have lunch and take a break. After a little rest time (no nap though) we went to run an errand and decided to go see "Gnomeo and Juliet". Caleb seemed to really enjoy it and laughed out loud several different times. (this is the third movie he has seen at the theater)

After David got home we delivered some cupcakes to Caleb's friend across the street and then headed to Mimi's for dinner. All in all a great day and I'm so glad that I have two great Valentine's to share the day with!

Snow, Snow and More Snow

2011-02-13T21:56:00.042-06:00

To say we have received some snow recently would be a bit of an understatement as we have received a TON of snow!

(these icicles aren't from the last big snow we received but were from the week before this last snow)

While I think a lot of people are tired of all the snow and experienced a bit of cabin fever I personally have loved it and say if it's going to snow it might as well dump on us like it did this past week.

David and I have been fortunate to be able to work from home some and set up our home office in the kitchen while Caleb got run of the house and got to watch a lot of tv in effort to keep him occupied while we worked.

I don't know what it is but there is nothing quite like a snow day and we have enjoyed our time together.

We enjoyed some yummy food like taco soup.....

potato soup......

and made snow ice cream for the first time. My mom says that I have had it before but I don't recall eating it. This was the first time that Caleb has had it and it appeared to be a hit and will definitely be something we do again.

We had a great time getting out and playing in the snow and even got a little exercise shoveling some of our driveway. Caleb loved being outside and I think ate his weight in snow.

We also took in some time to enjoy a nap or two.

I took lunch upstairs to David and Caleb one day and asked David where Caleb was and he said he was playing a racing game (he loves watching the cars crash). When I went around the couch to let him know I had brought lunch up this is how I found him....

Yesterday the boys got out and made a snowman together. Caleb was really excited to find out they were going to build a snowman but I think David ended up being the one that put it together while Caleb hung out and supervised. Unfortunately by the end of the day our snowman was already leaning sideways as the temperatures had started warming up.

While the snow has been great I will admit I'm now ready for Spring and can't wait for some warmer temperatures.

Snow Day Mess Fun!

2011-01-23T21:19:00.034-06:00

I was excited Thursday morning to wake up to find that we had snow on the ground and that it was also still snowing. I was even more excited to know that it was one of my days off and I didn't have to worry about whether or not the roads were safe to drive on.

Caleb and I spent most of the day inside but we did take a few minutes late in the afternoon to bundle up and play in the snow. He enjoyed using his little shovel to dig in the snow and had fun making snow angels. The first thing he asked for when we got outside was for an icicle.

After lazing around the first part of the morning I decided it was time to turn off the tv and get out some paints. Caleb loves playing with paint and this day was no different. I asked him if he wanted to use a paint brush or if he wanted to use some leftover spaghetti noodles that we had from the night before as a paint brush. (this was something we did at one of our Mommy and Me outings). He had a lot of fun squishing the paint and noodles in his hands.

I told him to show me his hands and told him he looked like one of the men off of the Blue Man Group (he LOVES watching YouTube videos of the Blue Man Group on the computer). He immediately wanted to know how he could make his head blue and while I had my back turned proceeded to begin to run his hand in his hair, luckily I caught him doing this before there was too much paint on his head. I'm glad I decided to take his shirt off of him because he ended up with a bit of paint on him. The clean up however was easy as I just put him in the shower for the 2nd shower that morning.

Voila! The final masterpiece.

For our next craft project we proceeded to make colored ice stepping stones. I found this idea off of a link on The Crafty Crow. Caleb did a really good job pouring the water without any help and only got a little bit on the cookie sheet that we were using.

We decided to use paint vs. food coloring so that the color would stand out more.

He chose the colors himself and while stirring the pink told me "that's like Elyn's birthday party" :-)

After the colors were all mixed up we put them outside to let them freeze. I explained to him that they would have to stay out all night and that in the morning we would go out to check on them to see if they had changed to ice.

Friday morning we went outside and took our colored ice out of the bowls and put them in the snow.

Caleb got his pants a little wet while we were doing this so I had him take off his pants and shoes and afterwards went out to take a picture of our colored ice stepping stones. When I returned inside I found this....... :-)

He reminds me of cousin Eddie off of Christmas Vacation. Caleb insisted on going outside in his new outfit. Needless to say he didn't stay out too long before he told me he was cold.

Words of Advice

2011-01-08T08:33:00.002-06:00

The other day I went to go potty and from the other room I hear Caleb say "Mommy, don't pee pee on your hands". Uh.....pretty sure I wasn't planning on it but I appreciate the reminder :-).

Who Says Boys Don't Like a Little Bling

2010-12-29T22:09:00.006-06:00

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

2010-12-28T18:15:00.028-06:00

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?

2010-12-23T07:28:00.006-06:00

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...

2010-12-05T22:01:00.009-06:00

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

2010-11-24T22:15:00.004-06:00

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

2010-11-23T21:47:00.008-06:00

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

2010-11-17T20:24:00.017-06:00

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

2010-11-10T21:57:00.028-06:00

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

2010-10-17T21:20:00.028-05:00

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!

The Little Gym

2010-08-26T21:14:00.028-05:00

Today was Caleb's first official day in the Super Beasts class at The Little Gym! He has gone to The Little Gym before for a couple of other activities but this was his first day in class outside of the intro class we went to before we signed up. I had a little chat with him before we went about how he needed to listen to the teacher and that he wasn't going there to just play but that he was going to class. I'm not really sure he totally absorbed the whole listen to your teacher part but he evidently caught part of my speech because when David asked him how it went today Caleb responded by telling him that it was not play it was class.

He did a great job through the opening activities but there was really no gaining control once the teacher released him from the red mat to learn and practice some of the gymnastic exercises on his own. Overall he really enjoyed the class and I was very proud that he put up the shakers and balls when the teacher asked, although he was a little shy about it he told the class his name and my name when it was his turn, he participated in the activities with the parachute, for the most part did the warm up activities at the beginning of class and he at least tried 2 out of the 3 gymnastic activities when the teacher called and asked him to come over where the rest of the class was. I guess I'll cut him some slack on how he just ran around the last half of class since it was his first day and this is the first class of any kind that we have enrolled him in but I'm hoping that things get better as the weeks go on and the excitement of all the distractions in the room wear off (crossing my fingers really, really hard).

Here are a few pics from his first day in class:

-Playing with the toys before class starts-

-Practicing his forward roll

-Catching bubbles in one of the closing activities

Potty Training - Day 3

2010-07-31T20:54:00.008-05:00

I'm happy to announce our third and final day of House Arrest (aka potty training) is over. Shhhh...don't tell anyone but we technically broke free around 5:30pm and went to the neighborhood pool for a little while.

It honestly wasn't all that bad as David and I did a little tag teaming and I was able to get out of the house a couple of times. Caleb did great today, he had one poop accident tonight but other than that he as either told us when he needed to go potty or just simply went to the bathroom and took care of things all by himself.

One final story and then I promise to be done with giving potty updates.....last night Caleb was having trouble going to bed. Around 11:00pm I hear something and figure he is probably gathering up his blankets in attempt to sneak into our room and sleep in the floor. I decide to get up and check on him and am surprised to see the bathroom light on in the hall. I think surely not but yes this little guy has gotten up out of bed, gone into the bathroom and went to the potty all by himself. I think surely he must have wet the bed but was in disbelief when he said he was all dry and there wasn't even a drop in his underwear. Yahoo! Believe me I realize we will still have some accidents and I know that there will be nights when he might accidentally wet the bed but I think we have had a very successful 3 days and am so completely proud of Caleb. He has been so cute...at various times when David and I were telling him good job or would be letting him know how proud we are of him he would tell us thanks. Love, love, love him to pieces. Wish us luck tomorrow at church that we make it through with no accidents.

Here are a few pics of our "big boy" in his new underwear.

Potty Training - Day 2

2010-07-30T21:43:00.006-05:00

We have successfully completed our second day of potty training with flying colors! I am absolutely so proud of Caleb! He was dry when he woke up this morning, has had 4 successful trips to the potty where he told us he needed to go, 1 successful pee pee in the yard that he handled all by himself (I'll share that story in a minute), 1 successful pee pee right before bedtime that we initiated and only 1 poop accident.

With the 3 day potty training method we are following you are suppose to be glued to their side for 3 full days giving praise, encouragement, and reminders without actually telling them to go potty. It's all about trying to empower them to read their own body signs and know when they need to go. Now of course if you see them start going or if they are doing some serious pee pee dance don't just stand their get them to the bathroom as fast as you can.

Since Caleb had done so well today I decided to deviate from the manual and give him a little slack and let him play by himself for a few minutes while I finished up dinner before David got home. I so wish I would have grabbed my camera before rushing outside because the scene I saw outside my kitchen window was priceless. As I'm getting something out of the refrigerator I turn to look out the window and check on Caleb only to be greeted by a little white bottom "mooning" me and a little boy successfully pee peeing in the yard. I rushed outside to see if he needs help and ask him if needs new underwear only to be told "no, I pee pee in the grass" and am imformed that his underwear are all clean/dry. Huge successes as far as I'm concerned. He didn't bother to come get me he just dropped his drawers and took care of business without pee peeing any in his underwear. Yeah Caleb!

Potty Training - Day 1

2010-07-29T21:27:00.010-05:00

Day 1 of potty training has finally coming to an end. I think I can safely speak for Caleb that we are both tired of hearing statements like "Tell Mommy if you need to go potty", "Don't forget to go potty", "Is Buzz Lightyear, Wall-E, etc still dry".

There was a slight protest this morning when I told Caleb we were going to throw his diapers away and explained he was a big boy and that he no longer needed them. I'm not really sure that he was actually upset about throwing them away so much as he just didn't want to be bothered at the moment because he wanted to go and watch cartoons. He quickly got over it as I kept telling him we needed to find all of his diapers and throw them away and kept making statement like "Your a big boy and we don't need them anymore". He actually LOVED throwing them away and even volunteered that he didn't need them because he wears underwear. I am very happy to report that so far he hasn't asked once for a diapter, evan after an accident he would just tell me that he needed some clean underwear.

(Don't worry this frugal mom didn't actually throw the diapers away. We just went through the actions and put the trash bag in the garage where it was later retrieved and hid away in hopes for the next kiddo.)

This kid has been a camel today! We took him to potty after he first woke up this morning and he didn't pee again until around 12:15. He had 2 incidents where he started to pee before he told me he needed to go potty but he quit both times and finished on the potty. We had one poop accident and a huge success at dinner time where while he was eating without being prompted he told us he needed to go pee pee and waited until he got to the bathroom.

I've been very proud of him and am hoping tomorrow goes well. I'm very encouraged that he is excited about wearing his underwear and am glad that he hasn't asked once about his diapers. I've actually been a little surprised......we actually bought his big boy underwear while we were all out shopping Saturday night and had him pick out a couple of the packages. That night while he was getting ready for bed he wanted to wear them so we went ahead and let him sleep in them since he is usually dry through out the night and we just made sure to take him to the bathroom as soon as he woke up. Since Saturday night he has actually gone in and put them on a couple more times after he has come home from Nana and Papa's and has wore them to sleep a couple other nights this week. We just waited until today to officially start our full day in underwear since I'm off the rest of the week.

Here's hoping to a successful day tomorrow and no accidents tonight while he sleeps!

House Arrest

2010-07-29T00:55:00.019-05:00

I apologize ahead of time if I do not respond to your email, text message or phone call over the next 3 days it is because we are in a self inflicted, full blown lock down at the Winberry house where a watchful eye will be glued to Caleb reminding him "tell Mommy/Daddy if you need to go potty".

Ready or not operation House Arrest aka Potty Training has begun!

Let's run through the check list and see if we have everything....

1. The "3 Day Potty Training" manual (thanks Kimberley for letting us borrow it).....CHECK!

2. A trash can where Caleb will tell his diapers goodbye forever (cross my fingers really hard).......CHECK!

3. Options for disposing properly of all pee and poop.....CHECK!

4. Multiple pairs of big boy underwear.....CHECK!

5. Various beverages to choose from in effort to create more opportunities to run to the bathroom......CHECK!

6. Treats and Rewards for positive reinforcement......CHECK!

7. Treats for the Mommy for having to clean up any accidents and as a reward for staying calm for the next 3 days.....CHECK!

8. A willing participant.....hmmmm I'll get back with you on this one.

Little Helper

2010-07-23T10:15:00.008-05:00

Caleb is being quite the little helper this morning. I asked him to take his toys and blankets back to his room and without any argument he put his things up. He was a little concerned whether or not I was going to pick up my things but after assuring him I would he sprang into action.

I later asked him to get the vacuum out for me and without any hesitation he went to the hall closet, got out the vacuum, brought it to the living room and then came into the bedroom where I was at and let me know he had gotten it out for me. He then told me "Caleb first" so I decided to go ahead and let him try a turn at vacuuming. I'm starting to think he would have kept doing it all morning if I hadn't stepped in and asked to help him finish.

Movie Time

2010-07-11T21:45:00.024-05:00

What a great day today has been! A great time of praise and worship, lunch with friends, our traditional Sunday afternoon nap and then finished off with taking Caleb to see his first movie at the movie theater.

I'll admit I was a bit nervous how our trip to see Toy Story 3 would turn out as our little guy doesn't exactly have the longest attention span but he did great and I think ate his weight in popcorn.

He seemed to be excited about what lay in store for him and kept asking me "they going to catch the truck" and talking about a rocket which I didn't quite understand until David told me he was referring to the original Toy Story. I was surprised he even remembered that scene since he has only seen Toy Story 1 or 2 times.

Caleb was very busy as we arrived at the theater and had to check out the fountain inside.....

.....the arcade room where he had to touch/play with all of the different games

.....and concluded with examining the candy case at the concession stand.

We were very cheesy and took several pictures of Caleb's first time at the movies before the show actually started. I'm sure our friend Greg that went with us thought we were a bit silly but luckily there was another family in front of us doing the same thing with their kids so we took turns taking group pictures for each other.

Caleb loaded up on popcorn, candy and juice. There was really only one section toward the end of the movie when he got a bit restless. Like any good mother I simply reminded him he needed to stay in his seat and quickly offered him more sweet tarts.

There were a few times during the movie that I was afraid that he might get a little scared. The little boy in front of us got scared and once even cried and I was anxiously waiting to see if Caleb would follow suit but he held strong. Toward the very end of the movie he did get a little nervous in the scene where the toys are being pulled in the trash toward the fire at the dump but he just looked at me and said "They going to be OK?" (how sweet is that).

He really seemed to have a good time and made us so proud of how good he acted. He seemed so big sitting in his own chair watching the movie and at the end said "It's over" and clapped.

All Aboard!

2010-06-12T22:17:00.015-05:00

My Dad called earlier in the week and asked if we had plans this morning and if not would we mind if he and Jacque picked Caleb up for a few hours to hang out with them. They had a couple errands to run in downtown Rogers and thought they would let him go with them and then maybe go play or something. They couldn't have timed things better because as it turned out downtown Rogers was having their farmers market and had a little train that the kids could ride for FREE! Caleb loved it and needless to say had to ride it 3 or 4 times. My Dad said that Caleb had a ball and wanted to ride the train over and over again and didn't want to stop when it was time to go.

Pappy and Grammy were great troopers and each took a turn riding with him. Caleb was very excited getting to look at the pictures that Grammy emailed us and tonight told my Mom on the phone about getting to see the "little train" and the "big train" today.

Thanks Pappy and Grammy for the great morning and for meeting David and I for lunch when you dropped off Caleb!

Caleb checking out the BIG train

Grammy taking a ride on the little train with Caleb

Pappy's turn on the train

Bread Crumb Blessings

2010-05-29T00:23:00.008-05:00

Dear Lord,

Thank you for the stale bread crumbs that are in our bed right now. While this may sound silly and while yes they are a bit scratchy they bring a smile to my face as I remember the little boy that was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in our bed just a few hours ago as he sat and watched Imagination Movers. Thank you so much for our little boy and all that you have blessed us with. Amen

Rainy Day

2010-05-14T20:45:00.042-05:00

I love a good rainy day every now and then and I think Caleb also didn't mind waking up to another day of showers. We recently had some french drains installed in our yard in attempt to hopefully solve some of our water drainage issues. Since it was coming down pretty good David decided to come home from work for a few minutes just to check and see if the drains were working properly, make sure the pop ups were doing what they were suppose to and see exactly where any water might be pooling. Caleb didn't want to miss out on any of the fun so we put his "mud boots" on as he calls them and let him spend some time splashing around outside. He loved it and couldn't have been happier with the start of his day.

After lunch I decided to get out the paints since it had been a while since we had played with them. Caleb loves it when we get them out but thinks every time we do he needs to paint his hand. Today was no different as he applied paint all over them and then tried to stamp them on the paper. He also insisted that he have some pink colored paint. I resisted at first before finally giving in and let him have just a little bit (ha, ha).

No rainy day would be complete without a nap so after we finished painting we piled up into my bed where we both proceeded to catch a little shut eye. After a few hours I finally had to go in and wake Caleb up. He resisted at first until I whispered in his ear and asked if he would like some popcorn. This seemed to do the trick as he immediately came to life from a dead sleep and smiled and said "Yes".

All in all it was a great day, too bad bedtime was a totally different story. I think I started trying to put him down around 8:30pm and after getting up several times I think ,fingers crossed super tight, that he might have finally decided to give up and go to sleep (it's currently close to 10:00pm).

Remind Me Again Why We Bought You a Bed

2010-05-11T22:53:00.010-05:00

Caleb is currently going through what I hope and assume is just a phase where he keeps getting out of bed and coming into our room at night and wants to get in bed with us. Call me mean but this is a habit that I didn't really want to get started and had said, prior to having kids of course, that I was not going to let him sleep with us. While I still for the most part stand behind this prior conviction I will admit I have caved and allowed him to crawl up in bed with us some nights and hide behind the excuse that there will be a day when he will not be this small and will not want to snuggle with his momma. Caleb has so figured this out and the nights that he does come into our room he typically comes over to my side of the bed. He cracks me up because he doesn't say a word he just starts climbing up in bed, in fact he typically will not even respond if you talk to him as if he is thinks he is invisible and can only be seen if he says something.

This new phase isn't necessarily a nightly occurrence but I'll admit it is happening a little more frequent than I would prefer. When he does come into our room and it was one of the actual times when we do let him in bed with us we only let him stay for a little while or until he falls back to sleep and then we carry him back to his room. This is partly because we don't want this to become any more of a habit than it already is and secondly because the poor kid typically tosses and turns and never gets truly settled.

As I mentioned we do not always let him get in bed with us and will often take him back to his room and tuck him back in and remind him that he needs to stay in his bed. Some nights we have had to do this a couple of times. Last Monday night was no exception as he kept coming into our room and we kept putting him back to bed. I guess he finally decided he would compromise and at some point snuck back into our room complete with his pillow and blanket only for us to find this the following morning (May 4)....

....break my heart, he just wanted to be close to his momma and dada even if it meant having to sleep in the floor. Last night we stood firm and did not let him get in bed with us so he once again thought he would sneak back in and just sleep in the floor. We actually heard him this time and David took him back to bed. He however turned on his stealth mode and sometime within the night snuck back in only for us to find him this morning asleep again in the doorway of our room.

Now for those of you that are starting to judge and think we are totally mean parents we did let him get in bed with us Sunday night as he woke up scared from all the thunder and lightening. I heard him crying and got up and met him as he was headed to our room. I then put him in bed with us and snuggled until the storms passed through and after he fell back to sleep put him back to his bed where he slept the rest of the night.

I'm a Mom

2010-05-09T22:14:00.012-05:00

Today was one of those days that I was just in awe at the fact that I have a little guy calling me mom/mommy/mama and yes sometimes even Melody. There are days that I just look at him and can't believe that I'm looking at my little boy and that I am actually a mom. It was the sweetest little thing as David brought him over to me this morning while I was getting ready for church and I heard Caleb tell me "Happy Mother's Day", awe melt my heart. Later in the day Caleb surprised me with a gift certificate to get a pedicure. He definitely knew what mommy needed!

It has been such a blessing today to get to celebrate Mother's Day with my two very special guys, my Mom and David's parents. We continued in our tradition this year and had them all up for lunch after church along with my little brother. It was great to all spend the afternoon together. My mom asked if there was anything that she could bring up and I said just flowers from my grandma's yard. She delivered in a big way and ended up bringing me enough for three vases of flowers. They smell great and it was nice to reminisce with my Mom about the memories of the flowers at my Grandma's house. God is good!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

2010-05-02T22:34:00.010-05:00

Today after church Caleb got to attend his first Razorback baseball game! David told him on Friday that we were going to go to the game and that Pappy (my Dad) and Papa (David's Dad) were also going to be there. He has asked us about it ever since but keeps asking us about going to the football game. When he woke up this morning he came into our room while we were getting ready for church and asked if we were going to the football game. While he has had his sports a little mixed up he has been very excited all the same.

When we arrived at the game he kept asking about Papa and at one point as we were walking toward the stadium started yelling "Papa where are you".

He actually lasted longer than I thought before he got too restless. I can't say he actually watched very much of the game but one thing that he definitely paid attention to was the guy that shot t-shirts out of launcher up into the crowd. This seems to be the one event of the game that made an impression and he has talked about it periodically ever since we got home. While the Hogs didn't exactly play the greatest it was still a great afternoon. Caleb had fun playing with the folding seats, watching the game for a few minutes, getting his picture made with Big Red and walking around the stadium once with his Pappy and another time with his Papa.

First Day of Spring?!

2010-03-20T22:01:00.006-05:00

Wow, is it really the 1st day of Spring! After lunch today Caleb and I decided to go and see my Mom and Dad in Winslow. David called me at my Mom's to let me know it had started snowing at home but he said that it wasn't sticking to the roads so Caleb and I decided to stay a little longer and then headed over to my Dad's around 4:30. When we got to my Dad's it was still just raining so we thought we would stay and hang out for a little while. Around 5:30 it finally started snowing in Winslow so Caleb and I decided it was probably time to load up and head for the house. I really didn't think the roads seemed all that bad, just slushy, but before we got to Greenland I had already seen 6 accidents/cars in the ditch. I called David to find out if we needed to turn around and stay the night with my Dad but he said the roads at home were fine so we decided to just take it slow and keep heading home. It was the craziest thing ever as I really didn't think the roads were all that bad so we just took it easy going home but by the time we got to Springdale I had seen a total of 14 incidents of either accidents or people who had slid off the road. After Springdale we didn't see any more wrecks and made it home just fine. Crraaazzzinesss!!!!

David bundled Caleb up after we got home and they had fun playing in the backyard for a little while before it got dark. Happy 1st day of Spring!

Busy Day

2010-03-19T22:04:00.014-05:00

We had a great day today and were so glad to get out in the sunshine for a little while. We started off our day with getting Caleb's Easter pictures taken. This year he got to have a few pictures taken with a lamb and some with a black and white bunny. In order to get him warmed up to the idea of the lamb I let him go back and look at one of them while it's brother was busy getting it's picture taken with another family. Caleb wasn't sure at first about the lamb and especially didn't like it when it's starting baaing. He eventually finally pet it but he told me "lamb, scary". Luckily the one he got his picture made with just sat there and didn't make any noise but if it moved it's head in Caleb's direction Caleb would tell the lamb "don't eat my jeans". After a few attempts of getting the perfect pose with the lamb we moved on to taking a couple of pictures with the bunny. Caleb was a bit more at ease with the bunny and even told the bunny "eat my shirt" and would hold his shirt out trying to get the bunny to take hold. I think the animals were a bit easier to coral than Caleb as he was more interested in running around the room. We finally called it a wrap and ended up with at least a couple decent pictures to choose from.

David ended up meeting us for part of the pictures so we went to the Wal-Mart Associate Store afterward and also got to all have lunch together.

Since it was so nice outside Caleb and I went and played at the park for a little while before going home to take an afternoon nap. I had packed some extra clothes in the car so he was able to get out of his Easter clothes before hitting the slide. Caleb had a great time at the park and did not want to leave when it was time to go home. I told him that we might go back after David got home and he definitely didn't forget because it was the first thing he asked about when he woke up from his nap.

So as soon as David got home we came good on our promise and headed back to the park. Caleb loved running around and had the park all to himself. He is getting very brave going down the slide and has started going down head first and tonight decided to go down head first but laying on his back. We ended the evening by going to Las Fajitas where Caleb devoured some chips and cheese dip and then we all went to Dairy Queen for blizzards.

I'm loving the sunshine and had a great day with my little guy today and just can't get over how big he is getting!

Sorry, I had to bring it up again....

2010-02-16T18:49:00.004-06:00

I know I have mentioned Swagbucks before but I thought it was worth bringing up again as I just cashed in for my sixth $5 Amazon Gift card. That's $30 free bucks to utilize on amazon.com!

If your interested it's completely free and you earn points called Swagbucks for doing simple things like your normal online searches. You can then redeem them for things like gift cards or prizes. Here are a few examples of some of the gift cards you can earn:

$5 Amazon Gift Card (45 swagbucks)
$10 Starbucks Gift Card (130 swagbucks)
$15 iTunes Gift Card ( 185 swagbucks)

Click here to sign up. You will get 3 swagbucks just for signing up! Make sure you use Swagbucks once or twice a day in order to earn the most in the shortest amount of time.

Snuggles

2010-02-08T20:46:00.010-06:00

Tonight Caleb pulled out the one stall tactic that he knows will work every time. David was trying to get him rounded up to go to bed and Caleb comes running over to me on the couch and climbs up and says "snuggles". Every time that David would tell him it was time to go to bed he would just say "snuggle" and would hug up closer to me. He so knows how to work the system but I don't mind being used if it means some extra snuggle time with my little guy.

From the Mouth of Caleb

2010-02-04T19:41:00.021-06:00

Caleb totally cracks us up sometimes. I love how he is putting more and more sentences together and can carry on a little conversation with you, or just himself for that matter. My Mom is always telling me that I should be writing down some of the things he says and she's right because I definitely won't remember all of the little random sayings later. I really just need to put a tape recorder in the car to capture some the random babbling and singing he does on the way home from Nana and Papa's when I pick him up after work.

Here are a couple of his thoughts from today:

Caleb: "Hold me"
Me: "I'm cleaning right now"
Caleb: "I know" (in a very exasperated tone)

If that doesn't make you feel guilty so that you stop and pick him up and give him a little squeeze.

*************************************
While we were watching American Idol tonight (we are catching up on shows we have recorded) Caleb asks "Watch pants on the ground". They had showed clips earlier of people singing it. We didn't realize he was even paying attention to what was on TV to ask to see the 'Pants on the Ground' clips again.

Random Caleb Stories

2010-01-24T21:11:00.012-06:00

This week you have been all about "peek a boo" and "boo". I'm not sure what started it but you will just walk into a room or walk over to us and either say "peek a boo" or "boo". You think it is so funny and I have to admit it makes me laugh every time. You can be so silly.

************
Friday you and I ran a few errands at Target and Wal-Mart. You were so good in the stores and were very patient and didn't throw any fits. As we were leaving Wal-Mart we swung through the drive through at McDonald's and got a hamburger and french fries for lunch. As I was placing our order you asked for a shake and since you were so good while we were out I decided to get us one. You were super excited when you heard me order it and I'm not sure if you were afraid the truck in front of us was going to steal your shake or you just didn't want to wait your turn but from the back seat you said "Truck, I getting a shake!" all in the tone of move it truck you are in my way.

************
I don't do it every night but some nights I flip on the baby monitor just to check on you. A couple of weeks back I turned on the monitor only to discover your bed was completely empty. I mean no blankets, no stuffed animals and no Caleb. I knew that no one had come in and taken you but still mommy mode kicked in and I started thinking are you ok could you have fallen out of your toddler bed and knocked yourself out, etc. etc. Yes, I realize I was over analyzing the situation and even knew it at the moment but I decided I would feel better if I just when in and checked on you. When I opened the door there you were lying on the floor sound asleep in your little nest of blankets and stuffed animals. Since it was so cold outside I hated for you to sleep on the concrete floor so after letting Daddy come in and see you I put you back in bed.

I guess you must like mixing things up a bit because this past Wednesday night when I checked on you once again you had removed everything from your bed but this time when I came in your room you were coming out from inside your tent. I'm not sure if you had just gotten everything settled and were going to sleep or if I woke you up when I opened the door.

Friday afternoon you decided to climb out of your bed once again and put all your blankets and stuffed animals on the floor and take your nap on the floor. I decided since it was just nap time I would let you be.

45 Swagbucks!

2010-01-22T12:27:00.005-06:00

I just reached 45 Swagbucks and am eligible for a $5 Amazon gift card. Not to shabby for only being a part of Swagbucks for 7 days. Have you signed up yet?

SWAGBUCKS - Earn gift cards for searching online

2010-01-15T15:13:00.012-06:00

Are you searching with Swagbucks? I wasn't either until earlier this week. I have heard about Swagbucks for a little while now out in the Blog world and finally decided to take the 2 seconds that it takes to sign up and start earning points and prized for my normal everyday internet searches.

Here is some brief information about Swagbucks:
1. Swagbucks is an online search engine that rewards you for searching online.
2. Swagbucks is completely free to sign up for and use.
3. You earn "Swagbucks" by doing searches online. As you search you will randomly win "Swagbucks". I signed up earlier this week and have currently received 17 Swagbucks.
4. Redeem Swagbucks for gift cards and prizes! Currently it only takes 45 Swagbucks to get a $5 Amazon.com Gift Card.

You can get 3 Swagbucks just for Signing Up.

Definitely not a get rich quick program but slow and steady wins the race and overtime it all adds up. Hey, why not earn something for all those internet searches you are going be be doing anyway. I've heard reports of people saving up their Amazon.com Gift Cards and utilizing them to buy Christmas gifts.

So what are you waiting for? Make sure you sign up for swagbucks and download the toolbar!

Do you know anyone who searches online? Well, tell them about Swagbucks, send them your referral link, and you'll not only instantly earn more points when they sign up, you'll also earn points for the searching they do online.

Cake=Candle+Party

2010-01-07T19:05:00.003-06:00

Tonight after dinner Caleb asked for some cake. He was super excited when we said ok and exclaimed "candle, have a party". Hmm...why not?! So we busted out a candle and had a party complete with hot fudge and whip cream. We even were silly and sang 'happy snow day Caleb' to the tune of Happy Birthday. I think he had us light the candle 4 or 5 times just so he could blow it out. We however only sang 1 time. Good times! Thanks Caleb for initiating our little family 'we don't need a reason to party' night.

Snow Day

2010-01-04T19:25:00.005-06:00

Looks like someone had a fun snow day with Nana and Papa while Momma and Daddy were at work.

Ahhh Vacation

2009-12-30T12:39:00.002-06:00

He's Getting So Big

2009-12-05T22:05:00.003-06:00

I don't think there is a day here lately that I haven't made a comment about how big Caleb is getting. I swear we put him to bed at night and in the morning he has become more and more of a little boy. I went to Kansas Thursday and Friday for work and when I called David and Caleb Thursday night I was both sad and proud of my little guy and couldn't believe how big he sounded. First he usually doesn't want to chat on the phone for very long and typically gets preoccupied pretty quickly but Thursday night he actually carried on a little conversation with me and would answer questions that I asked him about his day/night and made other comments about little things that he was thinking about at the moment. As we were talking David asked Caleb if he wanted to sing a song and Caleb busted out singing Jingle Bells (well at least the first part where you just repeat jingle bells, jingle bells.....). My heart swelled with pride and I hated that I wasn't there to see him sing it in person. Since he doesn't really know all of the words David sang the rest of the song for him and Caleb would do the "hey" part of the song. Such a sweet little duet.

Happy 2nd Birthday Caleb!

2009-11-10T15:36:00.032-06:00

BYE, BYE 1!

HELLO 2!

Is it really possible that you are 2 today?! Your Daddy and I are in such denial and can't believe that another year has come and gone. You are such a blessing to us and we can't imagine our home without you in it. You are full of life and have tons of energy and although this keeps us very busy and on our toes we wouldn't want it any other way. Here is just a few things about you:

*We have converted your crib into a toddler bed and you have done great with the change. Daddy and I still can't believe how easy you made the transition.

*You apparently do not like sleeping in socks and it is a rarity if you actually make it through the night with them still on.

*You LOVE books and at night typically say "read" and want us to read you a book before bed. I'm sure this is partly a stall tactic but none the less I don't think a day goes by that you aren't flipping through a book. One of your favorite books right now is "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake". Daddy and I like it when we get to the part where the cat goes to karate class. When I first read you this book I said "aaiiiyaaa" and did a karate chop after that part and it has stuck with you because you typically do this every time we come to that page.

*You still take an afternoon nap

*When you get up in the morning or from a nap you don't need any type of warm up time you are just up and on the go. You are like the energizer bunny and just keep going, going, going until we put you to bed at night.

*You don't have a lot of patience and do not take to well to us telling you no or you not getting your way. If this occurs you either let out a scream, stomp your foot, hit yourself or something close by or a combination or mixture of any of the above.

*You love getting to help out in the kitchen or just about anywhere for that matter. Just assign you a task and you are ready to pitch in and be a helper. I love it when you say "Caleb, helper"

*Some of your various sayings/sentences are "hold you, hold me", "so good", "no, sir" (it doesn't matter if you are a girl or a boy everyone is sir to you), "Dada, work"

*You are obsessed with drums and can't get enough of them right now. You love watching the end scene of Drumline where the two percussion sections are battling it out.

*We are not necessarily in full fledged potty training mode but we have started sitting you on it every now and then. Saturday when you were sitting on your potty chair you kept looking down in the potty and saying "pee, pee where is it". I must have mentioned to you something about keep trying because you finally looked at me and said "pee, pee where is it I trying". You pee peed on the potty Friday and Saturday morning and Sunday evening.

*You can count to 12

*You don't know your colors but if we ask you what color something is you at least respond with the name of a color.

Sucker!

2009-11-03T20:32:00.003-06:00

Caleb currently has two favorite items that he can't seem to get enough of lately, one being drums and the second suckers. He was very excited by all of the suckers he received on Halloween so it was no surprise that after dinner last night he asked for one. Since he ate pretty good we decided we would let him have one. After only a few licks he handed it back to me and kept saying "different, different sucker". I kept trying to persuade him that the one he had was just fine but he insisted that he needed a different sucker. I remembered that Nana had said he really wasn't finishing suckers at their house so I thought maybe he really didn't like the mini tootsie roll pop that I gave him that he confiscated from Nana and Papa's house on Halloween. I finally decided to trade him out and give him one of the dum dums that he has had no problem devouring. After giving it to him I got side tracked talking to David and forgot to take the mini tootsie pop away from him only to look over a few minutes later to find this...

Hmmm.....who's the sucker? Looks like I got played by a not quite 2 year old. Needless to say he had no problem whatsoever eating both the dum dum and mini tootsie roll pop that he insisted he didn't want.

Up and Over

2009-10-25T23:02:00.026-05:00

I knew the day would eventually come but I was hoping it would be a few more months down the road but it didn't wait, it happened Thursday morning. Thursday was starting out like any other morning and then I heard it "the crash" it luckily wasn't "the thud" I had feared it would be, you know the sickening "thud" of head connecting with concrete, but none the less it was enough of a noise for me to realize instantly that Caleb had climbed out of his crib. I immediately jumped up out of bed and ran to his room where I was greeted by a little boy walking toward me, not standing up in his crib with his arms outstretched for me to pick him up but instead outstretched arms of a little boy standing on the ground shaking because he had just fell out of his crib. He amazingly wasn't hurt and must have instead somewhat lowered himself down out of his crib vs. tumbling out. From the best I can tell he landed on his toy lawnmower that was off to the side of his crib. Poor little guy he really didn't cry long but was just shaking a little and kept saying "fall, foot, hurt". We decided immediately that we didn't want to give him a second chance to try his escape act as we worried the next fall might be a bit worse since the floor in his room is stained concrete. So, when David got home that night he converted Caleb's crib into a toddler bed. The first thing Caleb did when he climbed up into his new bed was grab a hold of the shorter toddler rail and attempt to hold onto it and jump up and down as he has done a million times. He was sadly a little confused as he learned this no longer worked.

I've been very worried about moving Caleb out of his crib as I have had visions of him roaming around his room all night or us wearing a path in the floor from the numerous times of going back and forth to his room and putting him back into bed but he has surprised us and is really doing a great job with the change in routine. The first night we put him in bed we talked with him about how he needed to stay in bed, how he was sleeping in a big boy bed, etc. After reading a couple books and going through our night time routine David laid him in his bed and we both ran to our room to watch his reaction in the baby monitor. Caleb sat there a few minutes and then climbed out of bed and went to his door (yes, we are mean parents and had shut the door to his room and since he currently can't turn the door knob he was stuck). He ended up crying a few minutes and then walked back over to his bed and climbed up into it. He tossed and turned for a little while, threw his blankets around and then climbed back out of bed and walked over to his door. He cried just a little while and then climbed back up into his bed. It was the saddest but sweetest thing to watch put we were so proud of him. The whole process only took about 10 minutes. He ended up falling a sleep for an hour then woke up and got out of bed. I ended up caving and went in and got him and hugged him and put him back in bed where he stayed until morning. So far it is turning out to be a pretty smooth transition. As far as we know he isn't getting up in the middle of the night and it doesn't appear that he is messing with any of the toys in his room after we put him to bed. Tonight David actually was able to put him in bed and he went to sleep without getting up. We are so proud of him. I think this has been one of the harder milestones as he just seems so big now. What happened to the little guy that I swear we just brought home from the hospital?

A little Father/Son tag team action

Coupon - Buy One Dozen Eggs, Get One Free

2009-10-09T10:55:00.005-05:00

Hurry and go take the pledge here to join America's farmer's in a commitment to live more healthy and give back to the community. After doing so, you'll be able to print a coupon twice (hit your back button to print second coupon) for a free dozen eggs (up to $1.50 value) when you buy one dozen. There are no restrictions on the brand of eggs you must buy, so it appears you can use these anywhere that accepts printable coupons on any type of eggs.

Coupon Expires 12/31/2009

Hurry, only available to the first 20,000 who take the American Egg Board's pledge to live more healthy.

Thanks Money Saving Mom!

Day 1 - It's All About Baby Steps

2009-10-01T16:43:00.006-05:00

Today's the day! Our Monthly Cash Flow Plan (aka budget) is completed, money has been withdrawn from the bank and our envelopes are stuffed. It's time to put into practice what we are learning in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. Here's a look at what will either become our new best friend or worst enemy. I'm hoping for new best friend and wish the rest of you in our Wednesday night class all the best!

Quick and Easy Recipe

2009-09-30T10:25:00.005-05:00

Are you looking for something that is quick and easy for dinner tonight? Here is a new recipe we have added to our line up.

Pepperoni Pasta
8 oz. angel hair pasta
3 oz. pepperoni slices
3 T. olive oil
1 can sliced black olives (optional)
1 large can diced tomatoes
1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Cook pasta.
Meanwhile, combine other ingredients. Drain pasta; mix with tomato sauce and toss to coat.

It seriously takes me longer to boil the water for the pasta than it does to put the dish together. For those of you that were part of "Team Cameron" this is great way to use the mini pepperoni that we received in our goodie bags.

Church.....Class!

2009-09-21T21:37:00.007-05:00

Caleb is so funny and has gotten to where all we have to do is start driving down Dixieland Rd. and he starts saying "class....church" or just "class, class, class". Typically on Sunday mornings he also has to hold both mine and David's hand to walk across the parking lot and if one of us isn't already holding his hand he reaches up to us and says "hand". It's very funny because this is the only place were it's part of his routine to feel like he needs to hold our hand when he walks in. David took the camera with him last week and captured some of Caleb's time in class. Here are a few pictures of him playing on a little toy piano and composing a little song.

Putting a few finishing touches on your song.

Viola! Proud of your finished product.

Team Cameron

2009-08-30T13:48:00.015-05:00

Yesterday we joined our spiritual family in taking strides for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. This is the second year that we have been part of Team Cameron and have walked in honor of Cameron Vargas. It was a great morning of fellowship and being outdoors. We enjoyed watching Caleb play and run around and even left with some great goody bags filled with all kinds of coupons and sample items.
Caleb enjoying one of the various activities set up for the kids.

Some of our group letting lose and getting their groove on.

Team Cameron!

Family Time

2009-08-17T20:56:00.009-05:00

Tonight we enjoyed a little family time in the kitchen. Caleb started out a little fussy when we first got home so I decided to include him in getting dinner ready.

He had a good time helping David and I put toppings on the pizza and quickly forgot about throwing a fit. He is such a great little helper and who knows may have a future in the pizza business.

Viola, the finished product!

Since pizza making went so well we decided to make some snickerdoodle cookies while we were at it. I don't think I've actually ever made snickerdoodle cookies so I got to experience a first with Caleb.

They were "Mmmm.........good" as Caleb says and will definitely be something we make again.

Happy Father's Day Daddy!

2009-06-21T21:13:00.007-05:00

Thanks for being the best Daddy ever! Thanks for reading to me, acting silly with me, sharing ice cream with me, being a great example for me and loving Mommy and me so much that I wonder sometimes if its got to hurt. Mommy and I love you lots and lots and thank you for taking such great care of us and for being our best friend.

Love,

Caleb

P.S. Mommy said sorry that she used our picture from Mother's Day. She realized later that the only pictures she got of us together today was when we were in the pool.

Way Back When-esday

2009-06-17T19:53:00.010-05:00

Hope you don't mind Kimberley but I decided to join in this week on your "Way Back When-esday" fun.

Timeline: 8-3-08

Timeline: 6-6-09

Don't worry we have since purchased a little larger pool since the last picture so that he will have a little more room to splash around this summer.

Summer Nights

2009-06-09T20:55:00.010-05:00

I love me some summer nights! Tonight when we got home David worked on getting the sprinklers ready for the summer and made sure they were all adjusted properly. Caleb enjoyed getting to play in them just as long as the water didn't hit him in the face. Since he was wet we decided to just eat outside as there was no point in drying him off only for him to want to go back outside when we finished and play in his "bath" as he likes to call it (aka the inflatable swimming pool) and run around in the yard some more. We had a great time just hanging out together and watching Caleb play in the backyard.

We decided to be a little lazy and instead of taking Caleb upstairs to the bathtub we just did a quick little sponge bath in the kitchen sink. This is something we haven't done in a long time so Caleb had to be sure and touch and mess with everything that was within arms reach.

Nana and Papa emailed us some pictures of his play date today with Madeline and pics of him playing in the sprinkler at their house. Caleb must of had me scroll through those pictures 7 or 8 times while he told me a story about each picture. Every time I would go to close out the program he would let me know that he wasn't done looking at them yet.

He went right to sleep tonight and didn't make a peep after David put him in his crib. David and I went then back outside and sat and listened to the sprinklers water the shrubs. It may sound silly but it's super relaxing and sounds like a nice little rainfall.

Ahhhh, nothing like summer nights.

See Spot Run

2009-05-28T12:07:00.006-05:00

After taking a rather lengthy hiatus from reading I decided to finally give the TV a little break at night and see if I could still actually remember how to read a book. I'm happy to report that I still have it in me and recently just finished this great book and can't wait to see the movie.

I think I actually liked it better than The Da Vinci Code and have heard that Angels and Demons was better as a movie than The Da Vinci Code. For my next pick I've selected The Shack. So, what are you reading this summer that you recommend?

Happy Memorial Day

2009-05-25T16:24:00.002-05:00

Dine In or Carry Out

2009-05-21T19:30:00.005-05:00

Caleb must have really played hard yesterday at Nana and Papa's because he ended up falling asleep on the way home and even took a little cat nap after we got there. He woke up for just a second when we walked in and David took him and Caleb snuggled right into him and fell back to sleep. After a few minutes we decided we better wake him up or suffer the consequences of him not wanting to go to bed. After waking up he headed straight outside to play in his new house. I was in the process of making dinner so it was pretty much ready after just a few minutes of him being outside. I knew he wasn't going to be happy having to come in to eat since he hadn't been out long but I had no idea of the total melt down he was going to have. We finally decided it really wasn't worth all the water works and since it was so nice out we decided to just take our dinner outside. Caleb loved getting to eat in his little house and I'm sure this is just the first of many meals he will have out there. I am so glad he is enjoying his new playhouse.

Summer Home

2009-05-19T20:04:00.020-05:00

Well after weighing all our options and much discussion, more so than I'm sure David cared for, we finally decided to take the plunge and buy a summer home! Now before you get too excited it's nothing overly elaborate and will sadly not be making it on the next tour of homes but we love it and think it will provide many hours of entertainment this summer. Since we didn't want something that we had to spend hours cleaning we went with a little less square footage than some of the other homes we looked at. It does however come furnished with a table and chairs, a very nice doorbell, phone, and shutters and a door that you can spend countless hours opening and shutting. Oh, and I must not forget a mail slot for all that highly important mail. So without further ado here is a look at the Winberry's summer estate.

Caleb was so excited when he saw it. He has already opened and shut the door and shutters a million times and can't get enough of ringing the door bell. He has several toy phones but he walked around carrying the phone that came with the house as if he had never had one. I think it has definitely been a hit and that he will enjoy playing in his new house this summer.

That's My Boys

2009-05-12T23:04:00.010-05:00

Such cheese balls! Yep, it's good times at the Winberry's......good times!

Doesn't He Make You Smile

2009-05-12T23:02:00.002-05:00

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T20:08:00.022-05:00

I've had a great Mother's Day! My Mom came up last night and spent the night with us and brought a nice bouquet of fresh cut Irises from my grandma's which was the start of a perfect Mother's Day. They have made the house smell really good and have brought back great memories of my grandma. My grandma always had a vase full of Irises in the house this time of year and I love looking over and seeing them on the table.

When I woke up this morning I walked into the kitchen and was surprised by a beautiful arrangement of pink roses and lilies from David and Caleb. My kitchen is currently a little flower shop and smells wonderful.

David's parents came up after church and joined us for lunch. David was a huge sweetie and took care of planning our menu, all the meal prep and cooking our lunch. We enjoyed baked potatoes, steaks, green bean casserole and for dessert we had brownies and ice cream. Yummy! It was a good afternoon with family and was nice to get to spend Mother's Day with both of our moms. Thanks Caleb and David for making this such a special day!

$10.07

2009-05-03T21:40:00.018-05:00

I was going to spare you another coupon story but David thought it would be a good pic with all the cans. So here is today's Walgreen trip. This is the most transactions I've done at one time and the most Registry Rewards (ie RR) that I have rolled in one visit.

Transaction 1:
Right Guard deodorant at $2.99
2 Listerine Total Care mouth wash at $4.50 each
Dawn dish soap at $0.99 with in store ad coupon
1 Coke - $1.25

Used:
free Right Guard deodorant coupon from Smart Source (sorry no longer available)
2 $2/1 mouthwash coupon printable here
$0.50 Dawn coupon
$3.00 RR received at previous Walgreen's trip

Received:
$2.00 RR from deodorant
$4.50 RR from mouth wash

Out of Pocket = $4.99 (with taxes)

Transaction 2:
20 cans of chicken broth

Used:
$4.50 RR (from transaction 1)
$2.00 RR (from transaction 1)

Received:
$3.00 RR

Out of Pocket = $4.10 (with taxes)

Transaction 3:
1 Coke - $1.25
1 Diet Coke - $1.25
1 Dr. Pepper $1.25

Used:
$3.00 RR (from transaction 2)

Out of Pocket = $0.98 (with taxes)

Final Costs = $10.07

Saturday Visitors

2009-05-03T21:26:00.012-05:00

Caleb had a good time hanging out with his cousin ,Jeremiah, on Saturday. They had fun chasing each other through the house, wrestling in the floor and playing with all the toys in the toy box. Jeremiah was riding on the tractor and Caleb thought he needed to hitch a ride with him.

We were also glad that Pappy and Uncle Jason got to come. Pappy brought Caleb a little nerf, Razorback baseball that he has enjoyed playing with. Since they left every now and then Caleb will just randomly say "Pappy". Sorry Mom, he'll eventually learn how to say Grandma.

Quick Update

2009-04-26T21:06:00.003-05:00

Just a brief update on some of my past posts......

I tried out the recipes I posted in "What's For Dinner" . The Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole was super easy to make and has definitely made it into the dinner line up. The Creamy Enchiladas was also pretty tasty but a bit salty and I thought tasted better as leftovers. I think I might also use a little less of the heavy whipping cream.

I'm also happy to report that it seems like Wal-Mart has gotten whatever kink worked out and I haven't had any problems recently using internet coupons. I'm not saying that I still might not encounter some issues the next time I try to use them but it's been a while (See my post "Say It Isn't So" if you aren't sure what I'm talking about).

All Before 8:30

2009-04-23T09:33:00.005-05:00

Here is what we've been up to this morning.

What's For Dinner?

2009-04-14T21:09:00.020-05:00

As you may recall one of my new year's resolutions this year was to be more diligent about planning out a weekly dinner menu. I've done pretty good about keeping this resolution with a few weeks of falling off track. One of the hardest things about planning a menu is sometimes actually coming up with new items to add to the line up. A few of us were talking about this recently at our home bible study (after our devo time of course) and were sharing some of the items we were planning on fixing that week or that we use in our menu plan. We thought it might be nice to e-mail each other our menus but Dallas and I decided to actual post our current menus in hopes to get some additional ideas from some of you or to perhaps help add a few items to your weekly line up. Who knows, if there is enough interest this may just become a regular post. If you missed it here is Dallas's current menu as well as some of the recipes. Thanks to my friend Beth I came up with a few new recipes from a recent post she did where she talked about one of her favorite sites "This Week for Dinner". So for anyone interest here is what the Winberry's will be having for dinner over the next 3 weeks (I typically just do a 2 week menu but I got a little crazy this week). By the way I only plan out Monday through Friday, we also keep Monday's pretty quick and simple as David has to be somewhere by 7:00p on Monday nights.

Monday:
Roastbeef Subs
Auju
Chips
******
Pizza style Subs
Chips
******
Fish sticks
Homemade mac-n-cheese

Tuesday:
Chicken Quesadillas
******
Tacos
******
Fried Chicken
Rice
Gravy
Green Beans

Wednesday:
Stromboli
******
Marinated, Grilled Chicken
Baked Potatoes
******
Frozen Pizza

Thursday:
Chicken Cordon Bleu (this is a new recipe I'm going to try)
******
Creamy Chicken Enchiladas (this is another new recipe)
******
Chicken Spaghetti

Friday:
Salmon
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Green beans
******
Frozen Lasagna (pretty exciting huh)
Garlic bread
******
Still coming up with an item

Here is the recipe for the Chicken Cordon Bleu and Creamy Chicken Enchiladas:

Easy Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole
- 6-8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 8 slices Swiss cheese
- 6-8 slices ham (I get the thinly sliced ham from the deli)
- 2 cans Cream of Mushroom soup
- 1 bag croutons (or seasoned bread crumbs)
Line bottom of 9×13 pan with chicken breasts. Salt. Lay slices of Swiss cheese, then ham over the top of chicken breasts. Mix cream of mushroom soup with about 1/2 cup of milk and pour over top. Mash croutons and sprinkle over top. Cook (uncovered) at 350 degrees for about 1 hour.

CREAMY ENCHILADAS
2 C chicken, cooked & shredded
2 T olive oil
1 clove garlic crushed
8 oz tomato sauce
1/4 t salt
3 C heavy cream
5 bouillon cubes - chicken
1/3 C olive oil
12-18 tortillas
1 1/2 C monterey jack grated cheese
1 large onion
1/4 t sugar
DIRECTIONS:Sautee onion in 2 T oil until translucent. Stir in garlic, tomato sauce, salt, sugar and chicken. Cover and simmer 5 mins. In a large saucepan heat cream. Dissolve bouillon in cream - don’t heat too hot. Set aside. In a small skillet heat ~1/3 C of oil and dip each tortilla in oil turning once for a few seconds to soften - drain on paper towel. Dip tortilla in cream mixture - place on flat surface - put 3 T chicken mixture and roll up. Place rolled tortilla seam side down in 9X13 baking dish. Pour any remaining sauce over enchiladas. Cover with grated cheese. Bake 350 25-30 mins.

I would love to hear what you are having for dinner. If interested in playing along post your menu on your blog and then link it back to here using the link below.

Hippity Hoppity....Happy Easter

2009-04-13T20:10:00.054-05:00

**warning....long post and lots of pictures**

Easter has been in full force at the Winberry's with all kinds of hip hopping activities. Caleb is not really into the whole idea of hunting eggs yet but he still seemed to enjoy all the events that took place anyway and definitely enjoyed getting to eat his fair share of candy.

On Thursday we enjoyed hanging out with our friends at Mommy and Me. Caleb loved getting to roam around the church building with a couple of the other kids since it was yucky outside. He seriously would be very content just roaming aimlessly around the church building all day. I'm not sure what it is about it but he can't get enough of it. He also liked getting to participate in the Easter egg hunt even if he didn't quite understand the whole concept of picking up the eggs and putting them in his basket. He however quickly caught on to the fact that there was candy inside the eggs and didn't waste any time making sure his cheeks were nicely filled. The other kids were super sweet and would bring over eggs and put in his basket as they wanted to make sure he didn't miss out.

On Friday I decided to bust out the egg shaped cookie cutter I bought this year and make a few sugar cookies. Maybe next year I'll get ambitious and attempt to make these adorable, and delicious, little cake eggs that Dallas made and brought to lunch on Sunday. How cute are these!

The weather was finally nice on Saturday so we spent the day hanging out as a family and got out for a few hours. After dinner that night we started our family tradition of dyeing Easter eggs. Caleb's favorite part was watching the color tablets fizz in the vinegar. I'm not really sure what he thought of the rest of the experience but David and I had a lot of fun getting to re-live some of our childhood days.

The Easter bunny brought Caleb a little wagon filled with various summer items (sunglasses, bubbles, shovel, pail, rake, etc). Caleb seemed to really like the wagon and all of it's contents. He decided that the rake and shovel made a nice make shift golf club and proceeded to hit the eggs that the Easter bunny brought him vs. picking them up and putting them in his baskets. He was so funny to watch. We later showed him that the Easter bunny put candy inside the eggs so he then went around shaking some of the eggs to see if they had anything in them. It was so fun watching him enjoy each item in the basket. He picked up the rake and shovel and played with them for a while, then discovered the sunglasses and had to try them on briefly, then it was on to the bubbles where we had to stop and have us blow them for a while so he could pop them. He next examined his new book in which he got very excited when he realized it had tractors in it and very excitedly exclaimed "tractor, tractor, tractor". The last thing he looked at was the chocolate bunny. It was actually the item he was the least interested in, oh how your priorities will change later in time. He apparently didn't want to waste any item inside his new wagon and even took time to play with the Easter grass.

We had a great Easter morning at church and had a wonderful time having lunch with friends. We ended the day with devo and pizza at church (we missed the giant candy hunt because we were all taking a nap but Caleb was still able to pick out a few items that were leftover when we arrived and still ended up with plenty of candy). Despite the yucky weather we had a wonder Easter and enjoyed the day spent with one another as a family and with our church friends/family.

Birthday Freebies

2009-04-09T22:55:00.002-05:00

Who doesn't like something for free AND some additional ways to help celebrate your birthday. Check out Freebies 4 Mom's great list of birthday freebies. Here are a few of the freebies and discounts that I ended up receiving for my birthday.

*15% off coupon at The Children's Place
*$10 off $20 purchase at Mimi's (David, Caleb and I ended up eating for $10 + tax!)
*Free Like It create your own creation (ice cream + 1 mix-in) from Cold Stone
*Buy one get one free blizzard from Dairy Queen (Yummy, this was a nice treat after dinner)
*Free small original sandwich from Schlotzky's (This made for a nice free lunch this week, I didn't even have to pay tax. I just drove up asked for the sandwich and didn't have to order anything else.)

Craft Time

2009-04-07T22:44:00.003-05:00

I finally decided to bust out some of the scrapbook paper and stamps that are collecting dust in my craft room and get a little crafty. I also ran across a great website that has been a huge help to jump start a little creativity. I love this site and love that she posts a new card layout everyday. Here are some of the cards I made recently.

Singspiration

2009-03-30T22:09:00.003-05:00

Tonight while driving home from Nana and Papa's Caleb and I decided to turn off the radio and make our own tunes. I would first sing him a song while he patiently listened and waited and then he would serenade me with his own little medley. We went back and forth like this pretty much all the way home. I would sing then he would sing...back and forth. It's too bad that we didn't have a tape recorder because I'm sure some top hits were made tonight. It was so sweet just listening to him and watching how he was so patient to wait until it was his turn to sing.

Pics

2009-03-22T20:10:00.010-05:00

I would love to take credit for these but these are some of David's recent pics of Caleb. Our little guy is getting big so quickly.

Happy Birthday Dada!

2009-03-01T22:31:00.017-06:00

We have had a great time celebrating David's birthday...at least I have and I'm hoping he has to. Caleb even got into the fun and has been a very busy little artist making some very special birthday gifts for David. I may not be the greatest about writing in Caleb's baby book but one thing I definitely love to do is stamp his hands and feet. As you may recall from one of my earlier posts David and I decided to stamp Caleb's hands and feet every month for the first year. So I decided why stop there and have found a love for Crayola brand washable finger paints. I guess it's a little sad that Caleb already smiles when he sees the paint and knows exactly what to do after it has been applied to his hand. So in honor of David's birthday our little Picasso made his Dada a very special birthday card and picture! I originally thought we would just make a card for David but suddenly had a hair brained idea to let Caleb try finger painting for the first time. Yes, I realize this could have spelled disaster and a nice mess to clean up but he loved it and amazingly only got it on his hands and a little on his arm. I showed him at first how to put his finger in the paint and tap it on the paper and he was off from there. I didn't help him at all except for turning the paper every now and then so he wasn't getting paint in just one spot. He did a great job and we will definitely do it again sometime. This was my favorite gift that we gave David.

Not quite sure if it's ok to actually touch the paint

After I put his finger in the paint and reassured him it was ok to play in it.

Busy at work creating his first masterpiece.

Viola, the finished product!
BTW I did not put paint on his hand in order to create the hand print in his picture. He managed this all on his own.

Birthday card

For David's birthday we also enjoyed a great dinner at Herman's last night with friends, lunch today after church and dinner tonight at Bud's with his parents. In honor of David's big day we decided to join a band (well Guitar Hero World Tour, which David was shocked I actually bought) and have already enjoyed playing several gigs. It's been a great day!

We love you lots and lots David and are so glad that we got to spend this special day with you. You are a great husband, dad and friend. We hope you enjoyed your birthday as much as we did.

Happy Birthday!!!!!

P.S. sorry all of the pictures are of Caleb even though it was your birthday :-)

"Where is he?"

2009-03-01T22:08:00.005-06:00

....this has become Caleb's new favorite phrase. He loves to hide behind the curtains in his room or behind a door and say "Where is he?" and wait for us to respond "Where's Caleb......There he is!"

He also does this when we are changing his clothes. As we are putting his shirt on or taking it off he will say "Where is he?". If this isn't followed by a response from us he will just keep saying it until we respond or simply just answer himself and say "There he is". No door or curtain available well this doesn't stop the fun. Last week while I was feeding him lunch he just out of the blue put both hands in front of his face and said "Where is he?" while peaking through between his fingers. This has become a very good game to keep him occupied when we are changing his diaper and he has more important things to do than lay still while we finish.

$5/1 and $3/1 Huggies Coupons

2009-02-28T13:36:00.006-06:00

I promise to post something soon about what is going on at the Winberry household because I know that you are waiting with high anticipation to know what we are up to but I couldn't resist posting another coupon offer.

Thanks to Money Saving Mom for posting about this amazing Huggies coupon. This is the highest value diaper coupon I have run across. Too bad K-Mart currently doesn't accept internet coupons because this would have been a great one to use today as they are doubling coupons up to $2.00 in value.

Enough rambling......for those of you that have kiddos in diapers or are need of a baby shower gift go here and print your Huggies coupons.

There is a coupon for $5/1 Huggies Gentle Care product and $3/1 Huggies Natural Fit product. You can print each twice per computer.

I doubt these will not last long so get 'em while you can!

Free Dr. Pepper

2009-02-20T10:19:00.002-06:00

Go here to request your coupon for a free 20 oz. or 2 liter bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper. The coupon I received actually allowed you to redeem it for Diet or Regular Dr. Pepper. Enjoy!

Today Only - 20 free 4x6 photo prints at Walgreens

2009-02-20T09:40:00.003-06:00

Get 20 4×6 prints free at Walgreens (TODAY ONLY) when you use the code ONEDAY at checkout. Be sure to request to pick these up in-store so that you will also receive free shipping

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T14:32:00.010-06:00

XOXO,

Caleb

Mmm, Mmm, Good

2009-02-13T21:55:00.006-06:00

Looks like someone enjoyed dinner tonight. I guess we will be having meatloaf, mashed potatoes and carrots again sometime.

15 Months Old

2009-02-10T20:18:00.021-06:00

In celebration of Caleb being 15 months old today I decided it was time to post some random information about him since it has been a while. Sorry this may get a bit boring but I'm using it as my journal time. This is by no means a complete lists it's just things that quickly come to mind.

Dada and I are still amazed how quickly you are growing. We are often still in awe that we have a little boy and that we are not just babysitting. Just tonight you were sitting next to Dada on the couch (not the picture posted) and Dada said "That's my little boy sitting next to me". We love you lots and lots and are loving watching you grow and learn new things. You are a very energetic little guy and you love exploring, being outside and are very inquisitive. It's pretty much a daily basis the last few weeks that you wake up and the first thing you say is "side" which equals outside. I can already tell that I might as well get use to spending my time outdoors this summer and load up on the sunscreen for both of us because it will be very hard to keep you inside once it warms up. Here are some things that you are saying and doing lately:

Words you can say:
side = outside
brrrr = anytime you think something is cold. We heard "side, brrr" A LOT during the recent ice storm.
ha = hot without the "t", this seems to be one of your favorite words right now. You are constantly wanting to know if something is hot.
bye bye
mama
dada
dad
daddy
NaNa = what you call Dada's mom or banana
cheese
cracker
no no
sit
go dogs go - Not quite that clear but we definitely know what you are saying. This is one of your favorite books right now
don't
there
what's this
where is it
kitty or itty
Jo Jo - what we sometimes call Jordan, our cat
shoes
sock
uh uh
juice - but you're referring to your milk
Jesus
You attempt to say tractor but it comes out a little different (not sure how to spell out what you say)
duck
eye
Eee, Eee - you are referring to your sock monkey
shirt
uh oh

Animal sounds you can make:
cow says "moo"
lion says "roar" (very exaggerated out)
duck says "quack, quack"
dog says "boof, boof or woof, woof"
monkey says "Eee, Eee"

*You know what a dog says but won't say dog or puppy and recognize a cat and will say "itty or kitty" but won't say meow.

*You can make fish lips

*You know how to brush your teeth and recognize which is the toothbrush and which is the toothpaste.

*You will hand Dada your toothbrush, toothpaste or bubbles when he asks while giving you your bath.

*You will give us 5 when we ask

*You will often give us a kiss when we ask

*You know how to brush your hair

*When we tell you it's time to change your diaper you go to our room where we usually change your diaper

*You know what "clap" means

*You can show us where your eye, forehead, nose, ear, tongue and hair are

*You will reach up and grab our hand and walk beside us if we put our hand down in gesture for you to grab it. This is one of my favorite things right now.

and on and on and on...........

We love you lots and looks forward to all the new things you will do tomorrow and each day as you continue to grow, learn and discover.

Jump Zone

2009-02-09T21:05:00.012-06:00

Saturday we attended our first birthday party at Jump Zone. We had a great time hanging out with friends and enjoyed watching Caleb roam around and play in/on the various inflatable toys. He was a bit apprehensive at first and was very content just getting to roam around everywhere and people watch. He also liked getting to bounce on the inflatable horse.

He gradually got a little braver and would venture into a few of the bounce areas but didn't typically stay in very long as it was a bit hard to keep your balance.

David ended up deciding to take Caleb down one of the large slides. Even though he looked terrified coming down he loved it and would immediately want David to do it again.

After cake and ice cream I looked around for David and Caleb so we could start getting ready to go. I looked around the whole place and couldn't find them until David finally got my attention from inside one of the inflatables. Caleb had finally warmed up to the idea and loved hanging out in there with his Dada and didn't mind at all being knocked over by the older kids. David said that Caleb would just laugh and laugh any time he got knocked over.

Good times!

Are You Ready For Some Football!

2009-02-01T13:36:00.007-06:00

Menu Planning

2009-01-23T19:42:00.004-06:00

One of my new year's resolutions this year is to be more diligent about planning out a weekly menu. I decided I wanted to do this for a few reason....
1. I get tired of trying to think something up at the last minute
2. I get tired of once I do finally think of something I go to the cabinet/refrigerator only to find I'm missing a key ingredient.
3. I think it will help us spend our money more wisely.
4. It will help us use items before they go bad. It seems like we are always throwing out potatoes, carrots, celery, etc. because we didn't end up using them all and they spoiled.

So I finally decided to sit down today and plan out a menu. I first did a quick inventory of what we already have on hand in effort to try to make a menu around what we already have vs. planning a menu and then going out and buying what I needed. My plan was to come up with a dinner menu for Monday-Friday. So far I have come up with a menu for the next two weeks out of mostly the items we already have. Ironically Money Saving Mom was having a guest post today on "How I Save Money by Planning a Menu" that was pretty interesting. I also found a website today called Supercook that you can go in and enter all the ingredients you have on hand and it will come up with various recipes you can make out of those items. It also allows you to set up an account so you can go in and add additional items as you buy them or take items off as you use them. Each time you add or remove an item the recipes are automatically adjusted.

If you have any favorite recipes that your family enjoys please feel free to share as I'm also trying to add to our limited menu rotation.

Good Day

2009-01-19T19:35:00.004-06:00

Today was a good day, not because someone came to visit, not because we had somewhere special to go but because I had the day off and got to hang out with Caleb. I love days like today when he just smiles and laughs all day, when he takes both of his naps without any fuss, when we don't have anywhere we have to rush around to get to on time but when we just get to hang out together. He woke up in a snugly mood from his nap this afternoon, which I love, and we just hung out in his room for a while and snuggled and read some books. He thought it was funny when we were reading the touch and feel farm book and I would rub the fur on his nose and toes. He kept taking the book and gesturing for me to rub it on his toes again and would just smile and laugh. He helped me take the clothes out of the dryer, hung out with me while I swept the floors, enjoyed doing puzzles and thought it was fun to eat animal crackers together in the kitchen floor. He loves it when I tickle him and has the best little smile and laugh. I just love days like today and hope that I never forget them. Today was a good day! I love you Caleb.

Free Suave!

2009-01-14T07:17:00.003-06:00

Sign up today to get a coupon for a FREE bottle of Suave shampoo, conditioner, hair spray, styling aid, body wash or body lotion (up to $3 value). This offer ends today at 11:59:59 p.m. ET.

Free!

2009-01-09T19:52:00.005-06:00

I love getting stuff for free! Here are some of the things that I've gotten free this week:

1. 2 pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream from Walgreens (sorry this coupon is no longer available to print out).

2. 4 Reese's Whipps candy bars from Walgreens (used the in store ad coupon and coupons from last Sunday's paper).

3. A 25 pack of Electrasol gelcaps dishwasher detergent at Walgreens thanks to a coupon from last Sunday's paper and a $1.50 rebate they are offering. I'll actually end up making $0.66 off this deal since you can earn an additional 10% on your rebate if you have it put on a Walgreens gift card. Here's how I made money...... the item was $3.49 - $2.50 coupon from the paper = $0.99 - $1.50 rebate = $0.51 overage + $0.15 (extra 10% off of $1.50 rebate for putting it on a gift card) = I made $0.66 on my gift card plus walked away with a box of free dishwasher detergent gelcaps.

4. 2 Melissa & Doug brand wooden puzzles from Pampers Gifts to Grow program. For those of you that use Pampers diapers or wipes they have a code on them that you enter and earn points through their Gifts to Grow program. I think the shipping on their products is a bit high, especially since you have to ship each item individually, but around Christmas they were offering free shipping. They didn't have much of a selection at that time but I was able to redeem some of my points for a couple free puzzles (free shipping!) for Caleb. I wish now I would have gone ahead and redeemed all of my points and just put back extra puzzles for gifts. This is the first time I've seen them offer free shipping since I've started collecting points.

5. Today I was able to get Caleb 3 pairs of pants for next winter and a pair of shorts for $0.22 at JCPenney thanks to some gifts cards that they were giving out with any purchase you made right before Christmas.

For those of you that are interested I've added a couple new websites to my frugal blog roll on my sidebar (Coupon Cravings and Common Sense with Money).

Birthday Shout Out!

2008-12-29T21:11:00.004-06:00

Hope you had a great birthday Amy!

Happy Christmas Eve!

2008-12-24T09:11:00.004-06:00

Hope all your shopping is finished, your gifts are wrapped and you are able to enjoy just relaxing today before Santa arrives. We are looking forward to Caleb's grandparents staying the night with us tonight and helping us celebrate Christmas in the morning.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

2008-12-21T20:48:00.006-06:00

We picked the perfect day to take Caleb to see Santa (11-22-08). We didn't have to wait in line, no one was waiting behind us to rush us, it was perfect. Caleb wasn't scared at all to sit on Santa's lap. He wouldn't smile and was pretty stoic but he didn't cry or make any type of fuss to get down. Santa just took his time and sat there and talked to him. The first picture we took Caleb was actually looking at the camera but he wouldn't smile for anything so we decided to go with this one instead. I think by the time we saw Santa Caleb was tired of smiling. We had spent that morning getting his 1 year pictures made, family pictures taken and then went and took some candid shots at the Promenade.

What Goes Down, Must Come Up......

2008-12-12T10:26:00.015-06:00

....or at least this has been the case at our house since Sunday night. Poor little Caleb has been one sick puppy this week. I should have know when he wasn't really interested in staying in the nursery Sunday morning that something was wrong. He never has any issues going to class but they said that every time the door opened for another kid to be dropped off that he wanted out. We ended up skipping our normal routine of lunch with friends after church and opted to head home since Caleb was a bit fussy. He proceeded to fall asleep on the way home and ended up taking almost a 2 hour nap. He spent the rest of the day trying to play but he would have to take a little break every now and then and would just come lay his head on me and snuggle or he would go ahead and doze off for a few minutes. He ate a late lunch on Sunday and didn't seem to be having any issues but that wasn't the case later that night at dinner and he unfortunately decided to not keep it down.

David stayed home with him on Monday and bless his poor belly he couldn't keep anything down. We finally decided to call the Dr. out of concern that he was going to get dehydrated. I'll fast forward and save you all the messy details......long story short he is just now starting to be able to keep something down and show a little sign of life. He is actually trying to play a little today and has made some of his normal silly noises and is smiling. It looked like yesterday he was starting phase two of this wonderful stomach bug but so far we haven't seen any signs of it today. I'm crossing my fingers hard we are spared that phase and that David and I don't get sick.

As of Tuesday he weighed 18lbs. 8 oz. and had lost 1 lb. and 4 oz. Poor little guy he definitely doesn't have any weight to spare. Hopefully we can start trying to fatten him up in the next few days, right now we are still a bit cautious on how much we give him.

I hate how bad he has felt but I love how snugly he was been. He is always very loving but typically won't just be still when he snuggles. This week he has wanted to be right next to one of us.

Monday night he couldn't seem to find a comfortable spot. He tossed and turned and finally I laid him next to me on the coach and this is how he ended up going to sleep.
We ended up making him a little pallet in the living room floor. He didn't want to get too far away from us so this helped him know we were still around and allowed him to get some rest. As you can see he has lived in his PJs since Sunday night.

This has been our new best friend this week and has saved us some nasty stains on the carpet. We both have gotten pretty good at knowing the signs of when he is going to get sick.

Say It Isn't So

2008-12-10T22:43:00.004-06:00

Panic attack on aisle 9, panic attack on aisle 9!

Well the day I feared was coming before too long is finally here. I decided to brave the cold tonight and venture out to my local Wal-Mart for a little shopping adventure only to hear the words that I had hoped would never be uttered " I'm sorry we no longer accept internet coupons". What! Doesn't the cashier attending to me know that my time is very precious and I can not have the time back that I just spent wondering the aisles and double/triple checking the wording on each and every coupon I was planning on using to make sure it correctly matched up with the items in my cart. Doesn't he know that I'm not one of those who makes copies of internet coupons and knowingly uses them fraudulently? Doesn't he know that I like coupon shopping and he has just stolen one of my true joys away from me? No he doesn't know this nor does he really care but I will say in his defense that he was very polite and didn't mind as I asked for my coupons back and proceeded to have him take the items off of my transaction.

I'm hoping that my local, very friendly, cashier was mistaken and this is not Wal-Mart's new policy but I am afraid that he is probably correct and the dreaded day has arrived and the misuse of some have ruined it for the rest of us. For those of you that enjoy the hunt of a good bargain and enjoy the clipping of a good coupon can you please join your local, neighborhood Wal-Mart shoppers for a moment of silence as we grieve the loss of the use of our beloved paper money in the form of internet coupons (at least at Wal-Mart). Sniff, sniff!

Thanksgiving Pies

2008-12-02T21:06:00.010-06:00

I decided to back track a bit and post some pictures of Caleb and I making our first pies together. We did this at Mommy and Me on 11/20/08. It was a very easy recipe and not hard at all for the two of us to put together. I mean what could be easier than pre-made pie crust and pie filling.

First we cut our pie crust in half so we could make two small pies. Check out that look of concentration.
Next we added our pie filling. We decided to make one cherry and the other one blueberry.

Then we pinched the edges of our crust together. I think Grandma Foster would have been very proud of our technique.

Last we added a little butter and sugar on top and baked them in the oven (sorry no picture).

I think Caleb is definitely going to end up being my little helper in the kitchen. He has already been very busy assisting his Nana make cookies. Nana and Papa think the cookies that Caleb helps with are some of the best. I have to admit our pies turned our pretty good and I'm sure it was all because of Caleb's help. Who knows maybe the two of us will take this act on the road and start our own cooking show.

Gobble, Gobble

2008-11-30T20:39:00.007-06:00

We had a great Thanksgiving and enjoyed getting to host the Foster family Thanksgiving at our house this year. We definitely missed my Grandma Foster and while the location this year had changed from my Grandma's house as she is no longer with us the sense of love and family was still there. It was a beautiful day outside and it was nice to get to spend some time outside and have the windows open for a little while. David fixed his first turkey this year and I think Martha Stewart would have been proud. It was a very nice looking and tasting bird. I hope you enjoyed time with your families and were able to spend a few moments reflecting on the things you have to be thankful for. I am thankful for my family, the memories of my Grandma Foster and for friendships both old and new.