my only belly shot

I took this last week, so I a m sure I have grown since then. Seriously, every ounce I have gained has got right to the belly. I look pretty silly! And we are getting anxious about the newbie's arrival...only eight more weeks.

My hiney made a noise and other funny things

Busy Busy Busy! We have been going like crazy lately, trying to get the house projects begun and wrapped up before baby. Last Friday, Caleb and I drove to Rhode Island to spend the day at the beach with Shauna and her family. My camera finally went kaput, so I have no photos....too bad-it was a lot of fun. We're actually thinking of renting a house there ourselves next summer. Saturday was a whirlwind, the boy and I went to a gymnastics birthday party and then headed to Brooklyn for Caleb's first sleepover with Nate. I am told he had a great time playing, going to the park and especially out to breakfast where he ate six pancakes and asked for more! Meanwhile, back in CT we began the bathroom project. Here are the befores and I should post some what it looks like nows, although I have no afters. But we did manage to remove all gold fixtures, rip out the shower door, paint the trim, buy wall color, buy new fixtures, and order a new shower curtain. I should mention that all of this is in my hallway. Just waiting to be installed.

I wasn't able to capture the floor to ceiling mirrored doors that are opposite the commode- not a fun view. They will be replaced with beautiful clean white non-mirrored doors. The plan is to get the rest of the work done while Caleb and I are in TX....we'll see : )

Caleb continues to crack me up with the things he has been saying. Here is a sampling:

The other morning we sat down to breakfast, he said, "Mom, this milk sure is tasty."

While in the bath, he was splashing around, had a little gas and said, "oops, my hiney made a noise."

He has a toy Thomas the train and Percy the train. While in the store the other day he put the Percy train in my bag and then decided he wanted it back. Caleb has a little trouble with his r's, so you can imagine what, "I want my Percy," might sound like.

Brandon, Caleb and I were curled up in bed ready to read books last night. I had brought in a pile of our books, as well as our library books. Brandon asked him what he would like to read and he went the stack... "well, we have a cow book, we have an Elmo book, we have a frog book, we have a chicken book..." He sounded like a little grown up!

I haven't cut Caleb's hair since Jen and Austin's wedding. Its shaggy and pretty cute. Sometimes, I'll ask him if he wants dad to take him to get a haircut, and he says, "No, he wants to be a hipster." (okay, I coached him on that one, but its pretty funny!)

I got a new camera today, and here are a couple of shots of me tormenting my son with it. Apparently, he doesn't like to be photographed while eating.

This one was taken a couple of weeks ago. As you can see we have upgraded from finger paints to watercolors. While mom is supervising the colors stayed clean and unmixed. One painting session with Dad and now they are all brown.....What am I going to do with them?

Teal was my favorite color in 1994

So its been a busy couple of weeks around here. Caleb started talking like a real person. Sort of....He is in the mammma, mammma, mmma, mmmamma, mmma, mmmama phase- its a little exhausting. Sometimes he actually has something to say. The conversation goes like this:

"Mamma, mammma, mammma. ( or Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, daddy, daddy....) "
"Yes, Caleb?"
"Mamma, I need to tell you something."
"ok, what do you need to tell me?"
"Um, blah blah blah. ice cream. blah blah, wow wow wubbzy. blah blah monster- roar sounds. blah blah. (singing now) Hello to Shauna. blah blah blah."

Note that blah blah= unintelligible baby babble

Other new phrases include: "No, I fine" this is most often the response to....did you do poop? are you hungry? would you like some milk?
"I don't sink so" and my personal favorite..."I help mommy" oh goody!

Caleb also officially master climbing out of the crib. So we are giving the toddler bed another shot. He hasn't been a great napper anyway, and last night was the first time and he didn't make an appearance in our room, so hopefully, this will go smoothly.


We have been in our house for exactly a year and slowly we have been making improvements. painting, new fixtures, etc. We are taking on the first of two major projects this week. The first being new kitchen counters. These are the pictures I had to send into the showroom for templating. Aren't they lovely? Thankfully, they are being replaced with beautiful charcoal solid quartz. I can't wait. and cross your fingers they will be done before the new baby. New floors will come over the Christmas break...

We are also embarking on another big/small project. I hate the downstairs bath. So while the boy is having a sleepover in Brooklyn. We are painting, pulling out the lovely shower door, and replacing all of the gold fixtures. I don't think we'll get to the floor to ceiling mirrored doors this weekend, but it will be a huge improvement. I will post before and afters this weekend, if we survive!

Crocodile Birthday Party

Today we celebrated Dennis the Croc's 1st birthday. Dennis is an add water and watch him grow crocodile that we purchased. He has happily been living in tupperware on the counter for the last week. He likes to be petted and given water. He also has had the pleasure of playing in the sandtable and getting baths in the hose.

Sydney sings Happy Birthday, all the time. Every day, no matter if its someone's b-day or not. Somehow it was decided that it was actually Dennis's birthday and we should have a party. On Tuesday we made crowns as a project and we decided that we should definitely wear these to the party.

The kids wore their crowns as well as special birthday smocks to decorate and eat their cupcakes. Yummy! Everyone had a great time, even though Dennis didn't get any cake.

Caleb is a parrot. We often walk to the playground in our neighborhood or play in Shauna's front yard which is at the end of our street. Between her house and the playground is a rather busy street that people drive entirely too fast down. The speed limit is 25 (a school zone) but there are no stop signs. I have taken to yelling out, "too fast" when I encounter these drivers. We were playing in the yard yesterday when four cars flew down the street. I of course yelled at them. The very next car that passed, an elderly man driving 10 mph, Caleb screamed, "too fast, too fast!" made me laugh

On a more disgusting, I don't know where he learned it note. Caleb was lying in my bed the other day as I was getting ready to go somewhere. He looked up at me and said, "I picka my nose and eat a boogie." I almost gagged as I ran to get a tissue to clean out his mouth and we had a long talk about germs and dirt. Still funny, though.

While Brandon was away

So, Brandon had his big weekend in Wyoming and Caleb and I spent the weekend having fun and trying to keep cool. Saturday we went to music class and then to the art store for some supplies. You can see the projects we worked on below. A visor with Caleb's name (he calls it a puppy hat?) and a hand painted, glittered and jeweled picture frame to send to his great-grandmother. He's really getting funny about the things he says. All through the store, we were talking about doing art projects and making the frame for Mama, and he kept saying, "I can't wait mama, I can't wait!" When it was all done he said, "Oh, its so beautiful!" man I love that kid!

On Sunday we went to Bounce U- A huge warehouse of bouncy toys and slides. He loved it. I was worn out, and the next time we go it will have to be with Dad. Caleb was very brave, there were some pretty steep slides and he was all about it. I did not try them out- Caleb has mastered the phrase, "oh mommy, your belly too big." thanks buddy!

After bouncing away, we headed to the beach. Caleb was content to water the sand while I cooled my feet in the waves. A nice way to spend the afternoon. Then we had pizza for lunch and the world's longest (or what felt like) tea party.

Caleb has rebelled against naps in the last few days. He has also mastered climbing from his crib. Its been really hot, so I moved his pack and play into our bedroom where its cooler, amazingly, he can climb from that, too. Go figure! I am attributing it to the heat and missing Dad, but I am ready for a break!

So, I worry about how much I do with Caleb. Is he having fun, being stimulated, am I teaching him something every day? Because while he is supposed to be napping, we just lie there and watch tv. Its the only way I can keep my sanity, but I still feel a little guilty. I guess as a parent, you do as much as you can and hope that its enough. He seems happy, he passed out at 8:00 while I was cleaning up the dinner dishes.

catching up

Fun weekend at the camp, after a lot of drama getting everyone there. The guys did a lot of clearing and the girls did a lot of swimming and sunning. Caleb and Jenet made friends with a duck family, and enjoyed feeding them until they were attacked by a giant fish. (Really a little fish nibbled at their toes)











We got a chance to visit Mamma, she seems to be doing well and will hopefully, be making her way home in a few weeks. Caleb especially enjoyed using her grabber, I am thinking of getting one for the house, as I have never seen him clean up anything so happily before.




Caleb and I are spending the weekend alone. Brandon is meeting his friends from Colorado in Wyoming for a camping trip at Yellowstone. It was supposed to be a family trip, but everyone started having babies, so we're staying home. We have a lot of fun planned. Swimming at Shayna's, music class, and a playdate at Bounce U- a bouncy house place we've been wanting to check out. Pictures to be taken and posted.






Super Bunny rules....Caleb put a dishtowel around his neck the other night and asked for tape. He wanted to make a cape- so we made it and them we had to film it and then we had to watch it again and again. Caleb movies are a big deal in this house. Grammy Jackie heard about it and thought it was sad he had a taped cape, so she's making him a real Super B cape. Can't wait!

He's also really smart. We were in bed today getting ready for nap, and Caleb was talking to Pappa on the phone. Baby Elmo was there with us, and I asked if Elmo wanted to talk to Pappa, too. He looked at me seriously and said, "No, mamma, baby Elmo doesn't have ears." HA!

The 3rd of July

Good news! You can see the beach fireworks from our back deck. So we decided (or Trisha) decided we should have a little cookout. We make some hamburgers and hotdogs, blew up the bouncy house and had a great time, minus the bugs.

I completed my first successful Craig's list transaction on Sunday. The double stroller I had been researching showed up 1/2 price last week- exact model and color. yippee! We picked it up in the parking lot of Babies-r-us. I wonder if the staff knows what kind of deals are going down out there.

This week's funny kid story....

Caleb loves to talk to pappa on the phone, pretend he is going to pappa's.....so the other day he was running around the house screaming pappawhistle pappawhistle pappawhistle....I could not figure out what he was talking about. We didn't have a whistle from pappa and I couldn't recall a whistle story. Anyway, it took me a while to figure out he was asking for "Pop goes the weasel!"