Merry Christmas!

It was Caelen's 3rd Christmas but it was the first one where she understood what was going on. (given that for her first Christmas she was 3 weeks old.) The anticipation of presents and Santa Claus was so intense that she still asks if Santa will come before she falls alseep every night (we told her he will come next year, so she's started saying that and I don't think she has a clue how far away that is), and yesterday she found a roll of wrapping paper and told me she wanted more presents as she proceeded to try and unroll the whole thing.
It was so fun getting to watch her enjoy, not only getting presents, but watching others open their presents. She would stand right next to whoever was opening their present at the time asking over and over, "What is it? What is it?" and would dutifully gasp with surprise when each gift was opened. She has taken over the roll of present-passer-outter from her mother and auntie. I still remember being about 10 and passing those gifts out from under the tree on Christmas Eve and so it was a little weird to be handing them to my toddler and watching her take them to their respective recipients. She loved her job and was very good at it!
So here are some pictures from Christmas Eve and then Christmas day which we spent home by ourselves as all of Thomas' side of the family was out of town, and for various logistical reasons, my parents couldn't make it to our house for Christmas dinner. It was odd and a little bit lonely to be by ourselves completely on Christmas, but looking back I already see that it'll be probably the only time that ever happens and it was so relaxing and intimate. We had a very Merry Christmas and I hope you all did too!

Here's Caelen enjoying the usual and much-anticipated Christmas Eve spread. Her favorite was the onion dip. I seriously crave Christmas Eve food all year long and was pretty bummed that my huge pregnant belly and horribly shrunken stomach prevented me from gorging myself.


Caelen and Auntie getting in a little "Mickey Mouse Saves Santa" before we open the presents.
The new generation of "Present-Passer-Outter". Give Addison a couple years and she'll be right in there too I'm sure.
Thomas showing her her new bathtub crayons as she crumples the wrapping paper to give to Grandpa.
Helping Auntie open her gift.

My beautiful girl with her new Tinkerbell umbrella.
Putting her new Wonder Pets and stuffed elephant to sleep.

And then Santa came!

She would open a present and then play with it awhile before realizing there were more.
Sleepy face opening her stocking.
Making Papa play with her Littlest Pet Shop with her.
Cozy on Christmas playing with stickers.

Picture Catch Up

(Blame the double postings of pictures on pregnancy brain!)

Lately it's been so cold! There was snow on the mountains that you could easily see from the freeway. We've had highs in the 40's some days and we've woken up to 21 degrees. Caelen still wants to go out and play so we just bundle up like this:

Here's Caelen with Grandma and Grandpa at the Annual 'Round the Table Carol Sing that our church puts on every December. She loved the music and would close her eyes and rock out the really soulful ones. Girl after my own heart!

Then her little friend Tyler turned 3 (10 days after her birthday) and we had another party at the Party Central play area where her friend Maddie had had her party 2 months before. This time Thomas got to come and it was much more fun for Caelen. She even ventured down the big slide with him.

Since everyone helped her open her presents she got right in there and helped open Ty's. She kept asking for more. When we got home and I asked her if she had fun she said, "Yep, I opened my presents!!"

More Quotes from Caelen

Caelen has been watching a lot of the new Wonder Pets Christmas special, The Wonder Pets Save the Nutcracker. It's actually pretty entertaining and has bits of all the great music from the Nutcracker that the wonder pets sing to as they try to get their only Christmas present, a nutcracker, back from the Mouse King. One of the songs they sing (that isn't from the Nutcracker) is Be Happy With What You Have, right after they've realized there's only one present for all of them under the tree on Christmas Eve. All that to set the scene for: Caelen sitting at the table watching me make breakfast says, "Mommy?" I say, "Yes." She sings, "Be happy with what you have!" After I stopped laughing I said, "That's good advice honey!"

She also thinks it's really cool that the Nutcracker comes to life at the end and dances and sings. While watching it the last time at her Grandparent's house and holding my mom's nutcracker she looks at it and says, "The Wonder Pets' nutcracker came to life Mommy! My nutcracker come to life too???" As she breaks his arm off and it drops to the ground. LOL

On a non-nutcracker note, this afternoon while I was making lunch for everyone, Thomas said something that indicated to me that he had not been listening when I was sharing my feelings with him earlier and this irritated me. Pregnancy hormones have definitely been sucking my patience away. Without going into boring details on why, I began, in a VERY firm but escalating voice, to explain why I was frustrated and that I need him to listen when I speak and yada yada yada. After a pause, Caelen says, "What's happening Mommy?" I said, "Oh honey, Mommy's just pregnant." She replies, "You pregnant at Papa??"

How's that for fireworks

When I wake up in the morning it is about 56 degrees in my house. No joke. Our furnace blew up about a month ago. Luckily we have 2 space heaters and a TON of firewood. My husband works all summer to squirrel away as much firewood as he can. To be quite honest I get a little jealous of his affair with the firewood, but I have never been more grateful in my life that he took all those weekends to work his butt off.
The amazing thing is that you DO adapt to the cold. Yes, even me who is cold when it's 75 degrees outside. I woke up the other morning and thought, "Hey it's not that cold in the house!" It was a whopping 60 degrees. And the cold doesn't seem to really bother Caelen. She still tries to take her clothes off and run around naked. I try to tell her she needs her clothes because it's cold, but I don't know if she believes me or just thinks I'm pulling her leg!
Anyway, we have a fire going almost 24/7 and we recently discovered you have to remove the screen to get any amount of heat out of an open hearth fireplace. Thomas also started placing a fan in front to move the hot air. He tends to build the fire up really high and I'm constantly nagging him about my fear of it falling over and going into the fan. I think he thought I was crazy until yesterday when it happened. Yes, my friends, the blazing wood all collapsed onto the hearth and the fan sucked up the pieces and sprayed them into our living room!!! I ran for the plug to the fan, got the fan stopped, Thomas ran to get the big chunks back in the fireplace (because then the house was filling with smoke) and the last task was to get the burning embers up off our (thankfully) hardwood floor. Thank the Lord it wasn't carpet and I happened to be washing all our rugs. Nothing was worse for the wear, not even my floor.
When I asked Thomas if maybe after living with me a few more years and having these "fears" of mine come true all the time he'd stop thinking I'm over reacting and crazy, he said, "Um yeah, maybe. But probably not."
LOL At least he's honest!

I personally LOVE sleep

Dear Caelen,
What's so bad about sleep?
Seriously. Are you afraid we might be having fun without you? Are there things you want to do that you just can't be bothered with a nap? Are there just too many thoughts going around in your head? That must be it because you lay in there talking and singing to yourself about everything in the whole wide world.
When you call me in saying, "Mommy, I need my _____ " I know you're just trying to get me in your room so you can start trying to convince me that you're "awake now!" but I know you never even slept.
I do appreciate that you don't try to come out of your room, but Mommy can't relax when you're in there whining and hollering. I blame your father for this. Lord knows HE didn't even take naps at this age. At least you take a few a week.
Lord have mercy!
Mommy

There's a birthday party at the home of Farmer Grey

Here are some picture from our crazy weekend, and since a nap is calling my name louder than my child from her bed (where she doesn't want to nap as usual) I'll make it short and sweet. Friday was Caelen's 2nd Birthday party and it was super crazy! But it was fun :)
She got a new "baby" and a highchair, stroller, carseat etc. to go along with her and Caelen's whole world is complete. She got lots of others things too that she's enjoying equally as much and Mommy is enjoying to new clothes for Caelen :)

Everyone is singing Happy Birthday in this pic.

Who needs to wait for a fork, just dig in!

Having Uncle Josh color with her after the party was over.

Then Saturday we went to get our Christmas tree. God bless Thomas for getting this adorable picture of her! They're rare these days as Caelen doesn't like having her picture taken and frowns or covers her face in all the shots.

And the final tree, which I like but hate at the same time because it's apparently not strong enough to hold an ornament. I think every ornament I've put on it has fallen off since and one of the glass ones even shattered. Stupid tree. But the house is Christmas-ready. Now after the baby shower, Thanksgiving, Caelen's birthday, getting ready for Christmas and all the other time consumers and fun events in between, I'm exhausted and in need of a week long hybernation period.

Birthday Girl

Caelen turned 2 today and I can't quite believe it. She's so excited about her birthday party tomorrow and almost cried with excitment when we talk about it and she says, "That'll be fun Mommy!" Today when she asked Thomas what he was doing and he told her he was baking her cake for her birthday party tomorrow she told us her friends would eat her cake too. Then she asked if Addison would have some cake!! After I finished laughing at how cute and thoughtful she was I told her Addison could have some of my cake.

When Caelen's friend hit her on the face yesterday she pointed at her and said, "Don't do that! Take a time out!"

Thanksgiving Pictures

Yay for a successful, but not over-stuffed Thanksgiving. I think we all agreed we didn't gorge ourselves this year but still ate plenty as evidenced by the lack of left-overs in our fridge. Well, that's not entirely true, but there's far less food in there than I thought there would be after an event so scaled down from last years 20 guest with a 32 lb turkey. This year we had 8 adults and Caelen and our turkey was 24 lbs.

We took a few family shots so I could put one in our Christmas card (which I will not post, because who wants to see their Christmas card before they actually get it?). So here's a few.

That blur is Woodrow of course, he jumped up at the last minute. Now he just looks like an alien.

Caelen didn't smile for one shot, but after the picture was taken she'd hold one finger up and say, "one more."

Here she is being shy. I asked her and "Tampa" to smile and she covered her face until it was all over. She started out the whole afternoon shy when she woke up from her nap and her house was full of people! So she took Grandpa into her room and they played with stuffed animals until she was confortable enough to come out and face her fans.

From left to right: my Grandma Evelyn, my mom, my dad, Caelen, my sister Heather, me, Tom & David (friends from college, brothers.)

Dancing to Celtic Christmas music to burn off the turkey.

Thomas made 4 pies (2 pumpkin, cherry, lemon meringue).

Auntie showing Caelen some hair styling tips. LOL
Enjoying the pie.

We went to visit Courtney earlier this week and for Caelen to meet baby Daniel. She was very excited to hold him!

Caelen Quotes

Caelen is just beginning to say I love you in a context that makes sense. Today she was putting her hand and face on my bare belly and talking about how the baby was going to come then she smiled and said, "I love my baby sister mommy."

I worked a couple hour shift at the Fairgrounds today for the Redwood Gospel Mission's Thanksgiving Dinner. It's awesome because it's totally free to everyone, it's good food and they even serve pie. I was a hostess and had to keep an eye on seats as they emptied and then they'd send more people in and I'd show them where to sit. So I left Caelen with her grandparents during that time and told her I was going to help feed some hungry people. We were eating lunch and she said, "Going to feed the people mommy?" I said, "Yep" she said, "Oh..... I'm going to feed my Grandma."

While looking through the latest Pottery Barn Kids catalogue today Caelen came across a page with dolls and strollers and accessories for babies. Caelen says, "I need a stroller Mommy." I said, "You do?" She said, "Yeah, to push with my hands, I need a stroller for my babies." So I tried to explain to her that her birthday is coming up (one week from Thanksgiving) and that maybe she'd get a stroller as a present. (I already know that she IS) :) I couldn't quite believe my 2 year old was catalogue shopping. Like mother like daughter.

I guess they had cars in Biblical times?

I don't know if I've mentioned my little munchkin's favorite form of control in our house yet but it just kills me. She decided (that horrible day we had where she threw tantrum after tantrum and ended the night by insisting she sleep on the floor) that sleeping on the floor is a really good way to show us that she's in charge of some decisions in her life. It's now a very rare night that Caelen chooses to go to bed in her bed. She instead grabs her yellow bauchie and lays face down on the floor where she always falls peacefully to sleep. We used to leave her there and she'd sleep the whole night through, but now Thomas puts her in her bed as soon as she's alseep. She nevers stirs during the transition, but every once in awhile I go in in the morning to find her alseep on the floor again. A couple nights ago, we went in to put her into her bed, and she was already there! I don't even try, it's not a battle worth fighting at all! LOL

Seriously, two days ago it was 75 degrees and clear. I drove up into my driveway and there's my neighbor, in her white shirt and peddle pushers with her black umbrella over her head, watering her flowers.

I'm so glad we took that picture of me and Courtney on Saturday because last night she delivered Daniel Ryan! He was about 2 weeks early, 7lbs 4oz & 18 inches long. Adria and I got to the hospital at about 9:00pm and got to see him! Courtney already had so many friends and family in her room, the nurses were amazed at the crowd. And just as I predicted, it's SO much harder to wait now that I'm the only pregnant one. ;) I've never been one for the patience, but as I watch my toddler turning into a little girl, I just need a baby.

Speaking of children growing up, Caelen went to Sunday school for the first time one Sunday!! From birth until 2 they just hang out in the nursery through church and sunday school but when they turn two they get to start a more "structured" class. They have free play for about 30 minutes, then they get a little carpet to sit on and sing some songs (with hand motions) and have a story read to them with a felt board. They get to move the little figures around on the board. Then it's craft time! Then they play until the parents pick them up.
Caelen made a little chalk drawing with car stickers on it which is hanging on my fridge. I feel like a real mom.

Caelen's current obsession: Frosty the Snowman anything, song, cartoon, book, pictures etc.

Bambaid

One of Thomas and my favorite words of Caelen's is Bandaid. When she says it we just crack up. One day on the way home from church I accidentally scratched Thomas and Caelen went on and on about how he needed a "bambaid". We were in tears by the time we got home. So I tried to get a video of her saying it.



Here's Caelen doing her baby's hair while I do her hair. She's such a Mommy.

Today Adria and I threw a baby shower for Courtney who is due with her second (a boy this time) in 2 1/2 weeks! Courtney and I are always pregnant at the same time and we got a picture together at my shower for Caelen so we got another one of us today. Last time we were three weeks apart, this time we're about three months apart. I can see that I have far to go LOL!

In less than 15 hours

The fact that I am blogging right now after the day I had just testifies to the type of day it was. It was one of those days where you do SO MUCH that the day must have lasted twice as long as a normal day to get it all done, and you're so productive that you just don't want to stop. You want to take that productivity to every area of your life until you can barely keep your eyes open and you finally resign yourself to bed where you fall out of conscienceness faster than you can get yourself comfortable under the covers.
Poor Thomas has his wisdom teeth (all 4) taken out today. It was his first time under anethesia and he was definitely nervous. I had to hit the road at 7:00 to get my couple hours worth of work done at my mom's house before running home, making sure Caelen was dressed and hairbrushed, eating brunch, throwing my family in the car and getting Thomas (who was devoid of any caffiene, food, or any other substance that might make him a kind person) to his surgery. We dropped him off, said good luck, ran to the Kline Construction shop, got his paycheck and ran to the bank just in time to get back to the oral surgeon's and wait in the waiting room for half an hour. Caelen was undoubtedly the waiting room entertainment. She kept telling her baby what to do, where to sit, and she also kept doing this big dramatic fake sneeze of all things. Sometimes I have no clue where she gets these things.
Anyway Thomas' surgery went really well and we got him home, got him some clean gauze and I (who never even took Caelen out of the car) went straight back out to McDonald's where we were meeting a couple friends for Riley's 2nd Birthday. She was having a huge family party tonight but we wanted to still get to see Riley and give her her presents, so we thought a casual date at the McDonald's playplace would do. Of course I totally underestimated how long Thomas's surgery would take (the surgeons weren't much help either) and we were half an hour late. But the kids got to play and we had nasty fast food (which is so delicious but leaves you feeling awful the rest of the day) and I got the milkshake I'd been craving for weeks.
My child is the playground bully in case I didn't already suspect it. One little kid about her age was trying to climb in and she wasn't letting him. I told her to knock it off. A few minutes later this poor kid is crying and holding his face. Caelen is on the level above him looking at him.
I said, "Caelen what happened?"
She said, "Hit his face."
I said, "Did YOU hit his face."
"Yes".
So after an apology from her to the boy and my apology to the mother I told her she was done and we were going home. She was pretty good about it as she was exhuasted and needed a nap.
So Thomas was asleep when we got home and Caelen joined in his nap and I had 2 hours of vigorous cleaning as Courtney's baby shower is being hosted at my house tomorrow at 10am. So I moved as fast as I could, until Caelen and Thomas woke up and Adria, Ty and Austin arrived. Adria was helping me get the house ready for the shower.
By now Thomas is in pain and needs his prescription filled (which I should have done earlier) he is also demanding chicken chow mein. So I run to Walgreens and China Chef and return an hour later to the tornado in my house that is "my child and her friends".
Somehow I managed to get a ravioli dinner on the table and we did end up getting streamers hung, furniture moved, laundry and dishes done, children bathed, a tablecloth ironed, windows cleaned, bathroom scrubbed, and all that other crap that comes with a party. I got Caelen to bed, Adria got her boys home, I tidied up, finished the laundry, took a shower, and I just sat down to check my E-mail.
Then I started thinking about the day I just had, and how I hadn't stopped yet, so why stop now? and so I wrote this blog.
In case you're wondering by this point, Thomas is doing very well. The bleeding has subsided and is almost completely gone. He's not nauseated and is up and about though taking it very easy. He's been ravenous and eating what he can and has a very good attitude about the whole thing. YAY!
OK, my eyes won't stay open anymore. Goodnight.

A Game of Tag

Tag You're It!
Melissa tagged me on her blog and it looked interesting so I thought I'd answer these few questions just for fun!

My 8 Obsessions right now...
1. Learning to live by the Spirit (in our Bible Study)
2. Thomas & Caelen
3. Feeling Addison moving around
4. Getting ready for Thanksgiving, Caelen's Birthday, Christmas and Addison's Arrival!
5. Having a clean house
6. Naps
7. Reading
8. Hanging out with friends

8 words or phrases that I use often
1. Oh Mercy (Child)!!
2. Peanut
3. Listen or take a time out
4. I love you
5. Oh my goodness
6. Seriously!
7. You are so funny!
8. Yellow Bauchie (Blankie)

8 things I want to do before I die...
1. Watch my kids grow up
2. Go to Ireland
3. Be the best wife and mother that I can
4. Build our own house
5. Have lifelong meaningful friendships
6. Have a Martha Stewart Christmas LOL
7. Read all of Jane Austen's novels
8. See my grandchildren

8 things I want or need right now...
1. Debt to be paid off
2. My house clean!
3. Addison to come out (but not really because she wouldn't be healthy).
4. Money for Christmas presents
5. A few more maternity clothes for the last 3 months
6. A vacation
7. A full night's sleep
8. A new furnace for the house.

8 people I tag..
The only people I know with Blogs LOL
1. Jessica
2. Stephanie
3. Courtney
4. Erica
5. Becky
6.
7.
8.

Rain, Halloween & Emotional Mommies

It is a strange feeling when your first baby goes to a legitimate kids birthday party and plays and enjoys herself. For the past couple years we've done baby birthday parties, the kind where everyone sits around admiring the mute children who can barely toddle while holding onto furniture. My baby grew up right under my eyes and then received an invitation to Maddie's 5th birthday party at Party Central, which is an awesome place full of bounce houses, huge blow-up slides, obstacle courses, and lots of ball pits! Believe me, it's just as much fun for the parents (unless you're pregnant and get stuck in the obstacle course, not that that happened....)
Caelen loved this slide area. It started with climbing up on these little bugs.

Then sliding down the slide.
And into the pretty deep ball pit below. She did this for 45 of the 60 minutes we were there.

She's not in distress here, I assure you! That's her funny smile for the camera! And this is also where a pregnant woman might get stuck.....
And here's my girl eating birthday cake with all the other kids. Brings a tear to mommy's eye!
Who knew a simple birthday party would get me all emo about my baby growing up? Well I guess I should remember I AM pregnant and that brings with it a whole bunch of emotional issues. I think I need a little baby to hold again!! One that doesn't run away saying, "No kisses Mommy!" LOL

So then Halloween rolls around whether you're ready or not. We fell into the "Not" category. Caelen can say, "Trick or Treat" but I know she would have been too young this year. She would have got to some stranger's door and freaked out. She hates introductions to new people and let's face it, to a 2 year old, Halloween is just a whole bunch of introductions to your neighbors that you don't even care about!

But the morning of came and I thought, "Hmm... I wonder if there's anything we can do to make this day seem like not just another day." I happened to find one more costume in her box of hand-me-downs and it fit! So I asked if she was interested and she was, so she got to be a cheetah all day. She was very excited about her costume, especially the tail! (Ignore the expression in this picture, sometimes she takes the picture-taking-business very seriously.)

So lots of people got to see her dressed for the holiday even though we didn't go out.

Last time it rained, Caelen wasn't old enough to care about playing outside let alone understand what rain was. So I considered this storm her first rain. She has been enjoying it immensely; talking non stop about how it's raining and that made Grandma and Grandpa have to go in the house. She talks about her favorite cartoon Oswald because he's had a few rainy day episodes and so even though she's never seen one in real life, she knows you need an umbrella to keep dry.

In this picture she's staring out into the backyard during her first rain. She had her rain coat and boots on, but never did venture out into it. She doesn't like getting wet, she immediately demands that any wet clothes be taken off.