Timmertwins and Fretlets

From Timmertwins and Fretlets

While we were in Richmond, we got to catch up with some good friends of mine, including their respective twins and triplets!  Sarah and I worked together at our first jobs out of college, and she introduced me to Margaret, who was my triplet-mom-on-bedrest mentor three years ago now.  Wow, just realized I started those months of bedrest three years ago yesterday.  I am once again reminded to be very grateful for the ability to be up and mobile while growing a little baby!

Twin James is a ham! (And Caleb is a hugger!)

From Timmertwins and Fretlets

From Timmertwins and Fretlets

From Timmertwins and Fretlets

Lots of hugs for the little ladies! (These are two of the triplets. Abby, Maddie, and Ella look a lot alike, but they are actually all fraternal.)

From Timmertwins and Fretlets

From Timmertwins and Fretlets

Kitchen gymnastics

From Timmertwins and Fretlets

From Timmertwins and Fretlets

From Timmertwins and Fretlets

I wish I had a pic of just the six kiddos, but it was a challenge to keep everyone in the same room, let alone the same frame! :) Thanks again for hosting us, Sarah! I hope we can do a Christmas rendezvous with SEVEN kiddos in 2012!

And we're back :)

I finally have my new computer in hand (a MacBook Pro, which I debated buying for two entire years before deciding I can make the PC-Mac transition.  I am (was) such a PC shortcut-key user I feared the frustration, but so far I love the new replacement computer!  I am hopeful enough to say new computer with internet access = lots more posting!

So I have way too much catch-up to do it any justice in an exhaustive sense... and really to much to cull through it well enough to share only my favorites over the past month.  So I am going to be a little lame and just share some here-and-there pics over the past several weeks when I have been down a computer.

A few Christmas shots that did not make the blog before... Here is Caleb enjoying his first ginerbread house - a gift from his Auntie Ang and Uncle Sean. 

From Christmas 2011

From Christmas 2011

A few days after Christmas, we caught up with one of Pete's former colleagues who now teaches at the University of Richmond. Caleb found a music-box gingerbread house and actually tried to eat the glass gumdrops off the top. Oops!
Christmas morning milk with Nana...

From Christmas 2011

... and feeding himself his oatmeal

From Christmas 2011

From Christmas 2011

Sorry for the blur on this one - I had the idea of teaching Caleb how to be gentle (aka not clobber his soon-to-be-newborn brother) by giving him a stuffed baby doll, and to make him actually like the present, I put it in a stroller from my friend, Nicole. The baby lasted a few minutes in the stroller until it was replaced by blocks and a dump truck. Since we have been home, Caleb still loves pushing the stroller, but usually it has an assortment of balls, books, or trains in it. Oh, well. :)

From Christmas 2011

Pete and I took Caleb to to the Maymont Nature Center in Richmond before we left. This was extra fun for me as I was working at the architecture firm that designed the Nature Center. (My major was architecture, even though I never used it except for that summer internship)) This was the first time I have actually seen the building in brick and mortar!
His favorite part was the otter exhibit. He tried to race them across the tank, but the otter always won!

From Christmas 2011

Peek a boo! (I love this Boden toggle coat from his Nana and Papa!)

From Christmas 2011

Speaking of bricks and mortar, we passed Franklin Goose - a retail website for natural and organic baby gear and toys that had recently opened up an in-person location in Richmond. Caleb loved the Plan Toys drum set, and I finally picked up a bowl that will actually suction to the table. Good find, as Caleb loves to check out the bottom of his dinnerware. Now if only I could find a suction plate... :)

From Christmas 2011

Nana and Caleb took advantage of the nice Christmas weather and went on a couple of neighborhood walks.

From Christmas 2011

Bird watching, I think

From Christmas 2011

Football watching

From Christmas 2011

His "touchdown!" antics cracked us up as no one actually taught him that move. (Well, he knew "streamline," which is pretty similar. BTW, his dad taught him that swim move, not his swimmer mom. :))

From Christmas 2011

I am only posting this one because it makes me laugh - our little guy is in constant motion!!

From Christmas 2011

Continuing the blurry theme, I thought we should take a pic of our family on Christmas day each year, and sadly this one was my favorite pic!! They didn't work out so well. Obviously.

From Christmas 2011

Who has a booty? :)

From Christmas 2011

That rocking chair was mine when I was a little girl! I loved it, and now I love that I get to see Caleb loving it! He has it in his room and scootches his way into it at some point every day.
So hard to look but not touch

From Christmas 2011

I am pretty sure I have this same picture of me or one of my brothers with my dad when we were little. I need to find it to do a comparison post!

From Christmas 2011

Being silly with Nana

From Christmas 2011

From Christmas 2011

Okay, that is it for my Christmas catch up, very nearly a month late! I will do a little more updating in the next post, then hopefully we are back into real-time life. :)

Internet at last!

Just a quick note to say that despite my complete and utter LACK of posting in 2012 thus far, all is okay on our end!  Pete has been globetrotting for two weeks straight, which overlapped my computer really, for real breaking - no more internet at all - so I haven't been able to post a thing since before New Years when we got home.  These two weeks also converged with a horrible case of tonsilitis for me, making my solo time with Caleb interesting!

All is well, I am on the mend, and here is finally a belly shot to boot.  The new little Mr. Coyne is already nearly 3 pounds!!  He's measuring a week ahead already.  Here is a29-week belly shot from this morning to show where we are...

From January 2012

And while I am at it, here are a few iPhone shots from the past week or so. I will put more real ones up once I upload and weed through two weeks of them! Today is Big-Boy-Room-Making Day, so my first priority is getting that going before the official two-month countdown to our new baby begins!
Caleb's first mall trip without a stroller! He was really good walking around and enjoyed his first escalator rides. (This was the only point he did not stand straight up at looking around, all proud of himselffor riding on his own two feet.)

From January 2012

Jumping on Jake's trampoline. Caleb was in heaven! Until he went flying off into a dresser when Jake figured out that two-boy bouncing was not as bouncy as one-boy bouncing. He was back on in no time, with only the tiniest black eye to show for it. (I was holding Nicole's newborn and couldn't break the fall well enough - gave me a taste of some of the challenges ahead in the Coyne household once new baby arrives

From January 2012

From January 2012

Did you notice how Caleb grew about 8 inches in the second shot? :)
A recent bath with letters. Caleb loves letters! He points to pretty much all his numbers, 1-9 when asked, and loves them too. Near the end of 2011, he was constantly asking me the names of numbers, and when we were at my parents' house for Christmas, we realized he could point them out when asked. Very cute! He also knows a few ofhis letters and loves to point and say H, S, L, M, and X. So funny!

From January 2012

He likes to throw his letters out of the tub...

From January 2012

...And throw them back in!

From January 2012

From January 2012

Giving his baby brother kisses! He loves to do this when you ask him where the baby is. :) It almost always first involves undressing the belly (as you can see), which makes for intersting times in, say, music class when a song references a baby, haha.

From January 2012

From January 2012

Tacky Lights Tour

We decorated our house for Christmas this year...

Just kidding! We've been enjoying our past week in Richmond with Nana and Papa for Christmas this year.  As both my brothers and their families were with their in-laws this year, it was a quiet Christmas, relatively speaking.  Caleb got LOTS of attention, nonetheless!  Pete didn't have to work as much this year as he has in the past, and with only one grandbaby soaking up my parents' doting, Caleb was a happy, chatty, busy, busy boy!  Too bad we realized we left the camera charger home when my camera died on Christmas eve!  Thanks to amazon, a backup arrived yesterday, so we'll have some Richmond pics before our tour here is over.

On Christmas Eve, we took Caleb around town on a tacky-lights tour after Christmas-Eve church service. He loooved church (songs! lights!), and he loooved the tacky-lights tour! We only hit six or so houses as we still had to feed our little guy dinner, but Caleb certainly enjoyed his "ite! ite!" tour. (Most of his words consist of just the first letter and vowel sound, but lights gets special treatment. Even funnier is when he actually says it with the l, sticking his tongue way out of his mouth in doing so. Cracks us all up!) This was the third house we pulled up to... quite a sight with 1,500,000 lights on it alone!

And it just got brighter...

And brighter...

And then we saw its next-door neighbor was just as ridiculously decorated!  Turns out the son lives next door to the parents, who have lit up their yard for 33 years running.

Oh, my!  Caleb and his Papa taking it all in.

In the midst of the glitter, Caleb found a favorite friend!

He hopped right up into his lap, as usual.  (Funny the "Joy" sign behind them when Santa looks anything but joyful in all of our shots!)

A house on a lake, lit up x2

Some of the homes had their own radio stations with light shows set to music. they didn't photograph as well since the lights weren't all on at once, but they were a hit in our car and especially with the little dude who worked out some new carseat dance moves

The non-driving crew - I sat in the back of our new car (safely fits a carseat behind our 34" inseam legs up front!) and played navigator with an iPad and the Richmond-Times site noting all the tacky lights around town.

I think Pete may have enjoyed it even more than Caleb and proposed we make it a yearly tradition. It is pretty amazing to see the effort these families put into decorating... not to mention the expense - the owner of the super-lit-up house second on this post said he pays nearly $3000 for his utility bill in December! Most of the houses collect donations for various causes, so in the end, everybody wins. It was a fun new Christmas event for us and will likely be a repeat next year!

Saw Mill holiday party

Last week Pete's company held their annual Children's Holiday party, complete with a mad scientist and fun gifts under the tree.

Oooh, smoke

Not sure who likes the mad scientist more?

Chemical snowballs. Healthy, I'm sure ;)

Rebecca with Ben (8 weeks younger than Caleb) enjoying all aspects of his present

Caleb loving his present, which at first he thinks is a drum

We are so happy that Pete's firm puts on such a fun event for the kiddos every year! (They do a separate one for the adults only, as well, but I took no pictures of us there... and besdies, Caleb wasn't in the pics, so who cares! :))

More Santa

I found the deleted Santa pics - here are a few.  Despite his obvious adoration for all Santas big and small, I was somewhat surprised anyone was all smiles in these shots as the mall alarm started going off as Caleb climbed on Santa's lap - and it was LOUD!  That explains some of the pointing that ensued.  (And fair warning to anyone who is not a grandparent - this will be way too many Santa pics for your enjoyment! :))

More Army-Navy

Finally getting to posting pics from our weekend in DC almost three weeks ago (just before we head back there tomorrow)!
With Nana and Papa waiting for the midshipmen and cadets to march on the field.

From Army-Navy game

Midshipmen!

From Army-Navy game

Trying to stay warm with Uncle Sean

From Army-Navy game

A quiet moment during the anthem

From Army-Navy game

Go Navy!

From Army-Navy game

Possibly Caleb's favorite moment - the F-18 flyover (what Uncle Tim used to fly)!

From Army-Navy game

Fighter-jet love

From Army-Navy game

Almost as cool - the Army helicopters (Blackhawks??) flying over

From Army-Navy game

The game was fun but freezing! We were so grateful to our friends, Claire and Dan, who let us borrow their tickets to go into the warm box seats above for a bit. Our seats were great but outside, near to Obama and Biden who sat on the Navy side for the first half. I've never seen so many Navy Admirals, Marine Generals and wire-wearing Secret Service folks in one place before! The next day we did Christmas morning with Uncle Sean and Auntie Ang as they were heading to her family in Florida for Christmas. Of course they showered Caleb with awesome gits, including Big Bird, Snuffleupagus, and Elmo. He's never seen Sesame Street but wouldn't stop loving on his new little friends!

From Army-Navy game

Modeling his new winter hat and checking out the checkers

From Army-Navy game

From Army-Navy game

Playing trains with Papa

From Army-Navy game

A fun weekend all around!

From Army-Navy game

Kidney update

So it has been over a year since Caleb had his big kidney surgery at barely nine weeks old.  That surgery fixed one of his kidney issues (a ureto-pelvic junction obstruction) but not the other (grade III bladder reflux to both kidneys).  As a result, he has been on prophylactic antibiotics every day since he was six or seven weeks old to prevent a kidney infection.  

As often children grow out of the bladder-reflux condition, Caleb recently had his follow-up VCUG where isotope is injected via a catherter and viewed via a series of x-rays.  Our hope was that all 14" of growth since he was born (!) has given his ureters a chance to grow out of the condition.  We saw that this was not entirely the case - one kidney had outgrown the reflux, but the kidney that had the blockage fixed has not outgrown the condition.  We spent a week wondering if his pediatric urologist was going to recommend surgery to fix it or not - which reminded me to next time make the appointments on subsequent days! - but learned that we are able to wait another year to give him a chance to grow out of it before he needs surgical correction.  While it was disappointing he still has the problem and needs nightly antibiotics, we were happy to hear that surgery is not a necessity on the immediate horizon.

Apparently there is a 40% sibling-recurrance incidence of bladder reflux, so 3 weeks after our new little guy is born, he will go in for what will be his first and hopefully only kidney sonogram to see how they look.  We know his kidneys looks good prenatally on ultrasound, so hopefully that is an indication of their normal development!

All in all for Caleb, he had a very tough day of testing, tolerating it far worse than he did over a year ago as a six-week old.  In fact, he screamed straight through the two 30-minute tests.  It borke my heart to see his traumatic experience result in broken blood vessels all over his face... but the little red specks that lasted a few days earned him lots of extra cuddles every time I looked at his pink cheeks.  

We celebrated getting through it with lots of "tough guy" compliments and a daddy-mommy-son lunch at the hospital Au Bon Pain.  Last time we ate here was during his surgery (although I think only Pete, my dad, and our pastors who stayed with us ate... my mom and I couldn't get any food down that stressful day!)  We actually sat at the same table so Caleb could see the ambulance and fire trucks roll up to the trauma center.  It was so nice to be sitting there post testing instead of during our little boy's surgery!  We hope to never experience that again.

Watching Barney in between tests. The only other time he watched Barney was in the waiting room before his surgery as a newborn at the same hospital. He loved it both times. :)

Checking out the foyer fish before we leave Maria Fareri Chidlren's Hospital...

Playing with Dad in the waiting room before his VCUG tests... this year and last...

Army-Navy preview

From Army-Navy game

I am woefully behind in updating my blog, largely because I have had the energy of a tree stump (due to low thyroid levels, which is now being straightened out, thankfully!), and it seems every nap is filled with wrapping presents and addressing Christmas cards.  I have a few updates in the works, but here is a quick shot from a weekend ago at Caleb's first Army-Navy game.  Go Navy!

Santa love

Among the 200 lost photos were those I took of Caleb with Santa last week at our Westchester mall. Such a bummer! This is all I have - a pic of the pic we got at the mall. This boy sure does love Santa!  It was hard to get a shot of him looking at the camera because he was pretty entrhalled with Santa and couldn't tear his eyes away. :)

For comparison, here is is last year with Santa at the same mall. (2010 Santa from South Georgia, North Pole, and 2011 Santa from Denver, North Pole - apparently Santa comes from nearly as far away as the legends hold. :))

Boys and girls

With the busyness of Thanksgiving week, I only now realized that I forgot to post pictures of the Thanksgiving pack that Pete organized at our local Boys and Girls Club. We solicited our church body to provide food for local families in need, and boy, did they come through! We added what everyone brought to what some other folks had brought directly to the B&G Club (plus the 28 big turkeys the B&G Club ordered), and we had quite a stockpile!

A few families came to pack, helped along by some of the kids in the center that day.

Little hands even helped out :)

Although Caleb's favorite part was - of course- playing with the girls who showered him with attention!

From Thanksgiving pack

Whoa, that looks yummy!

Almost 40 families were helped with a delish Thanksgiving dinner this year!

Please Touch Museum

The day after Thanksgiving, we took Caleb to the Please Touch Museum in Philly.  He LOVED it!!  It was so fun to see him there.  He had fallen asleep on the way, but we woke him up 30 minutes into his nap to take him inside.  He is so funny when you wake him - he opens his wide, points to the sun, and says "hot" almost every time.  Little nut.

Anyway, we brought the sleepy boy inside, and he immediately shone with wide-eye amazement that did not falter until we sat down to feed him lunch nearly three hours later.  He had such a great time!

As I mentioned earlier, I got such great pictures and somehow managed to delete nearly all of them (191 of 195 deleted). Heartbreaking more than it should be, really. :) On the plus side, if anyone is in the Philly area with a little one, we highly recommend a stop here - it is terrific!

Philly Thanksgiving

Pete, Caleb, and I spent Thanksgiving this year (as we do every year) with Pete's family in and around Philadelphia.  It is a big-family tradition, with 60 or so parents, kids, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. joining in the fun.  It has gotten so big that the last couple of years we have held the dinner in a church hall big enough for everyone and with enough space for the kiddos to run around.

Caleb with some of his cousins. He really loves the ladies! (And a warning for the rest of this post = my pictures in this room all turned out grossly green... I tried to fix some of them, but rest assured no one involved in our Thanksgiving felt as green as they look in these pics!)

His five-year-old cousin, Gina, spent a good bit of time teaching Caleb some new dance moves. (He has always loved to dance, but until now has really only showcased his one "bounce" move.)

May I have this dance?

Cousin love!

Intent on checking out the person who suddenly showed up after dinner...

It's SANTA!!!! Everyone was wondering how Caleb would do up close and personal with Santa. Pete and I had no doubt he would eat it up!

I can't believe it's really YOU, Santa!

Your beard tickles!

I love this Santa guy!

Playing with his Uncle Dave's beard - Santa made him think they are cool!

Santa and - Spoiler alert! - his sister and parents:)

... And most of his first cousins, plusa Uncle John

Cousins waiting their turn... except for Caleb, who is once again leading a very patient Uncle Doug back to Santa! Uncle Doug was great - holding Caleb just out of viewfinder range of Santa but close enough so Caleb could ogle at him :)

Wide-angle view with attentive toddler :)

Caleb, his cousins, and Santa. This picture cracks me up, because I know Pete took it - he inherited the subject-in-the-bottom-half-of-the-frame philosophy :)

Another wide-angle view, this one showing Pete's behind-the-scenes work in trying to get little ones to look towards the camera (and, of course, Caleb trying once again to get in Santa's lap)

He was SO eager to get back on Santa's lap after he had his turn. If we put him down, he'd walk in between everyone's legs to wind his way right back to Santa and interrupt whatever patient child was sitting on his lap. Little stinker... but I love his unabashed excitement!
Group shots - LOTS of cousins!! And one great-Nana (and a great great-Nana at that! :)) I think we have all but three second-cousins in this shot.

What most of my group shots look like (minus the leaves, which I just added in as the blinds were bothering me :))

Three of the four youngest and one of the oldest. Gina's party-ready smile cracks me up!

Hanging with the big boys (Sorry for the nauseating overcast - tired of pulling green out of these indoor shots!)

Uncle Dave's torpedo game

Caleb loves his uncles!

Despite the wheelchair, Nan had the hottest dance ticket in town! (Cousin Jimmy had solicited everyone's favorite music and had the room jamming all day long. He also decorated the walls and tables with about a thousand family pictures that everyone sent to him - he is amazing!)

Caleb wanting his cousin's attention while Taylor was busy texting

Cousin Chance lending a hand

I am SO SAD to share that the vast majority of our trip pictures somehow got mysteriously deleted in the upload process.  Losing pictures is no big thing in the long run.. although more disturbing than it should be in the immediate sense.  We had SUCH cute pics from a day at the Touch-Me Museum with Caleb and in the park with Caleb and his Buffy.  I even finally got a great Christmas-card photo of Caleb... which is now gone!  Alas.

Let's hear it for the purple team

Caleb is enjoying the annual tradition of cheering on Pete's high-school football team, the Upper Moreland Golden Bears, at their big annual game. Last year it was too cold for a four-month old to join in the festivities, so I stayed home with him... but this year he is loving the football, band, cheerleaders, and mascot!

Oh, sweet joy!

Thursday we had our long-awaited appointment with our favorite Maternal-Fetal-Medicine doc and got a peek into the happenings of our new wee one's world.  It was so fantastic to have waited over four weeks, then to see perfect, perfect, perfect everything everywhere we looked.  My biggest curiosity was about our new little boy's kidneys, as it was at 18 weeks when we saw Caleb's hydronephrosis which required surgery nine weeks after he was born.  This defect was obviously a congenital one, although we did not know if it was genetic or not.  (We never saw it on any of the tripelts, but we also never had a scan past 18 weeks with them.)  Both left and right kidney of this new little babe were barely visible on ultrasound (a good thing!) and looked... Brain, spine, heart, abdomen, appendages, and even twenty fingers and toes... perfect.  Once again, the placenta showed previa, but it does not look as severe as Caleb's was, and even his moved up before delivery.  I trust this one will, too, and no c-section will be necessary.

Our little boy was active during the entire ultrasound, which was fun to see.  Kicking, swallowing, rubbing his face, and sucking his thumb were his big show-off moments.  Here are a few favorite pics. :)

This one makes me want to snuggle him already :)

Kathleen (our awesome ultrasound tech we get every time) quickly switched to 3D when I asked if the little guy was swallowing.  Yep!

Maybe sucking his thumb?

We go back in four weeks for another check.  (Our doc was so nice- he suggested a four-week revisit, and then paused and asked, "are you okay with that?"  I love our doctors!)  I have gotten much more patient with the longer intervals between scans this go-round, but I also have to say it is so comforting knowing there are not huge issues that need checking every couple of weeks.  We are blessed!  

This baby is way more chill in the belly than Caleb was at this point.  (It was around this week - week 20-21 - when people started noticing Caleb moving in my belly during business meetings or elevator rides!)  Last night, though, he was very active as I was trying to go to sleep, and this morning he woke me up before 4a with his kicking and wiggling.  I was so happy about it that I could not go to sleep.  This little one is already so loved!

P.S. He's already a pound, little chunker!

Williamsburg

We had another wedding road trip a weekend ago, this time to the home of Pete's alma mater, Williamsburg, Virginia!  We knew we would have a great weekend as we would get to catch up with great friends, and Caleb would get to spend some fun time (again!) with his Nana and Papa.  We are all getting spoiled by seeing them two out of the last four weekends... and Pete and I have loved our wedding date nights, too!  (So sad to say, we have had fewer than a half dozen dates since he was born, and half of them were in the last month.  We are thinking we should make it a regular thing going forward - so fun!)

Sadly I left my camera for the only time all five of us were together as we walked around Colonial Williamsburg.  Stinks as it was such a pretty day, despite the cold (coming from a cold-weather wimp).  Here are some of my faves from the weekend...

The wedding couple, Jeremy and Devon

The oldest continuously-used academic building in the country, the Wren Building... Here is the ollllld chapel. We were outside talking long enough that we were some of the few to get forward-facing seats.

Some of our sideways friends - Pete's William and Mary friends and their spouses (and in a few cases, that is one and the same!)

Newlywed bliss

Probably their only moment alone for the day! Pretty gown on Devon...

The people on the bus go up and down... is it pitiful that was the first thing that popped in my head when I saw these pics? Here are some of our friends en route wedding to reception...

Gillum and Daniella

Molly and Leedy (these guys obviously have a last-name thing going here :))

Shallcross Aand O'Reilly

McDermott and Hart

The two of us! Alone! (Well, besides the belly bump. :))

All the W&M crew together. We have been to sooo many weddings with this group (most of the people shown) that this picture is repeated a few times a year. Only a couple more yet-to-get-marrieds to go!

Greg and Jackie crack me up. Here they are showcasing their choo-choo skills.  Jackie was a good sport as Greg insisted she turn her chair around and make like a train.

Nana and Caleb playing Sunday morning. It was so nice for Nana and Papa to make the trek to Williamsburg and watch Caleb for us so we could go to the wedding! Our layout at the Kingsmill Resort was perfect with two separate rooms, plus a huge common space and kitchen - space for everyone to sleep soundly, yea!

Sunday morning, Pete, Caleb, and I were invited for brunch at Charles and Ginny's house - less than a mile from where we were staying. It is always good to catch up with them and hear all the goings on in the area and on the W&M football and basketball teams!
Ginny amusing Caleb with her many tricks

From Williamsburg

Charles and I... and the baby :)

Charles, Caleb, and Ginny on their pretty deck

We had a loooooong 10.5-hour drive home (after a 7-hour drive there... granted that one was through the night).  Caleb did pretty well, considering, but a stop at Chevy's definitely helped break up the drive.

Here he is loving his lemon! This was the second time he'd had a slice, and neither time did he wince! In fact, this boy will eat as much fruit as he can get his hands on.  He learned how to sign "more" eating clementines... and that day he had three in a row as I was so happy he was communicating what he wanted! The next day he ate an entire grapefruit and a clementine, and all of this fruit was after a big bowl of oatmeal for breakfast!

He got his second ice-cream cone ever, too!

We wish we could seen the rest of our local friends that a super-fast wedding weekend didn't allow, but we look forward to another visit this Christmastime!

Chatty

For some kids, one phone is just not enough :)

Trick or treat!

Is late still better than never? Hoping so... because here are finally some Halloween 2011 pics!

From Halloween 2011

Our first revelers!

From Halloween 2011

From Halloween 2011

Too cute - our monkey, Jordan, eating his banana

From Halloween 2011

Oddly enough, the boys liked the gourmet cheese and crackers better than their age-appropriate snacks. Good thing Pete didn't offer the delicious wine Rob picked up for the crew! (Or at least, it smelled delicious. Have I mentioned this is the first time in three pregnancies I have craved anything, and it is for red wine? Sigh.)

From Halloween 2011

From Halloween 2011

Our littlest trick-or-treaters. Oh, how I wish I'd thought to take the picture BEFORE it got dark! Sorry, boys, your first real Halloween will be remembered as a dark blur...

From Halloween 2011

One more effort with the monster and the bee (the giraffe and monkey had already up and left, and the bee has about had it himself!)

From Halloween 2011

Shirley, Beth's nanny, was sweet enough to man our door while we took the four boys on their first trick-or-treating rounds! (sorry for the ongoing blur)

From Halloween 2011

And we're off! Watch out for the snow piles!

From Halloween 2011

Rob and his monster. One of our neighbors was actually handing out beers to the parents, but our dads brought their own!

From Halloween 2011

Pete loved to tease Alex in the monkey suit holding his monkey

From Halloween 2011

This photo cracks me up for its honest portrayal of how toddler costumes really don't fit so well. Jordan can barely see out of his monkey getup, and Caleb's bee belly has cropped over his seven layers so that he looks more like a linebacker in pads and stripes.

From Halloween 2011

Rory the giraffe

From Halloween 2011

Candy?! For us?! (Ironically, the only basket Caleb grabbed anything out of was the one house that had run out of candy and was offering apples they'd just picked the day before. The home owner even washed it for him so he could eat it the rest of the way!)

From Halloween 2011

Snowstorm slumber party

From Snowstorm slumber party select

After the baby shower a week ago, we had a full house!  Our friend, Elizabeth never went home as the ten minutes of roads between our houses would have been treacherous in the snow, and about two hours after Cathy and Hope left, we got a call that they were unable to get out of our town... so they returned to our house to wait it out, as well.  Soon after, Elizabeth's husband showed up with almost-two Sam and nearly-four Emma, as they had no power in their cabin in the woods but plenty of huge, looming trees threatening to come crashing down at any time.  And before the night was over, our grad-school friends, Dave and Jen, with 2-year-old Ethan and 2-month-old Elliot came to join us, as well!  

Basically what the house looked like, in every room - constant motion! Here is Sam warming up the bouncing cow (that Caleb never even knows exists until his friends come over).

From Snowstorm slumber party select

Scott and Emma finishing up the last of the amazingly yummy pizzas that just happened to come the day before on dry ice - all six of them. Thanks, Lou Manalti!

From Snowstorm slumber party select

Caleb couldn't believe he had a huge playdate before he even changed out of his PJs!

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Emma must have burned 1,000 calories pushing all the little ones around! And she loved having little Caleb to baby. When I left them upstairs alone for 3-4 minutes, I came back to find Caleb tucked into Emma's bed - where obviously she had put him. She is obsessed with baby dolls, and there is nothing like the real thing!

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The next morning! Came too quickly with plows running all night long and waking up light-sleeper me. Emma was so sweet to walk Ethan down the stairs. :)

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Books with dad - Ethan and Dave

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Hope is one of our pastor's daughter, is nine, and could not be any sweeter to Caleb. He gets doused in her affection every Sunday after church, so he was THRILLED she stayed over two days to play with him!

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More books! We seriously had a read-a-thon in the playroom Sunday mornging.

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The car never gets old!

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The baby of the house! How sweet is little Elliot?! He had just turned two months here.

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Thank goodness for endless toys to amuse

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Coloring party

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The downside: we lost two big specimen trees in the storm, and both right between our house and the street. Thankfully, the most important tree - the babies' tree - made it! Of course, Pete and I risked life and limb to shake it off every few hours through the night so the snow would not pull it over. A huge branch fell 30 feet and landed 5 feet away from me during my last night trip outside! It was scary - I heard a huge crack over my head and was too scared to look up and froze for a second (with the rake over my head - so helpful :)) before I darted away!

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We had such a fun time with everyone.  It was the first time we have really had a full house since we moved in nearly three years ago, and we enjoyed watching all the kiddos play together as we shared stories and hot chai lattes on the couches.  We were really having fun watching Stanford (my favorite team, of course!) beat USC (my least favorite team - sorry, socal alums!) until the cable went out somewhere before the second half.  I am surprised I didn't goad everyone into playing endless games after that - must've been tired!

Clean up time. Caleb loooves the vacuum!

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Thanks for the help, little man!

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Nicole's baby shower-turned-snowstorm

Last Saturday some friends from church and I hosted a baby shower for my friend, Nicole, who will be welcoming her second baby in about a month.  It was fairly low-key as baby Luke will be Nicole's second boy and she has almost everything for him already, but it was fun nonetheless.  And the crazy weather shocked us all and made for a dramatic backdrop!

Yummy food - everyone brought something to supplement what I made, so we had lots of tasty treats!

It was intended to be a girls-only event, but the massive snowstorm outside waylaid Pete's plans to take Caleb to the park and a picnic. It was great that they stayed, though, as Pete later shoveled paths to everyone's cars so they could get home. And, of course, Caleb loved being around all the ladies!

The people pics are on my friend, Nicole's camera (Pete was also photo-taker :)), so most of these are of Caleb... as usual. Pete did take this one on my camera of him being naughty and sneaking up the stairs while the gate made a brief detour from its usual spot around the bottom of the bannisters.

Caleb and I have talked about the seasons quite a bit, and I always have told him how in the winter the leaves fall down off the trees and snow falls down from the sky and turns the whole word white. When it started to snow, I asked Caleb where the snow was, and he got all excited and started pointing out the window. Cute!

Brrr!

Pete shoveled paths to everyone's cars... but the first ones were covered over with snow by the time he got to the last ones!

Such service!

The snow came so fast and so hard that very quickly the whole area became a mess, as the leaves were collecting extra snow on the trees and the sap hadn't hardened to strengthen the branches for the heavy loads. Our town is incredible with plowing, but it seemed like the trucks doubted this rumored snow storm as much as I did - and they were no where to be seen. Some folks stayed because they knew they wouldn't be able to get home, and others called two hours after leaving, saying roads were closed and they could not get our of our town. So we had a huge crew staying overnight as the party extended a couple of days - pics to come!