(to the tune of "My Favorite Things" of course)

 Just thought I'd update you on some of Caleb's latest, as of 23 months:

• He can sing most of the VeggieTales theme song (not that anyone else would understand the words...)

• His favorite part of "Twinkle, Twinkle" is "Up above the world so high", so I often hear "Up above.. diamond.. sky" 
• He will walk up 5 or 7 stairs holding the handrail then revert to climbing up them. As for coming down, he will only do it holding my hand.. but our stairs are EXTREMELY tall, and even holding a hand, it feels like he's falling or jumping to the next one. 
• He'll say, "Love you" or "I love you" and sometimes follow it up with a kiss or hug.
• When we're going through our list of animal sounds (cat, dog, cow, chicken, pig, duck, sheep, donkey, horse, bird, frog, monkey, tiger, gator "chomp chomp".. I think that's all?), I've added, "What does Mommy say?" and he'll say, "Love you!" So cute! 
• He says, "Hold you?" when he wants to be held. 
• We're not stringing words together really well yet, unless it's a common phrase, like "See ya later!" or "Out of kitchen" (ha! he's heard that a few times). He can't say the letter K yet, so he can't say his name.. it ends up "day deh" or something like that. I think it's a cross between baby and Caleb.
• He can say most of the alphabet in order. I'll start off with him repeating after me, A B C, but then he jumps ahead and says the rest ahead of me. We generally skip over V because "duhduhyou" is so fun to say, and X because of Y, but he gets 'em! The letters aren't perfectly articulated, and a lot sound the same, but he knows he's saying them. He also counts to ten the same way, repeating 1 2 3, and then jumping ahead for 4-10. His favorites, though, are 8, 9, 10... and he says them all the time!
• He pretty consistently can recognize objects that are blue, green, and yellow... orange and red sometimes. 
• We haven't gotten our feet off the ground with jumping yet, but he thinks it's hilarious when he tries! He loves it when we hold him and jump- especially in the pool.
• Speaking of the pool, our most frequent random request is "wimmeen... wawa?" He loves to go swimming in the water!
• He likes it when Daddy & I "fight" over him, pulling his arms and saying, "My Caleb!" Sometimes, he'll run to us and grab our hands and say, "My Caleb!" to get us to do it. 
• He recognizes and frequently requests Mickey Mouse, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Daisy, Pluto, Brobee, Elmo, Ernie, VeggieTales, Buzz, Woody... so much so that I usually put limits on the TV watching!  We have our default TV station set to Food Network, so that's what comes on when you turn on the TV.  If they're cooking, he'll immediately say, "yum!"

I just realized how long it's been since I've blogged about Caleb... wow, time flies, huh?  Caleb is now 20 months old, and continues to be a joy in our lives.  It's hard to believe that, in less than four months, he'll be two years old!  Seems like he learns at least one new thing every day, and is continuously adding to his list of words.  Right now, I believe he says about 100 words that at least Walt & I can understand, and many more that we can't!  We haven't started officially potty training yet, but we bought a seat for the toilet, and will be introducing it over the next few days.  No pressure, though, as he's still pretty young.  He had his first sickness in February, along with his first round of antibiotics.. no fun, but glad he's over it and thankful that he made it 19 months before getting sick for the first time!  Of course, he was so kind to share with Mommy & Daddy, so our house was loads of fun for a few weeks!

Some of his favorite things include: taking a bath (he gets SO excited, signing "bath", squealing it, and practically jumping up and down), "moo" (Horizons Vanilla Milk), cheese, fruit pouches (with mashed up fruit inside), going to the park (he now explores all of the equipment, not just the swings), being outside, spinning in circles, Brobee (Yo Gabba Gabba), Mickey (though Minnie is close to edging him out as favorite these days!), Elmo, playing dog with Daddy, watching Daddy jump and "ribbit" like a frog, saying animal sounds (he knows kitty, dog, cow, chicken, monkey, horse, elephant, sheep, duck, frog, bear, bird, and donkey), our fish (there were three, but we're down to one named Z),  and spending time with family (he just loves Grandma, Granddad, Aunt Michelle, Poppa, and Grammy!!).

Life is good!  Things are mostly the same with us... Walt is in his 12th year of working for the School Board, and I'm loving being a stay-at-home mom.  I "work" part-time as a worship leader at our church, which is more of a blessing than a job, and it's perfect because it doesn't require me to spend time away from Caleb.  He's used to Mommy on stage singing in the microphone, and often mimics me with whatever "microphone" he can find- so funny!  He just continues to blossom and grow and thrive, and we couldn't be more proud parents of him! 

Update:  Shortly after posting this, Caleb poopoo-ed in the potty for the first time! So proud!! YAY!

Somehow, I failed to post this, but Caleb had his first haircut a couple of weeks ago.  We went to the Harmony Barbershop at Magic Kingdom.  I have more pics to post, but here is a before & after:

Wow, it is getting increasingly difficult to get pictures of Caleb!! He is on the move, and doesn't have time to hold still and smile for a picture. Ha!  He is growing by leaps and bounds... running all over the place, getting into whatever he can find, and talking up a storm.  He's really blossomed in the past few months.  His vocabulary now well exceeds 50 words (though mommy & daddy are the only ones who can verify and understand all of the words!).. it's just so neat to watch him get excited over being able to connect a word with an object or action.  Yesterday, he ran all around the house with a book... wasn't particularly interested in having it read to him; rather, he just wanted to say, "book! book! book!"  He's such a sweetie pie, and always quick to give hugs and kisses.  He has the best personality, and we get so much enjoyment out of him!  Sigh. I'm in love.

Here are the few pics we were able to snap over the past several weeks...

he'll kill me for this someday...
 

mr. curious

star of the game


football time

wearing his flags after the game

scouring the black friday ads, looking for a deal.. we decided there was nothing worth losing sleep...

picture time with aunt shell & judah

love those baby blues

smiley guy

too cute!

our cutie pie

How exciting (to some.. well, one of us)!  Fall is here!  We had about three days of gorgeous cool weather, but now it's warming back up again.  With the nice weather, we spent a good bit of time outside over the past few days.  Here are some pics from our house, Downtown Disney, and the Auburndale Park.

Caleb is now 15 months old!!  His mommy has been too busy to blog, so this will be a catch-up...

What a blessing he is!  Growing and changing, moment by moment, we find ourselves overwhelmed by how much we love him and how blessed we feel to be his parents.  He's such a joyful, happy child!  Very rarely is he upset or cranky (so it's obvious that something is wrong when he is unhappy). 

Here are some of his latest tricks and quirks:

-took his first 'real' steps yesterday (10/07/09).. hopefully video to follow, if I can figure it out...
-VERY verbal (he consistently says mama, dada, more (with sign), milk, meow, arf, moo, down, ball, where, poppa, grandma, grammy, Os (cheerios), all done (with sign), balloon, light, hi, bye, bath)
-loves to blow kisses (though it's usually followed by a wave and "bye")
-loves telling us what different animals say (so far, kitty, dog, and cow)
-likes to be chased
-gives lots of kisses
-points out every source of light and tells us about it
-LOVES to swing!!  He laughs the whole time! :)

Of course, there are tons more that I'll remember about the time I post this...

Here are a few recent pictures of Caleb:

Here are more Sanibel vacation pictures...

(trying to figure out why the "tweet tweets" keep running away from her)

(he just wanted to walk and walk and walk... and walk and walk on the beach)

(and then, when we put him down, he just wanted to crawl...)

(... and crawl, and crawl...)

(... and play with shells...)

(... and play in the powdery sand...)

(and of course, crawl...)

Here are some pictures from the first couple days of our vacation in Sanibel.

Ready for the beach! 

The next few faces were HILARIOUS!

Gorgeous Abby swimming (which she says VERY clearly!)

Mommy & Caleb swimming

Prune Toes!

Sweet boy- exhausted by the water! 

Caleb & Abby playing together

Aunt Kristi and Caleb

Yet another gorgeous picture of gorgeous Abby!

The passing of the Cheerio

I'm behind again... sorry!  Can you believe that Caleb is now one?  We surely can't!!!  The past year has been amazing as we've watched Caleb grow and learn and change.  Here are some pictures from his party and birthday...

A little pre-party catnap

The Cake (made by Mommy)

Patiently waiting on cake

Devouring the cake (He was true to form, a dainty eater- even with chocolate icing!)

In this picture, he's saying, "more"- despite the fact that all he has to do is get a handful!

SO big!

Look at all these presents! For me?

Shh... don't tell, but I secretly like the paper as much as the presents!

Hey!

Riding on my AWESOME fire truck from Auntie Shell and Nick

A quick break to swim with Daddy in my pool at Poppa & Grammy's house

I think I'm an escape artist, but Daddy is faster... for now!

Now, here are some pics from my actual birthday...