Caleb's birthday

I had a lot of fun making Caleb's little Mickey Mouse cake.  He loves Mickey and says, "Icky" every time he sees him.

 We did cupcakes too.

Thanks to friends who came to celebrate with us.

 Caleb really had no idea what was going on.  He looked confused but happy while everyone was singing to him.

 It took a while to to figure out what he was supposed to do with the candles but he got them in the end.

 My cute little Caleb.

 As soon as he bit into the tomato he spit it out onto the floor.  That's my Caleb.

Caleb is special!

In preschool last week Sam had to make a poster about himself it was titled "I am special".  His poster turned out great and I thought I would post for both of my kids on their birthdays some things about them that make them special. I love this kid.  Caleb tries me in sooooo many ways but he is definitely his own little person and makes me love him more every day.  First of all I think this kid could be a model.  Can it get any cuter than this.

These pictures were taken almost a year ago.  One thing about Caleb is that he does things at his own pace.  He started walking around Christmas time last year (over a year old).  He only has a few words right now but I think one of these days he will just burst into full sentences.

 He loves his brother but mostly at a distance, unless he's beating up on Sam.  That's right, Sam is usually the one who comes crying to me about how Caleb hit him.  Caleb is a hitter, he's moved on from biting to hitting.  This is one of the things I still don't know how to deal with.  He hits little kids all the time and I'm soooo embarrassed.  The kid loves time outs.  He pretty much thinks it's a game.  What  do you do when your kid likes time out.

 He loves candy and sweets.  He is a boy after my own heart.  We both have a serious sweet tooth.

 He loves amusement parks.  His favorite ride at Disneyland was Heimlich's caterpillar ride.

 He loves to climb.  This is another trying thing to me because I'm always afraid he's going to kill himself.  Sam was not a climber so I'm still learning how to deal with it.

 He loves animals.  I especially love this picture because it reminds of this day.  Sam's preschool visited a farm with miniature animals.  The kids were able to feed most of the animals and they were all feeding this horse some brown stuff (not sure what was in it) when all of sudden one of the mom's pretty much slapped Caleb's hand away from his mouth.  I realized as soon as she did it that she thought the cereal bar Caleb was eating looked like the horse food and was trying to stop him from eating the horse food.   She was really embarrassed, I thought it was hilarious.

 Caleb loves boats and water.  He had no problems jumping into the lake off the boat.  He has no fear which I love and fear.

 He loves to drive.  He is all boy.  He loves cars and trucks and anything with an engine.

 I said I think Caleb could be a model but he makes you work for a good picture.

He loves balls.  He loves to run on the soccer field during Sam's practices and games.

 He is a momma's boy for sure.  He loves Dad but he always comes back to Mom.

 He loves smoothies.  I'm amazed at how much of the smoothie he can drink.

 I love this little guy and I feel sooooo lucky that he is a part of my family.  Happy birthday to my Caleb.

Soccer!!!

Like most kids, Sam started soccer this fall. He loves wearing his uniform and always has a blast playing. This is at his first practice. Warming up.

I love watching them stretch.

Gotta start these drills early.

His first game.

Getting ready to receive a goal kick.

Caleb has his own soccer ball and loves to try to run on the field during practice and games.

Look how high he can kick.

I just have to mention Sam's teammate L (the other kid in white with his back facing). The kid is only 4 but plays like he's at least 12. He is amazing.

Summer catch up

I've neglected the blog long enough. We had a busy fun summer. It feels kind of good to have a schedule now. The kids birthdays are coming up so I thought I better get caught up so I will be able to move on.

This summer we took lots oftrips to the zoo, spenttime in Utah and lake Powell with family, went to the beach, Washington DC, Massanutten (a 4 season resort), and spent lots of time on the lake. We had our fair share of natural disasters too, earthquakes and hurricanes. One would think that after spending 4 years in Los Angelesand 1 1/2 years in Chile, I would be calm during an earthquake but I have to admit that I wastotallycaught off guard by the earthquake that took place this summer. It wasn't a big earthquake and thankfully didn't do any damage to our area but it was loud and shook our house and I ran to make sure the kids were okay. I had never heard of an earthquake in this area anddidn't know thatwe live near a pretty big fault line. Next time I'll be ready.

Hurricane Irene also came through our area.Jared decided that we would go on a mini-vacation instead of sticking around, which turned out to be a great idea because we had no power and no generator for a few days. We spent that time at Massanutten resort. If you live on east coast I guess it's a pretty great place to go. We've been a couple of times but we talked to people there who came all theway from NY and New Jersey. They have a ski slope, down hill tubing year round and an indoor/outdoor waterpark open all year round. When we came back home to survey the damage we were happyand felt very grateful that only one tree fell (away from the house).

Utah was fun this year as it is every year. We spent time at Lake Powell with the Catten family doing lots of fun things:

paddleboarding

fishing

tubing and spending time with cousins

wakeboarding

and hiking.

I ran the Deseret News marathon with my sister. Itwas such a great experience that we want to run another one if anyone wants to join us.

It was so fun to see old friends.

Caleb got to meet Great Grandma Whatcott

And we met our newest niece and nephew/cousins. They were born the day before we left. Here they are less than 24 hours old.

The Norfolk harbor fest was so fun. They had pirate ships as Sam calls old-looking boats, patrol boats, lots of fun activities and great music. Green River Ordinance and Matt Nathanson performed one night. The best part, it was all free.

The kids love the Metro Richmond Zoo. They love feeding the giraffes

birds.

We love spending time on the lake. I tried wake surfing for the first time and I love it. I now think I know why people like to surf.

You might be wondering if Jared is wakeboarding, who is driving the boat...I am and I still freak out every time I drive it.

Well this pretty much sums up our summer. Yay, now I can move on to first days of school, soccer games and soon birthdays. Caleb will be 2 and Sam 5 too soon.