Caleb's 1st year... in pictures

What a wonderful year this has been!  Caleb is such a blessing to our family, and such a joy to watch as he grows and develops his own personality.  He's a busy boy... walking since he was 10 months old, and now climbing all over everything and chatting up a storm!  I am so thankful to have the privilege of being able to stay home with my kids and experience all of their milestone moments.  :)  Enjoy these pictures from Caleb's 1st year of life ~

1 week ~

1 month ~

2 months ~

3 months ~

4 months ~

5 months ~ 

6 months ~

7 months ~

8 months ~

9 months ~

10 months ~

11 months ~

1 year old!

Happy birthday, Caleb!

Where has the last year gone??  I can't believe Caleb is a year old already!  He is such a blessing to our family and watching him grow and learn new things is so much fun!  We had a great time celebrating his 1st birthday with family and friends, and are thankful we had such a beautiful day to celebrate on!  Special thanks to mom and dad for opening up their home for the party!  There's NO WAY we could have had this many people (closer to 40!) at our townhouse, but hopefully the next birthday party will be at our HOUSE!  :)

I became addicted to Pinterest a few months ago, and came across a cute idea for a Very Hungry Caterpillar themed party.  Since I'm home with the boys during the days, I had time to pin and plan and create things for the party... and had a ball doing it all!  I think it came together nicely, and hope everyone that was there had as much fun enjoying the party as I did getting ready for it.  :)

The spread (minus the pastys, which were in the oven) ~

Caterpillar cake pops ~ SO fun and so easy!

Caterpillar balloon ~ a BIG hit with the birthday boy!

Happy birthday banner ~ yes, I made it myself  :)

Friends and family enjoying the beautiful day ~

We even got out the pool for a while ~

 

My sweet birthday boy ~

 Family picture ~

  

Let him eat cake!

The birthday meltdown... the result of very little nap

All in all, it was a perfect day for celebrating Caleb.  Thank you to everyone who came to join in the fun!  God has certainly blessed our family with this (not-so) little guy!  

Happy birthday, Caleb!  We love you SO much!!

 

Some things NEVER change!

I absolutely love being so close to family, and being able to watch as our families grow and us growing with them.  I'm still having a hard time believing my baby brother has a baby of his own, but I know that no matter how things change some things never will.  Case in point ~ Jimbo will ALWAYS be a goofball, and I will ALWAYS find ways to tease him!  :)  

 Tummy time ~ Jim's getting pretty good!

Encouraging his little girl ~ 

Such a big boy in the booster seat!

We love this goofy guy!

Tractor Tractor part 2

Ha!  I win, blogger!  It took me a week and a half, but I managed to get my video uploaded!  :)  Thank you, Stephanie Jacobson, for the tip on uploading the video to YouTube first!  It still took almost 15 minutes to upload there, but at least now I can share it on our blog.  :)  Enjoy!

Birthday fun!

My mom turned 60 on May 20 and my dad and I decided to throw together a surprise party for her.  We invited a few friends and some family, and had a great time celebrating mom.  It worked out pretty nicely because she had to work all day, and we were able to surprise her by singing "happy birthday" to her as she pulled into the driveway after work.  The video is a little rough... it's hard to really capture someone's reaction to a surprise like this when they're in the car... but I think we got her.  :)

Micah helped me make the cake pops for the party... I used the opportunity to "practice" for Caleb's cake, which I'll have plenty of pictures of in a few days!  :)

 

Dad had Lee & Eddie's cater the party, which was nice and made the cleanup SUPER easy!  :)

 

Simple decorations ~

Happy 60th birthday, mom!  We love you!

Tractor Tractor

This isn't the video I wanted to post... I'm still working on that one... but this one is good too.  Micah's absolute FAVORITE song these days is "Tractor Tractor", and he about went through the roof when this song was played at the concert.  He knows all the words and sings it all.the.time.  He even makes up his own verses from time to time which crack us up!  :)  So, enjoy this video, and I hope I can get the other one posted at some point.

Slugs and Bugs...LIVE!

Lately, every time we get in the car it's never more than about 2 minutes before we hear, "I want tractor tractor back on," which for those of you that aren't familiar with the album means, "I want to listen to Slugs and Bugs". We got the album Slugs and Bugs and Lullabies when Micah was very little, and have since added to the collection with Slugs and Bugs Under Where? and A Slugs and Bugs Christmas. They are done by two artists, Andrew Peterson and Randall Goodgame, and are GREAT albums for kids! The artists also write songs for VeggieTales, (mostly the Silly Songs with Larry part, I'd guess) and some of the songs on these albums just crack me up! I honestly don't know how they are able to record them without bursting out laughing! :) (and they do in some songs!)

Anyway, last Saturday, we took the kids to a Slugs and Bugs Live concert at Moody Church in Chicago. We had a ball! We got to Moody about a half hour before the concert started and were able to let the boys run around for a bit before taking our seats. And run around they did! I think Micah took about 40 laps around the room before the concert started, and another 40 or so during the concert! We were in a medium sized conference room at the church, and there were seats for about 150 - 200 people, so it was a very intimate concert. The kids could run right up to the "stage" (which was just a short platform that even Caleb could climb up onto with no trouble), and got to dance/move around all throughout the concert... which made it very nice not to have to worry about the fact that our kids had very little interest in sitting in their seats the whole time. :) Micah was completely mesmerized by everything that was going on around him, and I could just see the wheels spinning in his head as we watched the concert. He wasn't quiet sure what to watch... all the people, the videos being shown on the screens, or the guy playing the guitar and singing (who sounded an awful lot like the guy we listen to in the car). ;) I think he managed to take it all in though, and for the past few days we've heard a LOT about how we "went to Chicago and saw the man singing and playing the guitar."

The boys before the show started (as you can tell, all they wanted to do was run around!) ~

Randall Goodgame, one of the geniuses behind Slugs and Bugs ~

All the kids on the floor in front of the stage (Micah is in Aaron's lap...I think he was a bit intimidated by all the kids) ~

Micah and me with Randall after the concert... we had to tell him what a blessing his music is to our family, and how much Micah LOVES the songs! :)

And what is a Slugs and Bugs concert without 'dirt' for dessert afterwards? :)

** I've been trying to upload a video for a while, but for some reason blogger isn't letting me do it.  (side note: I am NOT a fan of blogger's new format!  It's very frustrating!)  I'll keep trying and post it when I can. **

As I hope you can see, we had a WONDERFUL time! We can't wait to do it again the next time the Slugs and Bugs Live concert is local! :)