Yesterday we decided to begin Caleb's journey into big kid food. This was the result of him now constantly eyeing our drinks and trying to take them out of our hands as well as getting excited when he sees us eating and then, susequently, looking sad when he was not given any of the food.

As you can see, he was quite the fan of his sippy cup (and was not at all interested in having help drinking out of it).
Eating proved to be a different matter all together. From the first bite, Caleb seemed to be enjoying his rice cereal, though he seemed a bit confused by the new texture in his mouth.
However, he continued to be eager and reached for the spoon with each bite. So, I continued giving bites. However, when I told Caleb to smile for one of the pictures, all of the food I had fed him oozed out of his mouth! He wasn't swallowing any of it - just holding it all in his mouth!
Eventually he seemed to get the hang of it a bit more and started swallowing and, once again, insisted on doing it himself. (Notice we decided that it was smartest to remove all clothing when he began feeding himself.) What a big boy!
We don't plan on progressing on from the cereal to other types of baby food for a little bit, but he has taken yet another step to being a real person instead of just a baby.

For all of those mothers of babies or future mothers of babies, I have discovered (by following medical advice) that putting breastmilk in a baby's nose helps clear up congestion. Caleb has been suffering from his first ever cold and has thus had a lot of congestion. I tried this little method last night and his breathing has been considerably better since. Granted, I cannot say 100% for sure that it was not merely coincidence and time for the cold to pass, but I will definitely try this again the next time he has a stuffy nose.

Just thought I'd share because there are not a lot of options for treating congestion in babies and let's face it, it's really sad when your baby can't breathe and there's nothing you can do. A warning, though, the baby will probably not be the biggest fan of milk being shoved in his/her nose, so figure out a strategy before commencing. :)

During the past week, Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Al were visiting us from across the pond. The day they arrived we headed off for Milan, Italy with the original intention of skiing/snowboarding in the Italian Alps. However, the Alps have had a shortage of snow this year, thus making that excursion impossible. Instead, we spent two full days exploring Milan, including the Duomo (one of the largest churches in the world), a castle, shops with clothes way too expensive for us to ever consider buying, and eating a lot of good food. This was Caleb's first international trip and he did brilliantly - both on the flights and in Milan! Our flight home was delayed due to London fog and a stowaway on our plane, but we eventually made it home at 3:00a.m. on Friday morning. On Saturday and Sunday we spent two cold days exploring London, followed by two fun and relaxing days at home celebrating Christmas with Stephanie, eating, and playing games. We also celebrated Alex and Grandpa's birthdays while they were here. It was a busy week but loads of fun. Caleb definitely did not have a shortage of attention while they were here and we were sad to see them leave this morning.

These are some photos of our time together during the past week:

From our house to yours, have yourself a Merry Christmas!!

Many of you may know Mark Moore, either from his time as a recruiter at Harding or his time as a missionary in Jinja, Uganda. This is a video he and his kids made their first Christmas back in the States. I definitely think it's worth viewing.

Christmas and Capitalism

Since we arrived in England, Scott and I have been attending church in central London at one of two churches. This has proven difficult at times (particularly in the midst of pregnancy sickness, heat and pregnancy combinations, and new baby schedules) so on several occasions we have attempted to find a more local church to attend. However, it has seemed that every church in Croydon that we attended appeared to have a very Pentecostal influence (though none of them were supposedly Pentecostal churches) and therefore ended up being out of our comfort zone. After getting discouraged, we'd start heading back into the city again. We have never been happy with this set up, however, because it makes it very difficult to get involved with the church, particularly with mid-week activities and therefore has been difficult meeting people. And so the search for a local church has continued.

A couple of days ago, I walked down a road near our home that I had never been down and, lo and behold, there was a Baptist church. Eureka! Surely this church won't have any speaking in tongues or people falling on the ground etc... I was excited and quickly called Scott and we planned to attend today. And it was only a 5 minute walk from our home so it would be very easy to get involved. If only I knew what I was getting us into...

This morning we dressed for church (in much dressier attire than normal because it is my philosophy that it is always better to be overdressed than underdressed when visiting a church for the first time) and headed to this church. When we opened the outside door, we were greeted by a bulletin board with different flyers and announcements hanging up. We instantly became a bit anxious when we noticed several things saying "Strict Baptist." Okay, so this church will probably be a bit more conservative than we are used to, but we can handle conservative. (After all, we went to Harding - and loved it!) :) I then opened the door to the auditorium and this is what I found:

- The church appeared to consist of about 15 people (a lot smaller than we would like)
- Everybody in the church was over the age of 60 (not ideal - especially since we have a kid - but we like old people)
- I was the only woman NOT wearing a hat (uh oh)
- Scott was the only man NOT in a suit and tie (uh oh)
- We were wearing blues, greens, and khakis; everybody else was wearing blacks and grays (what is this, a funeral?!)
- The 15 people were scattered around the church, sitting apart from each other and nobody was talking or visiting or smiling (church had not yet started - YIKES!)
- There was a man sitting up front who seemed to glower at us when we looked like we were going to enter. Maybe this was because we were wearing colors. Maybe this was because we were young. Maybe this was because we spoke to each other. Maybe this was because I had a baby strapped to the front of me. Maybe this was because I didn't have a hat and Scott didn't have a tie. I am not sure of the reason but it was not inviting.

Needless to say, we shut the door and left without even getting a foot into the auditorium. I have never walked into such an unfriendly environment that was supposed to be a church. *sigh* Guess we will be back up in central London again next week.

In the last few days, Caleb has become interested in exploring the world from a different angle. His newest favourite game is now to flex his legs and practice standing. Thought you guys might like to see what he looks like when he stands. (My favourite part about this picture is Scott's attempt to hide behind his 3-month old baby).

Last week we took a family trip up to the American Embassy in London for our appointment to register Caleb's birth, apply for a passport, and apply for a Social Security number. Up until this point, Caleb had no official nationality, which was a tad bit disturbing, and we have therefore been unable to venture outside the borders of the United Kingdom.

In any case, let me start by saying that I have never been to an American Embassy, despite my international travels, so I was highly amused when almost every person we dealt with was British, including the guards checking passports before allowing people inside (who, I might add, before checking our passports told us that if we slipped him some money he'd make sure we got inside. Nice.)

Before leaving that day, we were given a Certificate of Birth Abroad, which I guess is another type of birth certificate - which makes three in total. This inevitably means that in the future I will probably always be confused when people in America want Caleb's birth certificate because I do not know which one will be more appropriate. We had been told before our appointment and by the first person upon arrival that we would be issued an emergency passport that day due to the fact that we are travelling to Italy on the 19th. This did not happen.

Today, however, Caleb's passport arrived in the mail!!! This means that I don't have to worry about busting any heads at the embassy next Monday to make sure that I have a passport for the following day. What a relief! His passport is so cute and I would scan it so you guys can see what a great passport photo he has, but with all the terrorism and organised crime these days nothing about that idea seems safe at all.

Now I just have to figure out how to get Caleb's visa so that he has permission to remain in this country. Otherwise they might deport him away after 6 months! :) (I asked about the form for the visa when I was at the American Embassy and the British guy helping us very rudely informed me that Americans can not decide who gets to stay in England and that I needed to talk to the British authority. He didn't seem very pro-Americans, which makes me wonder why he works at our Embassy!) This process is way too complicated.

Thanks to Chad for the video (and Micheal for posting it as well) of Chi Sigs singing Christmas carols at Harding. This was a time of year Cheryl and I always looked forward to. This is one of the best things about YouTube, we can all watch it and remember good times, even in London.

Okay, so technically it was a gift from a one Christie (and Brett) Harrison back in June (thanks guys!), but we have only just now upgraded Caleb to his own bathtub. It quacks when you squeeze the beak. So cute!! Caleb was a bit confused by his new duckie tub, but seemed to enjoy splashing in it all the same.

(And, no, we did not bathe him in the living room. It was moved to the bathtub.)

Should Scott grow his hair out more and try this messy spiky look for a while or should he stick with the hairstyle he's had for the past 8 years? Let us know what you think!

This past week passed relatively uneventfully after Melinda and Geoff, the last of the Thanksgiving crew, left Tuesday morning. We had a wonderful time hanging out with our miniature "crew" for the week that they were here, exploring London, eating good food, playing games, and just hanging out. The rest of the week was spent recuperating because Caleb's schedule was thrown all out of whack with the crazy schedules and late nights and the poor boy was just worn out.

Yesterday, however, ended up being much more exciting than it initially seemed it would be (with the cold, rainy, overcast day that was making me not want to go outside), because three major "milestones" occurred:

1. Caleb visited Santa Claus! I was shocked, and pleasantly surprised, when they referred to him as "Santa" instead of "Father Christmas." Though Caleb seemed rather impartial to the event, I was uber excited about having his picture taken on the jolly man's lap. Caleb has always tended to prefer women to men, so instead of flashing a big smile upon meeting Santa, he gave him a look of confusion - a look that he maintained throughout the entire experience. Unfortuntately, during the picture taking, I had to stand to the side, out of his line of sight, thus there is also no smile in the picture. It's still incredibly cute, however. We left with a photo, keychain, magnet, and toy (which will make a nice stocking stuffer for Caleb).

On another Santa Claus note, I'm not sure if Father Christmas works with elves! It's throwing me off this year because everywhere I look, Santa's house or other Christmas decorations seem to have "Eskimos" around them instead of elves. And they have Eskimo coloring contests instead of "regular" Christmas sights or people. I hear "Eskimos," I think of Alaska. It's very confusing to me and I'm not a fan.

2. We officially registered Caleb with the Blue House Day Nursery. I realise that he won't start nursery until March (I tentative put his first day as the 21st), but it was still a bit traumatic for me. I hate the thought of leaving my baby to return to work. I'm going to miss him so much! However, I'm very happy with this nursery and am confident that they will give him the care that he needs.

3. As Daisha noticed (but GaMa did not appear to catch on to) Caleb sat on his own without falling for the first time last night! I was so excited and not expecting it at all so it took me a while to realise that I should grab the camera to document the moment (there's a picture in the slideshow in the previous post). Granted, he doesn't have the nice posture that the Unsinkable's baby has achieved, but that will come in time. (After all, Baby David has a 2.5 month start on Caleb!)

Tonight Kim and Stephanie are coming for dinner, so we have an "exciting" day of cleaning and shopping to prepare for our guests. But then we'll have good company, good food, and good entertainment (X-Factor is on tonight!!) so all will be good.

First I must thank Daisha for starting the slideshow experience. I had avoided it because it seemed complicated. Turns out that it's not!

Admittedly I have taken a break from the blogging world recently (albiet, only a 6 day break, though some of you act as though it's been much longer!), as we have had quite a bit of company for the Thanksgiving holidays and have been preparing for the upcoming Christmas holidays. I'd love to catch up now but my little boy needs to get ready for bed. I'll post about the general goings on tomorrow but here are a few pictures for those of you who are so impatient!