Well friends, my baby has passed the one year mark and what an amazing year it has been! I think the last update that was done was when he turned 10 months and so much has happened since then. Here's a rundown of some of the things Caleb can do now.

1. He has started walking! That's right, he's upright and mobile. He started walking last week and was making it halfway across the room before the illness set in. He was then too ill to walk for a while and now he finds it more fun to walk 2-3 steps and then fall on the floor laughing.

2. Since we moved to Texas (4 weeks ago), Caleb has sprouted FIVE teeth. This puts him to a grand total of 13 teeth and he has at least 2 more that will push through any day. Seriously, the kid is a trooper, but I'm getting REALLY TIRED of wiping the ever running nose that accompanies the teething.

3. He can say the following words (though, admittedly, a couple of them he has only said on one occasion):
- Dada/Daddy
- Hi
- Hey
- Bye Bye
- Who's that?
- Uh oh (by far his favourite)
- Oh dear
He has made lots of attempts at "thank you" and "all done" though so far they do not really sound anything like the actual words so I will not count them.

4. He has learned to fake sneeze. It is SO FUNNY! He does the whole "ah-choo!" and even nods his head forward as if he's really sneezing. This is absolutely adorable except when you're sick and vomiting in the toilet and he comes up and fake sneezes into the toilet next to you (I guess vomiting and sneezing sounds the same to him!).

5. He dances ALL THE TIME. Caleb has lots of noisy, music-playing toys. Without fail, Caleb can often be seen triggering the music on one of these toys and then dancing to it. Also, as soon as we start singing at church he gets excited and starts dancing and clapping.

6. He is very affectionate and will kiss anybody anytime if you ask him to. Since moving to the States we have discovered that he seems to kiss all boys by biting their nose (apparently we were just never around boys in England to witness this) and he kisses girls normally. I don't know who taught him to distinguish, but he even gives his cousins nose kisses (which they think are funny but "wet"). Lol.

7. He loves to jump in piles of fresh laundry. This was never a luxury that he had in England because we had to hang dry all of our clothes and they would be hard and crunchy, not warm and soft and fluffy. When I take clothes out of the dryer and put them on the floor, he jumps in the middle, laughs, and starts throwing them up in the air. It's like watching a child play in a pile of raked leaves.

8. He loves the vacuum. No matter what he is doing, if I turn on the vacuum cleaner he comes over and starts trying to "help." He has no fear of it and laughs if I take the hose and pretend to suck up his clothes or arm. He now has his own vacuum (thank you Aunt Amy and Uncle Barrett) which will hopefully occupy him a bit more when I'm cleaning once he's a little more sturdy on his feet.

9. After he takes a drink from his cup, he chucks it on the floor. This drives me crazy because he is not necessarily DONE with it, he just wants to eat more before drinking more. I spend half of his mealtime picking his cup off the floor and trying to get him to put it on his tray or on the table. What kills me is that he KNOWS what to do with his cup because sometimes he will surprise me and set it down nicely and immediately start clapping for himself. Blurg. One day he will do this with consistency.

10. He has learned to pick up his toys or snack that his spills. He has not yet mastered placing books on the bookshelf, but he does a great job putting other toys in his toy box or Cheerios in his bowl, etc... He often does this unprompted. This gives me hope that he will at least be a tidy boy!

11. He can scale stairs with ease. Thankfully we no longer live in a two-story home so I don't have to worry about keeping an eye on this constantly because he can get halfway up the flight of stairs before I realise it!

12. If he sees an animal (any animal), picture of an animal, or stuffed animal, he will start barking. I suppose this is because it is the only animal noise he can make. But, without fail, if you hear him barking you will find some animal or image of one somewhere within eye shot (even if it's a block away) because he has a superhuman ability to spot them.

Well, that's my big one-year old. I don't know his height but he's a whopping 25 pounds (which is light next to the Unsinkable's Tank). On Friday he's going to the clinic to sort out what shots he's missing since he spent his first year in England and to get his one year shots. Hopefully he won't become a human pincushion.

**Update: I have now located the cord to upload pictures to the computer but I can't find the camera! I think it may be in Scott's car (which is with him at work), so hopefully there will be new pictures tomorrow.

Labels: Caleb

I realise that Scott briefly updated recently that we are back, but I think I am now ready to get this blog up and running again. I apologise for the month-long break, but life has been nonstop since we returned. As Scott mentioned, we pulled off the return to the States smoothly but have not had a moment's rest since then. Here's a rundown of the last month (I'll be short and sweet now and try to fill in some of the bigger details in a different post): - Move to the States and have one week to buy a car, move into our apartment, and generally get settled back in the US.
- Scott starts work. Caleb and I work on unpacking and figuring out life in the States.
- My parents and brother visit for a week. (Unpacking put on hold)
- I start work (running a counselling group on Monday nights).
- Caleb gets an ear infection. (Unpacking put on hold)
- The Chapmans start the plague - Caleb, myself, and Scott get a stomach virus simultaneously. (Unpacking put on hold)
- Scott's parents and sister/brother in law visit for a few days (Unpacking put on hold)
- Caleb turns one year old - birthday party thrown together at last minute due to aforementioned illnesses
- Sign up to teach 6th graders at church with the Chapmans (YIKES!)

So you may have noticed the underlying theme of the unpacking put on hold. Yes, we have been here for a month but life has been so hectic that we have not yet completely settled into our apartment and it's DRIVING ME CRAZY! Thankfully we do have decorations on the walls (courtesy of my dad's assistance), but there are still piles and boxes in our room and Caleb's room has not yet been decorated. *sigh* I have a dream that this will all happen one day.
On the odd days (when things are a bit calmer), Caleb and I have established a few regular routines, such as storytime at the library (weekly), playing with the Chapman kids (pretty much daily), and fulfilling our Friday night "duty" of hanging out with David and Kristen for the rest of our lives to make up for the fact that we moved overseas for two years. We have also spent quite a lot of time with my sisters and their kiddos. Caleb absolutely LOVES having so many friends and cousins to play with! Scott and I have even managed to squeeze in seeing two movies: Hairspray (Don't ask. We were supposed to be seeing The Bourne Ultimatum) and Transformers (AWESOME!).
Life will continue to be a bit crazy, as we have every weekend between now and mid-October booked up, lots of baby sitting of the nephews coming up, and a ridiculous number of birthday parties to attend. But hey, it's been great. I love seeing everybody again and being surrounded by family and friends. I miss England and everybody there but it's good to be home.

**Yes, I realise that these pictures have nothing to do with the actual post, but I figured the fans might start electronically spitting at me if I did not provide pictures of Caleb so I threw some in randomly. We've taken lots of pictures to coincide with the events, but I don't know where the camera cord is to upload them to the computer. These pictures were taken by Scott's dad and are all from his first birthday party.

Labels: Caleb, Moving

Well hello everyone! As most (if not all) of you know we are back in America and back in Texas. I know we have been extremely deficient in posting during the past month, but its tough to move countries and to pull it off a week earlier than everyone thinks. The short story is we did surprise everyone and it has been a whirlwind 2.5 weeks.

Everything has been going very well and we will try to update more information later. Sorry this is not a more substantial post.

However a quick addition just for fun.

Labels: Music, Random