Caleb 13.5 Months

Caleb is about 13 and half months old now, and he is definitely becoming more and more of a toddler everyday. He spends his time walking around exploring everything. Today he was reaching in our childproofed cabinet under the kitchen sink trying to pull something out. He loves to carry around his net (shown in above picture) and put various toys in it. Often times the dog's ball are his choice. Caleb has decided that pillows are really comfortable. He loves to lay on them and play chase by diving into them when we are about to catch him. Caleb has starting bringing us more and more books to read at bedtime. Funny, even at 13 months, he has figured out how to stall at going to bed. He is able to take items off of many high surfaces. He pulls his sippy cup off of his high chair and lots of Mom's candles and other items off of tables. I guess that it is time to turn the baby proofing up another notch! Yesterday, I found Caleb sitting on the kitchen floor eating the middle of a pear that I had thrown away in the trash- yet another way he is taking after Heidi. At first, I thought that Heidi was the one who took it out, but I have seen him opening the trashcan lid and taking things out about five times since then. The trash is now in the garage. Caleb definitely wants to do everything on his own terms. He will not be held and cuddled unless he wants to be. However, when he chooses he does seem to be showing more affection to us. He opens his mouth and leans his cheek against us when I say "Give mama a kiss". Usually he just puts his cheek against us to steal a kiss, but sometimes he slobbers all over our face to give us a kiss. He will lean his cheek in, be kissed, pull away, and then lean back in for another kiss. It is so sweet to cuddle with him and have him hug us back. With all of the challenges and all of the rewards, we are definitely entered a new faze with him: toddlerhood!

Carne Adobada Recipe (Bueno)

A traditional autumn dish in New Mexico.
• 1 lb. pork cut into 1 inch long strips (approx. 4 chops) • 1 14 oz. container BUENO® Frozen Red Chile	• 4 cloves garlic, minced • 1 tsp. salt • 1 tsp. BUENO® Coarse Chile • ¼ tsp. BUENO® Oregano, crushed

1. Place pork strips into a deep baking dish.
2. In a bowl, combine red chile, garlic, salt, coarse chile and oregano.
3. Pour mixture over meat.
4. Marinate in refrigerator up to 24 hours.
5. Bake uncovered at 350º for 1 hour. Makes six 4 oz. servings.


As you may have noticed I think I spelled it wrong the first time. Truthfully I have seen it both ways; however the folks at Bueno would no before I did. Secondly, I usually opt for chunks of meat from a should roast of some kind but it doesn't have to be pork tenderloin or anything. Also you may notice that it is usually a fall dish. This is partially because if you make it with good red chile it is quite spicy and around here it will force you to turn your air conditioner down past what you may be able to afford.

Viva Neuvo Mexico

Probably not really blog worthy but I was in dire need of some carne adovada, so I made some. Not an epicurean feat to probably anyone else but it came out really good and I have slowly savored every morsel. I have since had it breakfast, lunch, and dinner. All that to say my New Mexican brethren should be proud of me and my ability to carry on a gastronomic tradition.

Walking 101

Caleb is officially a walker. He is starting to figure out that walking is more efficient than crawling. The beginning of the video is from about a week ago. The second half shows how much he is progressed in 6 days! It is amazing how fast he has learned. The quality of the video is not so good. It ended up being really big, so I saved it as an mpeg to speed along the uploading process...

Carrot Top

Caleb is embracing being a redhead like his cousin Andrew and taking it to a whole new level. This one landed there while he was tossing a few to his dinner time buddy, Heidi. He has a pretty good arm but this one went up instead of out.

Caleb: 13 months old

Caleb is officially 13 months old. The past month has flown by, and Caleb has learned quite a few things. He is only days away from being a full-fledged walker. He walks along the walls, then walks partly across a room, then falls down. This has all happened within the past week. All of a sudden he isn't scared to walk, and he is doing it all of the time. Caleb is now facing forward in his carseat (see bottom pic), which I think I am enjoying just as much as him. I have to be careful to focus on driving and not on looking at him in the rearview mirror! Today Caleb climbed in and out of the empty bathtub all on his own. You would think that he would have hurt himself, but he did it with ease. Caleb loves to brush his teeth and wants to do it by himself. He cries when we take the toothbrush away. I have officially put away all of the bottles, and Caleb drinks all of his milk out of sippy cups. He continues to love almost everything we give him to eat, but he sometimes refuses to eat off of a spoon. He much prefers to be able to pick up his food and feed himself. I keep trying to explain that you can't pick up applesauce, soup, ect. Both Heidi and Caleb make sure that we spend lots of time outside these days. They are both often at the door asking to go outside. Below are some recent pictures including some of Caleb at the Michael Johnson track meet last night. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday, Aunt Leslie and Uncle Arthur!

 

We just wanted to wish our sister-in-law, Leslie, a Happy Birthday! Her birthday was yesterday, so I am a day late. But, I was thinking about her yesterday! Here is a picture of Leslie and me and the kids from Thanksgiving. Happy Birthday, Leslie! We hope that you had an enjoyable day yesterday and that this is a great relaxing weekend!
Also Happy Belated Birthday to Uncle Arthur in Greece. His birthday was Thursday, so with the time change, I may be nearly 3 days late ;). We hope that you are doing well across the ocean! We hope to see you soon!

Bluebonnets

 

 

 

 

One of my closest friends, Jennifer Taylor, is a great photographer. Tonight she took a bunch of pictures of Caleb and friends in the bluebonnets. Of course all of the moms had to snap some pics with their own cameras, and above are some that we took. Thanks Jennifer for the photo shoot! I can't wait to see your pictures!

 

 

 

Family Track Trip to Stanford

Jon took Caleb and me along to Stanford for a track trip this past weekend. Despite one airplane vomit episode, one poop in the hotel bathtub episode, and lots of hours in airplanes holding a baby, we had a great time. We got to see Jon's parents, hang out with a few Capron family friends, tour Stanford, go to the track meet, and go to the beach. Oh and Jon was very excited that we made it to the Falafels Drive In, which was featured on the Food Network recently. Check out the NorCal Caprons blog for more pictures. Here are some that we took:

 

The Fam at Half Moon Bay

 

 

Lots of hours in a hotel room, a moment unsupervised and I found Caleb like this!

 

Look at the teeth on top. Caleb has 5 teeth now, 3 on top and 2 on the bottom.