Easter 2012 Part 1

Every Spring the kids enjoy a whole lot of Easter egg hunts. I think that we participating in5 this year, and we even said no to a couple. Here are some pictures of the Baylor Easter egg hunt:

We always meet the Ecklunds at this one. It is so fun to take pictures at it each year and to see how we have grown. Here are the posts for the past years: 2008, 2009, 2010. Last year the egg hunt was on the day that I was in the hospital in early labor with Luke. The Ecklunds were watching our two older kids, and they decided that it would be easier to skip the hunt. But, this year we were back!

Gianna tried hard to keep Kaiya in her lap, but right after this she did a dive into the rosebushes.

Caleb and Abby got exactly ZERO eggs at this hunt. They kind of stood there looking around when the hunt started and once they did start into the field of eggs, they just weren't fast enough compared to the rest of the kids. Awe, my non-competitive babies. I had to give them a pep talk about the rest of the egg hunts we attended. Jon has some work to do if he wants them to be into sports in the future! A couple of our friends kindly shared some of their eggs with Caleb and Abby.

I just love this rascally face. I remember Caleb making the same face when he was little.

Another annual egg hunt was at the Boyds "farm". Caleb and Abby did much better this time around, and as usual we all had a blast playing in the barn.

These were our attempts at a group shot: 2 five year olds, 4 four year olds, 2 three years olds, 2 two year olds, 2 one year olds, and 3 babies under one. Now that is a BLAST!

Hailey and Hayes: Isn't this picture funny!?

Lukey watching the action!

Grandma Peters joined us for a whole lot of Easter fun!

Lastly here is a sweet picture that my photographer friend Jennifer took of Luke at the hunt! Love it! Thanks, Jennifer!

Luke at 11 months old

Luke is about a week shy of 11 months. He is growing big and strong. Here are his latest accomplishments:

-He loves to pull up on anything and everything: tables, beds, the dog, Abby's dollhouse, ect.!

-His favorite thing right now is to walk around while holding on to our hands. He always shrieks with happiness when I start walking him around. He also loves to ride on a little push toy in the backyard.
-Within the past month, I have weaned Luke from nursing. He started sleeping great as soon as I got him going on formula. I am so very happy to be able to sleep all night now!
-Luke loves Caleb and Abby and their toys! We call him "the big giant baby". I have to answer quite a few of Caleb's calls for help when the big giant baby is about to reach the legos or the trainset.

-Luke is a quick little crawler. He loves to play chase while crawling and will stop so that I catch him. He will just laugh and laugh. It is so sweet.
-Luke eats well but likes for me to spoon feed him. He eats a banana for breakfast, usually ham, cheese, and bread for lunch, and whatever I have fixed us for dinner. He loves to snack on crackers or applesauce. We are working on getting those veggies into his stomach. I usually have to hide them in bites of other food.
-Luke loves to look at his board books. His favorite one is all about modes of transportation.
One is just around the corner. We love our little man! LUKE!

Caleb at 5 years old!

Our little preemie is 5 years old! He really is a big boy now, and he will start kindergarten in less than 5 months! But, really I don't need to go there yet! I will just get all sentimental and teary-eyed, and I think that I will save that for later on!
Here is a snapshot of Caleb at five:
*Caleb still loves to play with his trains and cars, but he plays with them differently than he used to. Now it is more about setting up the perfect track than it is about actually playing with the trains on it. I see him slowly starting to grow out of this phase, but he still asks for cars and trains anytime a present is coming, and he still plays with them often. He has also taken a strong interest in legos. After he helped Jon put together many sets for Caleb's birthday, Caleb was able to put some of them together by himself last week.
*Caleb and Abby love to play together. They get along really well and take turns playing with each others' toys. Earlier today they were playing airport with real luggage and an airport security badge. I think that Caleb was the airport worker and Abby was the Grandma traveling to see her grandkids... so cute!
*Caleb eats alright. He will eat veggies, but doesn't like any type of casserole or sauce on his meat (with the exception of gravy and ketchup!). He eats oatmeal for breakfast everyday and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch nearly everyday.
*Caleb seems a little more outgoing in his class at school than he was at the beginning of the year. He is acting comfortable and seems to play with the other boys. Can you tell that this is a sensitive area for me? Really I am sure that it is for any mom! I just know that Caleb is a bit of a follower, and I want him to be bold and to at the very least pick good kids to follow! I am already praying for him to make a good group of friends in his kindergarten class next year. Also I think that he is smart and will do well in school, but I don't want him to sit back and not answer questions because he is being shy.
*Caleb loves to ride his bike around the block with Jon and to play basketball in the driveway. He wasn't super interested when he played soccer and says that he doesn't want to play again next year, but he is saying that he would like to try basketball....we will see if we get any different of a result with that!
*Caleb does a lot of things for himself, but I have to sort of push him to do them. He would be happy to let me do everything for him. He can just recently buckle his seat belt himself, and we are still working on unbuckling it!
*Caleb is still a homebody. He likes playing at home more than being on the go.
*Caleb has told us many times that he has asked Jesus in his heart. I believe that he truly has, and I know that many of the conversations that we have had surrounding my mom's death and residence in heaven have helped him to understand it all. It is great to see his spiritual life taking form.

We love you Caleb, our BIG FIVE YEAR OLD!

Bluebonnets 2012

Every year, our play group goes to take pictures of the kids in the Texas bluebonnets. The last couple of years, there really haven't been that many flowers and we have gotten muddy and had to walk through thorny weeds to take our pictures. But, this year's blossoms are full and abundant, and we found a great new spot for pictures. It was fun to see how the kids enjoyed being there and had a look of wonder and awe at the sight of all of the beautiful flowers. Even Luke was smiling and super happy the whole time that we were there. I just sat him down in the middle of the flowers, and he pretty much stayed put while I took the pictures. I have a few observations that I made after viewing and editing the pictures: 1. Caleb's hair is at an awkward-in-between stage. Jon cut it one cut ago and it ended up really short. 2. Abby wore her new smocked dress for the pictures. She did come home with few grass stains on it and even a blue bluebonnet stain. However, I have already gotten the stains out, and I LOVE how pretty the dress looks in the pictures! 3. Luke's teeth are very silly looking right now! Also his hair always looks red in pictures, but I don't know that it will really end up being red. 4. Our older two can make some serious ugly faces in attempting to make me happy and smile, but they did try. I told jokes about Heidi the dog wearing roller skates to get some real smiles. Okay just had to write those down for myself! Here are the pictures!

This next one may be my favorite....silly but Abby is actually smiling in it!

Caleb is FIVE!

Caleb is FIVE years old, and we have had lots of fun celebrating! Here are some pictures of each event:
Grandaddy and Tammy came to visit for Caleb's birthday. We enjoyed spending time together and of course enjoyed some birthday cake with the birthday boy!

Caleb had his birthday party at the Museum, and we broke away a tiny bit from his continued obsession with Thomas the train and Cars cars by having a lego themed party.
The Birthday Boy!

Lots of pictures of the party table. I spent WAY too long on the cakes. Let's just say that I didn't consider that fact that each individual cake would take the same amount of decorating time as one big cake would. I was a very tired mommy when I finally finished them, and I had to repeat to myself again and again "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful!"

Caleb blowing out his candles and ready for his CAKE!

Our whole crew at the party

After all of the that partying yesterday, Caleb didn't understand why he wasn't five yet last night. Finally today was his real birthday, and he got to open all of his presents from family.

SMILE for the camera!

Caleb's big gift from us was an airport lego set. Jon and Caleb have been working most of the day putting it all together. It was definitely a daddy directed activity, but Caleb is loving playing with it all except for when the "big giant baby" is becoming a threat to homeland security!

Jon working away with his "helpers"

Love how Abby is trying to be a part of it all in this picture, her and her My Little Ponies!

Caleb got some other legos from family too. All told there were 1267 pieces that Jon and Caleb put together over the past several days! Happy Birthday Caleb! You are worth every single piece! We love you!