Jon's Gift!

Well I thought it was funny that Jon decided to buy me almonds as a present while he was away. Normally I would love to receive almonds. I eat them a lot. However, 2 nights ago I spent all night long throwing up bits of almonds. Later I even blew about half of an almond out of my nose. So almonds aren't at the top of my list right now. Thanks for the thought though Jon! (FYI- It was the stomach virus- not morning sickness- in case anyone thought that :)!

Fun with Photoshop

Cool what you can do with the click of a button!

Caleb and Gianna are starting to have more interaction with each other. Usually that interaction is one of them stealing the other's toy or sippy cup and the other getting upset. I had to take this picture quickly because Caleb was not happy to share a spot on Gianna's car with Gianna. They both managed to grin for the camera, but before I got it out Caleb was showing the perfect example of toddlers thinking that the world revolves around them. Despite all of the "negative" attention that they give one another, Gianna and Caleb did the cutest thing the other night. We were at the Ecklund's house for home group, and we were in the middle of our Bible study time. Suddenly we heard laughter and screaming from the two of them. Gianna was chasing Caleb down the hallway, and they were both just shrieking with joy. It was simply adorable. In telling my mom the story, she said you just never know what may happen with those two in the future. My brother is about to marry Tiffany, whose family we have known since they were both babies. In fact, my mom and Tiffany's mom used to pray for their children's future spouses together when the bride and groom to be were just in elementary school! Whatever becomes of Gianna and Caleb, we are happy to see such fun interactions from the two of them!

Caleb's Workout and Race

As the track team prepares for regionals and nationals, they have been practicing at night some to stay out of the Texas heat. On Saturday night, Jon took Caleb and me to practice with him. Caleb had a blast "racing" around in the grass and on the track.

Caleb does a warmup in the grass before his big race.


Caleb stops for a moment to pose for a quick picture for the press.

He takes the track.


He gets into the blocks.

He's off and running! I am going to pass you daddy. You better watch out!

Let's do it together. I am getting really really tired, and I am so hot that I'm red as a beet!

Security and Electronics

Caleb takes after both of his granddads. Grandpa Capron is a security expert, and Grandpa Pace an engineer of all things electronic. The other night Jon, Caleb, and I were all playing in his room, and he started chabbering away and pointing through the doorway. I thought he was trying to tell me that he wanted to go outside. We followed him into our living room, and he went straight for our motion sensor. It brought him great joy when Jon lifted him up to see it. Caleb just started babbling like crazy. Jon hopes that the alarm isn't sending him subliminal messages! It was sort of strange, like Caleb wasn't just making sounds. He was trying to say something important, but we have no idea what that could be.

To say the very least, my gardening skills leave much to be desired. I have a lot to learn. Several years ago I planted the bulbs from a potted Cala Lily in our front flower bed. I was so excited the next spring when I saw several green sprouts coming up. Some were from the Cala Lily and some from tulip bulbs that I had also planted the previous fall. I started anticipating the beautiful flowers that were soon to come. I went out every day to check the progress of my plants. The leaves grew up a little more each day. However, the dirt in our yard is best described as dark, clumpy, muddy clay, and no flowers ever showed up despite my daily hopes. This year, only one of the bulbs sprouted. I assumed that the other bulbs disintegrated in our always wet dirt. I didn't have high hopes for this plant and have mostly ignored it. Tonight while watering my other nearly dying flowers, I was amazed to see a lovely elegant pink Cala Lily! Some times in life, I think God gives us a glimpse of Himself through nature, and this is what I felt about my pink lily. God gave it to me to say He loves me. Many people probably don't imagine a God that is so personal and intimate with each of His creations, but I truly believe God romances us in such ways as these. Look for God to show you He loves you and cares for you today.

"Do not be anxious about your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, or for your body, as to what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life's span? And why are you anxious about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow: they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these." Matthew 6:25-29

A Trip to ABQ

Caleb and I spent a busy long weekend in Albuquerque visiting family. We did a whole lot of fun things and had a great visit. Look at the pictures to see some of what we did.

Our first day we went to the zoo with my mom, sister, and my sister's class on a field trip. Katie had 20 parents come on the trip, so she got to hang out with us the whole time. That's good management! :) That night my mom took Katie and me to see Cirque de Soleil. It was very entertaining and amazing. Katie and I both said that we felt nervous the whole time that one of the performers would get injured. My mom said she would never let one of her children do anything like that!

The next day we went to a shower for my brother's soon to be bride, Tiffany. As you can see from the picture, she got a lot of fun presents. My brother and Tiffany closed on their brand new house while we were in town, so we also got to go see it. Congrats, guys! So exciting!

Here we are at the shower.

Caleb spent some time swimming in his baby pool. He definitely enjoyed it a lot! He also loved to play in Grammy's fountain in the backyard. When he wasn't doing those things he was either climbing the stairs at my parent's house or enjoying a vanilla wafer from Grandpa. It was a great tiring weekend!

Sic' Em Bears

This past weekend, we went to Austin for the State Track Meet, so that Jon could do some recruiting. Caleb and I were glad to be able to go along with him for a quick night away from home. On Friday, we went to the meet. Caleb absolutely loves to pick up every rock and stick when he is outside, so he walked around the stadium trying to pick up every single piece of trash in the whole place. I kept saying again and again, "That is yucky trash. We don't pick that up." We are still working on the whole trash and dirt concept! I am a lot more okay with dirt than with trash that was mostly of the food variety- lots of sticky lemonade chill leftovers. Yucky trash!
On Saturday morning, Jon went to the meet for about an hour, and then we all headed to San Marcos for some outlet mall shopping. Jon and I figured that would be our compromise; I went to the meet with him, and he went shopping with me. Poor Caleb had to do both! He loves to be around people, so I think he enjoyed himself for the most part. After shopping Saturday, we went to the meet again to watch the 5A finals. About halfway through the races, bad weather came through, and we had to evacuate the stadium with about a million other people, who all seemed to be standing still under the stands trying to decide what they were going to do. Meanwhile, it began pouring down rain. There we were in a huge crowd of people standing under the bleachers with dirty rain water dripping through the stands. Seeing that it would take us quite a while to get to the exit that way because everyone seemed to be scared to get wet, Jon, Caleb, and I went back into the stands and made a run for the gate and then to the car. We were completely soaked, but it was a fun adventure! Jon had to fix Caleb's hair to a fro look, and everyone around us seemed to enjoy the look! Click on the picture to see the complete fro look! After that, we drove back to Waco and made it home safely about an hour and a half later. Caleb screamed at the top of his lungs for about 45 minutes during that time. I think he had about as much tracka, tracka, tracka, and shopping as he could handle! We all slept well in our own beds!

A Day at the Museum

Caleb and I went to the Mayborn Museum with our friends, Addi and Jackson, and their mom, grandma, cousin, and cousin's husband. It was quite a group with 5 adults and 3 kids. Caleb had a blast, despite the fact that we went during naptime. We highly recommend this destination for kids!

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!