calder's big brothers

first two weeks

i know i am way behind posting. calder will be 7 weeks on friday. he is such a dream. here are some pictures from the first two weeks of his life. i'll catch up soon.

calder's first day

welcome to the world calder. we already love you more than words can say.

this picture was taken by my ever artistic husband when they were getting calder's newborn footprints.

his first time looking at his mommy.

calder was born on september 10th and 6:28am. only 3 hrs of labor and no epidural. yep, i did it natural . . . but not by choice. he came so fast they didn't have time. he did really well and is a healthy little boy. i'm so happy to finally have him here.

i'm so in love.

a little burrito.

see how gorgeous he is!

i love seeing jeffrey hold him.

the biggest brother holding calder for the first time.

and the other big brother taking his turn.

i have a lot of other pictures i plan to post, but right now i gotta go feed calder. life is good.

date nights

jeffrey and i decided that with this baby coming we would take some advice that we've heard from some friends and family. we've heard them suggest that to help the kids adjust to a new kid in the house we should set aside some specific one on one time with the kids. we decided that we would rotate - mom and elliot, mom and sam, dad and elliot, dad and sam, etc. we decided to keep it simple. we let the kids pick something they would like to do (for free), like to go the park, go on a walk, go to the library, etc. then we get to get a snack together (which so far has been their favorite part.)

last week elliot and i went to the library together. it was so fun to be with him without having any distractions. i could just follow him wherever he wanted to go, look at whatever books or movies he wanted to look at, and best of all just listen to him talk, and talk, and talk. he loves to talk, especially when he doesn't have to compete with anyone else. then we went to the store to get a snack. i needed to grab a couple other things, so i grabbed a cart. elliot asked if he could ride in the cart that had a little tikes car attached on the front. he LOVED being in that car alone and pretended to be driving the whole time. he picked his treat (sour gummy bears) and then we headed home. he loved his "date". i loved it too. it really was nice to have that specific time that was just for me and elliot.

last night it was time for my date with sam. he wanted to go on a walk to the store to get a snack. luckily the weather was cool so i could handle it. it was so cute - he skipped and ran the whole way, taking little breaks for me to catch up. he just talked and talked too. once again it was so nice for him to not have to compete with anyone. he could just enjoy his time with me. we got to the store and he picked his snack. he wanted to go straight home to share with elliot and dad, but i convinced him to sit with me for a little bit on a bench and eat part of his treat, drink my soda with me, and talk a little. he had choosen chocolate coins and thought he was on top of the world. it's so cute to see them get so excited about the little things. we then walked home holding hands part of the way, or he was skipping or running. we were only gone for about 30 or 40 minutes, but he was beaming.

so far i'm loving this idea. i think it will be a huge help when this baby comes. the boys really felt special. it really helps having it be a time that is specifically set apart because then i don't let myself think about the things i need to do or the phone calls i need to make. i turn my phone off too so that i don't get distracted. we actually did this with elliot for a little while when sam was born and it helped then too.

jeffrey and i are starting our weekly date nights too. we feel just as special as the boys when we take the time out for each other to go on a simple date.

i highly suggest these date nights to everyone. i wrote them down on the calendar, so that they were official and so that i wouldn't accidentally schedule something else. we have explained to the boys that sometimes things happen and we might have to reschedule, but they will always get their turn. for example we've picked thursday nights to be the boys' date night and friday to be our date night, but this week i had something thurs to we pushed sam's date night to friday and our date night to sat.

anyway, if any of you try it out or are already doing something similar, let me know how it goes.

it's done!

jeffrey re-finished our kitchen table and chairs! i'm so excited. don't they look great! he put in a lot of hard work.


here is a before picture. (this was taken nearly 2 years ago when we were in new york.)

and once again, the after picture.

i'm a happy girl. :) thank you jeffrey.

first grade

my mom always had a tradition of taking a picture of us outside our front door on the first day of school, so we are keeping up the tradition.

he was so excited. he didn't seem nervous at all! it is neat to see him grow up. i was surprised though at the emotions that seemed to flood out of me after he got on the bus. i never thought i would be one of those moms to cry. i didn't when he went to preschool or kindergarten. it just felt different this time though. sending him all day, 7 hrs!

he has the same bus driver this year as he did last year. he also got to sit by his best friend dominic on the way to and home from school. he was happy about that, especially since they are not in the same class. he said his favorite part of the day was the 3 recesses. i love it. he also said he didn't get any homework because his teacher is so nice. i tried to remind him that when she does give him homework, she'll still be a nice teacher. :)

way to go elliot! you learned to read and write last year. you found out that you love science, math, and magic. you loved making new friends. we can't wait to see what you learn and discover this year!

30!

we celebrated jeffrey's 30th birthday a little over a week ago. we had a great time! we started celebrating a few days before his actual birthday. the boys bought jeffrey some candy with their own money, so we stopped by his work to take it to him. the next morning we took some balloons and 30 donuts to his work for him to share with his co-workers. it was really fun.

on saturday we went to a nearby town to eat lunch. the decor in this restaurant was clowns, everywhere. it was pretty funny. the burgers and fries were pretty good. i love this picture of jeffrey and sam.


that night i surprised jeffrey and took him out to dinner where some of our friends met up with us. the pizza was awesome and the ice cream was great. we really had a good time. we were lucky the weather was so nice too.

the next afternoon, after church, we passed out the presents.

here is a before and after picture.


we did pretty good. he was very happy with his gifts. thank you to both of our parents who sent jeffrey presents as well.

i attempted to make pies with a top crust for the first time. it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be. it was actually pretty fun. jeffrey really wanted birthday pie instead of birthday cake. if was nice to do something different.

before being baked

all ready to eat. yum, they were good.

the last present i gave him was the one i had been working on the longest. jeffrey has this new love of glass bottled, sugar sodas (not high fructose corn syrup and pure cane sugar is even better than just sugar). it took a little searching around, but i found 30 different varieties of sodas, one for each year of his life. it was fun to do. i wrote up 30 memories and taped one on each bottle. he loved it. you never know if your present is going to be liked or loved and this time i got it right. i was happy the hard work paid off.

all in all we had a lot of fun celebrating jeffrey's 30th birthday. it seemed like a big deal, so we tried to make it memorable. the boys had a lot of fun as well. i forgot to mention that they bought him a remote control jeep with their own money. they do chores and slowly earn money so that they have a little spending money. it was cool to see them happily use their own money to get something for their dad.

we love you jeffrey.

a few faces of sam