So very thankful

There have been some small moments lately that have made me just so thankful to me a mom. (Ok, so I am always thankful, but these moments have really stood out and I hope to remember them always)

Yesterday, Caleb's teachers decorated the classroom for Christmas. They put up white lights all over the room, along with ornaments and they were playing Christmas music. Stephen picked Caleb up from school and they were playing outside. Well, as soon as they got back inside, Caleb ran into his classroom, jumped up in the air and landed with his arms and legs spread wide apart. "Ta-da!!!!!! Christmas!!!" he proudly exclaimed. I think Little Buddy is excited for Christmas this year!

They also recently made Thanksgiving Handprints for an art project. They had to tell their teacher one thing they were thankful for. Out of everything he could pick, Caleb proudly told them he was thankful for Jesus. What a sweet little boy!

We took Caleb for his first ride on the Macy's Pink Pig. A huge Atlanta tradition. His face was lit up the entire time as he looked at everything we passed. I hope I will always remember the look of excitement and curiosity in his eyes! His favorite part was when the conductor said "All aboard!" He ran to the front seat to begin his trip! After the ride, we went to Chick Fil-a for lunch. I think he may have been even more thrilled with who we saw there - a Chick Fil-A cow, than the Pink Pig!

Sometimes, after I get him dressed in the morning, I will tell Caleb that he looks great. His response? "Whistle at me!!"

Caleb is still talking about the holes in our house and if I mistakenly say "Let's go home," he promptly corrects me and says "We no go home. We have holes in our house. We go to Grandadddy's House!" I think he is ready for the holes to be patched up so he can sleep in his own bed. (We are very very slowly making progress and hope to get a lot done this weekend!)

The small moments make mommy-hood so worth living!

Drying Out

Yep. We are drying out. For those of you who did not see on facebook, Stephen and I had a massive flood in our house. A connecting valve for a pipe under our guest bath sink gave our and the pipe began gushing out water...when we were not at home. It had to have leaked about 1000 gallons of water during the day. It was on the second floor of our house, so it flooded the upstairs hall, soaking into the carpet in every single room upstairs, except for our bed room. It also went down the steps and through the ceiling into our kitchen, living room and laundry area and half bath downstairs. In the end, we will have to replace the hardwoods, ceilings, carpets, flooring in both upstairs bathrooms, the vanity in the guest bath upstairs, baseboards up and down stairs and repaint most rooms downstairs and hall upstairs. We will also need a new couch, tv and some other small items will need to be replaced. Thankfully all of our sentimental items and pictures came out ok. The verdict is still out on the laptop that was sitting directly underneath one of the major leaky spots. Honestly, I think we are just a little scared to turn it on. Said laptop is the home to oh so many pictures and documents! Hopefully, Mr. IT Man (Stephen) can get it fixed, or at least recover the documents.

Not sure when we will be able to get back in our home. I am really hoping to be in there for Christmas, but even at that point not everything will be fixed.

Yes. It is a big pain. We do have good insurance and that is assuring. I hate being displaced from our home, especially during the holidays. However, I know it could be so much worse. The flood occurred on Wednesday, the same day I experienced my first flat tire. We were stressed and worried, but thankful our entire house was not destroyed. As we sat in our hotel room Thursday night, everything was put into perspective with one phone call. We learned some devastating news about a friend and member of our church who was killed riding his bicycle. He left behind a wife and two sweet children. We now keep that family in our prayers and hold on to each other a little tighter. We will also take a flood any day.

So, as we dry out, we still continue to count our blessings. This Thanksgiving, we may not have our home back together, but we still have the people in that home....all together, and that is what really matters the most.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Remember to count your blessings!

Happy Halloween - a couple days late!

Three is a very fun year for Halloween! Everything from pumpkin picking, pumpkin carving (ok, so he refused to touch the insides of the pumpkin for the most part. I finally convinced him at clean up time...), and of course, the trick or treating. He even wore his pirate hat the entire time! Caleb is typically not a fan of any type of hat for longer than 5 seconds!

Trick or treating was a lot of fun this year. Each house we approached, he would look for the "ring bell" and yell out "There is the ring bell!" when he would find it. He perfected his "tick or teat" and managed to score a bunch of candy, most of which he can't eat. Bummer! He doesn't seem to mind when we tell him he can't have something and we were sure to have a good stash of "Caleb-safe" candy on hand to help him re-fill his goodie bag.

I can't believe it is already November. We are in my favorite part of the year and it just seems to be flying by already! I want time to stand still. I want to see the Holidays this year through the eyes of a child. I want to soak each and every moment in and not pass days away without being appreciative for what I have. I think having a child makes this time of year so much more magical, and for that I am so very thankful!

Here are a few pictures from our fun Halloween! Happy November!

Happy Birthday, Caleb!

How you went from this:

to this:

in the blink of an eye is beyond me.

My goodness, my precious Caleb. Time sure has flown. Just over an hour ago, three years to this date you came in to my life. I never expected motherhood to be such pure joy. At three years old, you just amaze me with how smart and talented you are. You love music and will tap your foot or clap your hands to the beat of the music. Just a couple weeks ago, you actually drew a picture of a quarter note and correctly identified it on sheet music. You must be a musical prodigy. :) You also know all of your letters and can count to thirty all by yourself. You can read your friends names and are starting to familiarize yourself with short words as well. You started to tell us your letters (big ones and little ones as you say) at two and a half years old. It really was just so amazing to me!

The things you come up with to say now are also amazing. "What you said mommy?" You are also starting to get into sports. You take part in "playball" at school and your coach says you have improved so much since the start of the school year when we enrolled you in the program. Your daddy and I think you are great at kicking a ball and you have also gotten really good at hitting a baseball off the tee!

On this day, your third birthday, I just want you to know how much you are loved, my Little Buddy! I sometimes go in your room at night and pray over you while you sleep. I thank God for bringing you into our lives and pray that you live a long, healthy and happy life. I pray that I can make a difference in your life...teach you right from wrong, how to be a gentleman, and that you will grow up always surrounded by love. I really do not know how I got so lucky to be chosen as your mommy. You bless me every single day with the most precious smile and sweet little voice. My heart melts each time you tell me that you love me. I would give you the world if I could, as you have given me more than you will ever know.

Happy birthday, sweet Caleb! And many, many more!

Wordless Wednesday...

Ok, so technically there are some words... :)

Remember Me?

I have been horrible at keeping up with this blog lately and I hate that! I love to have the little day-to-day stories written down and I haven't been doing a good job. Maybe I will work on changing that. We will see!

So...what has been keeping me so busy? I did start another blog. It's called 52 Treats I Can Eat. I created it to give me some new exciting things to feed Caleb that most non-food allergic kids get to eat every day, whenever they want. You can find it at www.52treatsicaneat.wordpress.com. I usually put in where I have made substitutions to make it Caleb-safe....so while it is a blog geared towards food allergies, everyone can enjoy it!

Here are some of those silly moments that I haven't been writing down. Sorry for the stream of consciousness writing...just not feeling it today, as I have been doing data entry all morning. (and now spending my lunch typing on a computer....something isn't right here!)

Caleb has transitioned into a new class at school. The first week was a little rough since most of his old friends went into a new classroom without him. Thankfully, he has his friend Ella from his other classes in there with him and has grown to love all the new kids - all girls - as well. He is such a ladies man already. Every morning he runs in and the girls all run up to him to talk to him. His friend Ella is usually the first one to greet him. The other day, she ran up to him and put her hands on her hips, looked out the corner of her eye and said "Heeeey Big Boy!" The next morning....it was similar, only this time she said "Hey Caleb! Are you going to come and get me?" (Yes, he did....of they went to play with their favorite toys together!) One of my favorites happened just about a week ago. He ran into his room, as he always does, and said "Hey Ladies!!" He was so proud and I think he takes his role as the "Man of the Classroom" very seriously. He always wants to be the "caboose" for the day. Maybe so he can be sure to protect his "ladies" as they walk down the hall!

He amazes me every day. I have said before how well he does with his letters. Now he will randomly find a letter in a book or on a flashcard, cup, menu, etc. and say "There is a C in my name." or "There is an S in Miss Sarah's Name!" he gets so proud of himself...and I do, too! :)

He is great at calling the "Dawgs!" You should ask him to say "Go Dawgs" for you sometime!

OH! How have I gone without blogging this huge milestone??? Caleb is officially FULLY potty trained. Day and night time! He has done GREAT! It was about mid-August when he was trained and has done wonderful ever since. He loves being a big boy and going in the potty. Many mornings he will go into the bathroom and say "I stand up. Because I am a big boy!" So nice to not have to deal with diapers any more.

I will try to be better about keeping up with this blog. I need to! I hate for the little funny moments to pass on by without being documented!

Catching Fireworks

Well, the long July 4th weekend has come to a close. It really was a wonderful weekend! We spent the weekend down at the Farm. Caleb's first question as we pulled up to the farm was "Where is the tractor?" And that kind of sums up how the weekend went. He was on the move getting to try all sorts of new things.

Caleb went on tractor rides with his Daddy, golf cart rides, ate MANY peaches (the 4th is the annual peach jam making trip! - more to come on that in a bit., went swimming, ate blackberries fresh off the blackberry bush - turning his mouth and shirt a very dark shade of purple, played in the garden, and,of course, watched fireworks. He loved every minute of it! We went to Eastman, GA to see the fireworks show, and they did a great job! Caleb's favorites were the big ones that look like they are coming right at you in a perfect;y formed ball. He would hold out his hands and try to catch them. He even put some of those "fireworks" in his pocket to save for later. And, yes, the next day, he asked for his pants so he could pull one out of the pocket. This is a picture of Caleb and his daddy playing while waiting for the sun to go down. See his expression?? It pretty much stayed like that the whole weekend.

On to the peach jam....I completed four huge batches of the yummy goodness. I also made a double batch of peach cobbler for everyone to eat. It was so good! We had peach everything, and by the end of the weekend, I had to have pealed over 50 cups of peaches....which is A LOT, and we still have some peaches left over. (anyone have any good peach-something recipes???) Caleb proved to be a good helper and was a master peach sampler by the end of the weekend. He can't get enough.

We took our time coming home from the farm and stopped in Macon to visit their Bass Pro Shops and stretch our legs. It was a nice little outing and Caleb loved watching the fishies in a different store than where we usually go to pass the time when we get Cabin Fever! We got home and went swimming, where Caleb got to learn something else new and exciting...belly flops! Of course the padding of his puddle jumper takes away the sting. ;) The alarm went off this morning, and here I am back at work - don't worry, I am on my lunch break!

I hope you all had a nice 4th of July weekend, as well. Now, I get to count down the days until Beach Time! YAY!!!