Welcome

Baby Matthew is here! He arrived late afternoon at 7lbs4oz and 20inches (I am almost positive that is right!). Matthew is the first cousin for Caleb on my side of the family. Now for the clincher, he is also the third cousin for Caleb on Brian's side of the family. My sister is married to Brian's brother, so Baby Matthew is Caleb's double cousin! How very special. But since Brian and I don't look much like our siblings, we are pretty sure the cousins won't look like brothers!

Congratulations Cara-Lee and Brandon!

We love you Baby Matthew!

Forgot the Invitations

Forgot to include pictures of his invitations from the family party and fireman party!

Great eh!?!?

Caleb's Fireman Party

This is the first year that Caleb chose his party theme and he picked it out MONTHS ago. He has been telling everyone since this past summer that he was going to have a Fireman Party! It was a lot of fun cooking up all the ideas for his celebration too. We wanted to keep it smaller this year, so we only invited twelve of our dude's pals. He ended up with nine at the party, which was a perfect number! I also wanted to keep the decorations simpler this year, so we made his firetruck surprise the main event.

A few months ago I asked Brian if he would make a firetruck out of a refridgerator box for the party, which he readily agreed to do..because he is just that awesome. My Dad brought us the box and Brian got to work on it. Unfortunately he only had one night with the project before he got the flu. So instead of having the full week to spread out the work as planned, he did it all the night before the party (we were up until 3am). But Brian never fails in his role as Super Daddy and he didn't let the late hours detract from his goals...he finished it with all of the details intact and it was perfect! The dude certainly thinks so! It will be a part of his playroom for quite some time now!

Caleb woke up ready for his party and couldn't understand why nobody was here yet. He had a lot of fun playing with his friends and taking in all of the fireman stuff. We had a cake drama too...since Brian had been sick I also lost a number of days to party prep and had to nix the 3-D firetruck cake I was going to make. So we made a mad dash to Target on Friday morning, a friend recommended their cakes, to pick out a store-bought one. I was thinking we would just get a round cake with vanilla icing and then I would put one of his little firetrucks on top with some of his no-artificial-food-colouring sprinkles. However, the "nice" lady at the bakery decided to show Caleb a picture of their firetuck cake...loaded with food colouring! So much for the pantry full of sprinkles and food colouring free of articifial dyes! But the dude loved it and he only ever eats a few bites, so we sucked it up and let it happen! The cake was a big hit with the kids and I wasn't a puddle of goo on the floor from what would have been a sleepless night making anything else.

Our favourite part of the party? Caleb insisted that he had to sit beside Trevor at lunch and halfway through he leaned over and said very insistently, "Trevor! Trevor! I'm four now!" As much as Caleb has been waiting for this day, Trevor has been too. Now they are both four and I am sure they are plotting all sorts of mischief for the year. They are happy dudes!

Oh, and not to be forgotten. Thank you Stacie. I really would have been up all night without all the help you gave me Friday in prepping for the party. You are an amazing and beautiful friend. Thank you so much from all three of us!!!!!

It's late. Brian's hard at work. Nothing is too much for our dude. We love you Brian!

Surveying the finished product. IT PASSED INSPECTION!

Caleb Fire Department

This was a great moment. We love that Caleb insisted his fire hydrant needed to go into the fire truck (so he would be close to all of the water he needed).

Caleb's banner and the flames to put out.

I didn't like the stickers that came on these hats, so Stacie and I made new ones that said Real Life Hero.

Part of the party favours. I asked my friend Colleen, who made the invitations, to make luggage tags for the kids. I think they turned out great!

These fire chief badges were supposed to be prizes for our outdoor fireman obstacle course. The weather did not cooperate, surprise surprise, so the game could not happen. I was super bummed. It involved rescuing a cat out of a tree, slides and putting out a laminated fire in Caleb's playhouse. Super bummed.

Another favour. I made these placemats for all of the kids and laminated them at Mardel's.

The back of the placemats.

Just a little decor.

The big table (we also had Caleb's little table).

The cake. Like I said, the kids loved it.

A big hit! I love that Trevor is putting out the fire!

The baby corner!

Caleb was a little tired of hearing the Happy Birthday song but he hung in there so that he could blow out the candles!

Caleb also chose the menu for the day (PB&Js cut in the shape of firetrucks, we also had some on goldfish-shaped bread, a sandwich station for the big kids, applesauce, grapes, carrots, bug mac and cheese (no preservatives or artificial food colouring), chips and organic frozen yogurt tubes, bunny crackers (also no preservatives or food colouring) and bell peppers. His favourite foods (except for the chips but I figured they would be appreciated).

The one game that we got to keep...pin the badge on Sparky the Fire Dog!

So close dude! Jillian got it dead on!

A big crowd made for a gift opening frenzy!

We had a blast! Loved it! But we are now reveling in the land of "nothing on the calendar and all we have to do is play and relax." Brian and I had a Christmas Party the night of Caleb's party, so Uncle Matt and Aunty Laurel took him over to their place for a sleepover. He loved it. Thanks y'all! We went to our party (we are co-social coordinators for the class and so we kinda had to go even though I just wanted to sleep) and then crashed. I slept 12 1/2 hours last night. That is insane!!!!

This is probably the end of our really long posts for a while. I will keep them shorter...thanks for hanging in there!!!

FOUR YEARS OLD!

Our dude is four! FOUR! What were we doing four years ago? Anxiously awaiting to meet our mystery baby, aka Cabella. Praying for our sweet baby's health and wondering aloud what his or her voice would sound like, who he or she would look like. We would lie down at night and watch our "sea monster" tumble and roll in my tummy, making it (my tummy) look very much alive. And now we have had our precious dude for four magnificent years. We can't wait to see what this next year will bring us. He is a never-ending source of delight and life through his eyes is fun, funny and inspiring! Case in point: the night before his birthday, he told me at bedtime that he was going to wake up in the morning and be as tall as his ceiling since he would be four. He also asked how he would turn four. PRECIOUS!

We had a great day celebrating Caleb's big day. He ran into our room and declared that he was four! He has been waiting so long to say that! After opening his gifts from us, some assembly required, we went for his annual visit with Santa Claus. This year we chose Willowbend; their Ice Palace set up included a snowglobe that Caleb LOVED!  He rolled in it, stuffed it inside his new ambulance, made snow angels...there was glorious merriment in that white fluff! Santa sang Happy Birthday to him and got a big Caleb hug when they were done chatting (Santa looked at me and said that was why he worked all day!).

From there we collected Pop and headed to Rainforest Cafe for lunch. Caleb has been working on a chart perfecting his table manners and his reward was to go to Rainforest Cafe.  He got his last sticker three days before his birthday! We usually go to Gattitown but were happy to make the switch for the dude. Of course he kept asking if we were going to the one at the beach, Galveston, where we went last May...hope he wasn't too disappointed because that was a bit too much of a drive for us!

After some quiet time at home we loaded back up and went back to Frisco Town Square for the "dancing lights." Apparently it is the largest Christmas display in Texas. All we know is that Caleb's obsession with Christmas lights is alive and well and he LOVES it there. We took a cupcake and candle and sang to him by the lights. It was a precious moment. Needless to say, running around in the cold and watching the lights left him ready for bed and a good nights sleep!

He went right for the presents!

Nothing like some "construction" work first thing in the morning to get your juices going!

A very delighted dude. Note his new ambulance too (the only thing he had asked for and my friend Mary found it for us!)

The Ice Palace Santa Village had all sorts of Arctic stuff to do.

Little hand, big Polar Bear paw!

SNOW!

So tall! Caleb has just finished a big growth spurt that left him with growing pains at night. He really is sooo tall!

Loading up his ambulance.

Daddy got this started!

You giggled when you saw this didn't you?! How could you not?

Caleb got an ice-cream sundae presented by singing waiters! He loved it and yet wasn't so sure all at the same time!

I love this picture. I love our dude!

Caleb didn't want in the picture, but why waste a good photo op with Pop?

Pressed pennies! WAHOO!

Caleb loves Cha-Cha! Lots and Lots!

Our cupcake moment at the dancing lights.

This was a great calming end to our day.

Always running. He doesn't stop moving until the lights are off and he has had his "two minutes and one more minute" to talk about his day with Daddy.

xoxoxo

p.s This was our first year to celebrate Caleb's birthday without Grammy. We missed you Grammy! Love you!

Caleb's Third Birthday

And finally, Caleb's third birthday! I

 spent a lot of time planning this party, but I have to be honest, I was not able to do everything that I had envisioned. Last fall was really hard. We were dealing with a lot and were stretched very thin emotionally, so we had to scale back on the party in order to actually survive the party. So even though it turned out FANTASTIC and the dude was in heaven, I have a hard time looking at the pictures without seeing everything that isn't there. I am so grateful that we had his party though, it was a big, bright light of fun in a very difficult time! What a beautiful reprieve and distraction! There are a lot of pictures for this one..hope you enjoy them!

Caleb's invitation by Colleen. I am telling you people, she does great work!

Caleb has a lot of toy dinosaurs. A lot. They came in really handy for party decor.

My attempt at a triceratops. I drew it onto several pieces of posterboard and attached it to a box so that she would stand up. I wasn't overly thrilled with the result...the body is rather odd. But again, I need to focus on the dude and he loved it. I also wanted to have the jungle paper cover our entire living room wall with another few dinosaurs, but there just wasn't the time or energy that year.

So we made the fireplace into our jungle and enlisted the help of some more of Caleb's dinosaur friends. The footprint you see was one of several velociraptor prints that I put on the floor leading from the door to the scene (I got a template from an actual velociraptor print).

The hanging pteranadons were our favourite part. They spent the rest of the year in Caleb's playroom and just migrated into his bedroom. He loves those dinosaurs. I just wish the whole jungle scene looked better. The tree was a great attempt by my Mom, sister and myself. Looking back, I probably should have taken down the picture, but it felt wrong to make baby Jesus leave the party...

The awesome "birds."

The first time I bought a party-store centerpiece, but we liked it, especially our dude. Caleb LOVES the balloon, so Brian still has it pinned on the wall of our garage.

Calebosaurus Cafe served:

Velociraptor Nests (spaghetti and meatballs)

Brachiosaurus Bites (pj&js cut into brachiosaurus shapes)

Fruitosaurus Salad (I think that explains itself...)

Volcanoes (pop...I know...I was stretching it by the time I got to that one...but I thought it was kinda clever...)

Lava Juice (juice boxes)

Dinosaur Eggs (hard-boiled eggs that looked like dinosaur eggs)

Pteranadon Yummies (cake and ice-cream)

Herbivore Delight (veggies)

Dinosaur Bones (pretzels and cheese)

T-Rex Tidbits (pimento cheese sandwiches)

The look on Caleb's face is all we needed. It didn't matter anymore what I thought of the decor but because he was OVER THE MOON!

Favour Boxes. I just bought the multi-coloured boxes and added stickers and name tags to each one. They all got dinosaurs that roared, dino stamps and tatoos, stickers and dino poops (malt balls in a bag). The babies got those cute little soft dinos off to the sides.

One of our sidewalk signs that I drew (and used the cricut).

The sign on our door that I drew.

The hard boiled eggs. The camera doesn't show all the lines that well. I boiled some eggs and then rolled them until they were all cracked. Then I soaked them overnight in green koolaid. When I peeled them in the morning, the eggs had all those green lines on them that looked like dinosaur eggs. They looked better in person.

The bounce house. A big hit. It belongs to a friend of ours and the kids LOVED it. This year it was actually nice enough outside for the kids to play out there!

An activity table with dinosaur colouring books, puzzle and books. It is my parent's kiddie table. Isn't it cute!?!

Caleb's AWESOME cake! I ordered it from a friend at bible study and she did a great job making our vision happen. We love how the dinosaurs are eating the cake!

Super cute right!?!

This was my favourite one. T-Rex really got his hands dirty diving into the cake!

I bought small glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs and put one each in a bunch of plastic easter eggs. We hid them around the yard and told the kids that a mommy dinosaur had just laid all her eggs. They got to go searching for them and take their finds home.

Our dude. So precious and perfect. We are so excited for his party this Saturday. He wakes up every day and asks if it is his birthday yet. When best bud friend Trevor came over yesterday, he asked Caleb if he was four yet (which is still a bit of a sore point...). Our dude very bravely told Trevor that it would be four more days. What a champ! He can't wait!