14 Days and Counting!

I've been absent from the blogging world because I don't have power! It's amazing how depressing life can get when you are cut off from the internet world and other modern conveniences in your home. Due to Hurricane Ike, today makes day 14 without electricity for us. (Some people got electricity two days after the storm...the lucky ones.) We faired well during the storm...part of our fence fell down, but that's it. It was definitely scary...our first hurricane! Since we live in a newer neighborhood, we didn't have big trees to cause damage. Our neighborhood backs up to an older neighborhood which DID have big trees, which is the reason we are still without power. I have not seen any workers even start to clear the trees off the powerlines. I have plenty more to write about the fun, and not-so-fun, experiences we have been having, but I'll have to save that for another time since I'm using a friend's internet right now. Hopefully we get power soon!!!!

Luau

For those who don't know, Matt is an aspiring artist. He loves to paint, and I'm a fan of his sunrises and sunsets. My mom was in charge of a luau for a church activity and was looking around for decorations. When Matt and I were in the Single's Ward together, Luaus were a yearly occasion. Matt painted two huge murals (each took 6 hours) that people could take pictures in front of and then left them with the Single's Ward when we moved out thinking we wouldn't need them. We tried to track them down for my mom for her activity, but discovered at last year's luau, they were thrown out! The night before my mom's activity, we decided to throw my mom a surprise and Matt painted another one. Unfortunately he did not have 6 hours to spend nor the nice paints, so Matt wasn't completely satisfied with the final product, but I thought it turned out great. This wasn't the finished product; he needed it to dry before he added the reflection of the sun on the water, but we forgot to take a final picture. My mom was at a loss for words when Matt brought it over the morning of the luau. Unfortunately for my siblings, we just moved up in my parent's will! :o)

Fixations

Caleb loves to put things "away". His idea of where things go does not exactly match up with Mom's or Dad's, however. We've had several funny stories over the past few months dealing with finding things that Caleb has hidden from us that I thought I would share a few. One night we couldn't find Matt's cell phone. (Caleb loves to get ahold of our cell phones if he can find a way to get them. He often calls people if we forget to lock our phones, so if you have been one of the lucky ones, know that Caleb loves you!) We used my cell phone to call Matt's number over and over again to try to find where Matt's was located. After 20 minutes of searching, we finally located the light ringing sound coming from inside the refrigerator.

A couple of weekends ago Matt and I were heading to the Houston Temple. I had Caleb loaded up in the car, and we were all ready to go when Matt announced that he couldn't find his wallet which has his recommend inside. He said that he had given it to Caleb to distract Caleb from trying to grab his cell phone when Matt was talking on the phone. So we started the hunt and looked in all of Caleb's "favorite" places. After 30 minutes of searching and then deciding to say a prayer, we immediately found it behind the laundry basket in our bathroom closet. We had looked in the laundry basket, but not behind it. It was actually one of those faith-promoting experiences about prayer.

After watching Caleb "put things away" in the trash can several times in a row, I finally decided to keep the trash can on top of the washing machine. It's very annoying, but it beats digging through the trash each trash day to make sure Caleb didn't throw away anything valuable when my back was turned.

Just this morning I was over at my sister's house helping her locate Dallin's pacifier and some parts of a toy that Caleb had so lovingly helped her put away. We found both of them....the pacifier was in an empty box along with some glue sticks that she had been missing, and the toy parts were hidden in a little crevice between her speaker and entertainment center.

This fixation of putting things away is actually hereditary. He gets it from my dad who is constantly putting things "away", or rather, out-of-sight so that my mom has to go on the hunt looking for things quite a bit.

Another of Caleb's favorite hiding spots: drawers.

An additional fixation of Caleb's is toilet paper. He mostly just loves to rip it apart although he does the occasional taste test too. We have become very good about closing all bathroom doors for the last few months because of this. (Previoiusly we just had to keep the lid of the toilet seat down so that Caleb wouldn't put things "away" in the toilet.) About a month ago, Caleb found a door that I had left open on accident. We were both down stairs: Caleb was playing with toys and I was folding laundry. He started to go up the stairs. He is very good about both climbing up and down the stairs without any trouble. He's only ever fallen a few steps twice when he was first learning. I followed him up the stairs where he took off to go play, and then I went back downstairs, loaded up the folded laundry in the laundry basket, then followed him upstairs to play with him. In that amount of time, this is the mischief that Caleb got into...



We love this little guy!!!

A Whole Lotta Fun

This last month feels like it has been a flurry of activity! So here are the things that have happened in August , in the order they happened, that I haven't mentioned in previous postings:

1. Baby Sam was born August 8, 2008 at 5:42 in the morning. She is the first baby girl on the Shurtliff side of our family. She's going to be one spoiled girl. Her full name is Samantha Lorraine Shurtliff.
2. After 6 months in Texas, you can finalize baby adoptions, so now legally, Dallin is Ariane and Zane's baby as of Friday, August 22, 2008. The following day, he was sealed to his parents in the Houston temple for time and all eternity. There were many tears of joy that day, and Matt and I are so glad we were able to be there in the temple with them for that special event.
3. We bought a mini-van!!! This was totally not on the 'to-do' list for another year until another child was in the picture! For those who don't know Matt, one of his most endearing qualities is that he is such a friendly and out-going person. Leaving church or similar functions is a 30-minute event since he has to say good-bye to so many people. Matt is a very genuine person who would do anything to help his friends and family. One nice side benefit to that is that he's able to strike these amazing deals because of people he knows whether it's baseball tickets, taking our car into the shop, or buying a vehicle! The story usually goes that Matt knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy that just loves Matt and will cut him a sweet deal. Anyway, I'm not quite sure if I was ready to be a "mini-van Mom" just yet, but it was a deal that we couldn't pass up, even with the increase of gas prices. It is a 2005 Dodge Caravan with stow-away features (which we like a lot for future vacations). It's in excellent condition. After we sell my Corolla, we're hoping that the van purchase amounts to only $3-4000 out of pocket, depending on what we can get for my car.
4. We bought new couches for our family room. As much as we love my Grandma and Grandpa's old couch that was passed down to Ariane & Zane and now to us, we had been saving up for something a bit nicer and more trendy :o). I'm a very conservative person when it comes to decorating, so when we were doing some shopping around, I thought I would like the neutral browns, tans, or greens. I was very surprised with myself when I fell in love with some bold, fire-engine red couches! (There are pictures below.) The couch and loveseat have arrived. We are waiting for our chair and cute rug now. Once the rug is in, we'll be picking out paint colors. I'll take a picture of the room once we have it all put together so some of you decorators can give suggestions!

5. Caleb turned one and we celebrated his birthday yesterday (to allow Dallin to have just a 'Dallin weekend' when we originally were going to have the party). Matt's aunt and uncle who live in Conroe, were generous enough to allow us to use their house for the space and the swimming pool. Here are a few pictures of the event:

The birthday boy sporting a new outfit that Daddy picked out for him.
Caleb's birthday cake
Singing 'Happy Birthday'

Digging into the cake and feeding himself with a spoon.

We had to help him get started a bit. I practiced with a cupcake the previous week and Caleb had no problems digging in and making a mess, but Caleb got real shy with everyone watching him so Daddy and I intervened.
Caleb's new toys and clothes:

The pillow was made by Matt's mom that has cute footprints all over it and quotes a phrase from the song, 'I Am a Child of God.'

1 Year Down

I am such a cruel mom! Caleb had his one year check-up on his birthday, which means he got 5 shots. Caleb weighed 22 lbs. (48th percentile), his height was 29.5 in. (42nd percentile), and his head count was in the 55th percentile. (3 months ago his head count was in the 80th percentile, so I'm glad his head is average-sized now.) As the pediatrician and I were chatting, I gave Caleb a ball to distract him. He threw it right to the pediatrician. She was surprised at his accuracy and asked if he could do it again. He threw the ball right to her 5 times in a row. She exclaimed that she has never seen a 1-year-old be able to throw so well and to throw a ball over hand. She asked if she could show him off to the nurses/workers out in the waiting area. Mom's get overly proud of stuff like this :o). After that, we chatted about weaning, which Caleb and I both are having a difficult time with, and the fact that Caleb's right foot turns out quite a bit when he walks. We also talked about discipline and teaching children how to sit still in situations like church. Matt and I pretty much trade off for all our church meetings since Caleb can be pretty noisy, especially if we won't let him run around. So I'm going to start practicing some "quiet" times during the day, probably right before his nap times. Anyway, below are some just-born pictures as well as some recent shots that show how much he's changed.

August 22, 2007

Caleb was born at noon.
His first nap with Daddy.
The day of his blessing

5 weeks old
Our loveable 1-year-old

Up, Over, In & Out

Lately Caleb loves to climb on top of things, such as this box, and crawl into tight quarters. Here are a few pics:

Toasted Buns

So I'd like to think that we all have our "blonde" moments every once in awhile. Last Saturday was one of mine. Caleb woke up with really bad diaper rash and cried during each diaper change. (He had diarrhea, which resulted in A LOT of diaper changes! Poor kid.) I tried as much as I dared to keep a diaper off of him so that his bottom could air out and heal. What better solution than to go outside and play in the water naked? Matt had to go into work unexpectedly, which never happens on the weekends, so Caleb and I were alone. (Rather, Mommy was alone to deal with Caleb's cranky moods from not feeling 100%.) Caleb was having a blast playing outside in the water. My brother and sister-in-law just gave us their Little Tikes play gym, so at the bottom of the slide, I filled up our baby pool. He would run around with the hose, and I turned on the sprinkler after awhile. Needless to say, we were having so much fun that I lost track of time and stayed out there longer than I intended...and Caleb wasn't wearing any sunscreen. In my defense, we go on morning walks/jogs every morning for an hour, and I don't ever put sunscreen on Caleb! He's got his daddy's skin and tans very nicely. But his poor butt cheeks have never seen the sun, and they got a bit toasted. I felt so horrible! Not only did he have diarrhea and diaper rash, but he had a sunburned butt too. (I'm just grateful his front end didn't get burned also!) Luckily he was so exhausted from the day, that he slept really well that night and the next day most of the sunburn had sunk in. I felt so bad about the whole thing that the last thing on my mind was to take a picture, so this picture isn't taken until two days later. Most of the sunburn is gone, but you can tell it was the upper half of his cheeks that got burnt. Really I just wanted to post a picture of my son's cute bum :o) and his famous thunder thighs.