Merry Christmas!

May you be filled with JOY!

"I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord." ~Luke 2:10-11

Many blessings,

Justin, Jennifer, Caleb, and Levi

photo courtesy Uncle Josh

Christmas Pajamas

Mimi (Justin's mom) sent the boys some Christmas pajamas, and they look so cute in them. I like dressing them alike since I won't be able to do that much longer before Caleb starts telling me he doesn't want to wear what Levi's wearing. For now he thinks matching is cool. (Especially if he can match his Poppa!)

I wanted to take a cute picture of the boys standing together in their pajamas, but Caleb wasn't about to cooperate with that. He ran off before I could even focus. So, this will have to do...

Here are the boys watching "Go, Diego, Go" on my bed

Caleb looks like he's ready to move to Thailand with this "wai," but he's just clapping along with Diego.

I'm trying to get a good headshot of Levi because my grandmother got him some books for Christmas that need his picture in them. I'm in charge of that.

Here's Levi saying, "cheese!"



Smiling for the camera with a little pumpkin bread on his chin...

Caleb is literally in the middle of saying, "STOP taking my picture." It was a lot easier when he was little and wanted his picture taken.

Stop Me If I'm Repeating Myself

Last Thursday Caleb took a 2 hour nap at Mother's Day Out. I should have known then that he was sick. Of the 3 times he's taken a nap at Mother's Day Out since September 2007, 3 of those times he's been sick.

So, we bundled up and loaded up yesterday morning for the doctor's office. You cannot know how happy I was to hear him say Caleb had an ear infection. Not because I'm just that mean, but because every other time I've taken one of the boys to the doctor recently they've said, "It's a virus, there's nothing we can do. Thank you for your $20 copay and driving 45 minutes with two kids in traffic to see us. Have a nice day. See you in a couple of weeks and we'll repeat the process." Or something like that. The doctor actually said this time, "Mom hit a home run." Finally.

So he has the ear infection and is generally puny-feeling from all the snot and fever and such. It probably has nothing to do with the fact that the temperature outside has gone from 75 to 35 to 55 to 38 to 78 to 40 in a matter of hours this past week. We're all a little under the weather, so to speak.

This morning Caleb and I had a conversation that went like this:

Me: What do you want for breakfast, Caleb?
Caleb: I don't want breakfast. I want a snack.
Me: Ok (I choose not to argue semantics). You can have a cereal bar, oatmeal, waffles, or yogurt.
Caleb: I want candy.
I wish I could tell you how many times he's asked for candy for breakfast. He never gets it.
Me: You can have a cereal bar, oatmeal, waffles, or yogurt.
Caleb: I want marshmallows.
Me: stop me if I'm repeating myself. You can have a cereal bar, oatmeal, waffles, or yogurt.
Caleb: But I want marshmallows.

And he proceeded to follow me around the house saying "marshmallows" in his most pitiful, whiny toddler voice. I didn't budge, so he finally decided he wanted waffles. We go through something similar to this every morning. I guess he thinks he can wear me down. He has no idea how stubborn his mother is!

I'm so sad he's sick today because it's his Christmas program at school today. I'm hoping he'll feel up to going in a couple of hours. One of the saddest things about moving to Singapore is that he won't be going to this sweet little church for Preschool. He'll be entering Kindergarten about the time we get back. boohoohoo.

(In the middle of this post I had to run in my bedroom because Caleb was calling out to me from my bed where he has been watching Noggin and NickJr for the last 24 hours. I heard these delightful words, "Mommy, I peed on your bed." Really? "Why did you do that? Why didn't you go to the potty?" "I didn't want to.")

I'll leave you with some "photography a la Caleb"...

His new favorite thing...NickJr computer games. He's plays them all by himself. (And apparently takes pictures of his accomplishments. This was one of many.)

The gorgeous ceiling fan in our computer room...

Self-portrait

Smile, mommy!

Self-portrait #2

Me and My Firstborn Child

Tagged by Camille...This is a fun twist on the usual getting to know you/question game..Here you go mommies - a different kind of survey for a change - it's all about you and your first baby.

About Caleb and me:

1. Were you married at the time? Yes, for 2 years and 5 months

2. What were your reactions when you found out you were pregnant? I was totally elated! The timing was PERFECT because I wanted to stop teaching that next year.

3. How old were you? 26

4. How did you find out? Pregnancy test

5. Who did you tell first? Justin. I called him on the phone at 5:30am. He was living in Louisiana for work, and I had to tell him immediately when I found out. He said something to the effect of, "Are you sure?" (with NO enthusiasm in his voice) because I had thought I was pregnant the month before. And he was shaving at the time.

6. Did you want to find out the sex? Yes

7. Due date? September 25, 2005...my parent's anniversary

8. Did you deliver late or on time? I was induced on September 19, one week early

9. Did you have morning sickness? yes, pretty bad, but not like when I was pregnant with Levi (he takes the cake on that one!)

10. What did you crave? corn tortillas (they were the only thing that didn't make me want to puke!)

11. Who/what irritated you the most? being away from Justin and my doctor not letting me travel after 28 weeks when my husband was living in another city!

12. What was your first child's sex? Boy

13. How many pounds did you gain throughout the pregnancy? 12...I lost a lot at the beginning

14. Did you have any complications during your pregnancy? No

15. Where did you give birth? Memorial Hermann Memorial City

16. How many hours were you in labor? 7 before the emergency c-section

17. Who drove you to the hospital? My husband, Justin

18. Who watched? Justin and several dr.s and nurses

19. Was it natural or c-section? c-section

20. Did you take medicine to ease the pain? YES! (Hello, they cut me open. Yes I took pain medicine. I don't know how Camille only took it for 8 hours because I took it as long as the pills were in the bottle. I could hardly stand up straight when I left the hospital!)

21. How much did your child weigh? 7 lbs, 10 oz

22. Did your child have any complications? No.

23. What did you name him/her? Caleb Andrew

24. How old is your first born today? 3 years, 2 months, 26 days

There ya go!

It's Christmastime...Here's How I Know

1) We are finally putting up our tree. Ornaments are disappearing left and right, and I find parts of them on the ground and go in search of the culprit (Levi).

2) I am spending an obscene amount of time saying, "That does not go in your mouth." (Maybe that doesn't mean it's Christmastime, but Levi was just in here with two wooden ornaments, one of which he put in his mouth, so I think it counts.)

3) IT SNOWED TODAY!!! In SE Texas! Amazing. It didn't stick, of course, because it was about 75 degrees sometime yesterday, but it was pretty neat nonetheless. We definitely don't see that often.

4) Our tree is now, after 20 hours or so, only decorated on the top 2/3 of the tree. Christmas with toddlers, it is a joy.

5) I finally made our Christmas cards and ordered them at CVS. They were ready last night, but it's been too cold for me to want to dress the kids warmly, bundle them up, drive in the sleeting rain to CVS, get the kids out in the stinkin' cold, try to keep them from touching EVERY.THING.IN.THE.STORE, hurry back to the car in the stinkin' cold sleeting rain, and drive home to address them. If you're expecting a Christmas card from us, it'll be a while.

6) My put-together, organized, pregnant-with-a-toddler-in-tow sister had her Christmas cards out last week. Show off.

7) The Christian radio station here is playing Christmas music 24/7. I love that! Not that I ever hear it because I only listen to the radio in the car and we don't get out much (see #5). When we do get out, I have a 3yo and a 1yo in the car. I don't hear much of the radio.

8) We're doing a Jesse Tree this year, so each night we read a little devotional and open that day's ornament. A group of us got together and made one day's ornament (25 of them) and then each got to take home one for each day. We are loving doing this with Caleb. It's such a great way to reinforce the Bible stories and prepare to celebrate Jesus' birth!

Guess What?

Our family has GREAT news to share!!!! I'm so excited to finally be able to tell everyone!!

In other news, I'm 30 today. Weird.

My parents are so young I vividly remember my dad turning 30 (I was 9!). It feels a little strange today, but that may be due to the serious lack of sleep I've had over the past few days since Levi seems to think sleep is not a necessary thing. We were up so many times last night and nothing was helping. He'd lie down for a minute and sit up and scream. Then he'd repeat the process for hours on end. We *think* he's finally cutting a tooth (or all of them at once). It's miserable for him and for us. I hope they just pop on through and let us get on with our sleep lives.