odds and ends

We are FAST approaching two wonderful years of having Caleb in our lives! My parents gave him his birthday gift early - a super cool push bike, called a Y-bike. It's designed to build a lot of balance and coordination. They also got him a nifty helmet which he loves as well!


We weren't sure how much ownership Caleb had taken of his new bike until we tried to give Grace a ride - and he quickly claimed rightful ownership.


Alex has had a few weekends off, and we've been loving some actual weekend down-time, just being able to hang out around the house. Here's a super-rare picture of Pete enjoying some cuddling time.



What a fun lazy time! Look as Grace reaches oh-so-lovingly for daddy! awww....


Just kidding! She is really practicing her masterful eye-gouge technique!


Caleb working the mechanics of his 'camera' - it doesn't do anything at all, but he likes it.



Like superman, Caleb has super-vision....he is using it here...


We went to our friend Nina Sophia's awesome 2-year birthday party! Sophie's parents were in our child birth class that we took in preparation for Caleb's birth. They are awesome! Sophie's mom is unbelievably creative and artistic and manages to hand-make the Yo Gabba Gabba themed party decorations, cake and individually hand-painted invites. And did I mention that she has an 12-week old baby too? Sheesh, she makes us all look bad!





Caleb likes the feeling of the wind in his hair - ride on!

out of sorts

I'm really sorry that I haven't posted in a while. When I started this blog (and Alex's photography blog) - people would always ask where I found the time to write for both of them and do all of the other stuff that I do. I don't know, blogging just isn't very hard, I would say. Well, lately, everything is hard. I am tired all of the time. And some days, like today, I'm beyond tired. So given that general lack of excitement in my day-to-day life, blogging has been hard.

Today, I actually fell asleep in church! I was horrified. Thankfully, I go to a leader service where we watch the service on a big screen on DVD, since I serve during the main service. I guess that I fell asleep and woke up when my head bobbed. No one noticed, but I don't usually do that!

This afternoon, Alex and I went to the Sports Grill for wings. As usual, I moved from really not very hungry to debilitating-ly hungry in about 5 minutes. This just made my tired-ness worse and being hungry kind of makes me nauseous. So we're sitting at the table in the restaurant and Alex asks if he can do anything, I say no. Then he says "you look like you're about to cry". I said, I think I am and then got weepy and just said how tired and hungry I was. What a wreck. He just laughed at me --but I'm sure he also thought I was crazy. Then I ate and felt SO much better - not a 180 degree difference but definitely over 90 degrees.

So...that's why I haven't blogged. If I do anything else as interesting as get overly emotional in a sports bar again, I'll be sure to post.

Now I think I'm going to make some brownies. That makes Alex super happy -- (and I don't mind them either!) ;)

Oh, Happy Sunday!

Alex and I thoroughly enjoyed our Sunday. We went to church this morning which was good. At church I lead the group of volunteers at our Downtown campus who are caring for the infants through 2 year old children. I have not always really known how to talk to kids. But I think I've found my niche with the little ones. I still am at a loss when it comes to older kids - but the little ones are cool. I'm actually getting to where I can engage a 2 year old and get them all to do the same thing. That's cool.

Then, Alex and I spent the afternoon in bed watching the tv-movie premier episode of the SciFi Channel's remake of Battle Star Galactica. Ann Marie and Eddie suggested that we watch the series. Oh man, it's awesome. We are hooked. It's your typical sci-fi story: man creates robots, robots get smart, try to overthrow mankind. But in this series, mankind and robots (cylons) come to a diplomatic agreement which stays in place for 40 years...until the cylons come back in the form of humans and launch a surprise attack. Then mankind is on the run from cylons in an effort to recreate mankind. So that's where we are now - but it's really well made and the characters are complex.

Great Saturday

Today has been a great day - I'm loving it and it's not even over yet! It really hasn't been anything special except very relaxing. I should backtrack and tell you that we went to the Miami Heart Gallery last night with our friends Jeff and Jen. It was really amazing - the photography was great - I hope that some of these kids get adopted. Then we all went to Swenson's and had sundaes. That was wonderful except that I never eat sundaes so my stomach really hurt afterward, but it was so delicious.

Today we shot maternity photos for a coworker of mine - a woman who was actually my first boss at The Children's Trust before the whole health project took off and my department got created. She's amazing and super-smart - she's one of the smartest people I know. It was really fun and we did the shoot at their house. We didn't intend to when we planned doing a shoot with them, but they are finishing some renovations so they had to stay near home-base. I think it really worked out for the better because Lori is 37.5 weeks - so she could really go at any time. I know that she was kind of uncomfortable so I think it was good that she was at home in a comfortable environment.

Afterwards, Alex and I went to a diner that I like a lot and had breakfast. I had an amazing egg white omelet. I have to thank my friend Chrissy for urging me to try these a couple of weeks ago. I LOVE egg white omelets now! Not only are they delicious but they are healthy and have practically no calories - score!

Then we decided that instead of going to the beach - which is always such a mission - we would just pack up the dogs and go to his parents house to play in their pool. This was excellent b/c since his parents are out of town we got to bring the dogs. They would never be allowed in the pool otherwise! Oh man - this was the first time we've brought Miles here and he was such a goofball - he LOVED swimming in the pool (maybe a little too much). He has successfully bruised and scratched both of us - as we couldn't swim laps in the pool without getting him excited and then jumping in the pool almost on top of us and then trying to 'play' with us - which just meant that he would scratch the heck out of us. Poor alex has three solid red lines down the entire length of his back!

And Pete....poor Pete hates the pool. Despises it. He gets so angry seeing us in it that he just barks at us. We don't think he likes swimming much b/c he is solid muscle so he kind of sinks in water. Nevertheless - we always throw him in at least once because it's funny. Today we learned that we can't do that with Miles the pool-maniac around. When threw Pete in, Miles dove in practically on top of him and then proceeded to try to 'play' with him by pawing him which just pushed Pete under the water. Pete was hysterical - I tried to get in to save Pete but Miles would scratch me (remember all dogs are swimming during this process!). I finally got Pete and launched him onto the side of the pool, out of the water. Now I'm sure he'll hate the water even more. Poor thing.

Tonight, Alex and I will be going to Acqua at the Four Seasons. We go there for dinner every year now for our anniversary - we love it. I'm so excited!