13 Months- officially a toddler

Caleb is officially a toddler and past his first year! he turned 13 months old today and he gets smarter all the time. he has grown quite the personality and is incredibly quick when it comes to learning new things. Here are some of his new skills he has learned this month. As he gets bigger he becomes more and more of a joy to have around the house. He loves his sister and is always happy to play with her.

he has 5 words. mama, dada, hi, nana	Enjoys gazing at his reflection	beginning to eat with a fork with assistance
Bends over and picks up an object	Drinks from an open cup with mommy's help	loves to stack anything and play with nesting cups
walks with one hand held but hasn't let go yet He loves to put things into containers and then empty it out	Plays "peekaboo" but doesn't initiate it he is obsessed with opening and closing doors	Rolls a ball back and forth but its more like throwing it at me Throws a tantrum when he doesn't get what he wants or when sister gets something he didn't

Caleb's First Hair Cut

Caleb got his first big boy hair cut because I couldn't stand the hair in his face all the time anymore. I went to get my bangs trimmed and decided to go ahead and cut Caleb's hair at the same time.

Here's the before:

Here's the after:

Just like his mama

It all started with an ear infection and one very sick little boy. Caleb went to bed one night and I noticed he felt a little warm but he had been acting fine all day so I just figured he was fighting something off. when he woke up the next morning after he slept in an extra hour he was burning up! So I decided after I couldn't get him to eat anything for breakfast, which is nothing like him, I made him a doctors appointment right away. He was running a fever of 103.2 when the doctor checked at the office. Diagnosis Caleb's first ear infection. He was prescribed the standard penicillin and we were headed home.

when this kid gets sick he gets VERY sick! He slept in mama's arms or in the baby ergo for almost 24 hours straight only waking up to get some milk and go back to sleep.

I'm not going to lie there was nothing better than holding my baby while he slept in my arms but I wasn't thrilled with the reason he was sleeping in my arms. After 24 hours of medication and rest Caleb was pretty much back to himself and in about 3 days he was all over the house causing havick once again.

7 days into the medication I started noticing the spots on his chest and neck. There wasnt very many of them but as the day went on I noticed more and more and when he went to bed his body was lightly spotted all over. Except in his hair, palms, and hands. they were even on his genitals. I decided I needed to make sure it wasn't something serious I called the Dr's office and made him an appointment early the next morning. I was pretty sure that it was hives from and allergic reaction to the penicillin but I wanted to make sure.

The spots looked even worse the next morning even though I had stopped giving him the medication at noon when I noticed the spots covering his whole body.

At one point the small spots you see on him here were very large (quarter size) welts but as you can imagine he was not cooperative in taking a picture for that.

the Doc checked him for hand, foot, and mouth disease (which is common in babies) and asked questions to rule out rosiola (but caleb hadn't had a fever in 7 days) so the diagnosis was an allergy to penicillin medications just like his mama.

Steroids for 5 days and benadryl to keep him comfortable and he is as good as new. We started seeing results in about 2 days of the steroids and it took almost 5 days for the rash to go away completely.

Easter Sunday 2014

This year i actually got to make Caleb a basket and I had more time to plan Madison's basket.

The easter bunny even brought mom and dad a basket filled with goodies! (man I love the easter bunny)

He loved the truck!

After we let the kids have their easter baskets we got dressed and ready for church. It was a wonderful service of which I actually got to hear about 90% of for the first time in a while. (caleb is usually a pistol)

**insert photo here**

All dressed up in their new Easter outfits

after church we ran home, fed the kids something, packed the car up, and headed out to tememcula to be with my dads family

 Looking at baby birds with her great uncle rob and playing chalk and bubbles outside.

 

Easter Egg Dying

Easter egg dying was sooo much fun this year. Caleb was only 2 days old and I had only been home a couple of hours. This year Caleb was not only awake but he participated! I got the idea to use a muffin tin off a website last year and it worked great for Madison so i did it for both kids this year. I was a little worried caleb would just eat the eggs or play in the dye but he did an awesome job and was sooo into it. all of the eggs he dyed were cracked but who cares! he had a ball.

The nice things about having two muffin tins and two kids is two different dye kits and 12 different colors! I let Caleb do 6 but I let Madison have the option of all 12 colors.

Here's the finished product

Easter Egg-stravaganza

Two years ago I took Madison to an Easter egg hunt and activity fair in chino hills with a good friend of mine. they had egg hunts by age, a craft fair, meet the Easter bunny, and a few arts and crafts for the kids. We didn't make it last year because Caleb was born on Thursday and the Easter egg hunt was on the Saturday after he was born so i was still in the hospital. This year was even bigger than it was 2 years ago. This year they had like 10 different crafts for the kids to do, an Easter egg hunt for every age divided on to two different fields. Caleb did the hunt for ages 0-2. I had concerns that the eggs were going to be filled with candy but there were tons of little toys like bracelets, rub on tattoo's, foam rings, and other little goodies.

 Waiting for the egg hunt to begin

The plethora of eggs for the age group.

Checking out his eggs from the hunt.

Madison falls in the group of 3-4 year olds which was nice that I didn't have to try and do an egg hunt for two kids at once. I was concerned that madison might have trouble since she is on the younger side of 3 and is a little less able to comprehend what is going on around her than most kids her age. To my dismay i was right even with 5 eggs sitting right in front of her on the ground she struggled to understand to pick them up so by the time she got her eggs in her bag another child came up behind her and was taking them out of her basket and putting it in theirs. so even though there was a no parent help rule I started helping Madison. She walked away with 4 eggs...the same as my 1 year old.

by the end of the egg hunt and with the heat the kids were dead and it was really close to time to go for a nap. so we sat and ate lunch really quick and then headed home to crash.

Letter of the Week Field Trip- E is for Egg Hunt

I held off on the letter E a little bit because every year I put together I large Easter egg hunt ever since Madison was just over a year old. this year was our 3rd annual Easter egg hunt and Caleb's first.

London, Kylie, Madison, and Natalie waiting for the big kid egg hunt to begin.

Madison did great this year! she hunted the eggs all by herself and I only had to prompt her a couple of times. Not to mention how proud she was of her eggs

Waiting for the under 2 years old hunt.

 He didn't make it very far in before he found the eggs.

 Hunting eggs with his buddy brayden

 Checking out all the eggs he got

 Checking out his eggs with his buddy brayden

Such a fun activity to do with friends. There's no pictures but there was lots of cute little food and treats for all the kids.

Letter of the week field trip- H is for Hammer

The little Hooligans and I have been working on different letters of the week each week. Caleb is usually just along for the ride and probably gets more developmental skills out of it than he does understanding about the actual letter we are learning about. this week we have been learning about the letter H so for our field trip activity to reinforce the letter H I choose to take Madison to the Lowes kids clinic where they get to Hammer a toy together and make their own toy. Today they were making a three sectioned garbage truck toy made out of wood.

 Got all her supplies spread out to make her truck.

 Hammering her garbage truck together.

 Brother is exploring the hammer while mommy is reading the directions

 All done with her truck! she was even willing to share her truck with brother to look at.

 After she finished her truck she turned in her hammer and got a patch to iron on her apron.

 There was alot of help from mommy but she absolutely understood the concept that she had to hit the nail on the head with the hammer in order to make it go down. Her biggest struggle was being able to hit the actual nail hard enough to make it go down. it was a great morning to spend with my little hooligans.