Halloween, Cider & Donut Social, Time With Cousins, On the Move & Meeting Aunt Jackie

We have had a busy week! Since the Red Sox won the World Series last Wednesday night, we dressed in our Red Sox gear on Thursday. Caleb got a lot of comments.

Thursday was also Halloween and typically I couldn't care less about Halloween, but with a baby, of course I wanted to dress him up. One of my coworkers had given me a bee costume that all of her kids had worn, so that was good that I didn't have to go out and buy one. We just went to two of our neighbors' houses with Caleb so they could see him, but it was fun and they loved seeing him.

Checking out the costume before we put it on

Ready to go!

He carried that Snickers bar forever and wouldn't let it go!

Our next door neighbor, Tammy

Another neighbor - Carol Ann

 

On Friday Caleb woke up early, so we were back on our old schedule and my mom came over and Caleb went back to bed in the morning. Caleb was with my mom all morning and then went to Rad and Jen's in the afternoon. I can't remember anything eventful from their day with him.

 



Friday night we had supper at my parents' house, which was nice and we enjoyed visiting with everyone before we had to take Caleb home for a bath and bed.

Trying a corn chip - he seemed to like the salt (just like his mommy)

Looks like he is about to call a meeting to order

 

On Sabbath morning we drove up to Vermont for a very quick trip. It was the annual cider and donut social at Steve's parents' house and we never miss it. We left after Caleb woke up and ate and it worked out well. Caleb slept about half an hour in the car, which is typical, although of course I wish he had slept more. We got to church and spent the time in the mother's room with Alison and Shannon and the kids as well. Caleb had fun playing with his cousins after I finished feeding him.

 

Great picture of Shannon and Griffin!

 

After church, we went to Steve's parents' house for lunch and Alison and Shannon and their families came as well, so it was fun to spend time with them. Caleb was very tired so we put him down for a nap immediately and I commented that of course he would be up shortly since he is usually a short napper, but lo and behold, he slept 1 hour and 40 minutes, so I was very happy about that! Then Westin used the pack and play for his nap.

 





 

Once the cider and donut social started, it was pretty chaotic. One group was outside making cider and one group was inside making donuts and apple fritters and there were a lot of people there. We had fun for awhile and I even gave Caleb his first try of apple cider. Not surprisingly, he loved it and was sticking his whole head inside the cup. Then I had to feed Caleb and put him to bed. I was worried about him going to sleep with all of the people there and kids screaming outside his window, but he was fine and slept through the whole thing.

 



Sunday morning we left after Caleb got up and ate, because we wanted to get home to spend time with Aunt Jackie. She lives in California and was headed to a meeting in Washington D.C., so she made a short pit stop to see us and especially to meet Caleb. Since it was daylight savings, Caleb actually got up at 5:00 (6:00 old time), so we were on the road around 6:30 and home around 9:30, which was nice. Caleb took a 30 minute nap in the car. We got home and I took a shower while Steve fed Caleb his breakfast and then I nursed him and then we went to meet my family at Olive Garden for lunch. That was where Caleb finally got to meet Aunt Jackie!

We had a very nice time and then Caleb was getting very tired, so I left before everyone else and took him to my parents to put him down for a nap there so I could visit with Aunt Jackie while he slept. Now, Caleb typically doesn't take a very good nap for my mom when she babysits, and I have told her it is because she doesn't swaddle him. Well, on Sunday, I swaddled him at her house and put a fan on instead of the music that she usually uses and he slept an hour and a half. So, I told her that I really wanted her to start swaddling him again and she said she would. After Caleb woke up, we continued to visit with Aunt Jackie and then we watched the first half of the Patriots game there before taking Caleb home to get him ready for bed.

One thing Caleb started doing all of a sudden at my parents' house on Sunday was going from being on his belly to a sitting position. He has been doing the reverse for a long time, but never went back to sitting up once he got on his belly. He did this quite a bit on Sunday, and although it's not a huge deal, especially considering he is 11 months old and should probably have been doing that long ago, it is still a step forward in his mobility. He also has finally started to make some sort of forward progress while crawling, instead of just moving backwards and rolling. So, it looks like he will actually crawl (unlike his mother) instead of going straight to walking.

On Monday, I actually worked, which is not my normal schedule. My mom has to go to a seminar on Friday, so she wanted to watch Caleb on Monday instead. My mom tried Caleb's new schedule and swaddled him this time, and he took over an hour nap in the morning and 45 minutes in the afternoon, so I consider that a big success, since he usually only naps 30 minutes for my mom.

Grampy was home working on his Christmas CD

Aunt Jackie left for the airport right after we dropped Caleb off

 

Tuesday was a productive day. I did 6 hours of work, 2 loads of laundry, 3 miles on my treadmill, we went to playgroup, and Caleb took 2 great naps of an hour and 15 minutes each. I love days like that!

 

On the move!

Ready for a walk!

Having fun at playgroup

I think this picture is funny because I was trying to get him up in air and was a little too late

 

Yesterday I worked again and Dede babysat Caleb in the morning and then my mom picked him up at 1:00 for the rest of the day. Not too many pictures from yesterday, but Caleb had a good time both with Dede and my mom.

 

 

Here are a few more pictures from the week.

 

Harbor Freight trip with Daddy







11 Months Old, Back to Eating Better, New Schedule & Fall Social

So, I don't know what Caleb's problem was for a few days, but he is back to eating good again like nothing was ever wrong. Thank goodness! We are still not being very adventurous with the food varieties, but he did try mashed potatoes for the first time this week and Grammy gave him prunes, which he liked and had an open mind about.

 



The other great thing about this week is that Caleb's schedule has pretty much officially changed and it is working out really well. There is still a day every once in awhile when Caleb wakes up early and then I will put him back to bed, but for the most part, he is sleeping 10 1/2 - 11 hours at night and then I am not putting him back to bed. Then he is taking a morning nap that is lasting 1 - 1 1/2 hours (Tuesday was 1 hour and 40 minutes) and an afternoon nap that is lasting 30-90 minutes (very random). And it is working out so well and I am so happy about it. We are getting out of the vicious cycle where he is so tired at night when I feed him that he sleeps through most of his feeding and then doesn't sleep as long at night because he already slept while eating. Now that he is taking a late afternoon nap he is not as tired when he eats and he usually just falls asleep at the end of feeding him, which is perfect. So, I hope that this schedule continues. However, it did not go well today with Grammy. He slept from 7:30 last night until I had to wake him up at 6:00 to feed him before work. So, we took him to Grammy's instead of Grammy coming here and she was going to try the new schedule. Well, he ended up taking a 30 minute morning nap and then would not take an afternoon nap at all, so he was so tired by the time we picked him up (but still very happy and not fussy at all). So, we will have to work on Grammy's schedule because that is not a good situation.

Now for the rest of the week's summary. Last Thursday I had to go to the dentist, so Caleb went to the office for an hour or so. Here are some pictures of Caleb "helping" Grammy work.

 

On Friday, Caleb was with my mom in the morning and then with Dede and her girls in the afternoon so Jen could have a break. Dede told me that they had such a good time with Caleb and that she had to set a timer for the girls to take turns with Caleb because they were fighting over him. So, that is nice to know that he is so well loved and taken care of.

We didn't do anything special for supper on Friday night, so we had a quiet evening at home. I should also mention that as of Friday, Caleb is now officially 11 months old. I cannot believe that he is so close to being a year old!! Time has gone by so quickly.

On Sabbath we made it to Sabbath School again because Caleb was still on his "old" schedule. If he sticks with the "new" schedule, he will be napping right during Sabbath School, so that is too bad. We'll see how it goes. There was only one other kid in Sabbath School this week, which is too bad. This is part of the problem with our Sabbath School, but oh well.

 

Caleb was very tired, but would not fall asleep during church while I was nursing him. So, we took him home to my parents' house right after church to give him a nap. It took him a little while to go to sleep, but he did eventually, however, he only slept about 40 minutes. Sabbath was my dad's birthday, so we had lunch at my parents' house with the Latimers and Noseks, which was very nice. Dania made enchiladas, which we all love, and Holly made some phenomenal maple cookies for dessert, which were sooo good. We had a nice lunch and visit in the afternoon and then we went home for a little while before our church social because I wanted Caleb to sleep a little more since we would be keeping him up a little later because of the social.

 

 

Our church social was fall themed, of course, and we had a nice soup supper and then played a couple of games before we ended up leaving to get Caleb home to bed. I had a nice break during the social and Steve took Caleb and sat with all the younger girls who loved passing him around.

 





Sunday was a busy day for me. I worked in the morning and then I went to a kids consignment sale that I had been looking forward to for several months. The sale is at a church in our town (actually where Steve and I had our wedding reception) and it is absolutely huge. It is on Saturday and Sunday, but on Sunday it is 50% off, so I was so excited to go to it. They do it twice a year and I had gone back in March, but I took Caleb with me and it was not a good situation, so this time I told Steve I definitely wanted to go by myself. So, I was there over 2 hours (the last hour was spent in line, however) and got a lot of good deals. I knew Rad was waiting for me to get home to watch the Patriots game and I had a meeting at the church at 5:30, so it was a tight schedule, but we managed to finish the game in time and luckily the second half of the game was better than the first and they pulled out a win!

Cheering on the Patriots with Grammy

 

Sunday night Caleb slept from 7:45 to 7:05, which was awesome! I was super happy about that. He also took 2 good naps, so it was a great day! We did some shopping on Monday. I had some Super Cash to spend at Old Navy, so we went and got a jumpstart on some Christmas shopping. We also went to A.C. Moore for a couple of things. I also had quite a bit of laundry to do between the normal laundry and the items I got at the sale on Sunday, so that was a big part of the day.

 

Trying on a hat in Old Navy

The mountain climber in action

 







I know I have mentioned before that I often buy things from moms on Facebook. Well, this week I bought a huge lot of clothes from one mom and it ended up being 3 huge trash bags full of 12-18 / 18-24 month clothes and I only paid $90. I know that sounds like a lot of money, but for 3 trash bags of clothes, it was an amazing deal. There were probably over 200 items of clothing and I only had to get rid of a couple of things that had stains on them. I loved going through everything on Monday night. It was like Christmas! It made for another huge laundry day on Tuesday, however. I did 5 loads of laundry just from all the new clothes I got!

Caleb slept really well again on Monday night and then he took an awesome nap on Tuesday morning. I almost though I was going to have to wake him up so we could go to our play group, but he woke up just in time, so it was perfect. We had a nice time at our play group. I am really happy that we joined the group and that we are making friends. I look forward to it every week! For some reason, all of the babies in the group were very vocal this week and it was a much noisier group than usual. Tuesday was a pretty cool day, so I dressed Caleb in a nice sweater and he actually wore shoes and all the other moms thought he looked like such a little man and loved his outfit.

This is at home - the shoes had already come off!

 

We stopped at my parents' house on the way home from play group and my mom gave me a hat she had bought for Caleb. We tried it on to make sure it fit and it did.

 

There are the shoes!

 

The rest of Tuesday was spent doing laundry! After Steve got home, we did take a walk, however, and Caleb wore a winter hat for the first time this year. He tried to pull it off but luckily it had a strap under the chin, so it stayed on.

 





This morning I had to wake Caleb up at 6:00, as I already mentioned, so I took a couple of pictures of him while he was sleeping before I woke him up.

 

I already mentioned how poorly Caleb slept for Grammy today, but here are several cute pictures Grammy took today and texted to me. They did have a good day even though Caleb was awake almost the entire time!

 

Shopping at the mall

Sticking his tongue out like Grampy

Checking out his shoes

 

Sitting in a big boy chair at office lunch

 

One thing my mom did today was she texted me to ask me if it was ok to give Caleb some prunes (he hasn't ever had them before). I texted her back and said ok and about 10 seconds later, she texted me again and said he liked them. So, I knew she had actually given them to him before asking me if it was ok, but luckily it wasn't a big deal. Ironically, he did not poop today at all, so the prunes didn't have the usual effect. At least not yet!

 

Since Caleb slept so poorly today, I fed him early and he was in bed at 7:00. We will see what that means for waking up tomorrow morning, but he was so tired he needed to go to bed early. We'll just take it one day at a time and go with the flow. Anyway, here are a few last pictures from the week.

 

Trying on a hat in Christmas Tree Shop with Grammy

He loves the bath!!