A Taste for Diet Coke

I have always disliked diet drinks. I never thought I would ever drink them. They have always just tasted nasty to me. But then Chris' Aunt Kathy (Hi Kathy if you're reading this!) left some Diet Cokes at our house this weekend. I thought, "Well, what the heck! I'll try them out to see if I still don't like them." And what do you know! Diet Coke isn't so bad! This is exciting to me because it has opened up new doors to new refreshing beverages. I have had one over the past few days and even got one at lunch at Subway, and I really like them. Isn't it amazing how your taste buds can change?!

Thank God for Antibiotics!

Well, Caleb is much better thanks to some antibiotics! It is amazing how fast those things work. Within a short amount of time of taking the medicine, he was no longer screaming but running around the house playing like normal. And he only has one more day of taking medicine, so it must work pretty darn fast.

Well, he just woke up from a nap and is crying. Better run...

Sick Baby

Well, my little boy is sick. He was MISERABLE last night, so I finally called my mom, and she came to spend the night with us since Chris is out of town and I knew it was going to be a very long night. Then mom took him to the doctor this morning, and he has bronchitis. So hopefully the medicines will start working quickly to make him feel better. There is nothing worse than the helpless feeling when your kid is sick.

I am so thankful for my mom! She was a huge help last night and then keeping Caleb and taking him to the doctor today so that I could go to work at least for a little while. I don't know what I'd do without my family!

Wednesdays in the Park

Caleb and I had a blast at the park tonight! It started off slow because Caleb was tired and didn't want to do anything but cling to mom...maybe a little because of the crowd of people too. But he warmed up eventually after playing with sticks (Hi Kristi!). Then when it was time for the Bible lesson, he had full energy and was no longer shy. He wanted to run straight into the crowd of people. I tried to find ways of distracting him, but once he gets something in his head, you can forget about making him forget about it.

I'm glad our church is doing church in the park this summer. It is so nice to go hang out outside, and at least the weather and temperature outside tonight was wonderful!

So, if you're looking for something to do on Wednesday nights, come to Huffhines Park...it's well worth your time!

Things Caleb Likes to Say

"Woh" - He started saying this this weekend. Every time he sees something "cool," he says "Woh". We're not sure where he picked it up, but it's pretty darn funny.

"No-no" - Of course, this is always a favorite with the kids.

"Me" = Milk - He can't get the "lk" part of it yet, but I know when he says "me" that he wants milk.

"Light" - He has been able to say this for awhile. He loves lights and always points to them and says "light". For awhile, he didn't really say the t on the end, but he has it down now.

"Down" - Sounds more like "dow." He knows this from when he climbs up on the first step of our stairs and gets told to come down. He also points his finger down like I do when he says this also.

"Bye" - He likes to say this just as the person is walking away....so they normally don't hear him.

"Hi" - He has gotten really good at this lately. He will wave and say "Hi" to anyone he meets on the street, etc.

That's all that I can think of that he is saying right now, but I'm sure he'll be saying much more very soon. It's so exciting to see him learn new things, and I am really excited about him learning to talk! So much fun!

Seatbelt & Swimming: Take 2

I am always very cautious about wearing my seat belt. When Chris tries to take his off two seconds before the car stops moving, I nearly always get onto him. So, as I was driving home from church this morning, I realized about a mile down the road that something wasn't right. I immediately looked down, and I hadn't buckled in. I was so glad I hadn't been around a police officer during that mile. I couldn't believe that I had done that. I guess with trying to get Caleb in the car and thinking about many other things on the way out from church, I just forgot. What a dingbat!

Caleb and I went last Wednesday night to Hawaiian Falls with our church, and Caleb had a horrible time. All he wanted to do was sit in my lap (away from the water) and cling to me like nothing else. So, on Thursday I bought a little blow-up pool so that we could practice at home. And I decided that today was the day to try it out. So after blowing up the pool (all three rings of it) by myself...no small feat...we were ready.

Today was much better than Wednesday. I put his feet in the pool, and he immediately started crying. I then put him in my lap in the pool, and he continued to cry. I had put some of his bath toys in the pool, so I started playing with them like they were the most exciting things ever. After a few minutes, he quit crying and wanted to play with the toys. He was still very apprehensive about the whole thing and wanted to stay in my lap the whole time, but it was a big step in the right direction. I figure if we can keep going out to play in the pool often, he just might do well when the church goes back to Hawaiian Falls in mid August. So, I count today as a success!

13 Months

It's amazing to think my little boy is 13 months old today! The first year flew by, and it seems like we just had his party a few days ago. Isn't it amazing how slow time seems to go when you are a kid, but now that we are adults, I would love to slow it down?

Caleb is also getting in another tooth on the bottom. I think this is the reason why he has been waking up in the middle of the night the past few nights. Last night he woke up at 3:30 and was not going to go back down. I hate to admit it, but I put him in bed with me so I could at least get some sleep. Hey, whatever works! Especially without Daddy in town to help!

Tomorrow we are going to our family farm for probably the last time. My parents and grandmother are selling it, and it is mostly cleaned out, so I just wanted to see it one last time. It is such a great place, and I really wanted my kids to be able to go hang out there as they grew up, but there is no way any of us have time to take care of it like it would need. So, it will be fun to go run around at the farm tomorrow.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Fun Times

Caleb is at a really fun time right now. He is at the stage where he copies every single little thing I do. I love to make funny faces at him to see him do it right back to me. He even has started making faces of his own and wanting me to copy them. It is so nice right now that he is so easily entertained and thinks his mommy and daddy are pretty darn funny!

Having a kid just keeps getting more and more fun!

Movies I have seen recently

Ratatouille - Not as funny as I had heard that it was going to be. It was cute, but not as great as all the hype.

Fantastic Four - An ok movie, but not as good as the first one.

Evan Almighty - I really enjoyed this movie. It was very entertaining and was pretty funny.

Has anyone seen the new Harry Potter movie yet? I am really wanting to see it, but I haven't heard many reviews from people about it. Let me know what you think!

Running

I have run for the past three days (today included). I took almost 2 years off from running since I had no desire to run while big and pregnant and then had no energy the first year of Caleb's life. The first night was ok, last night was crummy, but tonight was much better. I shaved off some time from the two previous nights, so I am happy.

It feels good to be active again!

What do you want to do?

If I could do anything I wanted whenever I wanted, most days I would choose to read. I am a complete book lover, and I crave reading time. Though I have to say, sleep is definitely right up there too!

If you could do anything you wanted right now, what would you do?

Google Searches

I am just now starting to get Google searches leading to my blog. Here are two of the things people searched for:

"stephanie carroll"+"austin"

Then it said:
Stephanie Carroll's Blog. These are the random thoughts of Stephanie who is married .... She did this in Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis & Des Moines. ...

What did I do in all of those places? I've never even been to all of those places. Why did it put that? Very strange.

Another one:
spank son OR daughter OR dd OR ds OR kid OR child OR children "bare"

Very strange indeed. It is interesting to see what people are "Googling" for and are winding up at my blog.

Weekend Away

Chris and I went on a trip this weekend...just the two of us. My parents kept Caleb for us so that we could spend some time together. It was a much needed trip, and we had a great time! Chris likes to surprise me with where we are going on trips, so I did not know where we were going until we got there. We wound up outside of Kerrville (about 30 minutes from Fredericksburg), and we stayed in a great bed & breakfast (this one - the Tuscan Barn Room). It was very relaxing and we got to do some fun things while we were there. On Saturday, we went to Stonehenge II, a replica of the real thing. They also had Easter Island statues there. Then we went to see where Chris' grandparents used to live outside of Kerrville. Next we went to the James Avery Headquarters which was beautiful and I got a really pretty bracelet. That night we went to see Guys and Dolls at their community theater. It was a wonderful trip and it was so nice to get away. Of course, I love Caleb and getting to play with him, but it was nice to get away with my sweetie!

Fourth of July Madness

Chris and I spent the past few days in Ennis with his mom & step dad and had a great, relaxing time. So, last night, we started coming home around 8:40. This putting us driving while a bunch of fireworks shows were starting up. It was neat to see fireworks around us the whole time.

When we got near Hwy 78 which is near our home, it was ALL backed up because of Garland's Star Spangled 4th celebration at Firewheel Mall. We wavered between deciding which way would be better to go home because of all of the traffic. We decided to just go hom the normal way. So, as we were making the loop to get on 78, there were people sitting out in lawn chairs and parked cars EVERYWHERE! They were packed at Spring Creek BBQ as well as all down the road. I told Chris that it was like we were in a parade...going 10 miles an hour in a line of cars. I decided we should roll down our windows and start waving to the massive crowd, and then I decided that it would be really funny if I stood up through the sun roof and started waving. Now, I really didn't do any of this, but we thought it was pretty darn funny.

So next year, if you attend this celebration and see a black Mazda Tribute with people hanging out of it and waving, you'll know it's us! And if you want to join in on the parade, we can form a line! I'll even provide the streamers!

There were so many people that the Kroger parking lot down the road in Sachse was even completely filled with people sitting in their cars or standing around outside to watch. I joked to Chris that we were going to have people sitting in our driveway when we got home. No one was in our driveway, but there were people at the elementary school down the street. And when we were driving by the school, the fireworks started. So I made Chris pull into the school parking lot so we could watch them too.

It really was a good show. We could see fireworks shows from two cities going at the same time from about the same distance away, so it was very impressive.

Anyway, I hope you had a great 4th and are looking forward to our parade next year! :)

Smiling Jesus

When we were visiting the Christ of the Ozarks statue in AR a few weeks ago, Chris noticed that one of the pictures of Jesus on the flyer from the place looked like Jesus had a "knowing smile" on his face from a certain angle. We tried to duplicate this smile with our own camera. What do you think?

Caleb Talk

In the car, I normally have the radio on. I like to hear the news and sing along with the songs. But yesterday on the way home from work, I noticed that Caleb was chatting away like crazy in the back seat. I quickly turned the radio off to listen to him talking. He talked the whole way home, and it was the best music ever! What a blessing!

Caleb in a Box

Caleb got a new car seat a few weeks ago, so we let him play around in the box for awhile. I got some really cute pictures.