Date Night

Last Friday night, my mom asked if Caleb could spend the night at their house. Of course, I said yes! So, Chris and I went to the IMAX to see Dark Knight since Chris hadn't seen it yet. I had also reserved a hotel room for us for the night and even packed Chris' bag for him before he got home! We stayed at the Prava Suites by the Galleria. It is very modern looking and was a great "different" place to go to. We had a very nice weekend, just the two of us!

The Caleb Show

Caleb got a new guitar for Christmas from Grammie & Gramps that is so cool! It is a great little guitar. So every once in awhile, he will give us a show. I love The Caleb Show! There is singing, dancing, crowd participation...it's great! Here are some pictures.

Well, ok first this is one of Caleb sitting with Poppy. I just had to include it!

He's really getting into the act here!
He's such a superstar!

Well, ok, this one is of him playing football with Poppy. Not a show picture, but still very cute.

I love how he is holding the guitar in this one! What a funny boy!

What Did You Do At School Today?

Even when Caleb was a little baby I would ask him what he did at school that day. Of course, I knew he wouldn't answer but I always figured the earlier I could get him trained to tell me everything he did all day, the funner it would be. So I was shocked yesterday after being out of school for a week and a half that when I asked him what he did at school, he actually answered. And when I kept for asking for more, he actually gave me more! And the same thing happened today! I'm so excited that he can now tell me what was fun in his day, what made him sad, what made him cry, who was nice, who was mean...really just everything about his day! Now everyone just better be careful because you can be sure that his Momma is going to hear about it! :)

My New Favorite Thing

This is my new favorite thing! I saw it at a craft sale a few months ago and immediately put it on my Christmas list. It is a wickless candle that is heated by a 25 watt light bulb. They come in many, many different designs. You put the wax on the top part and the bulb melts it. The scents come in bars so you can use as much or little as you want. You can even combine scents if you want. I have been using the Orange Harvest scent since I got it, and it is wonderful! There is no danger leaving it on since it is just heated by a light bulb. And it makes my house smell great! It's definitely my favorite thing right now in my house! http://www.scentsy.net/ You should look into getting one!

2009 Books

Prior Bad Acts by Tami Hoag - 6
Peony in Love by Lisa See - 7
To the Nines by Janet Evanovich - 6
Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich - 6
3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke - 8
2061: Odyssey Three by Arthur C. Clarke - 8
2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke - 8
The Art Thief by Noah Charney - 7
Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan - 6
The Host by Stephenie Meyer -
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke - 8
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann - 7
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - 6
Seven Up by Janet Evanovich - 5
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown - 8
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins - 9
Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren - 7
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - 9
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - 6
The Help by Kathryn Stockett - 8
Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors - 8
Carry Me Home by Sandra Kring - 7
Summer Sisters by Judy Blume - 8
The Amber Room by Steve Berry - 7
The House at Riverton by Kate Morton - 7
Mutant Message Down Under - 8
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant - 7
Hot Six by Janet Evanovich - 6
Middlemarch by George Eliot - 6
Eragon by Christopher Paolini - 6
Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne - 8
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer - 7
Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers - 9
Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer - 8
High Five by Janet Evanovich - 7
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult - 8
Four to Score by Janet Evanovich - 7
New Moon by Stephenie Meyer - 9
Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke - 7
Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore - 9
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer - 9
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin - 7
Three to Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich - 7
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser - 7
The Appeal by John Grisham - 7
Double Take by Catherine Coulter - 6

2008 CDC Christmas Program

Caleb's class dressed up as elves this year for their annual Christmas program. They sang a song, and it was very cute! It was a great program!

All the grandparents came out to see the show! Here are Caleb and Grammie before the program.

Rolling Over to 100,000

I love my car! I bought it after I got my first paycheck from teaching. I've had it over 6 years now and it still feels brand new to me. It's been with me when Chris and I were dating, when we were first married, through our first years of marriage, and now with Caleb in the family! It has been a great car, and I plan to keep it for a very long time.

Well, my car rolled over to 100,000 miles on Tuesday. Chris thinks I'm nuts, but I had to take this picture of it rolling over. It's like it was my car's birthday! So, happy 100,000 miles, car! Here's to many, many more!

More Pictures

Last Friday, Caleb wore his Thomas the Train outfit to school. And every time he wears the outfit, he wants me to take pictures!

He wanted to take a picture with me, so of course I obliged!

This kid LOVES flashlights. He plays with them all the time!

Christmas Photo Session

I am so bad about waiting till the last minute to do my Christmas cards every year. So last week, I finally got around to taking pictures of Caleb for our Christmas card. I had him do a "Christmas Photo Session" in our living room with all kinds of Christmasy things. Here are some of the pictures we took!

After taking pictures, Caleb put on a show for me on the fireplace. He held a flashlight and sang and danced for me. It was priceless!

Caleb LOVES his stocking! He knew exactly which one was his this year without me even having to tell him.
I love his smile in this picture. He is getting so big!

Goofy smile! This is the way most of his pictures turn out. He is such a silly kid!

What a sweet face!

Grammie gave Caleb this wreath last year with Little People on it so that we could take one off and put it in the nativity set each year and talk about Jesus' birth. It made a fun picture!

Merry Christmas!

Santa Pictures

Caleb and I have been talking about Santa for awhile now. The first time I talked to him about Santa, I asked him if he was going to cry when he sat in Santa's lap...to which he replied "Yes!" So then I kept talking over the next few weeks about how Santa was nice and that you didn't need to cry. So he kept saying he wasn't going to cry. And he even kept telling me what he was going to tell Santa that he wanted for Christmas.

On the morning that Santa was going to be at Caleb's school, Caleb was soooo excited! He was running around the house like crazy talking about seeing Santa. He did fine when Santa was far away and even said hi to him. BUT when it came time to get close to Santa and sit on his lap, that was a completely different story. He did not want anything to do with Santa. At least he would stay in his lap this year so that we could get a picture.

Enjoy our Santa pictures for this year! They crack me up!

Holly Jolly

Our church has a Christmas party every year that I absolutely love! It is so fancy, so nice and the food is always fabulous! For the second year, I decorated a table for the party. I was very pleased with how it turned out. It was a great, fun night!

Lunch Date

I like to take Caleb on lunch dates every once in awhile. It's just one of the many perks of working in the same building where he is all day. Last Friday, we went to Chick-fil-A for our date. Caleb has never wanted to play on the slides at fast food restaurants or in parks or really anywhere. He's kind of a chicken like his mamma always was! But this time as soon as we walked in the door, he kept telling me that he wanted to go slide. So I told him that after we ate our lunch, he could do just that! So, Caleb played on the slide! And he had so much fun that he didn't want to leave when it was time to go. It was a fun date!

Playing in the tree house. Hi Mom!

I love this smile!

The smile on his face shows the sheer joy he had at getting to play on the playground! It was priceless!

Thanksgiving Lunch

I'm behind on posting these days. A few weeks ago, Caleb's school had a Thanksgiving Lunch. I didn't take many pictures, but here are the ones I took. It was a fun day with family and friends!

I'm Gonna Drive!

This morning after I had gotten Caleb dressed and ready, he grabbed one of Chris' hats and announced that he needed the hat because he was going to drive.

Then as we were downstairs packing up to leave, he sat in his little red chair and told me, "Mommy, you're going to sit in the backseat in my chair and I'm going to drive!"

Then when we went out to get in the car, he went straight to my door to get in and drive. I had to tell him that he was going to have to ride in his chair so that mommy could drive. He wasn't very happy about that. I told him he could pretend to drive like Elmo pretends to do things, but he still wasn't very happy about it. So then I pulled out the big card and told him that Mimi & Poppy were going to pick him up from school today. That ended any unhappiness!

Then on the way to school, he kept telling me, "Mommy, this is your chair (his carseat). You sit here and I will drive!"

Funny, funny boy! He LOVES pretending to drive! He would probably sit in a car and pretend to drive all day if we let him.

Cat Soup

Anyone that knows me very well knows that I am not an animal person. That's just the way it is. I think animals are pretty cute, but I just don't really want to mess with them...and I really, really don't want one at home. I know that may sound horrible to some people, but that's just the way I am. Can't change it. I had lunch with one of my best friends a few weeks ago, and we got to talking about another friend with a lot of dogs. And this good friend of mine that is an animal person made the comment that we are just different in the way we view animals...and that it is ok. I love that friend!

Anyway, I digress from the subject at hand.

On Sunday night, I made the trek outside to put lights on our bushes. I did this last year and I just love the way they look. Chris was trying to take a nap, so I decided to take Caleb outside with me. But lo and behold! There was a cat out there! And it kept wanting to come rub up against me and Caleb. And get in my way. And not go away!

I finally had to leave Caleb inside because he was freaking out about the cat (kind of like I was, I have to admit!).

The cat thought it would be really funny to lay under the bush that I was working on.
The cat thought it would be fun to play with the light strings as they were being pulled along the ground.
The cat thought that it wanted to hang around me...a person that kept telling it to go away...instead of the two other families with kids that were outside also. Go figure!

At one point, I even went back in the house and announced to Chris and Caleb that we were going to have cat soup that night for dinner if that cat didn't go away! I was really ticked!

Why is it that animals just have to hang around the people that don't really want them around? It's strange how that works, but that is normally the case.

But despite all of the harrassment from the cat, I managed to get the lights up! And they look great!

Thanksgiving Pictures

Sadly, these are the only pictures that were taken over Thanksgiving (plus others of this same experience that I didn't include).

Any time we go to my Grandmother's house, Caleb LOVES to roll around and play with her little foot stool thing. And it has become a tradition to sit him on it, raise him in the air and then drop him (in a controlled fashion) as well as playing with it like it is a bull. Pretty fun stuff! And he LOVES it!

Walking in My Shoes

Every morning, as Chris and I are getting ready for work, Caleb likes to go in our closet and put all my shoes on. He will get one pair, come running through the bathroom, fall down eventually and then go in to get another pair of shoes and start the process over. I told Chris this morning that it was nice that he at least had found something to entertain himself while we get ready. The boy LOVES his mommy's shoes and getting to clonk around in them. What a cute, silly little boy!

Caleb's School Pictures

I just got Caleb's school pictures today! I love getting each year's pictures! Here is "Professor Caleb".

And "Scholarly Caleb"
And "Just plain, ole cute Caleb"

Of course, he is not smiling in any of the pictures, but I knew that would be the case. But they are still really cute pictures of my sweet boy!

The Carroll's First Pumpkin

Last night was pumpkin carving and seed roasting night at the Carroll house. We had lots of fun! Caleb had fun playing like he was eating a littler pumpkin while Chris was carving the big one and kept telling us that we needed to eat the big one. He didn't want to touch the insides of the pumpkin at all, and at one point when some pieces that were on the table got on his hand, he immediately wanted us to wash them off. Maybe next year he'll be more into it.

Caleb LOVES looking at the pumpkin. When he woke up this morning, he wanted to go downstairs to look at it. Then he wanted me to take his picture with it before we left for school. Fun times!

Caleb and Daddy hanging out and eating roasted pumpkin seeds. Caleb went crazy over them!
Ooh! Spooky! I love lit up pumpkins!

Our happy pumpkin! Chris asked Caleb if he wanted to be scary or happy, and Caleb said "happy!" So Chris made it a happy pumpkin.

Trunk or Treat

On Sunday night, our church had it's annual Trunk or Treat. Our family all dressed up as Sesame Street characters. We had a great time!

Here's Poppy (Cookie Monster) giving Caleb (Elmo) candy. One of MANY pieces that night. The kid was on such a sugar high by the end of the night. He may not get anymore candy ever again! :)

The Carroll Family...Super Grover, Elmo and the #7!
The whole gang! Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Super Grover, Elmo & the #7!

A close up of my costume.

Mimi as Big Bird

Me want a cookie!

A cute little Elmo.

Getting ready to get some candy.

We will be making another Trunk or Treat appearance this Wednesday night at my parents' church. We thought since we worked so hard to make costumes, we might as well do it twice! I'm so glad my family is so willing to act stupid with me! I love Halloween and dressing up!