Playing with Joshua

Nothing super exciting has been happening lately. Caleb has been doing surgery for the last few weeks. Honestly, I hate it. His average day is to leave around 5:30 in the morning and get home at 7:30- 8ish. A really good day is when he gets home at 6:30 or 7 and those are rare. Depending on the rotation he doesn't even have time to call me for or text me during the day. He is exhausted when he gets home. He is so sweet and wonderful that he still tries to be with me before he goes to bed at 10 (at the latest). So I see him for ,at the most, 2 hours. Right now I can handle it. Since I know that it is just a rotation that will come to an end. Although Caleb scared me the other day, he was telling me about his day and said that this has actually been his favorite rotation. I tried to be supportive and listen... luckily he finished and said he could never go into it because he can't handle the hours. With a sigh of relief I said good because I would never ever want him to go into it. I am really the type who would much rather be with my husband than do anything else. I use to tell my mom that I would be perfectly happy living a simple life if meant that my husband would be home more. When Caleb and I were dating and he told me he wanted to be a doctor I honestly second guessed if I wanted that kind of a life. I know most people would probably be thrilled. Then I realized that I loved him so much that everything would work out fine. Everything has worked out great and I really appreciate all the effort he puts into being an excellent provider for his family and fulfilling his duties, and I am anxiously looking forward to that day when he is well established somewhere with decent regular hours :).

Anyway, Joshua and I have been keeping ourselves busy and happy. I am so grateful to have a little buddy with me every where I go. Being a mother is by far the most tiring and fulfilling thing I have ever done, I love it! When ever I get tired or overwhelmed I get this cute little face looking up at me and I can't help but to smile. Especially now Joshua has learned to give kisses. So when ever I sit down or hold him he comes up to me and gives me a big sloppy kiss, usually on my nose or eye :) but it just makes me so happy. I mean how could you not be happy with that face staring back at you.



Other things we have done to stay busy have been swimming, dancing and playing outside. Swimming classes were for two weeks and he loved it. They had a water slide and we would go down three or four times a lesson. We would get to the top and he would be laughing and clapping, and would laugh the whole way down. We also love to turn music on and dance. He will shake his head all around and try to snap his fingers. Every chance we get we go play outside and play with his balls, cars, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, baby pool, and sandbox . Joshua loves being outside and would spend every minute outside if he could. He plays in his sandbox a lot, and lately has loved Caleb's grill brush. He spent an hour and a half the other day walking around with the brush "cleaning" everything - even the sand.

Having a good time and peaking out of the rails.



Joshua's newest thing is climbing on things. He climbs up and on everything. I think he is trying to conquer it.



His push broom.



It has been a really rainy summer, which has made for some really great thunder storms. The other night I tried to capture some lightening. I took about 200 hundred pictures in 5 minutes and this tiny little bolt is all I got. It doesn't do justice to how massive our thunderstorms can be. I love it. The lightening and thunder will be so loud that it will literally shake our house like an earthquake. In one half hour storm my three inch rain gauge will be overflowing with the buckets and buckets of rain. I tried to video a little clip, but even that doesn't do it justice.

2 Weeks Off

This year Caleb only has two weeks off, and it went way too fast. For the first couple days we hung out around Burlington and got ready for Caleb's family to come to town. His mom, dad and two youngest brothers came for 9 days. It was a very busy and fun trip. Like all vacations it was over too quickly. First we went to Ben and Jerry's and Stowe. Caleb's brothers loved the ice cream and cider. We went on a hike up at Smuggler's to work off the ice cream.

For the weekend we went up to Quebec and walked around old town and ate a lot of good food. Joshua had a good nap in the back pack



Monday we took a drive to Woodstock to look for covered bridges. On the way done we stopped in Montpelier and Sharon. Joshua found this street sign and was playing hide and go seek.







We also went to Shelburne farms. We visited the animals and garden and went hiking and swimming in the lake. Basically Joshua will get in the water any time he can.







It was a great trip and really fun to see the family. After they left Caleb still had a few days left of break. We have a goal in our family to go on a family vacation to somewhere different every year, no matter how short or exotic. This was are only chance for the year so we took off to Acadia national park on the coast of Maine for three days. Joshua did really well with the camping and Maine is really beautiful. The first night camping we realized that we didn't have a ran tarp or a lantern, so we had to run to walmart the next day, and of coarse the weather was perfect the rest of the time. We went on some hikes, saw some really cute New England towns and light houses, and went to the beach. To get to Maine we drove through New Hampshire, and to get home we drove all the way down the coast to Portland. Along the way we saw tons of cute towns and light houses. It ended up being a lot of driving but was a really fun family trip.










Now Caleb is back in school on his Surgery and OB rotation. We really miss him. To keep Joshua and myself entertained we have been taking a mommy and me swim class. He loves it and will not stop laughing and smiling. Caleb had a long lunch the other day and got to come play with us.

Great Video Clip

My dad sent us this youtube clip the other day. It was a great reminder of life in Russia back on our missions.

12 Month Pictures

I took Joshua's 12 month pictures today. These were some of my favorites. They show Joshua's many expressions.

1 year old.

On June 10th Joshua turned one! I can't believe it has been a year since I had him, it has gone way to fast. He is getting so big. He has been walking all over the place for a few weeks, and is really starting to communicate. He shakes his head yes and no, and says uh-oh. He will point to things he wants, and is very determined to get what he wants. He has a great personality and is really fun to spend my days with.

In the morning I took Joshua to see all the animals at Shelburne Farms. Even though he didn't know it was his birthday I wanted to do something that would be special and fun for him. He loves the chicken and tractors and always has a great time.

For his birthday party we made him a fruit salad, chicken and a pile of vegan cupcakes. He is doing really well with allergies but we are still taking it slow. We tried to get the grandparents on web cam but it didn't work out so they ended up singing with us on speaker phone. He was very excited about the cupcakes, and candle.



Initially he didn't really like the flavor.



Then he started to dig in to it and started to like it, but was still a little unsure.



For his birthday present we got him a sporty little car. We can push him down the side walk, and when he gets older the bottom comes our so he can drive himself. He loves it! We have been driving every where in it. He will sit there and totally turn the wheel and shift the gears. It was a great Craig's list find.



After dinner and cake he was really tired and went to bed. It was a fun day with him.

Updates

First of all I need to start with Joshua’s 11 month pictures. We have not had internet for a while and then our camera keeps breaking, basically blogging has been difficult lately. This is Joshua a month ago. As you can tell he is pretty hard to catch on camera, he was crawling all over the place. I have never been one for the serious portrait shot anyway. My favorite is the raised eyebrow smirk, it is a classic Joshua look. He is a very happy baby.

 

 

 

 

On memorial day our friends had a lake house that their family had rented. We had a BBQ and went canoeing on the lake. Joshua loved the water and the sand. He had been walking about a week at this point. You can see how he holds his arms up and out to balance himself when he walks.

 

We also gave Joshua his first haircut. He had a major mullet, so Caleb felt pretty strong about fixing it.

Internet Woes...

Here it is: a new post, finally. You see, we had been splitting the internet bill with our neighbors, until they moved out a month ago. Since then we've been stuck mooching a wireless connection off of our other neighbors until we figure out a real solution. The end result is that we haven't had much of a chance to keep up at the blog.

Summer's here, so we've been keeping really busy around the house. We decided to try doing a bit of a video blog this time to see how it turns out. Most of it is Joshua growing up and getting funnier. Some of it is also things around our house, so for those of you here in Vermont it's probably not worth the time. Of course, even then it's probably a bit cheesy.

Enjoy at your own peril...

Joshua always laughs when we blow on his belly, but now he's figured out how to do it back. He's trying to mimic everything we do now.



This one he thought up on his own, without any encouragement from me. He always likes to play in the dirt, but all the sudden started dropping handfuls of it on the cat and laughing at her reaction. Smart kid...

One of his favorite foods has been grapes. If he sees them around, good luck getting his attention on anything else until he has it.

His other favorite food lately has been watermelon. He gets a piece and chews his way through it without taking it from his mouth. It's funny, but very messy. Hence the outside and no clothes.

Lastly, here's a quick video of our garden. Kathryn has been working hard at it, and Joshua has been doing his best to sample all the dirt. It's been a fun project so far, and hopefully will give us lots of food throughout the summer and fall.

Walking!!!!

Joshua is walking!! He took his first steps by himself on Mother's Day and ever since has been walking a lot. He was 11 months and 1 day old. He still crawls but he is walking more and more. Today he walked about 20 steps on his own. It is so exciting to see him learning how to walk. He concentrates really hard every time he tries and I get all excited and start clapping for him but then he starts to laugh and get excited and fall over. I am learning to hold the excitement for the end of his walk.
Other Joshua news is that he can say Dada (usually Dida), Mama, and kitty (kikiki). He waves hello and bye-bye. He reaches out his hand and opens and closes it when he wants something. He loves cars, balls, the sand box, slide and swing. He especially loves being outside anytime I bring him inside he gets really mad at me. He laughs at his daddy and mommy the most, and loves playing peek-a-boo, getting thrown on the bed, getting tickled, this little piggy, and the "I'm gonna get you" game. The greatest news is it looks like he has outgrown his protein intolerance. I have been eating some eggs, dairy, nuts and soy and so far no reaction!! I have not given any to him yet. We are going to still go really slow introducing those foods after he is a year. He eats all the time now, basically anytime we eat he will sit and eat little fruits and veggies cut up small. He kind of skipped over the baby food stage which I was very glad of because I would rather just nurse him than sit and spoon feed him food. It always takes to long and is usually such a struggle. Of course he is still breast feeding, which is his favorite food choice.
Other news is that we have a little vegetable plot with all sorts of veggies growing. I am so excited I love working out in the garden and especially love eating fresh food. We also have tons of flowers and herbs growing all around our house. Everything is just starting to get going and hopefully it will all look really pretty. It is my favorite thing to do in the summer so Joshua and I have been out everyday working on things. Caleb is busy with his rotations. Right now he is working at the community health clinic, which is basically for the uninsured. He says it has been a very interesting experience, he does something different everyday. I have decided that I prefer outpatient medicine way more than inpatient. The outpatient hours are great regular work days, the inpatient days are long, and he would have call in the evenings. That is just my personal opinion. Caleb says outpatient is slow, but he said that about inpatient too, he just wants to do emergency med where he is doing procedures all day.

Pictures are on the way.