Sunday afternoon outside

While the big guys played football (here they are developing their strategy), the little guys played too.
2 monkeys in the tree....
Blowing bubbles.....
Crawling everywhere.....

CS Lewis' house

This is CS Lewis' house, which is apparently very near to here (he taught at Magdalen College in the city centre). Chris took the boys to see it on Saturday morning while I baby-sat 3 very sweet little boys (ages 4, 2, and 7 months!).

The cold has come.....

This is Friday morning at 8:15.....the boys are dressed and ready to go. And, we're prepared for the cold. It really hit me as Luke begged for his floppy hat like Caleb's how soon his version of what's cool will change. But for now, this is a cool hat.

The fam...

Football and kissing......

The birthday party.....

Our good friends, Faimon & Christa, and their son, and Clark & Abbey came over to celebrate Caleb's birthday with us. After lunch, we had cake. Here, Caleb is getting some help blowing out the candle. He was mystified by the singing and the large blue and green burning object in front of him.

"What do I do with this mushy thing?"
"I can't quite pick all of it up, so maybe I'll stick my finger in it and see what it tastes like."
"As ugly as it looks, it tastes pretty good!! I'll try some more!!"
"Awesome! I'm getting the hang of shoveling it into my mouth. I could do this birthday thing everyday!"
We are so blessed by this happy and sweet little boy. We love you very much, Caleb, and we're so glad you were born!

The big guys go hiking....

While Caleb and I got ready for his party, Chris and Luke went hiking.
They had a wonderful morning together, "just the big guys," as Luke says.

Making Caleb's cake

We're having friends over tomorrow to celebrate Caleb's birthday, so today, Luke and I made the cake. It was lots of fun, and we should both end up with several cavities to show for it.
We wanted "Caleb" in blue icing, but the blue icing ran everywhere so we decided to make it the background color and we tried again with the green.
Here it is post Luke's sprinkles.
What a beauty, eh? :)

Getting ready in the morning...

Luke managed to get this one before I even noticed he had the camera. You can see the chaos that is our morning routine now that we have to be somewhere every morning at 9 AM. Notice the dropped bits of breakfast behind me, the wet hair, and the pj's thrown aside as I finish getting Caleb ready for the walk to school.

The morning after.....

Once I'd had some time to put things together, Caleb had a blast playing with his new toys. He loves to walk behind this new walker/rider.
And he loves to sit on it and push ALL the buttons to make lots of noises. (Check out the fat roll on his wrist!!)
In the meantime, Luke and I are spending Caleb's afternoon nap time in remedial arts and crafts class. His teacher says he's not "keen on participating with the crafts," so I'm trying to work on that. Hard to do when you're not so crafty yourself. I'm just trying to get him interested in painting and coloring busses, cars, trucks, and the likes. Any advice on helping-him-to-want-to-participate-in-these activities at school is very welcome...... Right now, I feel like I spend 20 minutes getting everything ready for painting, 5 minutes actually painting, and 20 minutes cleaning up the mess.

My guys.....

Our baby is ONE!!

I've discovered another trait I inherited from my dad..... He always used to be so excited for us to get our presents on Christmas morning that he'd wake us up early and we'd open them right away. Well, I didn't have to wake anyone up, but here we were doing presents before the sun was up.

A ride-on / walker car, lots of cute clothes, a noise-making football, a "Caleb" cup, a super soft Dumbo blanket, and a pop up farmhouse tent. (And, Luke insisted OT be in the picture as well.)
Caleb was very intrigued by the football. He loves the music and noises it makes.
Inside the tent.....
More pictures of the tent and the walker/rider car to come. The car has to be assembled, but was a big hit even with no wheels on it. We'll have cake with friends on Saturday.

It's so hard to believe a whole year has passed. With Luke, it seemed like he'd been with us about 10 years by the time he turned one. But not with Caleb---it's passed very quickly!

On this one-year date, he weighs 24 pounds and 5 ounces (that's with 2 shirts, a diaper, and a small plastic saw in his hand). :)

Luke & the new OT

Between nursery AND a trip to the toy store, Luke was wiped out today! He took a 2 hour nap (unheard of in our household!!!) and then had to be pounced on to wake up. He fell asleep with his beloved new OT (orange truck).
It comes complete with 2 rubbish bins that you can dump into the back.

Catherine, the Luke magnet

Luke had a great time with Catherine, Paul, Elizabeth, and Jay. We were all sad to see them go, but we'll get to hang out again in less than 3 months. Luke said, "I'll really miss Cafrin, but I guess Laine misses her too."

The Three Stooges.....

Lunch at The Trout

Chris took the (little) boys for a walk and managed to get this picture of the rest of us finishing lunch at The Trout. Besides Paul's right side getting sunburned and Jay being blinded, it was truly wonderful sitting in the warm sun.
"The guys"
I had to keep reminding myself that Jay and Elizabeth had been in the air over the Atlantic just a few hours earlier. They were incredible good sports to let us drag them around after no sleep and a long plane ride.
After lunch, we walked through Port Meadow towards Oxford's city centre. Along the walk, we picked blackberries---all of which Luke ate. Catherine and I were intrigued to come up with a new discovery that made sense of the stories we've always heard about our husbands when they were little. As we walked, Paul would think of daring things to do and Chris would encourage him by laughing and expressing just how funny such a thing would be. Here Paul is walking into a herd of cows.

Saturday walk

Caleb got dressed up in one of his new birthday outfits while we waited for Jay and Elizabeth to get to town.
Once we were all together, we headed out for a walk through the village of Wolvercote to The Trout----a local favorite pub and restaurant.
It was a gorgeous and warm sunny day. We all shed a few layers of clothes and enjoyed the beautiful Port Meadow. Caleb and Luke were amazing troopers.

Paul and Catherine in London.....

The weekend we've been waiting for has finally arrived. We are so excited to have good friends from home in town. Paul and Catherine arrived on Tuesday in London, and Jay and Elizabeth are going to join us all in Oxford on Saturday.

We met up with Paul and Catherine today in London. Here we are in front of the Tate Museum which houses the work of British artists from several centuries.
Luke and Caleb immediately took to Paul and Catherine.

A nice visit

Kaye and her 2 kids, Ella and Zac, came to town to see us. It was really nice to see and catch up with Kaye who recently moved about 45 minutes out of Oxford. We hung out in our flat, went for a walk, then came back and ate lunch. It was great to have a day "just like the good ole days."

I'll forever associate the real beginning of my learning about motherhood as my days of hanging out with Allison, Kaye, and Jane in Oxford. It's sad that they've all moved on, but I know we'll keep in good touch throughout all the years.

Rocket shooting at the University Parks

These beautiful September days are great motivation for getting us outside as much as possible. This day, we walked down to the University Parks with our trusty rocket. Here, Luke is giving Caleb a lesson on how it works. I kept hearing things like, "No, Caleb, not in your mouth. They go on the stick thing like this." I had a great time sitting back on the grass and just watching.
After launching a good one, Luke was really impressed with himself. Caleb, however, could not be taught to watch the rocket blast off. He was too focused on getting all the various parts in his mouth.
In the end, Caleb won. And, Luke ran off to pretend he was a bear climbing a tree.

My baby brother.....

Cute and funny too!

Pure Joy.....

Getting the winnings home......

Following such displays of their manhood, Clark and Chris were not allowed to compete at that booth again. So we set off for new challenges. Whether it was an attempt to re-live the euphoria of winning something (the size of a couch) in front of a crowd for your small child, or whether it was a genuine desire for equality---we'll never know. But.....Chris insisted he try a different basketball contest so he could win something for Caleb.

Long story short, Clark won a stuffed shark.

No sooner had we collected all 3 of these abnormally large stuffed animals, the 2 guys said, "Well, we'll see you each at home. We have to go get our bikes."

Here's Abbey pushing our stroller with Scooby, Theo, the white tiger, and Sammie, the shark. We had about a 10-minute walk to the car with everyone staring and pointing at us. I'm still laughing at how funny it was.
Just to underscore once again the size of Theo.......this is a DOUBLE bed!!! I had to cover it's face with a blanket because I screamed when I went in to check on Luke before I went to bed.
Sammie the shark sleeps in Caleb's room. Many thanks to Clark and Abbey for their help in keeping equality in our house---now Luke, Caleb, and I all get to sleep with overgrown animals. Ha!