With Caleb’s first birthday, my parents visiting, and another round of illness, it’s been a fun and crazy few weeks.  Here are some pictures and updates from all the festivities!

1) Grandparents In Town

My parents flew out to KC this past weekend for Caleb’s first birthday and it sure was fun to have them in town! We spent lots of time playing on the floor with Caleb, reading him books, and just basking in his silliness with occasional breaks while he napped.  We also had some yummy barbecue at a local place called Q39 and an amazing brunch at Gram and Dun, a restaurant in the plaza (although I had a super-rich burnt-end mac and cheese which maybe doesn’t qualify as brunch…).

First taste of KC BBQ at Q39!

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Whew.  I don’t have a normal Five on Friday post for you all this week because honestly, it was just a rough one.  Our house has been rocked with illness the last month and we are all pretty worn out.  Caleb has been sick at least 1-2 times a month for his entire life, so we’re used to that, but a month ago he got his first stomach bug and it is a whole different ballgame.  His few days of throwing up and yuckiness quickly passed on to me and Jordan and we were both knocked out with 24 hours of throwing up, achiness, and just general misery (can you tell I hate anything stomach related?).

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1) Our Brand New Fence

We’ve been dreaming of having a fence in our backyard ever since we moved into our house and as of this past week, we finally have one! My brother-in-law recently started a contracting company and they designed and built the fence for us.  We LOVE it! Since our house backs up on the woods, having a fence makes it feel so much more like a yard and gives it great structure.  Olive already loves racing around back there and I know Caleb will love it one day too.  This was maybe the biggest (and most expensive) house project we’ve ever done and we couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. Now we just have to figure out how to get some grass to grow back there so it’s not a giant mudpit…

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1) A Nasty Stomach Bug

(POSSIBLY TMI WARNING): Holy moly, we got ROCKED by a stomach bug last week and it was not pretty.  My brother and sister in law were over with their kiddos to play games on Saturday night and ended up being up all that night throwing up.  We hoped we would be in the clear, but Caleb started throwing up all of Monday, by Wednesday night I was knocked out, and by Thursday night it had gotten to Jordan too.

It’s been several years since I’ve experienced anything like that but doing it with a kiddo was a million times harder.  I was pretty much done getting sick by the morning (minus when I tried to nurse Caleb when he woke up at 5:30 AM and ended up throwing up while nursing…so that was fun), but I felt SO nauseous, weak, and achy all day.  Even so, I had to take Caleb to the pediatrician for all his sicknesses because life as a mama goes on.  When the doctor tried to look in his throat, my still-recovering kiddo gagged and threw up all over himself and his very nauseous mama.  It was all I could do to then not do the same thing myself and that disgusting, smelly drive home was one of the low points of my parenting experiences so far.

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This is my first Friday post in a while and it’s fun to be back! Like I shared in Monday’s recap of our Christmas break, I’ve loved getting to unplug for a few weeks, and a quiet holiday season always feels like the best way to close out a year.  Even so, I’m excited to jump back into life and start the spring semester.  Here are a few updates from our last week or two since we got back from Cali!

1) Readjusting To The Cold

After our week of enjoying the beautiful 70 degree weather in Cali, we came back to some cold and snow here in KC.  Jordan had an unexpected snow day last week, which was fun, and we’re expecting a pretty good ice storm will keep us inside this weekend.  We’re just stocking up on all the snow day essentials (coffee, cinnamon rolls, Baileys, pizza, beer, etc) and getting excited to do some house projects and watch Netflix! We recently started watching Dexter all the way through.  It’s a lot darker than the shows we’ve been watching but I’ll be honest…it’s got me hooked.

Caleb is unamused by the cold weather (and by the fact that mom still makes him get out and walk in it).

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I’ve been a bit unplugged these last few weeks and it’s been so sweet to be fully present with family and friends.  We ended 2016 with some fun adventures and I’m feeling refreshed and ready to jump into 2017! Since I’ve missed the last two Friday posts, I’ll just combine all the fun stories and pictures from our last few weeks in one massive photo dump of a post.  Enjoy!

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Month ten with Caleb has been so fun, especially since it involved all sorts of Christmas celebrations.  Even though he’s still too young to understand what’s been going on the last few weeks, it’s been such a joyful season with lots of fun time with family and I’m grateful for that.  Enjoy some updates and silly pictures from this past month of our little guy’s life!

The Numbers

At his nine month checkup, Caleb was just above 17 lbs and still in the 5-10th percentile for weight and 10-25th for height.  So basically he’s still our long and lean little man and we are loving his lanky cuteness! His little hips and booty are about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.  This month he’s started to transition from 6-9 month clothes to 9-12 month clothes and I love getting to put him in all his cute new outfits in this bigger size! 

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Like I shared in last week’s post, I love taking time at the end of the year to reflect on all the things those past 12 months held.  I get so much joy from remembering and reliving all of the sweet moments we shared and all the ways we grew.  So even though I didn’t get a chance to write a letter in time to send out with all our Christmas cards, I figured I might as well write one here! Here goes nothing…

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