Happy Birthday Caleb

How is it possible
that today you turn two?
Wasn't it just yesterday
that I was holding you all brand new?

It was in that moment
that I thanked the gracious God above
I finally understood what He meant
by unconditional love

The joy you bring me
I really can't explain
Adults have hurts and fears in their life
but having a child seems to erase that pain

I realized the day you were born
how selfish of a person I had let myself become
Now all of my attention has turned to you
and I happily let those selfish desires go numb

Because you see, my sweet Caleb
one day I hope you'll understand
When you have children of your own
things won't always go as planned

There are bumps and hurdles
in the road we call life
This world will try to deceive you
and get you caught up in all the hate and all the strife

So my prayer for you

each and every night
Is to know how much I love you
and to always keep God in your sight

Because I know I'm going to mess up
I know I'm never going to reach perfection
But please forgive me in those moments
I do everything for your protection

Every day I tell you
that you have ten fingers, ten toes,
Two eyes, two ears,
and a cute little nose

But I forgot to tell you
the most important part
That from the very first moment you were born
you had my entire heart

Happy 2nd Birthday Sweet Boy

Love,
Mom

Wake Up Parents

I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again.  It amazes me how much and how quickly Caleb is learning right now.  He can repeat everything you say (which isn't always a great thing...) and he just picks up on how to do things that he didn't know how to do the day before.  Watching a child learn, day in and day out, is one of the finest things God gave us to experience.  I know I only have one child right now to watch, but I have to admit, I think he's really smart for his age.  I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but this kid never ceases to amaze me!

At 21 months old, Caleb can spell his name.  Not just his first name.  He can spell his first, middle, and last name.  He can almost count to 100 with a little help along the way sometimes.  Actually, today he counted past one hundred.  He talks in complete sentences (when he wants to...).  He reads books all by himself.  He knows how to read so many words, I can't keep up anymore.  He knows the names of those closest to him...and how to spell them.  He knows all of his colors and shapes and how to spell them.  He can spell some numbers also.  His favorite things to do include coloring and looking up at the moon and stars.  No high tech toys needed folks.  Our battery expense is pretty low because Caleb enjoys hands-on activities.  This brings me to the real topic of this blog post.

A few days ago, I took Caleb to the Discovery Center here in Murfreesboro.  It's a wonderful place (that we now have a membership to) that is full of hands-on things for kids to play with and explore.  They have everything from live turtles, to running model trains, to a huge water table and Caleb's favorite, the rock bin.  When we go there, Caleb runs to the rock bin, grabs a little play shovel and digs in the rocks.  Not lying, we played in the rocks for almost an hour last time.  As I was sitting in the midst of the rock bin with Caleb with my own shovel, my mom told me to look around at the other moms.  They all had one thing in common.  While all of their children where playing, they were on their smartphones.  Here I was in the middle of a rock bin with rocks in my shoes and pockets and God knows where else, and these other moms were chatting online, checking emails, posting a new status or tweet, and reading their favorite blogs.

How sad.  Folks, I'm sorry, but I think things have to change.  We've become a people so interested in other peoples lives that we've lost track of our own.  We rely on other people to teach our kids about everything instead of taking on the responsibilities of parenting.  Wake up parents. 

I'm not saying I don't blog, Facebook, watch TV, or check emails.  I do.  However, I try my very hardest to do all of those things when Caleb is asleep so that while he's awake he has my attention.  Going back to my first couple of paragraphs, Caleb didn't become intelligent all by himself.  It took time.  It took attention.  It took me and others putting him first before the distractions this world offers. 

This morning, Caleb looked at me and said, "Love you, Mommy."  He tells me this all the time.  My heart melts when I hear those words.  There isn't a tweet, an email, a status, an online chat, a TV show, a phone call, or a text that can EVER bring me the joy that those words do.

R

Just A Few Updates...

I know, I know.  I always say I'll do better, but I still get behind on my posts.  It's hard to find a free moment with a little boy who is just a few months shy of turning 2!  I guess I'm going to give up trying to catch you up on everything and just hit the highlights.  I think the thought of trying to catch up the blog makes me not want to post!  Not to mention the fact that I'm not a big fan of Blogger.  I need to find another site to host our family blog.

Lets see, what's happened since I posted last?  We took our first family beach trip with Caleb and my mom, dad, sister, and brother-in-law to Destin, FL.  It was great! 

I also found out that I'm going to be an aunt!  Jenny and James are expecting Elijah James Smith to arrive around March 2012!

Then they found out we are also expecting baby #2 to arrive in mid-July!  It's really cool to be pregnant at the same time with my sister.  I know our kids will be super close, just like us.

Many of you know how much I love Halloween.  Well, I love it even more now that I have a kid!  If you remember, last year Caleb was a spider.  This year, he was a cowboy!  Thanks to my mother-in-law, Patsy Norris, for making the outfit for me!

You would think that's enough news for now, but we have more.  After 6 years in Knoxville, Jason and I are moving back to Murfreesboro to be close to family.  I have to say, it's pretty bittersweet.  Knoxville is where we started our marriage together.  It's where we had our first apartment together, our first house, our first child, our first church home.  This is the place where we have so many wonderful memories and friends.  The place where we learned what marriage was all about and helped others understand the same.  It's the place where we've laughed, cried, struggled, succeeded, rejoiced, lived....

I trusted in God when we moved here and I wouldn't change anything.  I still trust God in that I feel it's time to move back.  I know He has plans for us and those plans are good.  I know we'll remain close with our friends here.  There's no doubt in my mind.  The friends we've made here are beyond awesome people.  In fact, it seems rude to just call them 'friends.'  They're not just friends, they're family.  They've stood by our sides when it was time to celebrate and held us up when we needed support.  I've said it before, but I'll say it again here.  Thank you.  We wouldn't be where we are without you all.  You know who you are.  We love you more than words could ever say on this blog.

Until next time...

R

Milestone Birthdays!

This year we had two milestone birthdays in our family. Our little Caleb turned 1 and Jason turned 30! I think we had two very awesome parties for each of my boys.



For Jason's yummy cake, each tier represented a decade of his life. The smallest tier has pictures of events from years 0-9, the second tier from 10-19, and the third tier was years 20-29. I feel fortunate to have known Jason for his entire last ten years. In fact, tomorrow, August 20th, marks the day we met 10 years ago in Quantitative Analysis Chemistry Class at MTSU.



A lot has stayed the same, but a lot has also changed since then! Including getting married and having the cutest little boy ever!



This is the image I used for Caleb's birthday party invitations. We had an "UNO" themed party for his first birthday. It was a lot of fun!



Before the party got started, I had to take our traditional set of pictures with Caleb holding how old he is. Sometimes I still can't believe he's already 1!



Although Caleb never dug into his cake like we would have liked for him to, he made up for it by digging into his toys later after his nap! We still appreciate everyone who came out to show love to our boy. We had a great time and we can't wait for year 2!



It took us a while to open them all......



In the end, our sweet boy was just as happy sitting in the floor playing with his balloons. I love him so much. Sometimes I think my heart is just going to burst. I love my life as a wife and mommy!

R

One Year Session

Since I'm playing catch up with blog postings, I thought it would be a good time to share Caleb's one year session with our talented photographer Sarah McAffry. Sarah had her beautiful little girl, Charlotte, just a few months after Caleb and they had a mini play date yesterday.



Are they not so stinkin' cute? Love these kiddos.




Caleb's really getting into water now and loves playing with other kids more and more. Now it's time to visit the past and look at some of my favorite pictures from Sarah's session for Caleb back in March.



These are just a few of the great pictures she took! It's funny that Caleb tore into his cake for the photo session, but he couldn't have cared less about his real birthday cake at his birthday party! Oh well. He's grown so much since then, but I hope to keep catching you up bit by bit! Check back soon for more!

R

Looking Back

Ok, I know it has been way too long since I've done a decent blog post and I really have no excuse except for the fact that I spend my time playing with a very busy 15 month old and have no spare time. I really am going to try to be better about posting regularly because I know that there's those two people out there that read this blog and I don't want to disappoint them; thanks Mom!

I've had this blog post in my mind since January or so, so needless to say, it's overdue. Now that Caleb is working on 16 months old, I'd like to take a moment and show his growth from month 1 to month 12.




I learned a few things while uploading these pictures:

1. We take thousands of pictures.......no really......THOUSANDS.
2. Because of #1, I'm thankful for digital cameras because we'd be broke if we still used film
3. For every picture I chose above, there were about 20 more from that month that were cute
4. I realized how quickly this little boy is growing up
5. I realized how short life really is

There are so many things that have happened with Caleb that I'm looking forward to sharing with you, but for now I'm going to have to take a break! This was one long post to get up on the blog. Caleb has his 15 month check-up tomorrow. 15 months....wow. My baby is a little boy now and my heart is as big as its ever been.



R

My Day, My Love

More to come. Happy Mother's Day to my Mom, Mother-in-law, Sister-in-laws, and friends!

R