Super Sleeper!

I almost feel like I'm going to jinx ourselves by writing this, but both Sharon and I have been amazed at how well Caleb has been sleeping at night lately. Over the last four or five days, he has gone for at least eight hours during the main stretch of the night, and he even went for over ten hours one night. Sharon is especially loving it as she got 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep for the first time in over six months. He is such a happier baby when he awakes in the morning after having such a good night of sleep and it has been so fun to hear him continue to babble on and on. He's really taken to making the high pitch squeals, and he even seems to try to imitate our words sometimes (or at least we delude ourselves into thinking he is doing that). He's also been growing like crazy, as he already weighs 17.2 pounds and is in the 95th percentile of weight for his age. Now if we could only get him to nap well, we'd be the happiest parents ever :) However, we're definitely glad that he is struggling with naps rather than night sleep, as it gives us (I mean Sharon) the patience to make it through the day and those crabby periods.

As far as a brief non-Caleb update, it is hard to believe, but I finish my last Seminary class this Friday afternoon. Our time has seemed to fly by here and we know that we will miss so many people when we leave. We definitely feel blessed to have this season in our lives and it has been awesome to look back and see how things with Sharon's jobs have worked at so well and we were able to stay involved in the missions world without going flat broke. Although we're excited about what God has next, I'm definitely feeling nostalgic already as I walk across campus and realize that I'm doing specific things for the last time. It's been a great three years, and I know that we will always look back on this time in our lives with fondness.


Look how BIG that guy is getting!


Caleb seems to be enjoying this book about as much as I did.


This is just a preview of one of the pictures from the photo shoot that our friend did of Caleb. Hopefully we'll have more pictures posted within a week when we get the CD of the pics from her.

Caleb's April Birthday greetings!

So, I finally caught Caleb talking and singing Happy Birthday yesterday to all you April Birthdays!!! (Especially in time for his Grandma's Birthday today!) However, Mike and I fought with the video for several hours before realizing that the video hates our blog and refuses to be posted. So I just put it on YouTube and you all can follow the link below to see Caleb's singing debut. We decided that he is going to be a talkative child like his father was as a boy. Hope you enjoy the video as much as we did!
http://www.youtube.com/v/45wODUZtn6M

Caleb's video montage

Since Caleb is not the most photogenic babies (actually he hates the camera) we've started taking more and more video clips of him. The good thing is that we actually see smiles from him now and it's also a more fun way to capture his personality and what he is learning. Anyways, following are a few brief video clips of the things that Caleb likes and dislikes.

The first thing that Caleb likes is...

"Boxing" with his ball that hangs from the "ocean wonders" playtime mat that his nama and papa bought for him. He can be entertained by this thing for long stretches and never grows tired of playing with his ball.



However, below is one thing Caleb does NOT like...

Shopping with the girls :( This video is a tribute to Grandpa (Sharon's dad) who would often fall asleep in the car while waiting on the girls to shop. Caleb has quickly learned that it is just better take a nap during shopping trips:)

The thing that Caleb likes to do most of all (as if he had any choice in the matter)...

...is play soccer! Yes our little prodigy is already starting on his foot skills as you can see below.

Easter and other events

Since it has been a little while since we last blogged, we have a good amount of pictures and videos to share. Sharon and Caleb had a great visit in Atlanta with her family, and we were also excited to have my parents come up for Easter weekend. We were so glad that Sharon and Caleb were able to make it down to Atlanta for the week before Easter, and I hope that they didn't mind having Caleb around all week. We were also excited that we got Caleb's passport picture taken, and we just sent in his passport application as well. Since we will be going to Canada in June, we wanted to make sure he had just in case he decided he didn't want to stay home by himself.

I'm sure everybody was wondering, but Sharon once again humiliated her husband (for the third year in a row) on her NCAA bracket projections. As a prize, I had to make her chocolate chip cookies, but I didn't mind too much since I ate one or two (or maybe twenty) myself. Caleb was really bummed that Davidson lost to Kansas in the Elite Eight, and has had some trouble sleeping ever since, but I think he'll snap out of soon. He is starting to get into a pretty good routine of going to bed around 8:00 PM, which we really appreciate since it gives us time to ourselves. We're starting to get Caleb into more of a routine, but I think that we'll probably wait until four months until we start a more regular schedule with him. He has definitely become much more entertaining and interactive recently, so that has made our time with him even more fun. However, he is still quite the cuddler, which we also enjoy - although we wonder how much longer that will last.

Caleb "discovering his hands"

What scares uncle John more? The tears or the other "end"

Caleb with his Grandma and Grandpa

Caleb just LOVED getting his passport picture

Quality time with Grandma