The Sweetest Sound...

I can remember hearing was Caleb today saying, "Deh Deh." Precious! Up until today he hasn't copied our sounds much, and this is so much fun. I'm unfortunately sick in bed right now, and all I hear on our baby monitor is our sweet boy in his crib saying, "Deh Deh." (Caleb is just now getting to bed because we were out late tonight.) I'll try and get a video of it soon. Praise the Lord for that sweet little voice!

Videos

These are a couple of videos that I'm posting mostly for family. I haven't posted any videos since Caleb was born, so some of them are pretty old. I can't believe how little Caleb was in these videos!

**You can make each video larger by clicking on the four arrows that are in the bottom right corner, to the left of the word "vimeo".

This video was taken after church on January 3 (Caleb's 4 month birthday). I think it's the first video we have of Caleb laughing.

Caleb Laughing from Kelli Bishop on Vimeo.

This video was taken the day after Christmas and was the third time Caleb rolled over from his tummy to his back. He was about 3.5 months old at the time.

Caleb Rolls Over from Kelli Bishop on Vimeo.

This video was taken right after we got home from the hospital. Caleb was 2 days old and was about to meet Wally for the first time.

Wally Meets Caleb from Kelli Bishop on Vimeo.

This video was taken 32 minutes after Caleb was born. The comment about Hudson refers to one of our friend's baby, who was also born with quite a conehead. :)

Caleb's First Video from Kelli Bishop on Vimeo.

6 Months! (Continued)

Sweet Caleb, I can't believe you're 6 months old! This seems like a big milestone, and it's a little difficult to embrace the fact that you're growing up. I'm excited for each new thing you accomplish, but it's all happening too fast.

This month, you went on your first trip to the Smoky Mountains as a belated celebration of your daddy's birthday. (I'll post more about that trip later.)

At the beginning of this month, you started this "fake coughing" thing, which you seemed to think was pretty funny because you were always smiling as you did it, and would often laugh afterward.

When I feed you, you often grab at my face--at my chin, at my nose, but most commonly, you'll hang your hand from my lower teeth. This isn't done in an ugly manner, but appears to be how you like to show affection these days.

You laugh a lot, but sometimes it can be tough to tell if you're laughing or starting to get upset because you'll still be smiling.

For a little while, when we would go to kiss you on your mouth, you would grin, open your mouth and start shaking your head back and forth. I think this started because one day I was quickly kissing back and forth between your right and left cheeks, and you kept moving your head back and forth to catch me.

You're getting more hair, and I really love your fuzzy little head. You don't have any teeth yet, though you still drool a lot and try to stick everything in your mouth.

You often clasp your hands together, with arms bent and move hands back and forth toward your mouth. You have also started to grab for everything.

Sometimes you'll grab my ears or cheeks and pull your face toward mine. I'm not sure if you're trying to initiate kisses, but I like to think so. :)

These days you still love your jumperoo and Bumbo. However, your Bumbo is getting less use because you're now sitting on your own.

Your sitting skills have improved a lot this month. At first you could only sit if you had one or both hands on the ground too. Then, you would sit on your own for a bit, but then start to tip either forward or sideways. Now you sit pretty well and seem to have better posture while doing it than we do. You'll still tip over some, especially if you're trying to get a toy that's out of reach.

You caught your second cold this month--poor little guy. You had a runny nose, watery eyes, and a sad cough, but thankfully no fever. I hate it when you're sick because you look so pitiful, but you're a trooper and still seem pretty happy.

You love to stand, and at this rate, I think you might be pulling up on your own before you decide to roll from you back to your tummy. You seem close to pushing up in a crawling position. (This was all true as of your 6 month birthday.)

At your 6 month checkup today, which was about 1.5 weeks late, you were 16lbs 6oz and 27.25 inches long, putting you in the 25-50th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for height. My little boy isn't quite so little anymore! You did very well on your developmental testing, and we were given the go-ahead to start you on solid foods, which we're excited about. It will be so fun to see your reaction to so many new things. We love you little Caleb, and we're so proud to call you our son!

Precious!

Middle School Prank

Some of Ryan's students recently decided to fork our yard. This sounds like a typical middle school prank, however, there was one key difference: one of the girl's parents called and asked Ryan for permission ahead of time. You see, the girls were supposed to think they were pulling a prank on their teacher, however, the parents were actually pulling a prank on the girls. One of the girl's dads has a good friend who's a police man and he agreed to pretend to arrest the dad as the girls were forking our yard.

We were told what time they would be coming by, so we watched the girls through the blinds in our front room. They were pretty cute thinking they were being all sneaky. They rang the doorbell and ran, so Ryan walked out, looked around and acted confused. He then came back inside.

The girls then rang the doorbell again but waited at the door. Ryan ran around from the backyard and scared them. During all of this, the police man came, arrested the dad and drove away for a few minutes. The girls were all worried, but the police man came back with the dad, announcing that it was a joke.

It was fun seeing the girls, and the best part was that they picked up all of the forks before leaving. :)

6 Months!

Six months ago, we were holding you in our arms for the first time. You had been in this world for 46 minutes, and already you had stolen our hearts, humbled us, allowed us to better appreciate our Father's love for us and filled us with inexplicable joy. And now, 6 months later, the same is still true.

Caleb, you are such a joy to us, and I'm so very thankful that we can celebrate you today. It's crazy to me that you have been here for half a year now--the time has really flown by!

It was difficult coordinating Ryan's, my and our pediatrician's schedules so we could all be present for Caleb's 6 month checkup, so the appointment isn't until the end of next week. I'm holding off on writing Caleb's actual 6 month post until we have this month's statistics, but for now, here's a picture of our little boy. In case you can't see it, he's wearing his Manchester United (Ryan's favorite soccer team) sleeper, which was a Christmas present from his daddy.

We love you, sweet Caleb!!

Creativity and Deliberate Parenting

Over the years I have been amazed by these traits which I have seen displayed in one of my friends through her blog posts. I hope that when we're to the training and teaching stage with Caleb that I will be able to implement some of my friend's ideas. Check out her website here for great ideas on lessons for teaching children, not to mention yummy recipes and creative gift ideas. Thank you, sweet friend, for giving me a desire to grow in these areas.