Caleb's 'new laugh'

In the last few days Caleb has started a 'new (contrived) laugh'... but him cracking himself up cracks us up as well.  See for yourself...

(video):

No... No... No... No... The 2 year old.

It seems very obvious to us that we now have a two-year-old based solely on the monumental increase in usage of this word on a daily basis.  New word of the day, week, month?  ....Hopefully not for the entire year!!

Caleb has always been a very good eater, but lately he is not very interested in breakfast in particular, and many things we offer him are answered with a 'no' - sometimes a real no that he absolutely doesn't want, and sometimes just an initial response but if we don't rush him he will end up accepting and eating it.  Many would say we are lucky to only start dealing with food issues now after two years.  That is certainly true, but the 'no' word is permeating all areas of our daily lives.  Oh, the joys of a two year old...

On the other hand, as language is continuing to evolve and increase, there are so many cute, funny, and interesting things that we enjoy hearing come out of Caleb's mouth.  Here are a few:

Caleb has started saying his own name, sort of... "Ca-ba"  (pronounced que-ba).  It started mostly from talking about Caleb Elson :)

Me:  Caleb, do you remember how old you are now?
C:  Two!
Me:  Do you know how old mommy is?
C:  Old.

We were trying to get Caleb wound down for bed a few nights ago, and he was in the living room standing by his toys.  I told him to say goodnight to his toys so we could get in bed, and he walked over to Mack (a multi-car transporter from the Cars movies), leaned over towards the truck, and said 'Goodnight Mack', as if he were saying it to his friend.  So cute.

Several recent pictures of Mr. Caleb the 2-yr-old:

Caleb the Frenchman? (a chocolate mustache)

Enjoying his cupcake on Nana Gigi's birthday

Caleb's tailgate BBQ, placing the burgers on the tailgate of his truck :)

Caleb's first time painting with something other than water.  Mommy did help a little, but he actually did a really good job! 

Caleb is proud to show off this little car in his room now :)

The Dinner Cupcake:  Better known as a Stuffed Bell Pepper.  We had stuffed peppers for dinner and when I showed the small orange one to Caleb that I had made for him, I asked, "Do you know what this is?"  He replied "Yes, cupcake."  My first response was to tell him it was actually a bell pepper, but I quickly realized that he wasn't going to be happy to eat that, so I said "its like a dinner cupcake!"  He was thrilled, and ate all of the filling.  Meanwhile I'm thinking the entire time, 'he's never going to buy this...', but he did!  

Boy, have two years gone by quickly!!

Stockton Children's Museum

What a cool place.  I saw this place on the news a few months ago, and it is definitely somewhere we will be returning to!  They have a real ambulance, police car, police motorcycle, semi-mini firetruck (big, but not full sized), city bus, helicopter, mini grocery store complete with all sorts of food and a cash register, bank, post office, veterinarian office, farm equipment, an art room, and more, and everything is for the kids to climb on and play inside.  We went with Amy Elson, Becky Harper, and all the little ones, and it was definitely a fun morning!

Caleb Elson the farmer :)

He always finds the dump trucks and tractors. This one was especially cool because it has the digger and dump truck part all in one truck.

Playing house inside a miniature wooden house

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

Inside the fire truck

Kaitlyn Harper wanted to give us a puppet show :)

First time painting on paper with paint (although in this picture it was on the hand more than on the paper)

As you can see he quickly found out how fun it was to run his fingers around on the wet paper and paint his hands, too. 

"Show mommy your hand Caleb".  After this picture a finger went into his mouth to 'taste' the paint.  Yuck.

First time with Playdough.  Going to have to make some of this at home...

His first masterpiece

Summer Fun

A Sunday lunch with Nana Gigi

Caleb walking Gio and Bella

Cycle Fest in Downtown Lodi 

First trip to the Farmer's Market this summer, and first one ever for Landon

Washing his truck like daddy...

 

Trying to stay cool on a (rare) hot afternoon this July

Caleb wouldn't do it by himself, but he had a blast jumping and flying like a torpedo through the water with Jimmy 

(Video of Jimmy and Caleb running through the Seal spray):

Going for a ride on the Walters' boat. You can see that Caleb was quite excited about it!  He even got to see a train go over the trestle above us on the river, which he loved.

Landon's first boat ride!  Having fun with 'Uncle Eli'

Beep Beep!!

....More to come soon....

To the Zoo we went

We took Caleb to the Sacramento Zoo at the end of June, thinking that he is interested enough in animals and probably at a good age for seeing animals in person and enjoying it.  Well, he wasn't so into it.  Light breakfast + 45 minute drive + no hands-on interaction = tired toddler who wanted to go home :(   Landon, as usual, was just happy to be along for the ride as he sipped on his bottle in the stroller.

This was my favorite exhibit.  There is a viewing platform and you can get pretty close to the giraffes.
They are such cool animals! 

What Caleb did like was 'driving' the animal car, as well as riding (two times) on the animal carousel...

<Video of Caleb riding the Carousel with Jimmy> :

Caleb's 2nd Birthday

Today was Caleb's second birthday, and what a great day it turned out to be!  

This morning Caleb slept  in a bit (anything past 6:30am these days is considered great), a treat we haven't had for at least a month, and it seemed to give the day a good start... 

Daddy made Caleb pancakes for breakfast, which were still on Caleb's mind after the Fourth of July Pancake Breakfast.


The theme of Caleb's party was Toy Story, since Caleb is loving that trilogy these days...  If you ask him who his favorite character is, he will usually say "Wooty!", with a big smile and lots of enthusiasm.  But then we will randomly hear him say something that took us a long time to figure out... "...a-beeya!!" (translated: "...and beyond!", just like Buzz Lightyear says).  I think he just loves the movies, regardless of any favorite character.   So I made what I told him was a 'special birthday outfit and birthday hat' to dress him like Woody.  Most of the outfit didn't stay on long enough for me to even get a good picture of it, but I think you can get the idea from this series of pictures below...  I was proud of my project, and he looked so darn cute when it was all on :)

No, we don't have three kids... I just loved this picture though, and cousin Tessa was ready to dive in and help Caleb with his giant cupcake.  Meanwhile, Landon (aka Buzz Lightyear) is taking 'Woody's' hat...

An all around nice day, and we are so thankful for Caleb!!