This was Caleb's first year trick or treating, last year we took him out on Halloween night, but just saw some neighbors and checked out the sites around town. This year we actually took him out to try out the whole trick or treat experience. He went (as you can see) as a Celtics basketball player (which was a total hit I might add...Boston fans are die hard with their teams so people loved it!) and Rachel was a pumpkin of course. You have to do the baby pumpkin you know? We went to a Halloween party a week or so before too, so Caleb was able to wear shorts and no shirt making him look more authentic that day. On Halloween night of course though, we bundled him up...don't worry! He had a blast, and got to eat his first piece of candy ever, which he was thrilled about as you will see!
The kids at the party!
It was impossible to get all of the kids to look at the camera, so this was the best we could do!
I didn't take any pics of Rachel on Halloween night for some reason, so this is a cute one of her at the party above.
Here is Jason taking Caleb to the houses on Halloween night.
We only did one street total, but I think he was pooped by the end.
So as you all know from before, Caleb has a peanut allergy, so his choices for his first piece of candy were all non-chocolate...but he didn't seem to mind. He picked Mike and Ike's.
And then he did his candy dance...
Finally, Caleb got some tattoo's from someone, and he and Daddy decided to show off their "guns" another evening with their tats. Ha ha! :) All in all, it was a fun time!
So as I posted earlier, I (Val) took a trip to the Poconos with the kids to see the family a few weeks ago in the middle of October. Mom, Dad and Matt were already planning on going, but since I had just recently gotten back from the trip to York, I hadn't planned on it. But the night before the family was leaving to go up to Lake Naomi, I decided at the last minute to join them. Unfortunately Jason couldn't go on this trip either because of work, but he did get some more seminary done in our absence. We had a great time seeing everyone again!
Here is the house we stayed in.
It was definitely cold in the Poconos. I had to bring out some of the kid's fleece outfits for the first time. It actually snowed like 5 inches or something like that the first few days we were there. It was crazy, but seriously beautiful!
Rachel hanging out with Roxy and Rowdy.
The first night we went to the country club of the Lake Naomi property and had a fun dinner overlooking the lake. It was the most gorgeous background for dinner with all of the new fallen snow.
Over the time that we were there, we took Caleb swimming in the indoor pool a few times. He had a blast!
Rachel came to the pool too, but she didn't go into the water just yet!
A group shot another night out for dinner.
After dinner out, we had a movie night, and Caleb and Pops didn't make it very long before falling asleep on the couch together. Caleb was so cute...he looked a little bit deceased actually (not to be morbid)! Ha ha!
Nora came to visit on the last day the kids and I were there (she lives like 20 minutes from where we were). We had a great time catching up and it was great that she got to meet Rachel!
One last pic with Grammy and Pops before heading to bed on the last night.
Mom and Dad snapped this one...we always have to take a picture of a deer while in the Poconos of course! :)
This has been a busy month of traveling for the kids and I, as we have taken two trips to PA in the span of three weeks or so (I spontaneously went to visit my family on their vacation in the Pocono's just this past week...I'll post pics of that trip soon!). I meant to post Rachel's 2 month stats before all of these trips, but didn't get around to it. I can't believe that she will be 3 months old this upcoming Saturday! She is definitely growing and being as cute as ever! She started giggling right after she turned 2 months old, (there's a cute video of that below) and she has found her fingers just like Caleb too. Although it looks like she is going to be partial to her thumb! Here were her 2 month old stats:
12.6 lbs (76th percentile) 24 inches long (90th percentile)
Two weekends ago we went to the Topsfield Fair for the first time. It is the oldest fair in the country apparently and it was definitely fun all around with animals, rides and of course great food! I think I am still partial to the York Fair and Jason to the Minnesota State Fair though (since we grew up with those). But we still had a fun family outing at this one!
Caleb loved pretending to drive the tractor!
This was Caleb's first time on a carousel. He liked it a lot!
Rachel had a good time too!
Checking out the goats.
This was the 1,400 some odd pound winning pumpkin this year!
One more time on the carousel before we headed home.
When Rachel was first born, we often remarked how much we thought she looked like Caleb. Now that she is just over two months old, she is starting to develop her own little look, less and less like Caleb everyday. So we might have missed our opportunity to take the "look-alike" photos (we were going to dress her up in some of his clothes for the comparison). But we still have a few shots that show some of their similarities. I would have you guess who is who, but they are wearing clothes that give it away, so I'll just tell you!
Caleb above and Rachel below, each at about 1 1/2 months old.
Again, Caleb above and Rachel below, each at about 2 months old.
We even think they have some similar sounds. The top video is Caleb's famous farting video (he was just under two months old when this was taken), and below is a video Grammy took this past week (Rachel is just over two months old now).
This one we tried to stage in the same outfit, but it is hard to see with the different angles of their faces. But their nose and mouth areas look similar to us anyhow!
After Caleb was born, we took a trip to PA to visit family, friends and neighbors so everyone could meet him. Mom and Dad hosted a little "get to know Caleb" drop-in party then too, and we took pictures of all of the people who visited Caleb. Well, just last week, the kids and I (along with Grammy, who came to Salem first in order to come with us on the drive to PA), took a trip down to York to do the same kind of thing. We saw lots of family and friends and we had a great time! It was a bummer Jason had to stay back because of work and seminary, but at least he got a lot of school work done in our absence. Here are some pics of the trip!
Our first stop on the way to York was to Uncle Matt's place in NJ to visit for a few hours and have lunch.
The next day after arriving, we had a lunch date with some family members at Marino's. Here's Aunt Ann (Val's god-mother) with Rachel below.
And this is Val's other god-mother, Aunt Sue, with Rachel too!
Caleb was entertaining himself (and all of us) during lunch with his crayon cup!
A cute shot of Grammy and her grandson :)
A group shot with the Aunts and with Flossie (she's on the far left).
Pops was at lunch too, but he had to go back to work before we could get any pics of him. Here he was with the li'l lady that night.
The next day I had a lunch date with some of my friends from PSU. The shot above was taken right before I left for lunch (it's the first picture I've ever taken holding both kids...I need to do that more often)!
We all met up at Isaac's for lunch. That's Charlotte, Jamie's daughter above.
Here's Kim holding Rachel.
This is Abigail, Carolyn's daughter above. She and Charlotte are a few months older than Caleb.
A group shot minus Caleb. He stayed back with Grammy because he had a little runny nose (I didn't want to get anyone sick of course) and also because I would have had my hands full with the two of them at lunch! Ha ha!
Checking out the ducks after lunch.
While I was out with Rachel, Grammy took Caleb to the park. He always has so much fun on swings and slides! What a cool Grammy he has!
That night, everyone was tired from a long day of fun!
On Friday we took the kids shopping at Park City Mall. This was a sleepy Caleb still waking up at breakfast before we left. I just think this picture is funny!
On our last day in York, Grammy and Pops hosted a "get to know Rachel" drop-in party like they did for Caleb, and a lot of family and neighbors got to meet her. Here she is cooing with Grammy before people arrived.
Her party cake!
On the Debes side there are two cousins of mine that have children. One family couldn't come because Sue Ann was sick with pneumonia (we missed you guys!), but we did get to see John, Alexandra and their daughter Katrina. Katrina is 3 1/2, and John and Alexandra are expecting another little one in late February. It was so fun seeing Katrina with Rachel...a picture of things to come! :)
Cousin John with Rachel.
LOVE this pic! What a great dad he is!
We were trying to get the kids to pose....good thing Katrina knew what to do. She did a great job trying to keep Caleb in place!
Alexandra with Rachel.
This is kind of hard to see, but the kids were throwing balls around with John and this is the two of them in mid-throw. These kids both have some good arms!
Uncle John and Aunt Joanne with Rachel.
Neighbor Mrs. Craven with Rachel.
Neighbor Rachel with Rachel :)
Neighbor's Mrs. Freer (above) and Mr. Freer (below) with Rachel.
Neighbor Mrs. Pomeroy with Rachel.
We saw some other neighbors too but didn't get pics of everyone unfortunately. The last people to stop over for the night were Aunt Sue and Uncle Roge. That's Uncle Roge below with Rachel.
One last shot with Grammy and Pops to end the night.
During Caleb's snack time right before bed, Rachel totally feel asleep in the bumbo. She had such a fun, but long day.
And this was on Sunday on our way back to Salem with Grammy. I think Caleb was really thinking about giving Rachel a french toast stick! We had a fantastic trip. It was so great seeing everyone!
A few weeks ago I set up a fun family date for a Friday night after Jason got home from work. I just thought I would share some of the pics from that night because there are a few of Caleb in particular that are cute. It was a "Night of Make Believe" and we did activities from playing dress up to pretending to be airplanes and farm animals, to painting and pretending to be brilliant artists. We ended the night watching Madagascar 2 (because talking animals is make believe too of course)!
You can't really read anything on here, but here is the table set up of the activities for the evening.
Caleb chose to play dress up first, so he got to dress up in Daddy's clothes! He loved wearing Jason's soccer jersey.
Of course he stopped the fun to give Rachel kisses as per usual! The day before we actually tried her out in the bumbo, and she seemed to like it. Here's a cute pic of her in it below we took that night.
Hmmmm maybe Caleb will follow in Daddy's footsteps and teach math someday!
Big shoes to fill.
The next activity was to teach Caleb how to pretend he is an airplane, how to bicycle his legs and how to pretend to swim.
Bicycling above....turned into wrestling and tickles below!
Then we pretended as I said above to be brilliant artists and to paint a masterpiece. This was actually Caleb's first time painting with a brush. He did a great job!
And after all of the activities, we had our movie night and just snuggled together on the couch. It was a blast! So I know it's kind of a silly thing to share on the blog, but I hope you enjoyed at least seeing some fun pictures of the kids!
I am finally going through my pictures from the last month since we were computer-less for a little while there, and I have a bunch to post. They are all sorts of random shots from silly moments to cutie kid pics. Enjoy!
We're finally getting some good smiles on camera!
Just a fun shot to capture that cute sprig of hair she has on the top of her head.
You know your little boy is growing up when he can eat corn on the cob all by himself!
We thought this was funny...Caleb was picking up the milk jugs when we got home from the store one day. It's funny because a gallon of milk weighs around 11.5 lbs or something like that, and Caleb only weighs 23! It's pretty awesome that he can lift half his body weight! Ha ha!
First home hair cut done by Daddy. Jason did a great job! Below is the finished product, with Caleb's silly face!
I was trying to get a picture of him smiling, but he kept sticking his tongue out. Ahhh to be one and a half! But I finally got a cute one. Look at all of those teeth!
This outfit from Grammy and Pops with the adorable shoes from Aunt Sue make Rachel look like she belongs in Boca Raton don't you think? :)
Here is the first time Jason gave Rachel a bottle above, and the first time I gave her one below (it's expressed milk in case anyone is wondering...nursing is still going great)! As you can see, Caleb was interested in the process the first time...I think he wanted some milk!
I just liked this sleeping pic of the little peanut.
Rachel's first real bath above.
This was Caleb eating a roll after we got home from the grocery store. I was putting groceries away and turned around to find that he had opened the bag and was munching on one!
Rachel was a trooper after getting her immunizations at her 1st month check-up! You can see the little band-aid on her left leg.
Wearing Daddy's boots :)
Rachel has pretty strong head and body control for her age, above is her in tummy time a few weeks ago, and below she is standing pretty steady.
A fun video of the kids playing together above, and another video of Daddy playing with the kids below.
I wish I could know what she is thinking here...
Doesn't she look so happy? Smiling in her sleep with her little belly hanging out. What a life!
I think Caleb wanted to try to feed her!
So this was the picture I took right after she rolled over the other week (she was not too happy about rolling off the blanket onto the hard floor)! I only wish I would have had time to record it.
And finally, here are a few pics from a play date that I took the kids to this morning. We went to a fun park that has barn yard animals and a great playground for the kids. That is Caleb sitting next to Reese (Mia's in the back) above, and all of the kids in the group that were there this morning below. I am so blessed to be a part of such a great group of Moms, with awesome kiddos for Caleb and Rachel to play with!
So we put all of these pics on Facebook too, but for those of you not on there, I thought I would do a quick post of some of the people who came to visit Rachel in the first few weeks after she was born.
Above are our friends Sean and Nicole who came over one night to see the kids (they are friends from church). Caleb LOVES these two by the way. They are some of his favorite people :)
This is Dawn (our Pastor's wife) and her awesome kids!
The top pic is of Jess and her daughter Kaitlin, and the guy with Jason is Matt (Jess's husband) with Kaitlin (Jason has Rachel of course). Kaitlin was born 1 week earlier than Rachel almost to the hour. We had so much fun being pregnant at the that same time as the Modaff's. They are also some of Caleb's favorite people too! At church, Caleb likes to say, "Matt!" when he sees Mr. Matt...and then he likes to go give him a high five!
These three ladies are just a few of the Moms from my Mom's group who made us meals and came to visit (there were a bunch of others, but we didn't get pics of those ladies unfortunately)! They are Julie, Caitlin and Beth above.
Then Val's Mom (Grammy) and Uncle Matt (Val's bro) came for a few days when Rachel was a couple of weeks old. We even took Rachel to the beach for the first time (I'll post a few pics of that another time) when they were in town.
And finally, Jason's Dad (Grandpa) and Step-Mom (Nana) were in the area to see Jason's Grandma, so we went to CT to meet up with them all, so they could meet Rachel too! Look how Rachel is just checking Grandma Lee out. She just kept staring into her eyes. So sweet!
We're sorry for the hiatus in posting the last couple of weeks. Our laptop died and our old PC would just take too long to upload a video! But we are back up and running now. Rachel has changed so much just in the last few weeks. She is now 6 weeks old and is doing just great! We had her 1 month appt. last week (it was scheduled a little late since our pedi was on vacation), and Rachel is totally thriving in the growth department. Her are her current stats for those of you who are interested:
11.2 lbs - 80th percentile
22 inches - 72nd percentile
The doctor was very happy with her growth and her head control too! In other news, Rachel smiled for the first time on August 24th (when she turned exactly one month old), and the coolest part was, Caleb was leaning over her, (and was giving her some love and kisses as per usual), and she smiled at him! It's so sweet that Caleb received the first social smile. Here's a video we took the other week of her smiling for the camera.
Caleb has been doing great with Rachel too. He has really transitioned well to having her around, and it has been fun to see him show her off to people. He is so proud to be a big brother! Here's a cute video of him giving her a tummy kiss (we call it a "zerbert").
He just loves to hold her.
Check out those adorable shoes from Aunt Sue!
Look at that big smooch!
Caleb loves to lay right next to Rachel any chance he gets.
He even pretends to read to her. It is so adorable!
And possibly our favorite picture of them all...Caleb teaching Rachel the ropes on how to master the two fingers sucking technique. Too funny! :)
Finally, Caleb got some tattoo's from someone, and he and Daddy decided to show off their "guns" another evening with their tats. Ha ha! :) All in all, it was a fun time!
