Lots of Christmas!

Another great Christmas season is behind us and we feel so loved! We got to see both sides of our family and enjoy both quality and quantity of time. We celebrated at my parents' house on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning at Great Grandma's house, and Christmas Day with the Lockridges. My boys are beyond blessed for all the love and presents they received and now we're just wondering where it's all going to go! Here's a quick peak at our whirlwind weekend:

Cousin Lindsey, Levi, and Auntie Sarah

Grammy and Auntie Alison trying to get the boys to model their PJ's santa hats!

My sweet boy who was indulging on sweets while Mommy was giving his brother a bath.
It's always more fun at Grandpa & Grandma's house!

Mommy and her big LITTLE guy

Levi and Grandpa checking out his construction set

Cars! Sitting with Daddy at Great Grandma's house on Christmas morning.

Grandma Lockridge getting in some Caleb cuddles.

Grandpa Lockridge and Caleb

Levi loves his new BBQ!

And lastly, my attempt at getting both of my boys in their cutie patootie, matching pi's in one picture...

I think I need to resign myself to the fact that I'm only going to get pictures of both my boys if other people are in the picture holding them. Oh well. I tried. :)

We hope you celebrated the season with those you love and felt the anticipation and joy in the remembrance of our Savior's birth. Merry Christmas to all!

Visiting Santa

We took the boys to McHenry Village today to visit with Santa. Levi was all smiles and waves and pointing the whole time we were in line. I was thinking those were all good signs and that we were going to get a great shot with both boys... 

No such luck :)

Levi was fine till the hand off.
Then we got this gem of holiday picture.

So Dad and Mom hopped in with the pacifier to try to save the visit. 

At least we tried, right? Merry Christmas from the Lockridges!

Bass Lake

We went up to Bass Lake with the Lockridges for our 1st annual Christmas tradition. We rented a cabin with lake views and just enjoyed a little R&R before the holidays. We watched movies, read a little, finished a puzzle (which is a pretty huge accomplishment with a 16 month-old running around), walked by the lake and made some great meals. It was fun to be away and have some down time and enjoy each others company. I definitely think it will be a Lockridge family tradition from here on out!

Checking out the lake with Uncle Charlie.

Pointing out the ducks- Quack Quack Quack!

Family picture attempt!

Grandma Lockridge with her walking stick.

Walking the pier with Daddy

I hear theres a great picture of the whole family so I'll have to try to get my hands on it for the blog. Thanks for a great time Lockridge family! Love you all! :)

Caleb is 2 Months

 Caleb David is 2 months old!

15 lbs. 8 oz.

24 inches

We got home from L.A. just in time to take Caleb to the pediatrician for his 2 month check up. He's off the charts and growing, growing, growing! He sure is a healthy boy! He is still giving us 7-9 hour stretches at night which is amazing. He's put himself on a great little 3 hour schedule and I keep finding myself describing him as an "easy" baby. I'm sure it's a mixture of being a 2nd time mom, understanding the theories of nap times and bed times, and a big dose of his nature and personality. He's cooing and "talking" up a storm and giving us some of the biggest smiles I've ever seen on an 8 week-old. He likes to watch his big brother and his big brother loves to give him kisses and cuddles and sometimes even wants to hold him (uh-oh!). He is a trooper and goes where we need him to go and sleeps where we need him to sleep and just is an all-around easy going sort of guy. We sure do love him! 

Our Big little guy with the hair that just can't be tamed. :)

L.A. Weekend

My sister graduated from Azusa Pacific last weekend and the whole family drove down to celebrate. It was our first trip as a family of four and we packed so much stuff! Our good friends, the Putnams, let us borrow their house on the beach so we were able to spread out and give the boys their own rooms. It was such a blessing to have some space and a place near "home". I have seriously missed our friends and the beach and got a good dose of both this weekend. We got to do dinner with some great families and their precious girls and we have not one picture to show for it. Let's just say that there were 7 babies and lots of noise and great food and it was so good to see them all. Thanks for making time for us! 

Then we drove back and forth to Azusa to see Sarah and her friends graduate. It was so special and we are all so proud of her! Way to go Bear! :)

Sibling love

Harden Family

The whole gang

Levi loving on his Auntie

Caleb was along for the ride too!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

December has already been a fun and busy month!

We walked in the Merced Christmas parade with Grandma Lockridge's float from work:

Levi with Grandma and Grandpa Lockridge

One of the other floats thought Levi was so cute they gave him a pair of reindeer antlers :)

Then we drove straight to Modesto and dropped the boys off with Grandma and Grandpa Harden at the Modesto Christmas parade so Dave and I could have a date night. Thanks for the night off!

Ringing our jingle bells with Grammy!
Levi loved all the cars covered in lights and even got to see Uncle Mikey riding on a horse. 

And we've been decorating the house! 

Ok, not a lot going on in here but I found a discount website for those glass jars behind the sink and filled them with ornaments from Big Lots. Yay for good deals! 

Our staircase wrapped with garland and our improvised place to hang out stockings. No fireplace :(

Our tree! Biggest one yet and picked again on the first try. We're super fast tree picker-outers. 

We had to add another stocking to our collection this year.

My tree skirt splurge. I love having our names on things! :)

Not quite dark outside, but you get the idea. Dave spent two days putting up lights this year. He diagramed and planned exactly how he was going to do the lights and was exactly right. Except that the lights we brought home were a "cool white" which means they were actually blue. :( So after worrying about it for a night, Dave decided to take them down and put them all back up with a "warm white" color. They look great and we're so happy with them!

And Santa came a little early this year for our big little guy:

This gives us some place to get our energy out inside the house. We've been wondering what to put in our playroom and looks like we found it. Levi definitely approves!

One last shot of our littlest guy with his favorite Mommy.

Mommy's Christmas came early this year too... Levi is back to sleeping through the night (thank the LORD) and Caleb has given us a week of 5, 6 hour stretches and then this weekend he went 7 hours straight and then the next night went 9 hours straight! I'm not cocky enough to think that this will happen every night but this was unheard of with Levi at this age so I'm feeling very lucky and pretty well rested. We'll see how it goes on our big trips in the next two weeks...

Merry Christmas everyone! 

6 Week Recap

It's been 6 weeks since Caleb entered our family and I thought it was time for a recap of how things have been...

General: Life with two kids has been going well! I hesitate to say it's been easy, because it has not, but the last 6 weeks are already a little hazy and I mostly remember the good moments. I feel good about the times when Levi leans in to give his little brother a head butt (Levi's sometimes gentle version of a kiss), when Dave and I can look up at each other amidst chaos and just smile realizing we're in this together, taking walks with both of my boys, the two-kid/two-parent situation where we can both take responsibility for "our" kid (Dave has Levi, I have Caleb), and my thankfulness that we have two happy and healthy boys. There have definitely been moments where they're both crying or both wake up in the middle of the night or when Levi wants my undivided attention as I'm nursing Caleb and other overwhelming situations but, in all honesty, I mostly feel incredibly blessed. And tired. I feel tired too. :)

Caleb: We are so blessed by this handsome boy. When we were in the delivery room with him, my doctor called attention to his umbilical cord. He told Dave to take a picture because the cord had a perfect little knot in it. We didn't think much about it at the time but later I talked with some people and did some google searching of my own and realized that a knot in the cord is rare. Not unheard of, but rare. What's also rare is a baby surviving with a complete knot. Apparently it is a common reason for stillbirths and miscarriages. It's no secret that Caleb is our little surprise this year and that he came on the Lord's timing. Now we feel he beat some even bigger odds by being perfectly fine in spite of that little knot. As with all children, we feel like God must have some pretty big plans for this little guy! (I've included a picture of his umbilical cord at the end of this blog. It's not very graphic but it is during my c-section so if you'd rather not see it then I would skip the last picture.) We don't want to sensationalize the experience but I think it's our story and needs to be shared. We just feel so blessed to be his parents and can't wait to see what is in store for him.

Levi: He's a great big brother! He loves checking on Caleb, he hates it when Caleb cries, he points to Caleb when we pass strangers in the grocery store and, like I said before, he loves to give Caleb kisses and cuddles. He melts my heart. He's also learning more and more words and I'm so proud of him! When prompted, he can point to his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, chin, teeth, belly. He can roar like a lion, ruff like a dog, make a noise for an elephant, growl like a bear, bawk like a chicken, and a few others depending on his mood. It's as though every day he does something new and it is so fun to watch!

Weights & Measures: At 5 weeks we went in for Levi's 15 month check up and shots. It was my first trip with both boys and it was a little complicated but we survived. Levi is 29.8 lbs. and 33 inches. 95% across the board. Caleb was also weighed and measured and came in at 12.13 lbs. and 23 inches. 95% across the board. I can't help but call them my little moose children. They're HUGE! Good thing they're taking after Dave!

Me: I had a rough start to the healing process as I somehow got an infection in my incision shortly after leaving the hospital. After a quick trip to the ER for antibiotics and a CT scan (to make sure it hadn't spread anywhere else), I healed up just fine and was given a clean bill of health. Not a great week but during my brief hiatus in the ER we learned that Caleb will take a bottle like a champ. Go him! I'm all good to go now and I'm ready to get in shape so I can look good in a wedding coming up in June! :)

Dave: He is the glue that is holding this mess together! He's working so hard and pulling double duty with me and the boys. I'm still working out how to keep the noise level down and Levi out of his office during work hours and Dave is being very patient as we're working the kinks out of our days. He's taken one overnight trip so far (we survived!) and he has two more lined up in the next couple of weeks. He is officially Levi's favorite person in the world which is both nice (it gives me a break when I have to do Caleb stuff) and not-so-nice (when Dave has to leave or close his office door Levi feels a little abandoned). He seems to be handling this Dad-of-two thing very well!


Week 6: This week has been spent sick. Ugh. I got it first, then Levi, now Dave. (Thankfully Caleb seems to been healthy still.) Dave spent a good two days putting up Christmas lights and I got our tree mostly set up and then the sickness hit us and Christmas progress stopped. We felt so lousy this week that the boys and I spent a couple of days in our jammies. We're feeling better now and getting in the Christmas spirit!


We seem to be getting in to the groove of this family of four business and we're just trying to enjoy each moment as it comes. (Although I probably need to be reminded of that when Caleb wakes me up two or three times tonight...) Update complete! Hoping to now start learning from the last six weeks and move on a little more proactively and enjoy the Christmas holiday as a family of four.

*Coming up is the picture of Caleb's umbilical cord*

A tangible example of God's love and grace in our lives.

Thankful Weekend

This Thanksgiving weekend we spent with the people we love most-- FAMILY! We chased Levi around because he does. not. stop. moving. EVER. And cutie pie Caleb slept the weekend away in the arms of anyone who was wanting some extra cuddles. We ate way too much and laughed a ton and thoroughly enjoyed our time together. Thankful doesn't seem to do justice to the way we feel about our lives, our family, our home and our friends but since that is the theme for the weekend-- we are very, very thankful!

Levi jumping in the leaves

Family picture attempt at the Turkey Trot

Caleb sleeping in Auntie Christina's arms

Levi hamming it up for the camera

Caleb sleeping in the middle of noise and people at the Harden family Thanksgiving. 

Levi helping Daddy hang Christmas lights at Grandpa & Grandma Lockridge's house.

Levi helping to pick out our Christmas tree. He's such a helper!

I have a ton more pictures of my cute boys but Levi is usually blurry because he doesn't want to sit still and Caleb is in various positions of sleep. They're very predictable these days and we love them both so much! 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Now on to decorate our house for the holidays! Yay!