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!

Caleb is 1 Month!

 Caleb David is 1 month old!

We don't have an official one month appointment so I don't have his stats. However, I did just weigh myself with him on our home scale and it's saying 12lbs. I'm not sure just how accurate that is but I would guess that he's pretty close to that. He's a big boy! He's a good eater and giving us mostly 3 hour stretches and even a couple of 4 hour stretches at night. (After Levi I should be thankful for those long spurts this early but this Mommy is still tired!) I had to pull out some of his 3-6 month clothes this morning because he's filling out those 0-3 sleepers a little too well. He is waking up a little more these days and we're finding some fussiness after eating so I'm thinking he might be dealing with some reflux issues. I've cut out caffeine and dairy so we'll see how it plays out. Hoping he feels better soon. Everyone we meet has opinions on that incredible head of hair he has- some say he'll loose it, others say he'll keep it. Who really knows? So far, he hasn't seem to have lost any so we'll see. He has visited both sets of grandparent's houses, gone to church, a couple lunches and dinners out, lots of walks and even a trip to Sacramento to help Auntie Alison pick out a wedding dress. Caleb is still pretty easy at this point and just goes where we need him to go. We're still getting the hang of this family of four business but every day seems to get a little more predictable. Now if only we could convince our boys to let their parents sleep through the night! Wishful thinking... :)

Caleb enjoying bath time and that cute boy in the mirror.

Working on tummy time. This is usually when big brother Levi hops up to give kisses and head butts!

Caleb's Newborn Photos

A couple of weeks ago we had Jodie Martin come to our house to take some newborn pictures of Caleb. I've been sitting on these pictures because I was waiting for the birth announcements to go out so you'd be surprised at the great shots she got of our family. (I'm actually still holding back a few which you will see on our Christmas cards in a month!) Jodie was awesome and worked so hard trying to get our newborn to do what he was supposed to do and even got a couple great shots of Levi. Just to change things up, these are some great ones that we didn't include in the announcements...

The boy who always slept would not stay asleep! In between each shot we would bounce and shush and use this pacifier, so I couldn't resist showing this cutie with his favorite thing.

My sweet BIG boy. When did he get so big?!

I highly recommend Jodie if you're in the Modesto area. She was so great with my kids and was so patient. And she got our pictures back to us VERY quickly. Thanks Jodie!

Happy Halloween

So I'm a week late, but we did get out and celebrate Halloween last week as a family of 4. We visited the Seefeldts for a quick photo op and then went to the church I grew up in to see our cousins and play some games. I tried to find a costume for Levi that was not very involved because I figured he wouldn't put up with much this year. I thought I had done a great job with the fireman (just a jacket and a hat) but he adamantly refused to wear it all the times I tried to get him excited about it leading up to Halloween. But we got him dressed on Monday evening and he never took it off! He walked all around the carnival and played games and picked out candy and just had a blast. It was a great night!

Family picture:
Our big fireman and our little dalmation.

Fireman Levi

Playing games at the carnival.

Then we came back to our house to hand out candy. We easily had over a hundred kids come to our door trick-or-treating and we still had leftover candy! The cousins came over to play and pass out candy and celebrate this silly holiday together. This is one of the reasons we moved home-- for our kids to grow up with their cousins!

The Bottoms & Lockridge Cousins
Ashley is the oldest and then four boys under 2 1/2: Jack, Levi, Charlie and Caleb!

Two Kids for Two Weeks

We've officially been a family of four for two weeks now and its going great! We're definitely not sleeping very well (between Caleb's 3 hour feeding schedule and Levi's sore, teething mouth) but that was anticipated so it's hard to get too discouraged about our sleep just yet. I'm most surprised that the transition from 1 kid to 2 seems fairly smooth so far. Don't get me wrong, there have been a few moments here and there with both kids crying for something or feeling like I need to be doing twelve things at once but for the most part we're feeling very good about the new arrangements. Maybe it's because we're already in baby mode-- we're already on a schedule with feedings and naps and bedtimes so what's one more? Haha, at least this is how I feel about it today...ask me again in a couple of weeks! :)

Here's a quick catch up of what we've been up to:

Caleb's first outing to Grandpa and Uncle Bryan's new store.

 (BTW-- there's a new running specialty store in town and we know the owners! It officially opened this week and I'm sure they'd love to see you!)

Levi has been just the right amount of interested in his new brother. He's all about giving kisses and pats and points to him when people come to visit. Other than that, he still gets most of the attention because he's such a ham and likes to make people laugh. It just melts my heart to see my two boys together and I hope they're best friends for life.

Brotherly love <3

We've been taking lots of walks in our new stroller. Just like Levi, Caleb enjoys being outside in the sunshine and the weather has been perfect for our excursions to the park. The walks are good for Mommy too!

Our big boy who decided he'd rather use the big swings!

My view during one of our walks.

 And mostly we've just been hanging out at the house and loving on this new little guy. We've been so blessed to have lots of meals brought over by family and friends and our new group from church. It's such a great way for people to show love in this transition and we sure appreciate it.

 Spending lots and lots of time looking at this precious sleeping face.