Caleb's Play

It's a miracle! Caleb has started to play by himself! Caleb has constantly needed Travis or I to play with him the majority of his life. We have been working on his independence. He has just started to be able to play by himself. I really noticed it this past weekend. I think a big part of it is that he is starting to develop an attention span. He is also beginning to develop an imagination. This weekend he would play with his cars and make sounds with them and drive them around the kitchen. He also went into his bedroom and was playing by himself for a while, which is huge for us! It's so fun to see him able to entertain himself!!!
Next we are trying to work on getting him to read on his own. He will quickly flip through the pages of a book. He will also look at them longer if he we are driving in the car, but we really want him to be able to sit down and read for long periods (5-10 minutes) of time by himself. We'll see!
Today Caleb started his new preschool called "Kids R Kids." They said he had a great time. They also commented on how well he talks and on how clear his words are. When he turns 2 1/2 he will move to a class with the 2 1/2-3 year olds which I think will be fun for him. It's crazy that in like 2 months he will be 2 1/2!

Our New House

We are so excited! Two weeks ago we moved into a rental home. It is the first time we have lived in a home as a family...and the first time I haven't been in an apartment in 13 years. One of the things I noticed right away was that it was SO QUIET! I couldn't believe the difference. We also have double the amount of space we had in our old apartment. We have a backyard which was one of the main things we felt like we needed for Caleb. We also live on a cul-de-sac so I can go out with Caleb in the evening and he can ride around the cul-de-sac and I don't have to follow him around or feel worried about traffic. We found a new place for Caleb to go to daycare which is about 5 minutes from our house. Also Travis's school is about 10 minutes from our house. We both have a longer commute to work, which is not our favorite, and we are going to cancel our gym membership because with gyms, the farther I have to travel, the less likely I am to use it. We are waiting on pins and needles for it to start cooling down so we can spend more time outside.

The area we live in is in the beginning stages of being developed. There are all the major stores and of lot of fast food places, plus they have a new movie theater and a new ice hockey place for the minor league ice hockey team. There aren't a lot of sit-down restaurants yet which is probably pretty good for us actually. Our ward is very friendly. The building is just around the corner from our house.
The funny thing is we walked into the house and spent about 10 minutes in it and immediately wanted to get a contract for it, but we didn't realize how close it was to the church, to a nice day care place, to Travis's school, and so forth until we moved here. I guess we got lucky on that, because looking back I think we were a little rash on taking it as quickly as we did. Overall we are happy, Caleb is happy, and we are learning the ropes of taking care of the yard and such.

Schlitterbahn Trip

Our last family trip of the summer was another trip to Schlitterbahn. It's so hot here that any trip we take has to involve water and we like the water park at Schlitterbahn a lot better than the one at Sea World so we decided to take one last trip for the summer.
Caleb had a blast! There is so much that he loves to do there. He is like a little fish swimming around in the water. This trip he liked going around the "wave pool/ lazy river" with us that he has been a little uncomfortable with in the past. He loved the "pirate ship" where he goes down slides all by himself. He went down some slides where he was flying down and I was getting nervous but he was laughing like crazy. We also snuck him on to a ride we could do together called the "Family Blaster." One of the lifeguards told me that that was one of the only rides that we would all be able to do together, so after waiting for 30 minutes, we saw that you couldn't ride if you were under 42 inches. We were like, you have to be kidding me. Then the people in front of us suggested just throwing him in a life jacket and jumping on the ride like we didn't know. We did that and ended up being able to go. It is a giant circular tub that we sat in with Caleb wedged between us. You go down these roaring rapids and then get shot up to the top of the ride. I was screaming but Travis and Caleb were both laughing. It was so much fun to be able to do something all together.
At about 7:00 we decided to take him home and we pretty much had to drag him to the car. We were on the road for about about a half hour and he was out. It's about a 2 hour drive for us to Schlitterbahn. I wish it was closer because we would get season passes and go a lot more frequently. It's a really family friendly park. They have free parking and let you take in your own food and drinks. I was pretty proud of myself because I made chicken salad sandwiches and noodle salad, neither of which I had ever made before, and they were pretty delicious. I always bring way more food than I think we will eat and we usually end up eating all of it anyways. I think it has something to do with being in the sun and being outside all day. Anyways, that was the last trip we will be able to take this summer and it was a very successful one.