Caleb Samuel: 15-16 Months

This boy. All the heart-eyes. 

Stats: 18 month clothes. 4.5 teeth. A little bit of hair. 

Things to remember:

-He loves playing with Lydia and Austin. SO much. 

-He loves his fire truck. We took it outside for like 5 minutes then brought it back in because I didn't want the wheels to get dirty because he loves it so much inside. 

-Had a maybe-case-of Hand Foot Mouth? Really, I have no idea if it actually was HFM, but he had little bumps on his hands, feet, and bum. It was super stressful because we had to cancel a bunch of things even though we didn't know for sure, but didn't want to risk it. Luckily, they didn't seem to bother him at all. He felt fine, he was happy - so who knows? I'll just be grateful for that.

-He's started really walking and doing SO well! It's amazing because he went from walking a few steps to walking ALL over. I love this stage where they are getting their mobility and Caleb is SO so so so fun right now. 

-He's silly, such a good buddy to his siblings, and I can't say enough how much I love this age. 

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-Some of the funniest things that Caleb does right now: he uses the broom to sweep the floor. He finds my shoes and puts them on his hands and walks around with them. 

-When I go to get him out of the car he pats his buckle like he's telling me to unstrap him.It makes me laugh every time. 

--My friend Tausha came to visit from AZ and her little boy Jack showed up in matching clothes. It was so cute. 

Other cute pictures from this month: 

-We've had an amazing summer. And Caleb has been a champ to be along for the ride. We've paddleboarded, gone swimming, gone hiking, and packed our days full of summer joy. 

I love you darling boy. I'm so glad that I'm your mama and that we get to adventure through this life together. 

Dear Austin

Dear Austin, 

You are the sweetest boy with the biggest heart for your mama. It's not uncommon for you to come up to me, throw your arms around my neck, and hold on as tight as you can saying only one word "Mama". Sometimes that's extended to "You're my mama." You have recently been telling me "I'm going to stay with you forever." You melt my heart with how much you love me and I want you to know that I love you, too. SO much. 

We've been doing tokens as a bedtime reward. If you stay in your bed and go to sleep relatively easily, we tape a token to your bed and you get to put it on the chart in the morning. After 10 tokens you earn a prize. The last two times in a row (basically a month of bedtimes) you've requested a Mommy-Austin Ice Cream Date. It has been my pleasure, and I'm so lucky that the prize you want more than anything else is to spend extra time with me. This time around, when we were laying down at bedtime snuggling and talking about our ice-cream date, I asked if you wanted chocolate, vanilla, or a twist. You requested two ice cream cones - a twist and a plain chocolate. I agreed and when you finally earned the prize, you remembered and were so happy with your choices. 

Later that night when I came in to your room, after bedtime, I laughed because I loved the way you were sleeping so much. You were holding onto the bars of your bed like you'd fallen asleep holding on to them but you were still snuggled up tight.  

I love you Austin. You are special to me and I'm so glad to me someone who is so special to you.
Love, Mama.

Lehi Roundup, Hill Air Force Base and Back to Classic

We love Lehi-Round up and went to our two favorite things agin this year.

First was the mini-float parade. Wendy and Sam and their kids joined us (and we also were watching Jason and Camille). We love this parade and the floats were super fun this. (I can't remember the theme exactly, but it was something like back in the day- and resulted in a bunch of good old time floats.)

The next morning we went to the Grand parade and had a fantastic time. Usually we meet up with the Renchers and and find a spot along main street, but this time we tried to find a spot closer to the start of the parade and found a nice shaded spot that turned out great. 

Right after the Grand parade we went to Wines Park to check out the booths. My favorite thing by far was when Austin started dancing. I don't know if we have captured this before, but it is my favorite thing. He is so stinking cute. He kind of puts his arms up in a little chicken dance position and then shakes them around while he jumps around. It is so cute and fun and shows off his personality perfectly, I love it. Shante was nice enough to join him in his dance party.

The kids were excited to get a bunch of candy. Shantel even let them pick out 10-15 pieces to make giant candy balls (and then promptly hid the rest of the candy except a few pieces. The kids were in heaven.

You can tell by the massive number of open wrappers!

Lydia and Austin, showing off/eating their candy balls.

A few days later I had a day off and we decided to go to the Hill Air Force Base museum. Austin has been loving Airplanes and so we thought the museum would be fun for him.

We ate lunch in the shade of a giant airplane wing and then toured around the inside. 

Then we walked around outside and Austin showed me his plane.

I had the next day off and we had another Classic Skating day. We spent a long time skating and then played around in the bounce house area. One of the best parts was watching Caleb enjoy himself climbing around and he loved putting the balls in the blast zone in the little holes.