A Christmas to Remember

We had a wonderful Christmas this year!  Caleb's first Christmas was definitely a big hit!  We visited family and spend Christmas Day just the three of us.  What a celebration it was!

(Just to warn you, this post is full of pictures! I got some good practicing in for my 365 Days of Photos Project!)

We began our Christmas festivities on Friday evening at Tom's gramma's house.  Caleb was the star of the show!  He received tons of gifts...his favorite being a board book about farm animals that was also touch and feel!  He L.O.V.E.D. the dog the best! He kept wanting Aunt Kacie to go back to the dog page!

I think this kid is going to be a big reader! 

Caleb also received an adorable hat from his Aunt Susan! Here is a picture of Caleb in his had along with his Aunt Kacie.

Caleb also spent a lot of time with his Grandma and Grandpa!

And we can't forget food! Caleb LOVES his food!

 

On Friday night we left Tom's grandma's house and headed to the in-laws home to spend the night.  The girls watched It's a Wonderful Life while the guys watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation! We snuggled under blankets with hot cocoa in hand.  What a wonderful way to spend the Christmas holidays!

On Saturday morning we all woke with excitement and began opening gifts. But first, my father-in-law read the Christmas story from the Bible.

Caleb enjoyed playing with Grandma while we all opened our gifts.

Isn't this kid just way too cute!

We had to take the Stearns family traditional picture with all the kids/grandkids with all the gifts! :)

Later Caleb enjoyed playing with a little church that made noise while laying on his Grandpa's lap.

We really enjoyed seeing Tom's parents and his sister, Kacie and her boyfriend, Ryan. Spending time with family is probably my favorite part of the holidays!

On Christmas Eve afternoon we headed back to St. Louis so that we could spend Christmas Day together as a family.  We woke up Christmas morning at 5:30am! Not because Tom and I necessarily wanted to, but because Caleb decided that's when he wanted to eat!

We decided to go ahead and open gifts since we were already wide awake!

Caleb got a Llama Llama book for Christmas!

He was very excited! :)

We decided to start the Stearns family traditional Christmas picture with Caleb at our house this year!  Doesn't he look adorable and so excited?! :)

Tom and I then fixed a big Christmas breakfast of Pancakes, Bacon and Eggs before getting ready for church.  Before we left, we snapped a few pictures in front of the Christmas tree!

Caleb looked so cute in his red and green dress shirt!

I also snapped a couple pictures that afternoon of Caleb on our bed!

 

On Monday morning we headed out early to my parents house in Mt. Vernon. We got to see my step grandma Joan and her daughter LaDonna in the morning.  Then that afternoon we got to opening presents!  But before that we had to snap a picture of our dood! Baxter LOVED visiting my mom and dad's house! 

My sister, Kirsten's big surprise gift was a charm for her charm bracelet.  It was a dog bone that said Levi on it. (Levi is her dog's name and she is just a tad bit obsessed with him!)

My mom wrapped it up in three different sized boxes so that she would have NO IDEA what it was!  She was so surprised!

Caleb also enjoyed unwrapping presents on his Nana's lap.

I do believe his favorite was a school bus that made animals sounds!  Here is a video of him playing with it!

My dad enjoyed spending some quality time with his grandson as well.

We also snapped a few pics of Tom and I opening our gifts.

 We surprised my sister with a lamp she has been wanting for Target!  It's amazing that a simple lamp can bring so much joy to a 15 year old!  She loved it because it went so well in her travel themed room!

That night, Tom and I were trying very hard to get my sister to take out our dog Baxter. It was wet and neither Tom or I brought appropriate shoes!  I promised her that if she took him out I would let her do my hair however she wanted.  Well, not the best idea to let a 15 year old do you hair.  This is how it turned out...

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year! Having Caleb around was by far the best part.  Tom and I still look at him and say to each other, "What did we ever do without him?"  It really is amazing how children can change you so much for the better.  He makes us both want to be better people.  Caleb is such a joy in our lives.  We love you little buddy!

Kaitlin

365 Days of Photos

This blog is very new and has two ultimate goals...#1 to show our family and friends pictures and videos of Caleb as he grows up since so many of them live far away and #2 to force me to take more pictures.  I have a nice camera and I have no excuse, but I am HORRIBLE at getting it out and actually using it.  Therefore, I have made a new years resolution early.  I am going to take more pictures. And when I say more, I mean every. single. day.

That's right. I'm jumping on board the 365 Days of Photos Project.  It seems to be going feverishly around the blogging world and I thought what better way for me to take more pictures than with a "picture challenge."  And this blog will be what keeps me going.

I have not set anything in stone yet, but my thought is that I will take at least one picture every single day and then do a post of the previous weeks pictures on Sundays.  This way, I don't have to post every day, but I do have to take pictures every day.

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates on this blog.  I am finding it very enjoyable to document all of our family memories and I am always looking for new ideas to add to it!  I hope you are enjoying as well!

We are off to do all of our Christmas celebrations on Friday so I will be back next week with hopefully tons of pictures!  It will be my trial run before January 1st! Wish me luck!

Merry Christmas!
Kaitlin

Christmas Gatherings and a Milestone for Caleb!

It's been yet another busy week for the Stearns family and we are so looking forward to the upcoming Christmas festivities with family this coming weekend.

First off, the biggest news of the day...CALEB IS ROLLING OVER! YAY!!

He rolled over for the first time Monday morning and I caught it on video on my phone once.  He is only doing it in the morning time (his happy time!) so Tom has yet to catch him in the act! :(

I haven't caught him on video on my camera yet, but here is a bit of Caleb and Tom's conversation from the other night! It's quite entertaining!

On Sunday, Tom and I traveled to Mt. Vernon for a baby-get-together!  My cousins both had baby boys this year as well. (We all had our babies within a 3 month time span! Crazy, I know!)  Anyway, this was our first time getting all of the three boys together.

Notice my son is the only one crying! Of course!

It was so fun to see them as they are growing.  I can't believe how big they have all gotten already.  Time flies by so fast.  I can only imagine what it will be like next Christmas with a slew of toddlers walking around.

Tom and I will be heading to good ol' southern Illinois this Friday night to spend Christmas Eve with his folks.  Then we will spend Christmas at home just the three of us (four if you count Baxter!).  We started this tradition the year we got married because we wanted to make Christmas about OUR new family and we definitely did not want to be traveling Christmas Day.  On Monday morning we will head out to visit my folks in Mt. Vernon.  Then next week Tom is working from home so we will be able to have some quality family bonding time! :)  Hopefully we can also finish some projects around the house that we have been talking about for months.

Caleb went back to physical therapy today.  We have noticed him reverting back to his old ways where his neck is concerned since we got the helmet on.  We have been working really hard with him at home, but his neck muscles seemed to be tightening up again.  However, our P.T. informed me that he has made drastic improvements and will probably only need two more sessions before he is discharged! Praises for that!

In other news, Tom and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary on Monday.  I sure did not expect to be in this phase of life a few years ago, but I'm so happy I am.  God put me here for a reason and it sure has been a fun ride so far.

As I mentioned last week, Tom and I have been starting a Bible study that we have created from home.  We are doing daily Bible readings, prayers, and working on different virtues that we are struggling with (i.e. patience).  We are also doing what we call "Life Studies" on the weekends and "Book Studies" throughout the week.  We are really enjoying it.  I also feel that we have cut our TV viewing back immensely because of this.  We have about four shows we watch throughout the week (one show each night basically) and that's about all the television we watch.  It's been nice to reconnect with each other and to get away from the vegetable state we were in while watching television.  We plan on getting rid of our DirecTV in April and I don't think we will go back for a long time.

Anyway, sorry for the extremely wordy post.  I'll try to put up many more pictures next time!

Last week I told you that Caleb ate solid food for the first time! Here is a video clip of his first experience with yummy, yummy sweet potatoes! :)

I'll leave you with a picture of the smiling baby I woke up to this morning! It's so great to be a mom!

Doesn't the helmet just make him that much more adorable! :)

We hope you all have a very blessed Christmas spent with family and friends.

Love Always,
The Stearns Family

A Visit from the Grandparents and Some "Big People Food!"

Hey everyone! We had a rather exciting weekend in the Stearns' household! 

Tom's mom and dad came for a visit on Saturday.

We love spending time with the grandparents and we know how important it is for Caleb to be raised around all of his wonderful family members.

We even got a family portrait (minus Baxter) in front of the Christmas tree!

On Saturday afternoon, Tom and I finally finished our Christmas shopping.  I vowed that afternoon that from this year forward I will have all of my Christmas shopping done BEFORE Thanksgiving!  The stores were crazy busy and it drives me crazy to see tons of people buying things they don't really need nor have the money for all because its "on sale" or "such a bargain."  I also have a goal of having the Christmas tree up and everything wrapped under the tree by Thanksgiving, but that may be stretching it a bit.

On Sunday, Tom and I went to church.  We have decided that we watch WAY too much television so we are limiting ourselves to 1 hour, or 1 show each day.  We both feel that there are so many bad things on television anymore and we don't want to expose Caleb to anymore than we have to.  In April, we plan on getting rid of our DirecTV all together. 

Caleb hit an exciting milestone this weekend!  He ate baby food for the first time!!!

I decided a while back that I wanted to do homemade baby food.  I went online to wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com and printed out several recipes and put them in order in a binder along with other important information about fixing, freezing, thawing, etc the baby food.  Yesterday I made 2 sweet potatoes for him to start out with. Caleb was my little "sous chef!"

  I used ice cube trays to freeze them.  With only 2 sweet potatoes that cost me $1.56 for both, I was able to make about 12-14 days worth of food for him!  Definitely a money saver!

And boy did he love those sweet potatoes...

He couldn't get enough...

And when he ate every last bit, the kid still wanted more!  I think Caleb is going to have Tom's big appetite! Boy am I in for it! 

Another reason Tom and I decided to limit ourselves to only 1 hour of TV each day is so that we can spend more time studying the Bible and God's word.  We wanted to do something that would help us as a couple and family as well as something individually.  We came up with a Bible Study Plan that I will share in detail soon.  We began last night and so far we are both enjoying it!

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you have a wonderful week with your family!

Love to all,
Kaitlin

Fun Friday!

I can't believe it is already Friday.  Ever since Caleb was born I feel like the weeks just fly right by me! Is it just me, or do any other stay-at-home mamma's feel the same way?

Well, this week I feel like I have accomplished a lot around our humble abode.

I reorganized the kitchen pantry...

completed TONS of laundry (we were WAY behind)...

My clean cloth diapers! :)

set out to make a set of 30-40 cloth wipes in one afternoon...

then my wonderful sewing machine had a temper tantrum and I only finished one measly little one :(

Thank goodness my "Sew Wonderful Mother-in-Law" is coming tomorrow! :)  She knows a lot more about sewing than me (I'm still somewhat of a newbie), so hopefully she can help me fix my problem and I can get my cloth wipes done next week.

We have been working VERY, VERY hard with Caleb while he is practicing his "rolling over skills."  We haven't quite accomplished our goal, but we are definitely making progress.  Here is are a few pictures of one of his attempts.

Caleb also got his first big boy bath in the bathtub.

We have been giving him a bath in the kitchen sink ever since he was born.  He loved to be able to splish and splash around!  I think this boy is going to be a fish!

My mom and sister visited yesterday after Kirsten had a doctor appointment at Children's Hospital in St. Louis.

Kirsten, who is 15, is getting a hearing aid for her right ear.  Over the past several years she has developed significant hearing loss in her right ear...enough so that her doc suggested she get a hearing device.  She was fitted yesterday and gets the actual device the end of December.  It is the type that is worn around her ear and she told me yesterday that she picked out a giraffe print! 

Tonight Tom and I are going to have a date night!  Now when I say date night, I don't mean this...

I really mean this...

Yep! That's right! Our tight budget doesn't really like us to go out to dinner on The Hill in St. Louis!  But we can always do a Redbox movie for $1! :)  Although I would love to go out on a date with my husband, we find that making a homemade pizza and renting a movie is just as fun (and a TON cheaper!)  Just another way we are striving to save money, but also spending that quality time together as a couple!

xoxo
Kaitlin