Time for an Update, no??

You know it's time to update the blog when even your own mother yells at you about it! Ok, so I haven't posted in a long time... I have a good excuse, promise! *Just letting you know this will be a REALLY long post. And here he is...

Meet Caleb Duke Waite!!

Born on Friday, January 20, 2012 at 11:43am

8lbs. 15 oz. and 22 inches long

Birth Story for those of you who care....

So, on the Sunday before Caleb was born, I had a little bit of a spill. I was squatting down so that Michael could talk to his Nana on the phone. Not realizing how fast he was running at me, I didn't prepare for the collision, and he knocked me flat on my back. This event led to excruciating amounts of pain... to the point where I couldn't walk. (Kind of a problem when you have a crazy 2 year old running around the house...) Luckily, my awesome friends in Glendale came down and took care of me on Monday and Tuesday. Brett had Wednesday off, and my mom was flying in on Friday (the 20th). So, of course, I knew that the baby was going to come on Thursday because it was the ONLY day that week that I was going to be all by myself. It turns out that I was ALMOST right :) I had contractions all day Thursday, but nothing that was consistent enough to be real labor. Brett got home from work, we went to bed, and that's when the fun began!

By about 1am, I was having pretty powerful contractions... hard enough that I wasn't able to sleep. However, I didn't know what "normal" labor felt like because I had been induced with Michael, and I didn't want to go to the hospital too soon, so I just popped in some Burn Notice and tried to ignore the pain. By 3:30, I was really feeling it, and decided we should probably head to the hospital. We dropped off the Bubs at my friend, Tiffany's house (bless her heart for helping us out at 4 am) and then headed to the hospital. We got checked in, discovered that I was at a 6 and 100% and got taken to my L&D room. I immediately asked for my epidural and about a 1/2 hour later was in complete bliss. The nurse said that I would have the baby by about 9:30, but when they came to check on me at around 9, I hadn't progressed AT ALL. So, they got my doctor, broke my water, and said that should jump start things. WRONG. They came back about an hour and a half later and still NOTHING. This happened with Michael too, as soon as I got my epidural all contractions stopped... So, enter the Pitocin.

My mom was flying in that morning and landed around 11. So, we called her when she got to Az, to let her know that it was going to be a while before the baby came, so she could just go to our house and get Michael. Well, once the Pitocin was introduced, things got moving again, and QUICKLY. The nurse came back to check me after a 1/2 hour and Caleb was THERE, ready to go. I had to sit waiting for about 20 minutes before I could start pushing for my doctor. During this time, I was looking at a lunch menu, ordering my lunch for after the delivery... happy as a clam. The Dr. got there, I pushed 3 times through 1 contraction, and our sweet (and quite big) baby boy arrived! Shortly thereafter, I got the chicken nuggets I ordered...

The Fantastic FOUR!
The Bubs checking out his little bro.

Sweet, sweet Caleb

Nana and Little Bitty Mo

We call Caleb, Little Bitty Mo. This picture is the reason the nickname came to be. He choked A LOT whenever he was eating in the beginning and this pose was very common. We thought he looked like a little monkey in this position, and that morphed in to Little Bitty Mo...

Blessing Day!

Mama Rae and Papi with Little Bitty

Nana and Grandpa with Mo

Aunt Sara and Uncle Javvy made the trip down just for the blessing! So fun to see them! We hope to do the same for them when Sara has her baby in September...

One month! Decked out in his best outfit! Go Avs!

He occasionally will find his thumb... it's SOOOOO sweet!

TWO MONTHS! (Yep, because he's already that old!)

He's just started smiling and cooing. Finally getting some personality :)

He is SUCH a good baby. I'm SO grateful for that! He takes 4 two hour naps a day and has been sleeping through the night consistently for about a week now. Although, he's been sleeping until 3:30 or 4am for about a month now. He's just awesome! He's happy, he's chubby, and he's just ADORABLE! We are so happy that he's in our fam!

Michael's doing pretty well with adjusting to not being the only person in my universe. He has days of total terror, but on the whole REALLY loves his baby brother (almost too much sometimes.) He WILL NOT go down for his nap unless he gets to kiss Caleb, and has to "see him" every time Caleb gets up from his naps. It's really sweet.

Other than our sweet boy, not much new here :) Brett works, I try to keep sane, and we see each other every once in a while! Life with two kids is keeping us pretty busy! Welp, that's about it. Congrats if you've made it to the end of this post (you never thought you would get to the end, did you??)

Deck the Halls!

IT'S DECEMBER!!!!! Enter my absolute FAVORITE time of the year! The thing that's really neat about this year, is that we're hosting Christmas at our house. Since I'm only going to be 3-4 weeks away from Caleb joining the fam, the Dr. said a BIG no to me traveling anywhere for the holidays. Luckily, my in-laws were very wonderful and said that they would come to us! So, now I'm just trying to get our house ready for the season, and for our big celebration! I pulled out some Christmas tunes, all of our decorations, and went to town! We don't have a ton, but I think it turned out pretty cute with the stuff we do have :) So here's the tour!

I'm not gonna lie... I'm pretty proud of this wreath. It's the first time I've ever attempted to do fabric rosettes, and I think they turned out pretty dang cute for a first attempt! So, there's our Christmas cheer on the front door!


When you walk in the front door, you are greeted by our "fireplace" where the stockings are hung with care. Being in Arizona, I might have had to improvise the whole fireplace thing... but it turned out pretty cute!

My FAVORITE addition to our Christmas decorations. I have been longing to get the whole Willow Tree set for FOREVER, and I finally got the first 6 pieces. So this is a work in progress, but some day, some year, I will have the whole set and it will be gorgeous!

This was a new addition to our Christmas decorations as well. I found the candle holder at Michael's for 80% off and got it for a steal. Then I just jazzed up some super cheap candles with fun holiday ribbon and put a garland around the base. Easy, affordable, and cute! Oh! And my sweet countdown to Christmas calendar that I made at Super Saturday a few years back.... so stinking cute!

Uhh... so just ignore all of those dishes in the dish strainer... maybe should have thought about cleaning up a bit before snapping some pics. But, I put a few decorations over in our kitchen to make it more cheery. LOVE this cute nativity set that the Jones family gave us last year. The Bubs always looks at it when he's eating and tries to offer his food to the "little sheep." He can't get enough of it!

Finally, the family room. We've got our cute little BYU tree (all decked out in blue and white) which I hadn't finished decorating by the time I took this picture.... plus the Ho ho ho blocks that we made at our Duke reunion last year (woah... was that really just last year? Hmm.... maybe two years ago....)

So, there's the tour of our little casa all decked out :) We are SOOO excited about Christmas, we can barely stand it! Not to mention, it's been pretty "cold" here (I mean, in the 50's!!!) so it's starting to feel a little more like Christmas too!

I started an ABC's of Christmas with the Bubs last week, and yesterday was "Elf" day. So, I made some cookies and we went around as Santa's Elves and delivered them to some of our friends. Note that in this picture, the red card thing hanging from his coat is his "Elf ID Badge" I found it online for free, and they even let me upload a picture-- how cute is that? This is right before we made the rounds as Santa's Elves. Because it was so cold, we decked the Bubs out with a beanie and mittens. He was fascinated by the mittens... and left them on his hands! It was a miracle!

One last thing... we took the Bubs to the mall yesterday to go visit Santa. We figured it probably was not going to be the most successful endeavor, but we were not prepared for how bad it really was going to be. Let's just say that Daddy got to take his picture with Santa too, because the Bubs had a death grip on his neck and refused to go anywhere NEAR Santa. I think it has something to do with Santa's white facial hair.... facial hair in general freaks the Bubs out, but something about having facial hair that was WHITE... well, that just put him over the edge! Needless to say, we would not fork out the billions of dollars it would have cost to print out the picture of Daddy with Santa, and they wouldn't let me take pictures with our own camera... so the pictures of this glorious occasion will just have to live in my memory forever :)

Because this month is so crazy/hectic... I'm going to say this will probably be my last post of 2011. So, Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family! We weren't able to do Christmas cards this year, but we'll work on it for next year. We are all well and excited for our little Caleb to arrive! We wish you the happiest of holidays, and that you may feel the spirit of the season and remember our Savior!!

Love,

The Waite Clan

The Terrible Twos are Upon Us!!

Well, I guess this post really SHOULD be titled: Happy 2nd Birthday to the Bubs, but I think the terrible twos being upon us is pretty accurate too! This kid's been in the "terrible twos" phase for about 6 months already... so does that mean I only have six more months and then he'll be an angel again?

So, after downloading the pictures from his party, I realized that we didn't really take that many! We were very video camera oriented this year, so we got A LOT of sweet video... including a classic Bubster tantrum (SO using it for blackmail in the future), so we didn't get a ton of pictures. Therefore, to make up for it, I have put a "Bubster through the years" montage (minus the slideshow and music... ok, ok, so it's 3 pictures.... some montage, eh?) to make up for our appalling lack of documentation. Enjoy!

Our Sweet Bubster-- November 3, 2009

Amazing what a year can do! The Bubs, November 2010

Our crazy 2 year old! Man, we love this kid!

The "Happy Birthday" table. Uhh.... do you SEE that huge pile of presents? He is WAY spoiled...

Another shot of the serious loot he was getting....

His "Cars" birthday cake made by yours truly. Not my favorite cake I've made... but he's 2, so he won't notice, right?

Enter the THREE pictures we got of him. We stripped him down to partake of his cake. Silly us. We should have known that he would be a dainty little lady while eating his cake. He proceeded to eat the icing off of the cake one fingertip at a time. He didn't touch the actual cake. And the one mess he made? Spilling a tiny bit of ice cream on his chest and freaking out about it for about 5 minutes....

Frosting is ESPECIALLY tasty when eaten daintily.

Eating and skyping with Mama Rae and Papi. And yup, that's it. Those are all the pictures we got. Gold star for us as parents.

It was a fun day, and the biggest present he got was a Big Boy Bed. He slept in it for the first time on Saturday. I was expecting to be up ALL night, and miraculously, he went down very easily and slept the ENTIRE night, and has done so every night since....knock on wood. He won't nap in it yet, but I'm working on that and hopefully by the time Caleb gets here, he'll be a Big Boy Bed pro!

We are so grateful to have our sweet Bubs. He brings so much joy to our lives. We can't even begin to imagine what our lives would be like without him.... Happy Birthday, little man!

Halloween 2011

I will not be getting on my soapbox of why I despise this holiday so much on this blog post, but let it be known that, really, Halloween is a lame holiday... except for when you have a really cute little kid who gets to dress up like his idol, Curious George. Then, Halloween is fun, it's cute, and while it might not be worth it to pay $20 for an outfit he will only wear once, you do... because it's cute, and fun, and makes everyone smile... even the grumpy pregnant woman who usually despises this holiday. Now if only teenagers would stop coming to my door stealing all of my candy... but that's a soapbox for another day....

This year, my awesome mother in law picked out the Bub's outfit and did an exceptional job! WE LOVED IT!! And while the Bubster didn't love the hood, we are happy to report that he left it on the ENTIRE time when he was trick or treating. A Halloween miracle, for sure! We started off the festivities on the Friday before Halloween. Our ward had the classic Trunk or Treat/Chili Cook off activity. The Bubs enjoyed running amuck and having us chase him the whole time, which led to me being in massive pain and going home early while Brett took charge of the carnival booth that I was supposed to be in charge of. As I was sitting in the car waiting for Brett to bring our crock pot back, he informed me that he had just accepted the gift for the 1st place chili prize! Woot! I had made a brand new recipe and was afraid that no one was going to like it, and I took home first place :) It made the night totally worth it! A quick side note about our costume choice: I was supposed to be Brett's nerd date, but found out the night before the event that my big belly would not allow me to wear the costume that I had planned on. This resulted in a crazed, "find the pregnant lady something to wear!" search that ended with a pair of scrubs and my husband's stethoscope. Not super creative, but at least we found something, right??

A monkey, a nerd, and a PA... if only Brett and I had reversed our costumes, it would be a pretty accurate portrayal of our family :)
Brett and the Bubs

My crazy little monkey...

On Saturday, celebrations continued with the annual carving of the pumpkin. We had to do it right before Halloween, because with the heat, the pumpkin will only last about 2 days before it shrivels and dies... much like myself :) We thought it would be fun for the Bubster to be involved, so we stripped him down to his diaper and strapped him to his booster seat. After cutting into the pumpkin, we took some of the "guts" and put them in front of him, thinking that he would love to play with the slimy, gooey, mess. What were we thinking? He started crying hysterically and wanted NOTHING to do with the pumpkin guts. He wanted to get down and play with his ball popper. So off he went. Happy Halloween to him :)

This is me trying to coax him to come touch the pumpkin. As you can see... he was pretty hesitant. I love his little shoulder shrug that he does...

II'm not gonna touch the dang pumpkin, Mom and Dad!

Struggling to get AWAY from the scary pumpkin!

Well, maybe I'll take a peek... but just a little one.

Oh! The pumpkin is actually cute! I shall call him pumpkin and he shall be mine and he shall be my pumpkin!

Brett holding our sweet pumpkin!

Now the Bubs asks to see the pumpkin about 50 times a day... he is going to be one sad little boy when we have to throw it away!

On their way to go get some candy!

Happy Halloween!

Catch Up Time!!

Welp, let's see... we've lived in Gilbert for just over two months now, and I haven't blogged since we got here, basically. So, yet again, here we are playing serious Catch Up with the Waite Clan. Here are some highlights of our lives since being in Gilbert:

*No big deal or anything... but Brett started work at Page Family Practice in Tempe and is rockin' it. The hours are a bit longer than I was expecting, but he loves the people that he works with, and loves helping out his patients. I love the paycheck :), and the great stories he brings home!!

*Another no big deal thing... we found out we're having baby boy #2. He is healthy, and getting stronger every single day. The Bubster refuses to sleep on me anymore because he doesn't like getting kicked by his little brother. The power struggle over Mama has already begun! We're going to name him Caleb Duke Waite (after one of my favorite students, and of course, my sweet maiden name... can't lose that!) He's due on Jan. 30th, and I'm praying that I get to be induced a week earlier than that, we'll see....

*The Bubster has made a few new friends (and so has his Mama), so life is starting to feel a little more normal, and not so solitary anymore. We love to go on playdates and our ward does playgroups on Fridays, so we hit that too.

*Brett and I both got new callings in our ward. (This was after we had both already taught lessons in RS and Priesthood, and Brett has already given a talk-- this ward means involvement!!) I am now the Primary Chorister and have a new found respect for the calling, as it is HARD CORE. There is a lot of planning and a lot of time consuming things involved, but it is a blast! I've been doing it for 2 whole weeks now and am already starting to fall in love with the kids. Brett is the 1st counselor in the EQ, which means I get more alone time :)

Other than that, life's been pretty normal (HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!) So, now here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

The Bubs has started freaking out (HARD CORE) about getting his hair cut. He hears the clippers turn on, and he turns on the drama! For his first hair cut in Gilbert, he started screaming bloody murder and would barely let me touch him, the next thing we knew... he was out cold! Easiest haircut EVER, now if only he would fall asleep every time!
Looking at these pictures makes me realize we're going to have to cut his hair again soon.... maybe I should pull out the Benedryl for this one :)

He likes shoes. Especially if they are triple the size of his own feet....

1st day on the job! He's an official PA-C now! What a stud!

Throughout the month of October, a farm in Mesa was allowing people to come for hayrides, pony rides, pumpkin patches, etc. It sounded like a lot of fun, so we decided to go. We went on the 2nd Saturday in October and I lasted about an hour before I almost passed out from heat stroke. Have I mentioned that being pregnant in Arizona is the worst idea EVER?? Oh well, we still had fun and had a VERY happy little boy on our hands. He still talks about riding the pony and petting the animals...

Chillin' at the Pumpkin Patch. He is OBSESSED with pumpkins, and requests to look at our

jack-o-lantern out on our front porch at least 50 times a day.

He declared this pumpkin, the Michael Pumpkin. Too bad we are super lame-o parents who didn't want to pay 5 bucks for a tiny pumpkin. He was not pleased...

Hooray for Dad and pumpkins!

A cute little petting zoo, where the Bubs could have stayed for an eternity. He loved seeing and touching all of the different animals and would yell out what sound each animal made. It was pretty sweet.

While originally, he HATED being on the white horse, he did NOT want to get off by the time we were done. He's a natural on horseback, isn't he??

Well, that catches us all up until the next post... Halloween! And then, we'll have another entry soon after that for the Bubster's 2nd Birthday! (Is he REALLY that old already???) Stay tuned!