Happy Be-lated Birthday Caleb!!!

Look at who is TWO!

Not yet one day old (new), Caleb is getting kisses from Derek, so sweet.

This is the next day, Uncle Derek and Auntie Sara came to meet Caleb, and of course provided us with beautiful pictures of Caleb :) Many thanks :)

Teehehehe, he has such a cute nose, and ours are HUGE!!! :D:D:D:D

This picture is from the next year when Caleb turned ONE!

Unfortunately Derek fell and broke his collar bone just a day? days? before Caleb's birthday. So his party was delayed and then I was too busy and never managed to post any pictures :( We will now attempt to make up for that ;)
Derek was such a tough little nut he never cried after the first day, adjusted his playing to compensate, and was mostly his usual self while definately in pain. Here he posed with Caleb's banana cream Birthday cake!

Here is the ONE year old birthday boy HIMSELF! Wait, what is this, no smiles.....?

"Y'all call this singing?!?"

Yup, all Grandparents and Parents were there but apparently no two people could sing in harmony!! ;p Hahaha, poor Caleb :D:D:D He was really concerned :D:D

But cake makes everything alllll better :D Mastering the spoon technique...

Abandoning it in favor of the fingers-and-whole-hand-if-necessary technique....

Grandpa stepped in with a little help and guidance :D:D:D

The climbing-on-table-to-get-face-closer-to-cake technique being expertly demonstrated by Caleb, with helpful tugs of redirection from Grandpa :D

"So I am ONE now and they got me a rocking horse....huh."

"Heyyy! This thing is alright, pretty fun! :)"

WHOOPEE!!!!!!
"TEEHEHEHEHE! This is so fun my diaper is wet and I DON'T CARE! :D:D:D:D:D"

Derek's birthday

Derek got an Elephant from Mimi and Grampa! This was spotted at the Portland Zoo when we were there a week earlier to celebrate his birthday, it is Mom approved as it is made of soy, and stuffed with kapok! *all other commercially available stuffed animals are made of plastic. It is very soft!

Dad was feeling artistic, can you tell? Derek and Caleb were both very thrilled about the balloon, yes, I know, plastic! Definitely a rare purchase, the boys enjoyed it thoroughly (or roughly?!) for days, I was sure it would pop but it held up fine, even while being used as a bouncy ride!

Isn't this a sweet picture!

The wonders of cropping, hahahaha

Mmmmmm, cherry cheesecake, even the elephant wanted in on it! ;D Derek looks like he thinks he needs a bigger piece!!

Derek is FOUR!!!

So here is a look back, to the day he was born....

Less than an hour old!

The day he turned ONE,

Our TWO year old Derek, so Sweet!

Discovered the joy of presents at TWO!

Skateboarding at THREE!

and a BIG bike for birthday THREE.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEREK!

P.S. I was wanting to post pictures from today of Derek at FOUR but for some reason can't get the memory card to download, and camera batteries are dead, so will try again tomorrow.

Hawaii -Waimea Canyon

I know this is totally out of order but just realized lately that I have lots more Hawaii pictures I would like to post. So here are some happy smiling faces that have just viewed the VERY beautiful, colorful canyon. Kinda scary at the edges though with two wiggly little ones :s

Looking down it toward the ocean (nearest shore)

There were several waterfalls, this one was the nearest we saw

As we got higher up, it got cloudy and harder to get the whole scope of it, be we loved all that we saw :)

After we went to a small costal town to see the "swinging" bridge, and it sure did swing! This was so cute, quite on his own, Derek said "Caleb, do you want to hold my hand?" He did, and off they went, adults are just too slow when there are places to explore!!

All work and play

I hoe, I hoe, it's off to work I go.... :) :)

A much less work inclined little lad looking mildly angelic?! ;p

Who needs a horse and plow when you have a busy boy like Caleb!

Someone is doing all the work and someone is having all the fun!

See Mom, when you water the grass, it GROWS! :D