Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a shout-out to friends and family. Happy Thanksgiving! I hope the holiday was great for everyone. We really do have a lot to be thankful for...


(If anyone needs me, I'll be fat-dogging on the couch in front of Home Alone...)

Related? You decide.

We came across these when we were going through pictures on my computer.



Justin has doubted if Caleb looks like him at all...I think this squashed all doubt! What do you think?

Caleb at 3 Months!

This first picture is of Caleb at 2 months. I just thought I'd include it for a comparison of his 3 month old picture.

And here is the baby at 3 months!! I included all of these because I like the progression of his legs. He reminds me of a frog! He hasn't found his legs yet; at least, not officially. But I've helped him hold them once or twice. He loves to kick his legs, especially when we're changing his diaper! It's funny how much of a reflex it's become to grab his leg and move it while putting on a new diaper!

I love his face in these pictures too! We didn't get out the baby scale to weigh him, but I weighed myself and then held him to get a loose idea. He is now about 17.5 lbs...give or take a few obviously. We love our little baby...I can't believe how quickly he is growing up! Oh! and the past few days he has started to try and roll over! He doesn't have a preference of tummy-to-back or back-to-tummy...he tries them both! But he hasn't successfully achieved either one. He's so adorable!

Snowball Fight!

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Putting "JAMBER" back with the JABBER

Justin pointed out that our blog might as well be called "Caleb Coos" for all the "Jamber" updates we put up on it! The past few days have been particularly busy...but here's a bit of an update on us.

I got called to be the Secretary in the Primary Presidency a few weeks ago, and man! Sundays are so busy now! Justin does his part by taking Caleb and trying to get that baby to take a bottle of milk...he's getting to be more stubborn and picky now. Still adorable. ;) It's just really busy with all the kids. I'm supposed to assign talks/scriptures/prayers each sunday for the following Sunday. Well, I was told last week to give those assignments to the parents...which makes sense and is all great and all, except that I don't know the KIDS, let alone the parents, let alone which kids belong to which parents! So, we're gonna try to figure something out. Mom Anderson suggested I still hand out the assignments to the kids, because they get excited by it, and then call the parents later that night to make sure THEY know about the assignments. It's fun. It's a bit challenging. But it's great to feel like I'm actually serving!

On kind of that same note (serving) I've been helping out with the English classes our ward has every Wednesday night. There's a GREAT girl in our ward (she's really amazing!) and she has a Masters in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages...my minor) and we have a lot of non-native speakers in the ward. They come Africa, or Brazil, or Ecuador. It's pretty amazing. So, I've been helping with that. "helping" meaning I sit with Xaidie ("Zadie") with 2 other students while we talk about English. It's been fun, but I don't feel like I do that much. I have subbed for her once...and that was good!

BUT, the toughest part came last Wednesday. Justin and I picked up a sister he home teaches. She is from Africa. She speaks English, but is VERY difficult to understand. Keep in mind, I grew up with accents, I have worked with ESL students for YEARS...I am pretty good with understanding people with accents. But I have the hardest time understanding her! We take her to English class (she wanted to come), sit her down...and within 1 minute realize she does not know how to read. Xaidie looks at me, "Okay. Amber, you're going to teach *Jill how to read." Uh...okay. How do I do that again? I've studied it, read about it, even visualized it, but NONE of my experience has been TEACHING. It's always been improving, enhancing, or critiquing. But I had not idea, or at least no experience to build off of. THat was a long 45 minutes. I'm sad to say, I was getting very frustrated. I don't think she knows how to read in her first language, which makes learning to read in her second, a HUGE mountain!! I hope I didn't scare her away. I really DO want to help her, and Xaidie gave me the Church Literary materials (AMAZING!! Check 'em out!) which helped me feel a lot more in control and prepared for the next lesson. Which is tonight. I'm really hoping Jill comes back, and that I can structure our lesson to be something effective, and enjoyable. WHEW. It's really good experience for me, I just don't want it to be at the cost of Jill's desire to LEARN how to read in English. I'll keep you posted on that.

We did take our family pictures yesterday! YAY! We had one of those "free session" coupons from SEars. and we have 2 more. We're going to take JUST Caleb in a month or two. :-) because then you get a free 10x13 with it too! :-) Who says you can't have fun even when you have very little?

Speaking of very little, I've been thinking about something a lot the past few weeks. We've been praying and praying that Justin would be able to find a job...no luck yet...when I realized that we have been blessed in a different way. Instead of having more income to pay for obligations and to buy our little baby some things he needs [wants], we have been blessed to see our dollar stretch. We found a changing pad on Craigslist for $5. We found a GREAT running stroller for $5.00!! it was a bit of a drive, and it needs some major TLC, is last year's model, but it WORKS and it was $5.00!! I couldn't believe that still. We have a $15.00 gift card to Target. We found an infant-to-toddler rocker we wanna get. You can look at it more here. But here is a picture of it, too.

I really like it because it can go up to 40 lbs, instead of the normal 25. And, when he gets bigger, it becomes a rocking chair for a toddler. 8/10 people LOVE it! So, we're hoping that after Thanksgiving Target will have a sale that will allow us to spend very little of our own money (after the 15 dollar gift card) and buy this for our baby for Christmas. :D We're pretty excited about it!

So, we might not be able to buy a lot, we certainly can't indulge on many things, but we still enjoy ourselves. We use coupons...oh! and when I cleaned out our filing, I found a subway card from last year for $15.00! and THEN, when we went to use it on our weekly date, we passed the subway we meant to find, stopped when we finally saw one, and it just so happened that THIS subway was the ONLY subway giving you two footlongs for 8.99!! We still have money left on the card! And we bought Saturday dinner and Sunday lunch!

It's amazing to see how our prayers are being answered even without the actual solution we were praying for. Our prayers are heard, and our Heavenly Father really does care about what we want and how we are feeling. I know that. I've learned a lot in being here in MA. it's not easy, but I'm very grateful for it. I'm excited bout Thanksgiving coming up. We're trying really hard to be grateful, and to SHOW that gratitude.

Okay. that's all about me. On Justin's note...he got accepted to the Post Baccalaureate Pre-Dental program at the college he's been taking some classes at! The thing is, we're not sure if that's what we wanna do...because we don't qualify for any federal aid because it is not a matriculated program. We think he's going to just go for a second Bachelor's in Biology. We're still waiting for word on that, though. :-)

Justin is working a lot getting our online store going too. it's barely underway, but we've got some drop-shippers contracted with us, and we're working on getting the site up. It didn't cost us anything because Mom and Dad Anderson had already paid for the site years ago. We just have to build it up.

Anyway, that's a bit of an update on us! Hope you see the JAMBER back on here. :) We love our baby boy. We love each other too. :) we'll be better about updates about us along with him.

Life is good. We are blessed.

Collection of Caleb

Here are a few videos we've taken of Caleb that I haven't taken the time to put up here on the blog. It's just a bit of how goofy he is, how cute he is, and just how big he is getting! Some of them are a little dark...they weren't that dark on the camera, but when I loaded them onto my computer, you could hardly tell there was a person there! The first one, just listen to what Justin is saying. The next dark one (Caleb in the swing), I was just trying to capture him "talking." :) They are in chronological order...but I don't know if you can see the difference at all! Hope you enjoy!!

Decisions, Decisions!

Okay, so I wanna get my hair cut. If you recall, I tried to do it myself. That worked well enough, but I'd like it cut shorter and I'm not about to do that myself. It won't be just yet because I have to let my own attempt at cutting my hair grow out.

So, here are two choices I've narrowed it down to:

I like the layered aspect of the longer one...it's very cute! But I also like this one. It's shorter than I've gone since I was like 12, which is kind of why I wanna just go for it!

So, got any feedback?? Like I said, it'll be a bit before it happens, but I've still gotta make the decision!

Caleb's Romper

I think "romper" is a British word. Yes? maybe. It's the word used in my pattern book, which is a British pattern book. That was a really confusing part: the stitches are different! For you crocheters out there, an example is that a dc in England is a sc here. Yeah, that makes a difference on the pattern!

Anyway, here is Caleb's romper. I started this a while ago and it's taken me a LOT longer to finish than I thought it would. It's really cute, though, and I love it! I wanted to hurry and finish it because I was afraid it would be too small for Caleb. I didn't want to do all that work and then have him outgrow it!

So, the thing is, it opens from the back. Justin refuses to let him wear it to church (he agreed to ONE TIME) because since I am in Primary now, he has to take care of Caleb...and that means changing all of his diapers in the men's bathroom. And they only have a counter. No changing table.

Here it is: it's supposed to be a bear on the bum. That was my favorite part! Kind of pointless, I realize now, since Caleb is only ever showing his bum during tummy time. Oh well.

And here is the process of putting Caleb in it. LOL

And...He's swimming in it!! hahaha, it was hilarious!! I thought it would be too small, but man! We've gotta let him grow into it!

You can see here in this next picture just how big it is on him. Hopefully it'll fit him in a few weeks...maybe a month or two? I don't know! He grows so fast...
So, that's his romper. I've got a few more projects I'm wanting to make for him...a little sweater, for instance. I'm doing the 6-9 month old pattern for the sweater, and it makes me wonder how big that will be for him! I don't know. it's fun. So, yeah, heads up fam: my niece and nephews might be getting some crocheted things for Christmas!! That is, if I can find the time to make them. :-)

Dance Off the Inches!

I just wanted to give an update about my exercise routine, and say THANK YOU to my friends who commented on that post. It really made me feel so much more motivated just knowing that other people I KNOW have wrestled with this situation and CONQUERED! (Congrats again, Elisa! :-D)


Just so you all know, I've been working out every other day for the past 2 weeks via a workout DVD from the library: Dance of the Inches!
haha, I got two kinds: jam and country line dance. I didn't ever do the country line dance, but I love the other one! It doesn't take very long and it just makes me feel like I've accomplished something already for the day. I don't think it's making any physical difference, at least not in appearance, but my hips feel so much better and I'm getting some calf muscle back! On top of that, the emotional difference is amazing! I feel so much better, so much happier...I just feel like I have control again. It's great!

Again, thanks for the encouraging words...and for just being who you are! :) I'm going to keep working, keep dancing...and mostly, keep trying to be patient. :-)

Happy Halloween!!

Here is Caleb in his "I love my Mummy" outfit again. I love it! He can sport a pretty grumpy/bored face for pictures. I hope our family ones in a few weeks get a few smiles from him!

At least here he seems to be kind of grinning..smirking?

This is what we decided was his Halloween costume: A Boston Red Sox Uniform. It looks like a real one (so Justin assures me) and it was really nice! So, he became a Red Sox Player. This is also a classic "BORING" stare. :-)

I like this face a lot, though! He'd kind of happy, kind of not upset...basically, just being himself! What a cute baby!! I'm allowed to be emphatic about that! :-D

And here is me with my little baby.

These next pictures are actually from Sunday. I made a pumpkin dish that a friend game me the recipe for last year...but I never got around to doing it. Well, a different friend gave it to me again this year (Thanks, Dan!)...and it was SOO good! It's super easy, so if you want it, feel free to ask. Basically, you cook up some hamburger and rice and then bake it for an hour inside the pumpkin...and then you can eat the pumpkin, too! Some of you experienced and skilled cooks might have already tried this. I loved it! I think we're gonna make it an Autum tradition!
Justin decided to carve it. See, we bought 2 small pumpkins at the same we bought this cooking pumpkin...but we STILL haven't carved them. lol. I know Justin still wants to...we'll just overlap with Thanksgiving a bit. He was getting a bit of practice in with this dinner pumpkin.
Happy Halloween!!!

Deep Cleaning: Garage

One of the many home-improvements needed for the house was a new garage floor. Most of it had cracked, and when we lifted it up ("we" is used very loosely here), we found that it was mostly hollow underneath. Somebody cut corners somewhere! Luckily, there was no foundation damage, so we didn't worry about the rest of the house. But, the cracked floor had to be ripped up...

That meant

1. First, Justin scored it with a diamond saw;
2. second, we broke it up with the jack-hammer (that was FUNNY!) and Mom even joined in on that task;
3. Third, we tore up the old floor and had to get the ground ready for the new concrete. Ask Justin about the difference between concrete and cement.
   

So, here is step number one and two.

This is up mixing up the concrete/cement (?)... It was pretty fun!

And then the final step of pouring the stuff onto the prepared floor.


It ended up looking really nice!
Just took lots of time and a curious cat to waltz across it before it was dry.

House Cleaning

This was a little while ago...
But just a quick picture of Justin and Dad power spraying the house.


This is only one side...they did the WHOLE house!!
It's a bit of work to get the house ready to sell--both inside and outside

Caleb laughing!

Here is a wonderfully accurate video of our little baby's laugh! He really likes tongues, like in the song about the little green frog. So the noises you here are me sticking my tongue out like a snake and then sucking as if I had a straw.


Oh the things we do to make our babies smile and laugh! :D He gave himself the hiccups shortly after this and still attempted to keep laughing, but it was very interrupted.

Oh, and that's his "I love my mummy" shirt. Cute, huh?