The Wounded Soldier

Our creative little man discovered a new way to travel yesterday.  We're calling it The Wounded Soldier.  It's almost an army crawl, but not quite.  It's so cute! 

Here's another view of it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 

 

Dear Readers of our Blog (aka Friends & Family),

Merry Christmas!  It's the week of Christmas - some of the best time all year.  I'm sitting in bed at my parents house.  My child is asleep upstairs (yes, it's very hard to sleep on a different floor than him!), my husband is out watching Tron with my brother and our brother-in-law.  I was puzzling (started the annual Christmas puzzle) while my sister TV-surfed, another sister is out with friends, the two other siblings are at their respective homes in Portland, and my parents have turned in for the night.  Feels just like home.  It's so funny how life goes on and things change... and yet so many things stay just exactly the same.  Being in my childhood home is always homey, especially at Christmas.  I love it.

The weeks before Christmas were unexpectedly very busy and stressful this year due to my new calling at church.  My stress reached the not-sleeping-at-night-cause-I-can't-stop-thinking stage, which always means a few things need to change: pray more, do less, and let go of the details.  Somehow everything got done... I'm so grateful for how the Lord just steps right in to help when I really turn to Him.  And even though that wasn't what I was expecting this Christmas season, it really made it all the more Christmasy.

We want to tell of you how much we love and appreciate our relationships with you.  Tyler and I spend so much of our conversation time talking about you: how you're doing, what you're doing and when we'll get to see you next.  We receive so much joy from our associations with you and for that we are very grateful.  Thank you!

We also want to say this Christmas that we believe with all of our hearts and souls that Jesus Christ really is the Savior of all mankind.  He is our Redeemer from death and sin.  Only through His atoning sacrifice can we enjoy eternal happiness, surrounded by our families in God's presence for the eternities.  It is our conviction that Jesus really did come to early as a divinely conceived baby boy, who grew and learned whilst living a perfect life and teaching the truths of God.  He established His church and then suffered in Gethsemane and died for us on Calvary.  Then He rose again - in a perfected body of flesh and bones, never to die again.  We testify that He still lives.  He is active in our lives today - especially as we invite Him to be.  My personal relationship with the Savior is one of the most precious gems of life.  We are so happy to celebrate His birth this week.

May each of you have a blessed and wonderful Christmas celebration.  We love you!

Now That's Ugly

Last year we tried celebrating Christmas by having small calm Advent parties on each of the four advents before Christmas (the four Sundays before Christmas - German tradition).  Well only one of the four actually worked.  Even happened.  Granted, that single one was fun, but overall 25%?  Pretty lame.  So this year we decided to ditch the song books and lighted candles and go for a more ... festive approach.  First, I found the best outfit I could. (ie, Kimi found it for me while we were shopping, and in my stash of Grandma's shoes I found the perfect pair to top it all off.  And somehow wearing nylons that are too dark seemed totally fitting.)  Kimi found quite the festive sweater herself. She almost wore it to church the next day.

Then we gathered a bunch of our festive friends.  Rich & Brittany came too but had to leave before the camera came out (which is SUCH a shame because they were wearing very festive sweaters!).

Next we made a prize for the ugliest sweater and the true competitor really showed up to win.

We had a lot of fun and wished our house was big enough for all of our Pittsburgh friends to come at once!!  Thanks everyone for helping us celebrate Christmas!  We sure had fun.

Catch

This morning Caleb was having fun with this golf ball on the hardwood floor and let go of it.  The floor must be slanted just right where we were sitting, because it rolled within my reach.  In my deep desire to not dismantle the paper piles strewn about me on the couch, I tried rolling it back to him.  Amazingly, he caught it on it's return roll!  I was really kind of impressed.  So we tried it several more times.  A couple he lifted his hand just a little late, but the majority of the time he actually caught the ball!  See for yourself:

 

I knew this would make Tyler so happy.  And what a week to discover it too (it's finals).  So our little athlete has officially begun his training tonight, because you can bet that now Tyler knows he can play with a ball and his son together, it's going to happen every night.

Eight Month Photos

Oh I love my boy!

Eight Months

Eight months.
Nearly eight months without sleeping through the night.
Three large plastic bins of already too-small clothes.
Three diaper sizes.
Over a thousand diapers.
Several thousand pictures.
Lots of news stages.
Tons of excitement for each.
One baby boy.
Inmeasurable joy.

Our little Caleb really is our joy.  We can't wait to spend Christmas with him, even though he won't really understand it!  I just know he'll like wrapping paper and all the attention.

In that first video, you can hear his two favorite noises as of late: the inhale sqwack and tounge bubbles.  He's so cute.  For some reason, I can't get any other videos or pictures to load into this post, so ... in the next post's video, you can see Caleb's amazing mode of transportation: ROLLING!  His latest feat with rolling is exiting one room and going into another.  He really likes the roll.  The only sad part about it is that sometimes by the end of the day he has a minor rug burn on the back of his head from rubbing against the carpet on each roll. So sad!

He still just has his two bottom teeth.  His top front two did desend quite a bit - you can feel the bumps they created on his gums, but they seemed to have just stopped.  When they started moving I kept praying that I'd be able to keep nursing and that his sleep would recover soon (teething messes it all up!), thinking that his teeth would just move down fast.  But I guess Heavenly Father's solution was to just stop them in their tracks!  Which is fine by me!

Last Friday night we employeed our very first teenage babysitter.  Of course I was a little nervous, even though she's fabulous.  Tyler fed him a bottle and put him to sleep all week in preparation the big event.  (Usually I nurse him to sleep.)  And it worked!  And we had a good evening.  But at the end of the night report the babysitter told me, "Your baby is so chill.  I could hardly get him to smile!  Every now and again he'd look up at me and just tear up."  Oh well that just broke my heart.  He missed us!!

Caleb's eating SO MUCH BETTER than he used to!  Suddenly, he no longer gags when fed oatmeal, which is very good since it's vitamin-fortified.  He is a terrific banana eater - he eats 1/3 to 1/2 of a banana each day.  He can even take bites out of it himself (although I don't usually let him because then he grabs the peel and wants to eat that too... yuck!).  He likes bits of bread, Ritz crackers, baby rice crackers, baby cookies, puffs, most baby food fruits, no baby food vegetables, and he drinks about a tablespoon of water out of a cup each day (with help).  And of course he nurses.  That's still his favorite.

He still really likes music. Classical in the car almost always puts him to sleep.

He's truly ticklish now - in the sense that pretty much no matter what time of day it is or what kind of mood he's in, if you get the right spot(s), he'll laugh.  I love it!  The sweet spots are: his neck, his collar bones (I mean it, right on the bone!), his inner thighs, and his lower belly.  Hearing him laugh is my favorite thing in the world.

He also likes repetative games we make up with him.  They usually get him giggling.  I always wonder if he gets excited by them because he knows what's coming, and he just really likes that he has figured out how to know what's coming next.

He's also started to interact with other babies, a little - okay at least notice they exist when we're together.

And he really knows us.  He lights up when either of us walk in a room, which is nice since we've been lighting up when we see him for a good eight months now.

This is how I roll.

Literally.

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is the best! We get to spend the time with friends, family, loved ones, and eat delicious food for 5 straight days! Who wouldn't love that! This year, my cousin Derek and his wife Christie were able to join us for Thanksgiving at our home here in Pittsburgh. I will be the first to admit that I love it when I am at a big thanksgiving with lots and lots of family, but an intimate Thanksgiving with Derek and Christie was just as nice. We played some games, watched some movies, ate lots of candy (Derek works for Mars Candy Co.), and enjoyed one another's company while our bathroom was being remodeled (post coming on that soon I am told).

I am grateful that we get to live in a country as great as America. There are great places to live all around the world, but there is no place I would rather live. I am grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for his restored Church, namely the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I am grateful for a modern day prophet in Thomas S. Monson. I am grateful for my wife, Nicole. She chooses to stay at home to be with Caleb and help nurture him all day while I am away at school. I am grateful that she loves me so much, and always encourages me to be better, because she sees it in me. I am grateful to have a son and for all the joys that fatherhood brings. I am grateful to be in dental school here in Pittsburgh. I am grateful that we have a home over our heads and food on our table, and so much more. I am grateful for all of our family whose prayers are graciously offered in our behalf, and whose support we could not go without. I am grateful for all of our friends, and for their love and support, and the many laughs and memories that we get to share with them. And lastly, I am grateful to you blog readers, for your reading of our little adventures and being happy to hear about them.

Without further ado, here are all the pictures chronicling the fun adventures that we had!

The Set-Up

The Turkey in all it's cooked glory and perfection!

Butternut Squash!

Green Bean Casserole!

Mashed!

Sweet Potatoe Sufle!

Turkey, turkey, why do I love you so??

The Hostess and the Boss

Our Special Little Thanksgiving

Nothing says post-thanksgiving, start of Christmas like the Macy's windows downtown...

The day after Thanksgiving, and this is how out of control Christmas already is...and I love it. But anyone who knows me knows that I don't acknowledge Christmas 'til post Thanksgiving feast, but after that, everything is fine by me.

We thought that we could get a cute picture of Caleb with Santa during his first Christmas...not quite working out though...

And at this point, Santa was trying to put on a smile, because Caleb was in full tears and screams...

Sending off their wish lists...

And the belief-o-meter was already at full strength...

ME!!! through an ornament vaguely

It was then off to the PPG place gingerbread display and possibly some ice skating. It was freezing outside however, so Dunkin graciously accepted our money in return for hot chocolate.

Do you see how great it makes Derek feel?

It made him feel so great, he COULD picture himself leaner, sexier, flexible, radiant, and energetic!

The Tree at PPG (as good of a rhyme as there may be)

Derek and Christie feeling the holiday cheer

And digging the view of our beautiful city

Best Cousins

No captions needed for the next three pictures...

And to finish off Black Friday, we decided the only thing we were going to truly spend any money on was a Christmas tree. Even though we won't be here for Christmas, it just wouldn't have been the same without a tree. And we weren't going to get a Charlie Brown tree, though there is nothing wrong with those, if that is what you are into. I think this tree may be one of the most perfect trees I have ever seen, and here in the Johansen household, you will often find one of us three sitting, staring, and marveling at it's splendor.

Merry Christmas!

Laughter

My To Do List is seriously growing so quickly that when I have a moment to actually accomplish something I sit nearly frozen like a deer in headlights.  It's bad folks.  To Do List or not, I always feel a little this way when Tyler returns to school after a break or even just a weekend, so it's especially bad today.  Several items on the list look like this:  Post about X, Post about Y, take pictures of Z and post.  Will you eventually get to see them?  Well, I don't know.  We'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, it's about time to share a video.  There is basically nothing on the face of this earth that brings me more instant heart-expanding joy than hearing my son laugh.  Hope it makes you smile too.  We spent a lot of time lounging on the couch in our pajamas the last several days and Tyler discovered a voice that Caleb finds absolutely hilarious.  Enjoy!

Tyler's Birthday Adventures

 Tyler's mom came to visit over Halloween (as you already heard) to see her first grandchild and celebrate her son's birthday, and I suppose to see me too. ;)  The low point of the trip you already heard about, so I won't rehash that.  Here are the pictures - mostly of our travels.  We really had such a good time together!  Caleb adored the attention (and new outfits) and we all just had a lot of fun.  Here are the pictures.  Thanks for coming Kim!!

First we saw Niagara Falls.  It was cold!

 They light up the falls pretty good at night.  

(I only saw this from the car, I was too busy saying my final goodbyes to my son.)

One of Tyler's presents: a new lens.  Loving it!

(Caleb's poor little eye is still a little swollen from his cold/flu here.  Poor boy.)

Trying that lens for the first time!

Next up, Palmyra!  Kim had never been here.

The next few are inside the Smith Family Log Home.

The Sacred Grove at sunset.

Caleb was such a trooper.

 Atop the Hill Cumorah.

Oh the fall leaves!

Fayette, NY where the church was officially reorganized, April 6, 1830, here in the Whitmer home.

Now a beautiful chapel accompanies the little home.

The night before Grandma had to leave, she got a few last special moments with our little man.

Thanks for coming Kim!  We can't wait until you come again!!