My Baby boy is 2!!!

My goodness how the years fly by. Caleb is 2 years old tomorrow and Miss Ellery is 5 months! It is crazy how quickly they grow up! It seems like just yesterday that I was having my little meltdown about not wanting to be pregnant anymore and wanting the next stage of my life to start. And start it has-life with two is super fun, but crazed at times too.



Caleb on February 28th, 2005-2 days old.

Caleb at 1 (actually about one month before.)

And here is the birthday boy at 2!



Ellery's first attempts at sitting up alone-February 13th


Hmmm. I don't think I like these bananas mommy.

Here she is-the five month old 2/22/07!

and while I was trying to take Ellery's picture for her 5 month birthday, Caleb was trying so very hard to get my attention. He kept saying "LOOK AT CALEB!!!" so finally I had to take some pictures of him too. What a little ham!


Mmmm...sweet potatoes are much better than bananas!

Go Heels! (Daddy's favorite basketball team)

Oh, wait, maybe I should give them a thumbs down. Go duke???

Here Caleb is answering the nightly question "Who's crazy?"

Happy 2nd Birthday

Caleb Raymond Leigh. We love you!

We also had a party for me as I will turn 30 on 2/28, but I wasn't very good at taking pictures after Caleb's party. I wanted to visit. Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate with me. I had a good time and I hope all of you did as well.

Out in the snow on Feb 11th. Ellery's first adventure outside. She didn't squak at all about the cold, but it was one of the warmer, sunny days. It was nice to get outside with the boys.

Caleb did a little face plant in the snow and then he was "ALL DONE!!!"

Here we are outside this past sunday with all the snow. Caleb is getting more used to playing in it and seems to be having a better time. At least this day he didn't have any face encounters with the snow! We tried to build a snowman, but the snow wasn't quite snowman material. Daddy built a big pile instead.

One crazy weekend!

Well, I finally broke down and bought a digital camera, it's my 30th birthday present. I figured that it would indeed be more fun to have one and be able to take tons of pictures of my babies. So now I will be able to post more pictures of them. We would have had tons of fun with it this weekend, but we dealt with our first stomach virus. We did MANY loads of laundry instead! We were able to take some, so here they are.

Look at that head control!

Showing some attitude!

Caleb playing downstairs in his playroom with dad. Hopefully Caleb will be a little more of a handyman than his daddy.

In the play tunnel in the playroom.

On Saturday, Ellery had her first taste of rice cereal. She didn't quite know what to do with it and from the picture below, you can see that it tired her out. We did have some on Sunday, but after that, we stopped because her brother was a little extra work and mom and dad didn't have much energy after dealing with him.

Two tired boys. Poor Caleb even had his first emergency room visit on Sunday night. He was a little needier than usual and wanted to be held for the majority of the weekend, so Ellery got to know her exersaucer pretty well. All is well now though, thankfully!

Big boy bed and a baptism

January 21st Ellery Lynn is baptised at our church. She was the best little girl. She didn't even peep when she got dunked in the water.

Ellery's godparents Uncle Jon and Auntie Janet

Ellery Lynn in my grandpa Gonia's baptismal gown. It was worn by my dad, myself, my brothers and Caleb (along with the rest of the Gonia clan.) It is from 1922 and still in great shape. The little bonnett was mine from my baptism.

Four Months old!!!


Here is my Ellery on her 4 month birthday. She is wearing a sweater that I crocheted for her for her baptism day. I will have so much fun making stuff for her. Hopefully she doesn't get sick of homemade stuff!


Caleb slept in a big boy bed for the first time on Jan 18th. The transition went really well surprisingly....at least so far. It was kind of a sad day for mommy though since it is just one more way that he is growing up!

Ellery didn't like the sling so much until she was faced out. Then she thought it was GREAT!!! She could be with mommy and see everything! Great for me to be able to play with Caleb and hold her too! I love it.


Here, Caleb is having a fun time with finger painting. He seems to enjoy art when he is in the mood.

Santa Claus came to Eagan

Merry Christmas Everyone!

We had a lovely christmas, but it went WAY too fast! We took Caleb and Ellery to see Santa Claus and when he first sat on Santa's lap, he was ALL DONE!!!, but Mrs Claus bribed him with a candy cane so he did cooperate long enough for us to get a few pictures. He didn't quite ask Santa when he was there, but a few nights prior, he said he wanted broccoli and cookies for Christmas-easy to please I guess.

Caleb was very mesmerized by the little band that was playing at Tim's holiday party. He just stared at them while they were singing and playing their instruments.

Santa brought Caleb his very own kitchen on Christmas morning. He even heard Caleb's request for broccoli and put some in his stocking. Maybe he will be a chef someday???

We spent Christmas Eve with my family. Caleb got lots of great gifts from Santa here too.

Grandma G and her "Sweet Pea"

Grandpa Pat got Caleb some cool cards about animals from a "secret" place.

Caleb got a drum set from uncle Ben. I think that is something Ben would have wanted when he was little. He likes to be LOUD and have a lot of fun! He even told me that I had to have one more "all nighter" just for fun. I told him that Caleb and Ellery don't let me sleep until 3 like he can!

Uncle Jon here with Miss Ellery. Everyone gave Ellery money for Christmas because we are putting up a swing set and she won't remember this Christmas anyway. She did get a beautiful faux fur coat from Grandma for next winter so she didn't totally get the shaft.

Uncle Jon was a little disappointed because Caleb was "ALL DONE" by the time it came to opening his gift. He did open it though with uncle's help-he got an Aquadoodle puzzle-it is a mat that comes with a pen you fill with water. That way he can't make a mess, but he can show his artistic side! He's getting quite good at scribbling now.

When Caleb was born, I decided to take a picture at each month. We are continuing that with Miss Ellery and this is her photo at 3 months!

Merry Christmas and I hope everyone has a safe and happy 2007!

So much to say!

Big Smiles!

This week has come with changes for both kids. Ellery has started to "talk" to us. It is so fun to hear her little coos and gurgles. She smiles like crazy when you talk to her except when you put her on her tummy. She doesn't like being there too much so she isn't rolling over yet. It is hard for me to not compare her to Caleb and he was making his way off of the Boppy pillow at this age! Oh well, they all develop differently.

She has also learned to take a bottle too finally! Tonight she was even taking it alone-daddy was supposed to be feeding her, but he wasn't holding the bottle-she had it in her mouth and was holding it up alone. Progress! Now, according to dad she is up to clean the garage next. Also, she is so much better at sleeping through the night now-although now that I said that she probably won't be since she has slept for the better part of today despite my efforts to keep her up!

She also discovered her hands recently. Unfortunately, she also discovered how to get her thumb in her mouth. I told Tim that we must breed thumb suckers! Hopefully she doesn't love her thumb like Caleb does or we will have an incredible orthodontist bill!

Caleb has been talking so much these days. He is putting words together more and more. Today he said "listen to mommy" after I had just gotten done saying that to him of course. And the other day I spilled some water from his humidifier on the floor and I said "oh crap!" (yes that is what I said!) and he of course picked up on that and was saying "crap" for a few hours-the little parrot. It is fun to hear him talk, but frustrating sometimes because we don't always know what he is saying.

He also has a few books that he LOVES. "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" which he calls "meatballs" and recently "Socks for supper" which was my book when I was little. We read these books over and over again-dad was threatening to start a fire for "meatballs" tonight. He even hid it for a while, but mommy took it back out again because Caleb loves it so much. I believe we gave our nephews a book about lobsters one year that was loved as much as "meatballs" and it "disappeared" eventually. Maybe "meatballs" will have a similar fate.

We put up our Christmas tree downstairs just after Thanksgiving and every day Caleb goes to the stairs and says "tree" and wants us to turn on the lights. It is so fun to see him so excited. He loves the bird ornament that I stole from my mom. I had to have it because I loved it so much as a kid and now Caleb loves it just as much. He usually asks to hear the birdies along with turning on the lights. I am very excited for this Christmas because of how much fun he will be. We'll see how Santa goes over though. Last year he cried when we put him on Santa's lap, this year he knows who Santa is but every time I ask him if he is going to sit on Santa's lap, he says no. He did agree to it when I said that Ellie would be there too.

"OOOHHH! Birdies!"

Pointing at the tree in amazement!

"Tree!!!"

My Little Grinch!

We just watched "How the Grinch stole Christmas" on tv and

Tim swears this face is a dead ringer for Jim Carrey!