Caleb's 9 Months

1. Caleb is 9 months. Time is just flying!

2. Caleb is a little over 20 pounds and is in the 59th percentile.



3. He is also 28 inches and is in the 35th percentile for height.

4. So Caleb picked up on army crawling so fast and was pulling himself up to things soon after that. At his 9 month appointment he was crawling up on all fours for only a few steps but then would fall and army crawl the rest of the way, but then he seriously picked up crawling almost full time the day after his appointment. He has gotten super mobile so quickly!

5. Caleb loves to give us little head bumps. Especially in the morning when he wakes up or when he's super tired and out of it he'll head butt us or nuzzle his forehead into our chest. I feel like he gets excited whenever the boys are wrestling around like he wants to join right in. :)

6. Caleb definitely has his likes and dislikes. He seems to like sweet potatoes and apples, and bananas and most of the baby food that involves those into their mixes. He doesn't like those foods plain or by themselves though and he doesn't like them if there is anything that looks better around. He loves trying whatever we are eating and when it's something he can't eat he gets pretty upset.

7. He's still spitting up occasionally, very similar to how Claire was. He has eczema too and he broke out in hives once. My only kid to react to a food allergy in complete hives all over. He wasn't fussy about it at all and he was breathing fine which was good. Unfortunately, I don't know what food we had given to him that caused it so I have to really watch for it again and remember what he tries.

8. He's pretty smart and picking up on some things quickly. He learned to clap, especially when we all say "yay!", he waves hi and bye, he was making everyone smile in the hallway at church when he started waving and saying something that sounded very much like it could be a "hi" :). He's also learned to shake his head no when he doesn't want the food I'm offering him or when he doesn't like something, (like when I'm trying to change his diaper and he doesn't want to lie still).

9. I tried to do some sleep training recently and let him cry it out a bit. I think he understands a little better now, and usually will fall asleep pretty quickly when I lie him in his crib. If he wakes up before I go to bed I can usually get him to fall back to sleep as well, but in the middle of the night, it's just habit to bring him into bed with us. He accepts a paci a lot more than his brothers did, so that helps but teething I think is upon us, which messes up any progress we had. :P

10. Caleb is such a chill baby. He's pretty happy for the most part and unless he's hungry or tired he likes to scoot around grabbing anything he can to put in his mouth. He loves banging on the computer keys and piano keys when I'm teaching the other kids. Right now he'll just follow the other kids around the house from room to room as they play. :) He laughs at Everett so much. Seth loves to gives him hugs and he's already trying to join him in his horse play. I constantly am still reminding Seth to be gentle, but Caleb seems to take it okay. He's used to the pokes and bumps I guess. And Claire is getting to be so good with him. She helps out in little ways, trying to make him happy when he's sad, feeding him, picking him up. I can already tell he looks up at her with love. We love our little 9 month old.

Caleb's 7 months

1. Caleb is 7 months old!

2. He weighs about 18 pounds, 12 and a half ounces, and is in the 66th percentile.

3. He is 27 inches and in the 51st percentile for height. He's growing nice and steady! :)

4. Caleb is always banging his head up and down. I'm not sure why he does it, but he looks like one of those bobble head toys. :) He does it so close to things when he's on his tummy scooting around that I'm always worried he's going to bonk his head into something.

5. I think Caleb is probably our earliest scooter. He started making his way around with kind of a side roll push around 6 months old and that quickly developed into a pretty fast army crawl. He's now making his way all around the house and having so much fun exploring all the corners and getting his hands on all the toys and papers that he finds.

6. It's probably not so much his fault, but he's a horrible napper. I've made the mistake of nursing him to sleep, and now he's pretty dependent on it. He's not that bad in the middle of the night. He sleeps with us and actually sleeps pretty well. I only nurse him once maybe twice in the night, but his naps are difficult. If I don't nurse him to sleep or at least hold him until he falls asleep, he just won't fall asleep. And when I do nurse him to sleep, I lay him down and he wakes up so quickly when he notices he's not being held. We're working on a little sleep training lately. At least trying to get him to fall asleep on his own in his crib at the beginning of the night. He's doing somewhat okay, but it's hard. I hate the process of letting him cry, soothing him, and hearing him cry again as soon as I leave, and doing it over and over again until he falls asleep.

7. So Caleb has had a weird start to eating solids. He seemed very interested and excited about solids when we first started. He seemed to like most everything. He was always looking at us eating during meals with so much interest and he showed us so much excitement. Then, he got sick and had to be given medicine. He hated the medicine. And I had a not so fun time trying to get him to take it - I would use his paci and squeeze little bits into his mouth and then give him the paci and force him to suck it and swallow. I think maybe it was that experience or maybe he was just sick for awhile, but he pretty much refused to eat or even try some new things. He would look all excited for food and then as soon as he saw the spoon coming towards his mouth, he would close his mouth and turn away from it, refusing to try it. I even tried only giving him the really good stuff for awhile, but still he didn't want any. :( So then we tried getting food pouches, putting the baby food in them, and letting him feed himself. Well either he started feeling better from whatever illness he may have had or he just loved it after that. It was super messy, but he liked food again. :)

8. He loves to put everything in his mouth right now. And since he's scooting around so much now, we have to keep an extra careful eye on him at all times cuz he finds things to put in his mouth from all over. He seems to especially love going and finding shoes to suck on or paper to eat. :P

9. Caleb is still our little noise machine. He's starting to make more gabbing sounds and he'll randomly scream or squawk or something. I'm pretty sure he's starting to recognize his name now too. :)


10. It's so fun seeing him with the other kids. Claire is learning how to hold him in different ways and picking him up. I've started letting her occasionally pick him up off the ground and carry him to me or just to pull him away from somewhere where he shouldn't be scooting to. Everett still loves to make him laugh and Seth still gets so protective of him. I think Caleb has gotten used to being bumped around by Seth. I've even occasionally found Seth trying to sit on him when he's on his tummy scooting around. He's going to learn to be tough with these older brothers around. :P

Caleb's 5 Months

1. So Caleb is 5 months old! We usually do this update at 4 months, but his last doctor's appointment was pushed so far that it just became his 5 month appointment instead!. :P

2. At 5 months, Caleb is 16 pounds, 10 and a half ounces and is in the 56th percentile.

3. Caleb is 26 inches long and in the 58th percentile for height.

4. So our little Caleb boy loves to bounce and be loud. He seems to love the bouncer and will bounce and jump happily for a good while. He also likes to bounce in our laps while holding him. He also seems to love to screech. He is so loud sometimes. When he's upset, he screeched angrily and in the mornings when he's awake, he can be happy but starts screeching loud and happily until someone picks him up.

5. He is still a heavy spitter upper. :P He definitely loves to get me covered in spit up right at the most inconvenient times. I let a sister hold him for me for a couple minutes during Relief Society and he managed to spit up all over her skirt, I felt pretty bad, but she was really nice and calm about it. :P I carry a receiving blanket around with me to catch spit up cuz it covers more area than a small burp cloth.

6. Caleb is cosleeping with us. It's our own fault, we haven't really tried to get him to sleep in the play pen. Seth is still sleeping in the crib (toddler bed) and he falls asleep really easily and quickly when I lay down with him. For naps and bed time, I just lay down next to him swaddled and with a paci and he usually falls asleep right away. Sometimes I still need to nurse him to sleep. He sleeps pretty well through the night, I usually have to feed him once or twice. But he also still wakes up super early or in the middle of the night to poop. Can't wait for that to stop... :P

7. Caleb has rolled only a handful of times from his tummy to his back and it's always been accidental. He's also rolled with more purpose from his back to his tummy twice. It's a little unusual for babies to do it that way first, but he arches his back and reaches and totally rolls right onto his tummy. :)

8. We think Caleb must be a little sensitive to loud noises or craziness. He has started crying uncontrollably sometimes and it seems like it comes out of nowhere, but it tends to happen when we're visiting family and there's a lot of noises or excitement or when I've been nursing him and I have to yell something to one of the other kids in the other room. I'm not even upset, I think it's just the surprise he doesn't like, and he gets overwhelmed or something.

9. He still gets so much loving from Seth. Seth is very protective over Caleb and loves to get right up in his face or give him hugs and kisses. Everett has shown more interest than before in Caleb lately and loves to make him laugh. For some reason it's really easy for Everett to make Caleb laugh. Everett just seems to look at him and Caleb will burst out in a giggle. Everett also loves to brag about the fact that Caleb has never spit up on him. :)

10. I feel like Caleb is a pretty social baby. He loves to look and watch people and he smiles a ton. He's pretty happy when we're all paying attention to him but the minute we turn away, he gets upset and starts crying. Even as I write this, I have to keep turning my head and flash him a smile and then as soon as I turn back to the computer he starts whining. :P Guess I better get back to out cutie 5 month old! :)

Claire Rides a Bike

Being our first child and not knowing what we were doing, it took a little while for us to teach Claire how to ride a bike. We tried some different methods but the method that we think worked the best was wrapping a towel around her waist and Scott would hold the ends of the towel to somewhat help guide her, but still allowing her to be in control. It worked well and we took her to the park to ride all on her own to show us her new skills. :)

Caleb's Baby Blessing

We waited until after the holidays to bless Caleb, making it easier for grandparents to make it to the blessing. We couldn't wait too long though since my parents (the McClellan side) were leaving on their mission soon to Guatemala. So we ended up combining celebrations with our families. We had a nice dinner with lots of family and some friends to say farewell to mom and dad and celebrate Caleb's baby blessing day. :)

 

Christmas Reunion

We had a different kind of McClellan reunion this year. For one, it wasn't camping and two, instead of a summer reunion it was during the Christmas holiday. My parents were able to rent a large house up by Bear Lake. It was huge and had enough beds for all the adults. It was a pretty cool house, with a play room, a theatre room, and large meeting areas. We drove up on Friday the 22nd before Christmas. I wish I had gotten a picture of the lake on the way, but I captured a photo on the way home. The water was such a beautiful color that this photo doesn't even capture. We had a nice drive with beautiful weather. Everyone was able to make it safe and sound. It actually didn't start snowing until that evening after most everyone had made it. :) We spent that afternoon meeting up with everyone and checking out the house.

The next day we woke up to a winter wonderland! We used the hill into the parking lot to go sledding down. It was still coming down but it was light enough to still have some fun. I think the kids had a blast. :) And then when it got more windy and heavier we all went inside to warm up. We played games and talked and relaxed. That afternoon, we attempted to make graham cracker houses. I think it was a little chaotic with so many little ones needing help and not being as organized as we could but I think the kids still enjoyed the candy. :)

On Sunday, we all made it to either the 9am or 11am sacrament meetings and tried to get pictures in-between. Trying to get over 50 people together in one small area is no easy task. We had some grumpy kids but we got a photo. Before we left the house we attempted a few smaller group photos of just the kids. We got a few family photos ourselves real quick that afternoon as well. And of course we attempted to get the three babies together for a photo a couple times.

That night being Christmas Eve we attempted our childhood tradition of acting out the Nativity and singing correlating Christmas songs when they come up throughout the story. Caleb was supposed to sleep and play the part of baby Jesus, but I guess he didn't want to. Like the rest of our kids, he preferred to sit with mommy and daddy and just watch. It was still a pretty special time that was hopefully memorable. :)

Later we opened our Christmas pajamas and got them on and after putting kids to bed, all the adults played their christmas elf part and we laid out all our stockings on the couch. It was kind of a cool view to see so many laid out. :)

The next day, being Christmas morning, was of course a little chaotic again. Once all the kids were awake, we all gathered to open stockings. Our kids all got one small toy gift and some candy. We played games and enjoyed each other's company and opened our sibling gifts. And then the next day cleaned up and headed home. It was such a memorable weekend that I think we all really enjoyed. :)