The Past Few Weeks in Pictures

Caleb is nearly 4 weeks old and the past few weeks have flown by!  Here are some random pictures since Caleb has joined our family.

I love how tiny he is!

“Why are you making me wear this stupid hat Mom?”

Making the most of all his 19 inches at 2 weeks old!

The Shurtleff Grandkids
Harrison, Abigail, Adam, and Caleb

Rare picture with Abby and the baby together
This is about the extent of her interest in her brother.
She likes to use his diapers on her “friends”.

Adam LOVES his baby brother!  He loves to hold him, kiss him, talk to him, and he calls him Buddy Boy most of the time.

Second-cousin Charlie was due 1 week after Caleb and came 11 days after Caleb was born, 4 weeks early.  The difference, Charlie was 8 lbs. 10 oz.!  Nearly 3 full lbs. more than Caleb!

Enjoying some light therapy.  I’m starting to get worried that his skin tone is still quite yellow, so he’s spending a few minutes in the sunlight every day.

Caleb Mark Gardner

Born April 19, 2012
5 lb. 15 oz. and 18 in.

At the end of the post is an explanation of the crazy name changes that have been going on with this little guy.

A little about his name drama….
We have officially, (as in applied for the legal name change), chosen Caleb as this baby boy’s name.  I don’t know why it was so hard for us to decide.  Ok, it was hard for ME to decide!  We went through several names and every time I would decide on a name, it would feel wrong.  Blame it on the stress of pregnancy complications, hospital bed rest, a c-section, and constant severe tension headaches since his birth, and you get a mom who just can’t decide on what name is right for her baby.  One name was too trendy, one was too similar to Adam and Abby, one was Nat’s favorite that kind of grew on me, but then just seemed wrong.  Caleb is a name that I have liked from the beginning but that Nat didn’t.  After lots of discussion and tears, he assured me that he was ok with the name Caleb.  I am finally at peace!  We went to the local Health Department building and changed his birth certificate.  It will take up to a month for the change and then we’ll just have to get a new social security card, notify the health insurance and doctor and we’ll be good to go.

So….Caleb Mark Gardner is finally here to stay!

Easter 2012

The Easter Bunny comes to our house on Saturday.  We call it “Easter Saturday”.  He, (she?), hides the kids’ baskets along with dyed and plastic eggs filled with candy.  Abby found her basket under the table, but rather than pull the whole thing out, she started pulling out the goodies!

Big Brother helping her get her basket out.

Adam found his basket in the pantry.

Finding eggs. 
It’s so much fun watching little kids be so excited!

Making sure we got all of them!

The Easter Bunny always bring a new book and a special toy.  This year, Abby got a tea set and Adam got a ‘Cars 2’ game for his Leapster.

Easter Sunday
With having church at 1:00 pm, we had a relaxing Easter morning including a yummy Breakfast Burrito and fruit smoothie breakfast.

I put Abby’s hair in sponge rollers for the first time early in the morning and prayed they would work by church time!

And work they did!  I think next time I’ll use the larger rollers….
Dressed for church in a new dress for Abby and new tie for Adam.  Doesn’t Adam look like a proud missionary in this picture?  And Abby is just cheesy.

After church, we had a big family dinner at my Grandparents’ house and took a few more pictures.  Adam apparently doesn’t know how to smile for the camera.  Abby, on the other hand, poses like she knows what she’s doing!

Abby LOVED being in her pretty dress, curly hair, and flower headband.  She knows she’s pretty and absolutely loves getting even more “prettified”.

My Grandma had a egg hunt in the backyard for the little kids.  Cousins Becca and Michael decided they wanted to ride the electric jeep and car around to find the eggs while my kids ran around like crazy and found almost all of them before the other kids even had a chance.  It helped that they had their Aunts pointing them in the right direction of the eggs!

I had to snap a picture of cute, chunky Harrison, (my one and only direct nephew, whom I adore), with his own found egg.

It was a great Easter this year.  I’m excited to have an almost 1 year old in the mix for next year!

Resurrection Rolls and Dying Eggs

For our Family Home Evening on Easter, we watched the Living Scriptures DVD, “He is Risen”, talked about the real meaning of Easter and made Resurrection Rolls (where you place a cinnamon/sugar coated marshmallow in the middle of a crescent roll to symbolize Christ’s body in the tomb).

Adam opening up his “tomb” to discover that “Christ’s body” was no longer there.
Of course, Mr. Smarty Pants had to point out that the marshmallow just melted.

On Thursday night we dyed our Easter Eggs.  The kids had lots of fun.  Although I’m used to my family doing all kinds of funky things which takes much longer than the 10 minutes we spent dying.  My kids were happy as could be to let one egg be just one color of dye.

Really?  Could he be any cuter?


Always fun….pouring the dye down the sink!
Yay for Easter Eggs!
Adam was the only one to eat one for breakfast….we’re just not hard-boiled egg people I guess.