My baby is 18 months old today!! Time has sure flown by this past year and a half. Caleb is such a joy and delight although he sure has his moments!!

Things Caleb loves to do:

Eat! Eat! Eat! Carry a stool around to stand on. Follow Mommy or Daddy around. Act like the older kids. Play chase. Be outside. Scream. Pick out his own jammies. Carry his blanket around. Put food in his hair. Throw food all over the kitchen. Climb on everything. Touch things he is not suppose to. Drink out of every ones cups. Make a mess. Open and close the toilet. Talk on the phone. Go to bed (he asks around 7 for his milk and blanket). Drink out of drinking fountains. Sit in Sage’s car seat. Climb in the dish washer. Brush his teeth. Take a bath. Play hide and seek. Play with balls. Ride a scooter with help. Be tickled. Jump off the couch(how he broke is arm.), Playing in water, Crawl around and act like a dog, Playing copycat.

Things Caleb can say:

Mommy, Daddy(started calling Kip daddy on October 31st. Before that he would call me Mom and Kip was Mommy), I want more., drink, hot, bite, outside, go, bye-bye, hi, Papa, Sage, kids, baby, blankie, bup(pacifier), up, no, yes, shoes, socks, candy, eat, cookie, I fall., pup, my…, cracker, plate, spoon, fork, mine, Kip, bath, and I am sure there are more words that I can’t remember.

Body Parts Caleb knows:

hands, fingers, tongue, mouth, teeth, ears, hair, head, nose, belly, bum, toes, feet, eyes(although most times he still points to his ears).

Caleb is always making us laugh and he laughs a lot also. He is almost always happy and easy to please. Caleb is an easy toddler right now as long as he is supervised. Caleb also manages to get into trouble often. He doesn’t like to be told “no” and often cries for the other parent if he gets in trouble with one. We love having Caleb in our family!!!

Caleb currently weighs 24.5 pounds, has 8 teeth, and is wearing 2T clothes.

What have we done this fall??? Well, for starters we went to Gardner Village and say the “Witches”. We filled out papers for the witch hunt and all the kids got a cookie for 25 cents for finding them all. Caleb did not like the witches and would cry if I put him near one. The other kids all thought the Witch using the bathroom was the best.

We went to a Pumpkin patch to go through a corn maze, play on climbing toys, and pick out pumpkins. It was so fun to watch Sage try to find the perfect pumpkin. She would pick it up and look at it and then set it down to look at it and then tell me what was wrong with it. This happened to about 5 or so pumpkins until she found the perfect one and put it in the wagon. After all the kids found their pumpkins she ended up putting hers back and just picking one up and saying it was good. I got a good laugh out of this!

Playing in leaves is one of the kids favorite things to do!! One night, I raked what leaves had fallen off the tree the the kids played in them. This was when Jayden was a the hospital. Soon more leaves fell and we raked them in. A few days before Halloween, Kip raked lots of leaves and the kids played in them and then we stuffed them into pumpkin bags for decoration. What a great activity to help clean up the yard and the kids were more than willing to help.

On October 29th, I decided it was time to paint pumpkins and carve pumpkins. The kids agreed and we had a great time. All the kids painted their own “baby pumpkin” and decorated them with shiny confetti. After dinner, I opened each of their big pumpkins and they started digging them out. They did a pretty good job for how young they are. When each pumpkin was clean I would ask them what shape of eyes and nose they would want and what they want their mouth to look like. Here are the finished results from left to right: Braxton, Jayden, Caleb and Sage.

On October 14th, Jayden was admitted to Primary Children’s Medical Center for a Cystic Fibrosis Clean Out. Many of you probably just went “What is that?”. Well, this means Jayden getting a PICC Line in her arm and two different kinds of heavy antibiotics put through her system. Also, having 4 breathing treatments a day each taking at least 45 minutes. So, she arrived at 1:00 pm and was put under a small amount of anathesia to get the pick line in. The team tried for 45 minutes without success and Jayden was screaming at the top of her lungs the entire time. Since getting the PICC Line didn’t work on Wednesday she went to a special team on Thursday where she was given more anathesia and they had her line in and everything done in a matter of 15 minutes. Jayden didn’t even scream once. Later, that day she had to get her IV in her hand taken out which for a four year old was very tramatic. While Jayden stayed at the hospital, Kip, my mom and I would take turns staying with her over night. We just couldn’t stand the thought of her being by herself. On Monday the 19th, I picked Jayden up under her arms and she screamed that it hurt. I had to take her down to ultra sound so they could look at her PICC Line and see if there was a clot. After having her lay still for 45 minutes (which made us all crazy) everything seemed fine. Her and I went to the gift store for a balloon since she was really good. On Tuesday and Wednesday my mom stayed with her and most things went okay. She had a great nurse named Brian who she loved and he would give her prizes for doing a good job at things. On Thursday the 22nd, Jayden’s PICC Line wasn’t working anymore and was determined to have a clot in it. She had to get some special medicine in the line to dissolve and move the clot, but it didn’t seem to be working after 4 hours. Kip was with her and was told she would need an IV placed and a new PICC line put in on Friday. Later that night her PICC line started working again and the Nurse was able to pull the blood clot out. Still the doctors thought the line would fail again and so they still wanted her to get a new line. Friday morning Jayden was scheduled for nose surgery at 9:15 although she didn’t get in until 11:00. On our way down to surgery we ran into her CF doctor who said if the surgery went well Jayden could be discharged on Saturday. Great news!! This meant, no new PICC line and we would only have one more night to sleep at the hospital. Surgery went well. Jayden slept most of Friday and was discharged on Saturday. Besides those issues, other things Jayden did while at the hospital:

Breathing treatments at 7:30 am, 11:30 am, 3:30 pm, and 7:30 pm every day.

Played in the toy room a lot

Rode a Little Tykes Police Car everywhere all the time!!!

Enjoyed the warm days outside

Learned to like masks since she couldn’t leave her room without one.

Did lots of crafts

Played with play dough a lot!

Loved it when the therapy dogs came to visit.

and Enjoyed all the attention (for the most part).

We hope to not have to go back for a long stay for a long time! It was hard on Kip and I without sleep since getting a good night sleep in a hospital is impossible!

WOW!!! Do I have a cute family or what!!?? Kip and I decided to try our hand at taking our own family photos. They didn’t all turn out perfect and maybe not every ones style, but I LOVE them! We went to Thanksgiving Point Gardens and spent two hours taking pictures and riding around in a golf cart. The kids had a great time and a cart ride was a great bribe to get a good smile.

Here are some photos of our favorite summer foods that we will truly miss until next year. I know some of you will say I can buy it frozen, still eat them just not grilled unless you are willing to grill in the snow, but truly it is not the same.

Braxton enjoying some fresh watermelon which I would sit and share with him often.

Sage loves grilled hotdogs (and so do I) on a bun, even if it is a hamburger bun.

Caleb loves grilled corn on the cob along with the rest of us.

Jayden’s favorite food, if you can call it that. She will eat butter anytime, anywhere. No need to worry about how bad it might be for most of us. For a child with CF it is really good as long as they take enzymes to digest it. She will still be enjoying this all winter long. Just to let you know, this photo was not staged. I left the kitchen for a minute and came back and say her with the large tub in her lap. Too cute!

Okay, so like all the other updates, this one is way late. Here are the kids on their first day of school. The twins started preschool on Wednesday the 19th of August and Sage started Kindergarten on Wednesday the 26th of August. All the kids were so excited and they still all love school.