Jaq and a Little Spice

As promised, here are a couple of pictures of Jaq. I guess he's about 4 months old here. He's SO active at this age that I couldn't get a great picture of him, but here's the best we could do.

Jes had to hold Jaq still to get this one. Yes, he does have a left ear!

Even though Jaq looks like some ferocious attack puppy here, he is really very sweet and LOVES Caleb!

My mom alerted me this morning that Starbucks has returned Pumpkin Spice Lattes to its menu, so this picture from times past is in honor of this very special day! :) (Don't worry, that's just milk in the cup)

Musings.

Whew! Where did the week go? It's already Thursday and I remember that I promised to post pictures. Of course, I've not done that, but will asap!
This past weekend, my mama and a bunch of ladies went to Women of Faith at the American Airlines Center here in Dallas. We had the best time. We laughed, cried, sang, and did all the things that girls do best when you get us together in a space. The theme this year was Amazing Freedom, so all the speakers touched on their own experiences with gaining freedom from certain situations. My favorite is Patsy Clairmont. She is a VERY lively lady who has the energy level of our son. I've decided that when I grow up I want to be like her. She challenged us to "live lively and love lavishly" which is now my new motto. Sandi Patti sang and blew us all away as did Nicole Nordeman. Of course one of the highlights of the weekend was my obtaining her new album, Recollection, which is in constant rotation in my CD player. I won't bore you with my professions of adoration of her music again!
Today, while Caleb was napping, I was catching up on all my recorded shows on our DVR. Last night a show called Crazy Sexy Cancer was on TLC and I have to recommend it. I, obviously, have no personal experience with cancer, but I have known many people, including my paternal grandmother and my good friend Amanda, who have had it. This show followed around a girl who was barely my age who had a rare, incurable form of the disease. She showed great strength, creativity and thought outside the box to find ways to live successfully with her disease. Many of you know that before I started this teaching gig, I worked in the medical field. For many years of my childhood, I wanted to be a cancer researcher and find the cure for the disease. I would tell anyone who asked that that was what I was going to do. I have great admiration for survivors of cancer and can remember vividly hearing about my grandmother being very ill and not being able to see her when I was a small child. Treatments are better now, so hopefully my grandchildren won't have to experience the same.
School, in most of our city, started back on Monday, as did I. I am teaching 4 classes so I'm a little overloaded this semester and will be up to my eyeballs in grading soon, but I will post pictures within the next few days. Hope all of you have a great weekend and happy and restful Labor Day!!!

Out

I got so tired of looking at Caleb with his tongue out, that I thought I would post a little. I am leaving tonight to go to Women of Faith with my mama and a group from her church. This seems to be a yearly thing for us as we have managed to score tickets each year for the past few years. I love going to these events and can't wait. It's a bonus that Nicole Nordeman will be there tonight and I LOVE LOVE LOVE her! I am even a member of her fan club. How silly is that? If you haven't heard any of her music, you should check it out. She has a very soothing voice with lyrics that sometimes just sneak up on you, they are so deep and meaningful. She will make you think. She is also a Dallas mama, so that is even better!
Tomorrow, Jes is taking Caleb out to meet some family of his that live nearby. They have some land and are out of the country quite a lot, so they have never met Caleb. It should be fun. I have, however, warned Jes to take along the Benadryl. If Caleb is anything like his mama, hay will do a number on him!
I will be back Saturday afternoon and am going to a spa thing at a friend of a friend's house. Anyway, somewhere in there I will update with some pictures of Caleb and our new baby, Jaq. I realized the other day that we hadn't posted the newest pictures of him. He is growing like a weed, as you will see.
I will leave you with a few of the most used quotes from Caleb lately:

"Hi Mama" (Constant...)

"Look, Mama" (I hear this one at least every 2-3 minutes)

"Me made mess!" (I guess we need to work on our pronouns...)

"Oh, Mama." (Usually said after falling or bumping into something)

"No Jaq, tired, night night, eat, Mama, Daddy, etc" (His favorite response to any question)

"I wuv YOU!" (My definite favorite!)

Hope you all have a great weekend!

The Tongues Have It

We don't know what has gotten into Caleb lately, but he's taken up a strange habit of licking things. Very often throughout the day you will hear me say, "Caleb, please don't/stop licking _______________." The blank could be myself, his daddy, the chair, his highchair, the cat (that's a fun one!), the door, the bar, etc. Anything that he can get his tongue on, you can guarantee that he's either tried to or succeeded in licking it. Hopefully this habit will pass!

I will leave you with the picture of Caleb that we get to see most often, now that he's in this phase!

Our Fun Weekend

This past weekend what quite fun and very busy for Caleb and I. Jes worked the weekend away, so the kiddo and I did our thing, just the two of us. On Saturday, we got up bright and early and drove to Tyler for a wedding of my former college roommate, Amanda.


















Caleb was so excited to be out of the car and just had to have his picture taken.

















Here's Amanda looking beautiful, as always, in her grandmother's wedding dress. It had not been worn since the '50s and was just perfect on her. Amanda married a wonderful man named Ken who loves her and her little girl, Eden, like none other!

Caleb and I drove back home after the 2pm wedding and crashed!

















This evening, Jes, Caleb and I went to a baseball game in Frisco. For our non-native readers, we have a minor league baseball team in Frisco, our neighboring city. We originally bought the tickets to see the Veggie Tales characters and Caleb talked all week and day about seeing Larry. When we got to the field, we were told that Larry went on sometime before 4. It was after 5:30, but don't despair, he was coming back. We waited through an incredibly loud concert and no Larry. We were so worried that Caleb would freak out, but lo and behold we had a closet baseball fan!

















Caleb LOVED the baseball game and probably had more fun than anyone in the whole place! He danced, cheered, jumped up and down, yelled at the batters and umpire, waved his arms to catch a t-shirt, and anything else you do at a game. I guess we know where we will be when he can start playing sports!
















All in all, it was a busy but fun weekend. I have the next 2 weeks off until fall semester starts, so Caleb and I will be playing and running around doing all the things we couldn't when I was in school!

One thing of note that we would like all of you to remember. Jes went for a job interview on Friday at a company in Farmer's Branch. While he is not particularly looking at leaving his current position, there are some very disturbing things going on in the company and he just might have to go elsewhere. So, the hunt has begun.

It's Done!

As of last night my classes for the summer are complete! I am still waiting on a lab grade from another instructor, so I can't post the grades and am not completely detached from the classes, but I don't have to grade another paper or give another lecture until August 27th, when fall starts. That makes me happy!
Caleb and I will be heading out of town tomorrow to Tyler for my friend Amanda's wedding. I will update with pictures when we get back. Today will be spent getting caught up on everything that I neglected while I was buried in paperwork!

Austin

Finally I am getting around to posting pictures from Jes and my trip to Austin. We had the best time and tried to do all kinds of things that we could never do with Caleb. We even worked in a movie, my first at the theater since I was pregnant! My mom got us a fabulous deal at the Radisson downtown, through her employer, and they even upgraded our room to a suite that overlooked the river.
Ok, on to the pictures!

















Cheesy, but we have so many of these pictures from our single days and I guess lack of things to take pictures of that we just had to do it on this trip. I think this was within the first hour of the normally 2-3 hour trip. We arrived in Austin over 5 hours later, mainly because of horrendous traffic and the non-ending rain that followed us the whole way.


















For our non-Dallas residents, this was a site of a huge gas explosion on the Wednesday before we left. It was right off the side of 35, and I couldn't resist taking a picture. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but the devastation of the business was amazing.

















Saturday morning, Jes and I went to the capital. We wandered around for a good while before we decided to move on. After we left here, we walked back to the hotel (most everything is within walking distance from downtown) and got the truck. It was just so humid that we couldn't stand another moment and drove around like the rest of the tourists!

















We went onto the UT campus and toured the LBJ library.

















We live on Fillmore Drive, so we had to get a picture of President Fillmore. Many people we know don't even remember him being a president, but this proves it, as much as a print from an old painting hanging in a library can!


















On the other side of campus was this museum that holds one of the only Gutenberg Bibles. We hotfooted it over here just to see it and we weren't disappointed! Now we can say we've seen one!


















Most of you know that I received my Master's degree from a UT branch, so I'm a HUGE UT fan! All you have to do is look in my closet to see that. All my t-shirts are either grey and orange or just orange. While we were on campus we stopped at the co-op (bookstore to you non-Longhorns) and picked up more UT paraphernalia! We tried to get tickets to go up in the Tower (they just reopened it after being closed for years), but they were sold out for a few hours past what we wanted to hang around for, so we vowed we would go back to go up.


















Our last morning in Austin, we drove to this restaurant that we saw on the Food Network. It is called Taco Xpress and they didn't disappoint! The breakfast tacos here were so great that we decided that when we do come back for that ride up into the Tower, we would have something other than breakfast here!
All in all, we had a great trip and were both sad and excited to get home to Caleb. He stayed with his Mawmaw and Pawpaw (my parents) all weekend and came home with new tricks that we are still discovering even now.
Next week is my last week of summer school and that means more grading than I will probably be able to do in those 24 hour periods. With that being said, don't expect to hear from us next week as I will be up to my eyeballs in papers, tests, etc, praying for a few more hours in the day. Have a great week!

See Ya Monday!

Saturday is Jes and my 6th wedding anniversary, so we are shipping the kiddo off to his grandparents and high tailing it south to Austin. We are so excited and when we get back we will have lots of pictures to post chronicaling our trip. See you then!

A Walk Down Memory Lane

I saw this fun high school memory list at It Coulda Been Worse and thought I would participate too!! It sounded like fun!

1. Who was your best friend? I had a group of friends from my school that I hung out with that included my best girl friends, Paige, Sarah and Christie, along with my boyfriend at the time and some other guys that I didn't really know that well. I don't keep up with any of them except for Paige who I recently was able to get into contact with again. We will forever be linked as our grandparents are long time friends!
2. Did you play any sports? No way! I was in the band and that took up every waking moment if I wasn't actually in class. I couldn't have survived anyway...
3. What kind of car did you drive? I had a 1985 Chevrolet Cavalier that shook violently at every stop light and had the check engine light permanently on, but the thing never died on me and even went to college with me!
4. It’s Friday night. Where were you? Well, if not at a football game with the band, then hanging out with the boyfriend or at a church or other band function.
5. Were you a party animal? I didn't have time. See number 2.
6. Were you considered a flirt? Not really. I had a few boyfriends, some real psychos, but flirt was not something that I think I was ever called.
7. Were you in the band, orchestra or choir? Again, band. I was one of the only freshmen in the top band, was squad leader, section leader, etc. Everything you could be, I was. I LOVED band and miss it to this day!
9. Were you ever suspended or expelled? I never even went to the principal's office. I'm still not entirely sure where it was located in our school...
10. Can you sing the fight song? Sadly, yes. After 4 years of teaching it to other people in band, it's one of those things permanently cemented in my memory.
11. Who was your favorite teacher? I wasn't the best student, so I would be more likely to pick my least favorites. Let's see, there would be the english teacher who tried to kick me out of her class for having mono, the academic decathalon teacher who tried to get me to forfeit my band trip to Orlando just to go to a local competition, or maybe the chemistry teacher who tried to convince our class that one of the elements was named after him. Sigh... The joys of public school systems! Yet another reason I will homeschool my kiddos!
12. What was your school mascot? We were the South Garland Colonels!!!
13. Did you go to the Prom? Oh you bet! And so did my mom and dad!
14. If you could go back, would you? No way!
15. What do you remember most about graduation? Just being so busy and having to clean up toilet paper from our trees of our house the next morning before church. I still don't know who did that.
16. Where were you on Senior Skip Day? In class. I was a good girl.
17. Did you have a job your senior year? Well, I worked with my mom at the company she worked at. I also had a short stint as a pizza girl at Papa John's when they were still pretty new in the area.
18. Where did you go most often for lunch? The cafeteria. See number 16.
19. Have you gained weight since then? Well, I had mono as a senior, so I gained weight that year. I have also had a child and aged over 10 years. I weighed just over a hundred pounds soaking wet when I graduated. You tell me.
20. What did you do after graduation? I went to East Texas Baptist University for my Bachelor's in Biology. Then on the UT Tyler for my Master's in Clinical Exercise Physiology. I have worked in the clinical field and have finally settled into academics and mommyhood.
21. What year did you graduate? 1996. Doesn't really seem like that long ago...
22. Who was your Senior Prom Date? His name was Bill. Not the guy I wanted to go to prom with, but the guy I wanted to attend with was too slow in asking me and had broken my heart earlier in the year, so my friend Bill took me. Sweet guy, just not my type.
23. Are you going/did you go to your 10 year reunion? No, they were charging like $160 to attend. Are they crazy??? Why would I pay that to see a group of people that I don't either remember or want to remember? Anyway, I'll probably go to the 20 year. Maybe it will be better than some of the 10 years I've heard about!

Most Recent ENT Update

Today, Caleb and I returned to the ENT's office to, once again, check out his ears for fluid. Unfortunately, Caleb has inherited my tendency to have wax in his ears. Granted, it drains well, but today there was just enough that the doctor couldn't see well if there was fluid. They did, however, determine that there was no redness or infection. Another tympanogram was done to measure the movement of his ear drum. The good news is that the right ear is moving normally now, however the left is still abnormal. He doesn't have any hearing loss and still isn't really a candidate for tubes as he has never had an infection or any other issues, so we're just in a holding pattern. They are supposed to call us Monday and let us know where to go from here. I just wanted to update you on the news from this doctor.

Our New Addition

While I would love to be posting right now about a new pregnancy in my house, human is not the species of the newest Mathis family member. Our new addition is of the more furry variety in the form of our new puppy, Jaq, pronounced Jack. Why the strange spelling for a normal sounding name? We have named all our animals after Disney characters and there was absolutely no reason to stop now.
















Here he is... His mom is a red Golden Retriever named Reba who wandered into Jes's hanger at work and dad is a deadbeat. We don't know who mom bred with, but we have our theories.
















As you can see, Caleb is just beside himself with excitement. He spent most of the evening jumping, literally, around the house saying "puppy" over and over again in octaves I have never heard come out of him! All day he talked about Daddy and Jaq and couldn't wait for them to get home.
I think the last time I lived in a house with a puppy I was 5 or 6 years old, so this will be a learning experience for me. Jes, however, seems to be the resident expert and I will defer all puppy raising duties to him!















So, here is our new family member. He is so sweet and calm and had already won us over! We just wanted to formally introduce our new baby!

Caleb's New Trick

Yesterday I discovered that Caleb can do something new and it totally surprised me. I got so loud about it that I actually scared Caleb. So get this... you can show Caleb a word and he knows what it is! Granted, they are words that he is very familiar with like motorcycle, veggie tales, Dora, Mama, Daddy, Blue's Clues, etc., but he recognizes them everytime and says what they are. Somehow I don't think that this is normal for a 2 year old. If I'm wrong then tell me, but I wanted to share (and brag just a little! :) ).

Happy Fourth!

Yesterday, the 4th, we decided that enough was enough and we were going to get out of the house and go somewhere, other than the mall and Wal-Mart, and have some fun as a family. Thus began the dreaded 'what do you want to do', 'where do you want to go' conversation. We eventually looked outside at yet another rainy day and decided to go downtown to the aquarium and then see fireworks at the Plano campus of my employer. Below are pictures from our day.
















Caleb was particularly silly this morning. I think he knew he was in store for some fine family entertainment! After all the rain and being cooped up in the house, the prospect of going anywhere other then Wal-Mart was exciting for him.

After getting the aquarium, and getting over the sticker shock of the entrance fee, Caleb promptly peed all over Jes and we had to change him right in the middle of the place. Luckily, I thought to pack some pull ups and we just slid it on and whisked his diaper off in one fail swoop. Here are father and son trying to locate the MIA otters. We think they were off having fun torturing birds or something!

The cutest picture of Caleb, but my precious husband just couldn't keep his tongue in his mouth for most of the pictures. I'm so proud. Sigh...

Caleb with the penguins. Ever since that Happy Feet movie came out and he saw the penguins everywhere, he has been able to acurately identify them as such and not just a bird or duck. I'm not sure if we confused him with these penguins, as they were not the same type as in the movie, but he did call them penguins.

I have been trying to make more of an effort to be on the other side of the camera as there are plenty of pictures of Caleb and Jes, but most of the time anyone would look through our photo albums and assume Caleb is motherless. Anyway, here we are on our way out of the aquarium to search for some decent food.

We managed to trudge down to the West End between rain showers, all the while wading through the puddles and the water in the air. Seriously, we were all wet when we made it the few blocks to the restaraunt, but it wasn't sweat. It was so humid! Jes decided that he wanted to eat at the Spaghetti Warehouse. Now, I've lived in the Metroplex my whole life, with the exception of the few years in East Texas for the necessary time called college and graduate school, so this place is just not as big of a deal for me as it is for Jes, not a native. I guess it is a landmark of Dallas as my mom tells me stories of going here when she was in high school and I grew up eating here. Jes loved it and said it was more than he expected. I guess we'll be going back!

We were full of carbs and decided that we wanted gum. I guess I had to have a picture of this so I'll share with you too. I get a little camera crazy at times!

After lunch, and about 232 million carbs, we decided that we should take advantage of the sunlight peaking out between 2 large black clouds and take a walk around downtown. We showed Caleb all the major monuments in the area and treked back to the car.

We killed a little time between leaving downtown and going to Plano by store hopping. When we did arrive in Plano to claim our spot for the fireworks show, Caleb had had a nap and we were exhausted but excited. The last time we saw fireworks were 3 years ago, the same day we got pregnant with our Caleb.

We brought our bubble blower to the festivities to give Caleb something to do and fill some time. As you can see it drew in other kiddos as well.

Caleb and Jes during the fireworks.

I finally got a smiling picture of Jes...

Caleb and I watching the show.

Caleb and I. We had a great time and made it out of the parking lot alive, no small feat. It's amazing how mean people get when they are trying to leave an event.

Anyway, we hope you all had a great 4th and can't wait for next year!

Yea For Caleb!!!

A few weeks back I posted about buying Caleb a potty. He's been very interested in it, but hadn't actually done anything. That all changed Saturday.
Big News: Saturday, my boy, peed in the potty! Today, my boy pooped in the potty!!!
He's growing up and I know he'll be mortified by this someday, but I wanted to share with our friends and family! Go Caleb!

Some Pictures... Finally

So, I had to copy pictures from our home computer onto a CD and load them onto Jes's work computer. Sigh... What a pain.















Caleb being silly at the doctor's office in the chair waiting to see his ENT.




















Another at the doctor's office. It's amazing what you will do just to occupy them so they don't destroy a patient room. Incidentally, why don't they make those rooms more childproof/friendly knowing full well that you will be sitting in there for at least half an hour? I guess that's a question for the ages.















I took Caleb to a play date at our church. One of the major benefits of our rather large church are these play dates that are planned about once every few months. This time, it was a petting zoo. We couldn't pass it up! At first Caleb was a little nervous, but he saw his friends and all the fun animals and ran right in. Here's the duck he got to pet.














He loves guinea pigs. He watched these guys run around this water tank for a little bit.















There were goats wandering around and Caleb got to feed one here. They were a little rough and Caleb nearly lost his food, but he hung on to it and won out over that brute of a goat.















This baby goat was wandering around with the other goats and Caleb so wanted him to eat some of his food, but I think this little guy was just too full. He would put his nose in the cup and walk away and Caleb would chase him down and cram his nose into the cup again. I had to pull Caleb away from this little guy!















There were also these cute little baby chicks that Caleb just adored. I held one and he pet it and probably would have run off with one if he could have. I suppose it runs in the family as my mom has a secret love of chickens and even had one as a pet as a child. Caleb's MawMaw would be proud!















One of the best things about this particular petting zoo is that they always bring ponies for the kiddos to ride. These guys were at our Fall Festival this past year and Caleb rode a pony then, but Jes had to hold him the whole time and Caleb just wasn't too sure about it all. This time around, he wanted to ride the pony and stayed on, for the most part, the whole time.















In the process of riding the pony. His Daddy is so proud. I had to hold him here as Caleb hasn't spent enough time atop a pony to adequately deal with the taking off and stopping.















In our church, there is this huge fish tank right smack dab in the middle of the lobby of the children's building. Everyday that Caleb came to Mother's Day Out, he HAD to see the fish. Today he was in luck as the fish tank cleaner man was here and he stood on this stool for a good half hour watching the fish and the fish tank man do their thing. Talk about cheap entertainment!




















Later on that day, I took Caleb to our community pool to get a little sun and have fun in the water. Caleb shows much promise in that he seems to know what to do when he ends up on his tummy or back. He will be taking swim lessons with myself assisting in August, but I wanted him to be ok with the water before we started. Notice his Elmo swim trunks. He loves these and looked so grown up in them.















Caleb as Bob the Builder in the car. When he has the hat on, he will only respond to Bob. The obsession, while waning a bit, continues!

Computer, Anyone???

So the computer that resides on the desk in our home has become the bane of my existence. The dumb thing won't do anything!!! I have tried talking to it, pleading with it, threatening it and I even kicked it a time or two, but I still can't get it to do anything with the picture program or internet, the two programs that I use the most. So, as I sit here with 3 full memory cards I am promising that I will soon figure this situation out and will have massive amounts of pictures to upload and show you from the past few weeks of my life. If I can't, you might just pass by our house and spy me throwing the thing out the window!

He Knows...

Today was a surprising day all around. It all started last night when Jes took Caleb and I to Saltgrass for dinner. It was a nice dinner, even if I couldn't taste any of my meal. Yes folks, it is now over a week since I have been able to smell/taste. It's slowly coming back, but it's a real drag when we have dinner out. Anyway, at dinner I had iced tea, a rare treat for me as I try to limit caffeine to nothing. The tea kept me up until nearly 12 am, this morning.
At 2:47 Caleb showed up at my side of the bed wanting to get in (yes my post jinxed us) so I pull him in, too tired to deal. Surprise.
He was awake until 5am. Surprise
There was a point in those hours where I was on the edge. I nearly had to leave just to preserve the life of my precious baby. A 4 am play session with the toes, singing the Wheels on the Bus, jumping on the bed on his knees, and Jes snoring through the whole thing nearly sent me into oblivion.
I drug myself out of bed this morning at 8, which doesn't seem too early, but if you take into account the fact that I had only really slept for 5 hours or so (a freak thunderstorm rolled in around 4:30), I was NOT happy. Not really a surprise.
So, today was the day to go to the ENT to get a date for tubes. Evidently, Caleb is too healthy to qualify, so says our insurance company. Since he has had no infection, only 4 months of fluid, no speech delay, etc, insurance in general will not pay. The ENT's office is being very diligent about trying to get this changed, but we left with an appointment for a month and no surgery date. Surprise.
We headed to the mall to get out a little and make an appointment for pictures and I saw a former parent from the private school I taught at when I was pregnant with Caleb. Not the most comfortable situation because, without going into too much detail about the circumstances, I did not leave there on a positive note. I never heard from any of the students I taught so I have never known what, if anything, anyone knew about the ways things went down. We talked and she had her daughter, my former student, come in from the car and things were all around cordial. However, as I was leaving daughter told me that the year I had her was the only year she loved science and that she still knows chemistry. Mom told me that she always appreciated me and that she missed me. It made me feel appreciated and validated for the whole ordeal. Surprise.
It's a good thing that He knows what is going on because today just proved to me again that I'm not in control and that even when I don't get it, He does. Thank goodness someone does.

Happy Father's Day

Jes,
Who knew 3 years ago that we would be where we are now. We were just considering having a baby, but we were blessed just a few weeks later to get pregnant with our little Caleb. Admittingly, things haven't been perfect since then, but we have managed to walk through some of the toughest and most rewarding times of our marriage and lives. We call our life together one big adventure because even the most mundane task seems to take on a life of it's own when we try to accomplish it. I look forward to more adventures with you and can't wait to see where life takes us! Thank you for being the calm spot when life got crazy, the laugh when I couldn't smile, my song when I couldn't sing anymore. Thank you for being Caleb's Daddy, the one he talks about all day long and runs to when he hears a key in the door. I love you and can't wait to see what comes!
Shannon

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there. The Mathis family hopes it was a happy and fun day for you and your family.