It's been so long since we've posted! It's been a very busy few months for us... probably the busiest of our lives. Eric's been trucking along with his master's degree and research work, along with having a lot demanded of him at work. My work has been pretty busy with project installations, requiring much more than the 3-day schedule that I am supposed to be working. It got even busier when my coworker left the company suddenly for a job closer to family. Caleb has been at a new daycare since the middle of April, and that has also had it's fair share of adjustments.
We are so thankful for summer! Eric isn't taking any classes this summer and his work has been a bit less demanding of overtime. My job has finally slipped back into the 3-day schedule it's supposed to be, and things are starting to look a lot better with Caleb's childcare situation. We have found ourselves breathing a lot easier in the last two weeks and are so thankful! We even had time for a date a couple of days ago with Caleb's first official 13-year-old babysitter. He did great and so did she!
Caleb started crawling on April 2, and is really close to walking now. He pulls up on anything and turns everything into a push toy - chairs, the stroller, Grandma Sally's walker, a box sitting on the floor, etc. He's started to say some words - he will say "mo, mo" while making the sign language for "more." He says "Mama" and "DaDa" as well as "Papa" and it seems like he might be saying "ball" and "doggie" sometimes, but those aren't very consistent. He is starting to be really fun - waving to say hello and goodbye, claps when he is excited, and is generally quite a flirt.
Caleb's baptism was May 22, the same day Nadia & Ramona Swanson were dedicated. We were incredibly blessed by the experience. The image of Caleb being marked and brought into the kingdom of God like that is really neat. We talked later about the idea of Jewish 8 day old circumcision and how it's similar to our infant baptism... marking the child for God before he has the opportunity to make a decision for himself. It puts new weight on our responsibility as parents to continue to make those decisions for him while he is still too young to decide for himself, and then to lead him to make those decisions on his own when he is old enough to. We really appreciate our parents more and more as we go through this parenting experience.
We've done some traveling recently. We went to Florida to visit Eric's aunt and uncle in April and had a great time. Caleb was a hit. We also went to a Golding family reunion over Memorial Day. Minus us getting sick on the trip, we had a great time traveling with Amanda & Spencer & William (4 months old). Caleb really enjoyed company also. Again, Caleb was a hit with the family. The same was true this weekend at Eric's cousin's graduation party, especially with his 5-year old second cousin. :)
Here's more pictures!
And more...
Love you all,
Steph, Eric, and Caleb
