It's been awhile

Nothing to exciting has been happening in our lives. We just got back from Darcee's wedding, which was in Utah. Chase and I had the pleasure of a long car ride there and back. On the way there we drove through the night, (which I was not to thrilled about) but we made it in one piece. And the nice thing about that was, Parker slept pretty much the whole ten hours. I was dreading the car ride home, thinking we would have to stop a few times to get Parker out of the car, but he did a great job. We stopped once for dinner and that was it. But we had a great time in Utah being with both of our families. Since Chases parents moved there we do not get to see them very often, so it was nice to say with them for the week.

Chase took Parker to go visit Grandpa at work.

Chels looking so excited to be stuck with Parker :)

Grandpa and Parker playing.

Here is a video of Chelsea, that Chase happened to capture on camera. Thanks for being a good aunt Chels, and fetching Parkers binky.

We also had the opportunity to watch Shane and Darcee be sealed in the Temple. It was such a great experience. When Megan got married I could not go into the temple, so it was nice to be able to see one of my sisters. Darcee looked beautiful, and we lucked out with no rain. Our whole family except for Brady was there. But Brady we did not forget about you!!!

Brady we miss you!!!

Here are some other pictures we took.

The Bridemaids

Me and Alicia

Uncle Tyler playing with Parker. I think Parker spit in his hair :)

The beautiful couple

The Bride at her best moment

Parker being a little monkey

Parker not wanting to take a picture with mommy! He has become quite the daddy's boy. :(

Besides the wedding, life has pretty much been the same here. Chase is super busy with everything he tries to fit into his life. He is taking 21 credits, putting in time at the fire station, and still trying to put in some time working construction. He also got excepted into the paramedic program next year, and that will be full time. So we are going to finally live the life as poor college students, living off of student loans and love. One more year though and he should be done. YEAH!!!

However, through all the craziness in his life he always makes time for us. Parker is always so excited to see him when he gets home. If I am holding him, and Chase walks in, Parker will start whinning and walk right over to Chase. He has become quite the daddy's boy. I know a lot of mothers would love the break, and yes I sometimes do, but it is sad when all he wants is daddy. I guess it is just another one of his stages. Oh...I guess since I last wrote, Parker has started walking. He quite the cruiser. He has attempted a few times to run, but he usually just ends up face planting it. But it is fun watching him grow and learn new things. It is so crazy to me that he is almost 1!! Time sure does fly. We are hoping by the time he turns one he will have some teeth. We think some are coming in, so hopefully.

As for me, I am just counting down the days for school to be over. I love love love my job, but I am ready for a break. Chase and I are going to take a little vacation by ourselves and leave Parker for the first time. We are going to Orlando for a week. I have never been to Florida so I am so excited. And I will not lie, I am pretty excited to sleep as well. Thanks Mom and Dad for agreeing to watch him. My only hope is he does not keep them up to much. He does pretty good here sleeping in his crib, but my mom is having a hard time getting him to take naps in the portable crib.

So that is it for the Caldwell Clan.

Parkers Room!

I know a couple of my friends have been asking for me to post some pictures of Parkers room, so I am finally going to do it. And it has been one week since Parker has been sleeping through the night!!! What a miracle. And not to mention in his own crib. Chase was at the fire station last Monday so I decided to buck up and stick Parker in the crib. Usually he just comes into bed with me because I don't like to be alone. But I knew I had to break his terrible habit. So I read him a bed time story kissed him goodnight and stuck him in his crib. And then I waited and expected the worst. Of coarse my poor baby cried and it took all my strength not to run in and love him. So I went downstairs and called my sister to keep me occupied. Parker cried for about 15 minutes and then it was silence. So I went to bed, and not being able to sleep, snuck into his room and slept on the little bed in there. He woke up once, but I just gave him his bottle and he was asleep for the rest of the night. So tues. night comes around and I did the same thing. Read him a story, kissed him goodnight and laid him down. He cried for about 5 minutes this time. The rest of the week, there was no crying. It was FABULOUS. So not that I have written this I hope I do not jinx it. So here are some pics.

This is Parker bathroom!

This is where we keep his books and blankets

The sign says I am a child of God.

The extra bed, and the picture with the fire truck is Chase when he was little.

The door, and another picture of Chase when he was little.

And last but not least the crib. And the sign above it is homemade from chase and myself. It is kind of hard to read but at the top of the sign it says, EST. June 11, 2007 and then on the bottom it says Fire Co.

So that is Parkers room. FIRE FIRE FIRE. So when we have a girl, I am going to make it so frilly and cute Chase is gonna hate it. Not that I hate this room. I had a fun time decorating it and making it our own.

Busy life in March

Just thought I would start this blog off with a picture of Parker and his very first swing experience. Gee, I have been depriving the poor boy. Anyways, at the beginning of March our little family took a road trip to Seattle for Chases interview with the Seattle fire department. It was Parkers longest car ride, and towards the end it became a little rough for him. We got the chance to stay with my old roommate Jessica and her cute family. She has a son who is just over one, and it was fun to see our little boys interact with each other. They were definantly boys, fighting over toys, and crying when sometime got taken from them. As you can see we are teaching Parker to be tough, so his cousins can't pick on him. Another thing I realized while we were staying at Jessica's house, is that it would be so wonderful to have a baby who sleeps by himself and through the night. Jessica made it look so easy. Every two hours Caleb goes down for a nap and not to mention without a fuss. Then at night she brings him upstairs, lays him down and he is out for the night, and her and Braydan can enjoy the evening. So Jessica count your blessings. You saw what we had to put up with :) So on the way back from Seattle we took a little detour to Megans house, to visit little Beckett. He is such a cute baby. It's hard to believe that almost 1o months ago, Parker was that small. It was good to visit with Megan and Chad and to get some free professional pictures done of our cute boy. I know most everyone has already seen them through Megans sight, but I am still going to put them up anyways. Thanks Megan. This month we also got the pleasure of Chases Mom coming for about a week to watch Parker, while Grammy Perdue was in Utah. I always dread when my Mom is gone, because that means I have to find a babysitter for Parker in the afternoon. And truthfully, I am not very good at asking people to do this. So Chase got a call from his Mom telling us she was going to come babysit. YEAH!!!! It was so great to have her here and Parker had so much fun with her. Not to mention the great Chinese food we had and Italian! Thanks for all the help MOM!

Chase is still keeping busy with all his work and school. He just finished up finals this last week and I think is enjoying his little bit of break before school start up again in a week. So last Saturday, Parker and I took a little field trip to see daddy at the fire station. Now when I think of Firemen, I think of manly men, who can be hard and never smile. But I tell ya, when you bring a little baby into the station, they all get googly eyed and start talking baby talk. So it was fun to be able to bring Parker down to see his dad on the job.

As Easter rolled around, I was not quite as excited about it as I have been in the past. Yes it was fun to be able to dress Parker up in his first Sunday easter outfit (thanks grammy), but as tradition goes in my family, the easter bunny goes around the house and lays candy all over the floor and you race to pick up as much candy as you can. Then when all the candy is found, you have to go find your Easter basket. Well Parker is not quite old enough for candy yet. Yes I could have laid some candy around the house, but it just would have gone in his mouth. Plus with church at 9:00 and no husband at home, well it made for a complicated morning. Parker and I left for church without Chase, and the two of us sat alone. Usually it would not have been to bad cause my family is normally there, but with spring break, they left for a couple of days. However, Chase finally showed up about half way through sacarament meeting. Usually during church, I have a hard time paying attention to the talks, but I was glad on this Easter Sunday I got to catch one of them. Elder Buchanan (missionary in our ward), gave a wonderful talk on the ressurection that touched my heart. I am so thankful that Christ gave his life for me and that I although I am not perfect, I am able to repent, and I will someday be able to return to my Heavenly Father and Jesus. With Chase being a Firefighter I always worry that something bad will happen to him. But, I know that because we are sealed for time and all eternity, I will never lose him and we will be together with our families for eternity. So after church our plan for dinner was just to do some meatball subs and pasta (nice dinner), but that plan was changed when the Brittany Kohler invited us over to Allens house for dinner. We greatfully accepted. It was fun to be in a setting with a bunch of kids to bring back the little bit of Easter excitment I had lost. Thanks Kohlers, Ridings, and Allens for the fun time.

Sorry I know that was long, but it hard to find time to keep it update weekly.

Cautious, training in progress!

Well I am hoping I can keep this as updated as possible. Our lives are not all to exciting, but we love to be able to fill our families and friends in that live far from us. First things first, Parker is growing like crazy! It is fun being able to watch him learn new things. Right now we are trying to get him to stand on his own. He can do it for a couple of seconds, and is very good at bringing himself back to the ground without falling on his face. He is a little reluctant at first to be let go by mommy or daddy, but eventually he let's go of his death grip and stands on his own. Chase's goal was to have him walking by nine months, but that time is coming up in a week, and it is not looking promising. So he has bumped it up to 10 months. So we'll see.

While training him to walk we thought we would also train him in the bathroom as well. He is not quite tall enough to sit on the toilet yet, but he sure has mastered the flushing part. Anytime Chase or I go into the bathroom, Parker is right on our tails chasing us down. He loves to be in the bathroom whether it be playing with the toilet, pulling down the toilet paper, or taking a bath. Hopefully it is a sign that he will be a well groomed boy who takes more then one shower a week!

With all the training we have been doing, we thought we ought to train him for his job in the future. Grandpa Caldwell is a retired firefighter, Daddy is a firefighter, so we thought it fit perfect for Parker to follow in their footsteps. He loves playing with his huge toy fire truck that Grandma Caldwell bought for him.

While you watch your children grow and learn, you also learn strange things yourself. For instance, we cannot for the life of us figure out why Parker is terrified of balls. Whether they be big or small, the poor boy just screams if one comes close to him. Now this can not be a good thing, as he is to be a soccer player when he get's older. Hopefully he will grow out of this strange stage.

Chase is still busy with going to school and working. We are hoping and praying he will find a job soon in the fire profession. He applied in Seattle, and passed the written test. So he goes on March 10th for his formal interview. There will be hundreds of guys that go through this whole process, but hopefully Chase will stick out to them and he can get started on what he loves doing. I am staying busy with work and playing mommy! I have to say that I am so grateful for being able to work half days. Especially that later half of the day. Parker is still not sleeping through the night, and yes he spends most of the night in our bed. However, we have made a step up in the world, because he starts out in his crib. He usually last an hour and then he has had enough. But we are taking baby steps, and hopefully it will continue to get better. So back to my point, with not getting much sleep at night, I am glad to have the morning to wake up and get moving. I usually stay pretty tired until I walk in the doors at work. What I love about my job is that, two days are never the same. Yes the kids can be quite challenging, and they know how to test your patience but on their good days, they are so fun to be with. I have come to love these kids, and I am so grateful I was given the opportunity to work with them.

We hope everyone is doing well, and we miss all of you who we don't get to see very often.

I finally gave in!!

So I finally gave into this whole blogger thing, and as you can see I am not to good at it yet. I wanted all these pictures to be at the end but I did not want to drag them one by one to the bottom. So they are now at the top. I just wanted to put pictures up of the last couple of months.

I guess to start I will give a quick recap of our 2007 year. Our biggest news was our little Parker. He was born on June 11, 2007. He weighed 8lbs 11oz. Yes he was a big boy. But thank heavens I had a c-section. I keep telling Chase that I had to have a c-section because Heavenly Father knew I could not deal with the pain of real labor. So to all of you Moms our there who indured even one hour of labor, I kiss the ground you walk on. So anyways, Parker is now almost 8 months. He crawls around like crazy and pulls himself up unto anything and everything. He also loves to chew on paper. We have had many instances where he has choked. And just like any mom, it makes your heart stop. I was informed by my EMT husband to do the blind finger sweep, but I have yet to master it. But he eventually ends up spitting up whatever he was choking on. Still Scary though.

We love being parents and Parker has been such a blessing in our lives. Everyone always told me that your life changes when you have a baby. Of coarse I knew my life would change, but people should have been more specific. NO SLEEP would have been a good one. My sister Megan was so lucky to have Adallyn sleeping through the night at 4 months. So I had it in my head that if I just get through those four months, everything would be GREAT!!! Well Parker will be 8 months soon, and well....I have yet to have a full night of sleep and I have yet to have a bed with just one boy in it. Yes I know all you mothers out there are shaking your head, but...in my defense he won't cry himself to sleep. And you can only hear so much of a crying baby. If we even walk close to his crib, he grabs on for dear life and starts crying. So someday I hope he sleeps through the night.

Chase is still going to school for firefighting. We are hoping he will get done soon. He has his EMT basic, but still needs his paramedic. He has however applied in a few cities that don't require you to have your paramedic. He would love to get a job, while continuing his education. But we know the Lord has a plan for us, and until that plan is made clear to us, we will continue to live our life the best we can.

Chase in his Fire suit. He was so excited to put it on.

Before I had Parker I was working as a receptionist at SunWest Builders. I loved the people I worked with, but it was not something I really enjoyed. I have always loved children and started to persue an education in elementary ed. when I was in college, but unfortunatly I never finished. Well, I was able to get a job at Vern Patrick Elementary in the ILS program. I am working part time thanks to my Mom and Grandma Caldwell. Both of our parents have taken Parker in the afternoon while I work. I never wanted to go back to work cause I feared taking Parker to daycare. So THANKS Grandma Caldwell and Grammy Perdue!!! Unfortunatly Chases parents moved to Utah last weekend. It is sad to see them go. It was nice to have both of our families close by. So we are soooooo glad Grandma and Grandpa Caldwell get to fly here as much as they want thanks to Taylor. Parker loves them and is always happy to be loved by them.

So that is all for right now. I will try and keep this thing updated to my best ability and hopefully I will figure out how to do a little better so it is not such a mess. So here are some more random pictures.

Parker at Uncle Tylers Football game

Darce and Parker in Utah Stef putting Parker to sleep