Pumpkin Carving, Evangelism Explosion, and of course More Caleb

Carrie hosted her annual pumpkin carving extravaganza this weekend. It was great to get together with friends we haven't seen for awhile. We brought the whole family (Nate, Andrea, Caleb, and yes, Kirby). Great times and good food were had by all. Sean and Amy brought their anniversary cake and let us have some too! Thanks guys and happy anniversary!











Many styles of carving were on display: the girls are showing their painting skills, while Sean is utilizing a stencil. Mark is going freehand. I guess we know who the real pumpkin carver is.


















The benefits of making it through a year of marriage. ;)



















Carrie, you're allowed to steal this photo.

























Sunday, we headed off to the Warren's for a crash course in Evangelism Explosion for Kids. Don and Suzzie are in our Growth Group and we had been trying to coordinate a good time to come to their house to experience, first hand, what they do around the world. Great fun was had by all. Sadly, there are no silly pictures of me or Andrea (bummer ;).




















Pat and Stephen talk about the cross. You'd think they were Italian.





















Full contact EE.





















Sarah gets some cuddle time with Caleb.



















There were great views from their house, but sadly, the light was never good enough to get a good picture. Maybe next time. Tomorrow we head off on another adventure. We're heading up to Timberline. We're going the long way though, so we can see the fall colors of the Hood River Valley.

Fruit Loop

So we piled the family in the car and headed off to Hood River on Monday. It's apple season and we wanted to tour the Fruit Loop and pick up some apples and other various treats. It was also an opportunity to go Christmas shopping as well!

Our first stop was at an apple stand that had a ton of different apples. We filled our bags with eating apples and pie apples. They even had apples as big as Caleb's head!







Our next stop was at an alpaca farm. Here's Caleb with some of them in the background.
























They let you feed the alpacas here. Andrea was quite surprised by the reception she got when she shook her small cup of food. They all raced up the hill to get a chance at it!



















This is Opal. She was just 1 week old!




















Here's Andrea and Caleb with the view from the farm behind them.

























We stopped and bought cookies and more apples after the alpaca farm, and then we headed to Draper's for our final produce stop. More apples and this time some jam and fresh apple cider (Yum!!) Caleb got to see some farm animals there. Doesn't he look excited?



















We stopped at a park on the way back down the hill and let Kirby get out and run (he didn't get to leave the car much). Here's me and Caleb next to Hood River.
























Why we own a station wagon. :)

Our first Wallace family photo!

We had a great day, and we all got home very tired. Even Caleb was exceptionally tired despite the fact that he slept the whole time we were in the car!

More Caleb than You Ever Wanted

Caleb has gotten bigger every day. He's up around 12 lbs. now! Andrea has not stopped taking pictures, and has managed to get some great photos.

Here's one of him sleeping in the Boppy.











Our friends, Mike and Mary, gave us a Tigger costume that is way too big for him, but she put him in it anyway and ended up with this gem.

























Here's my mom holding her first grandchild.


























Here's Caleb playing with Grandpa.

























Caleb just hamming for the camera.




























Peace. Yo.





















Here's my grandma with her newest great grandchild.

























Hmmm... He's already learned to sass us and he can't even talk! Truly, we are born in sin.
























Okay, I guess he's not so bad.

Smile for the Camera!

Does it get any better?

More Baby

Thought I'd post a few more pictures of Caleb. He's about ten pounds now! He smiles occasionally and is starting to hold his head up more and more (usually when he's upset ;). He's still not sleeping through the night, but most people have told us that he'll start to sleep longer when he gets to be about twelve pounds. So he's well on his way!












His Aunt Kyna came to visit from the U.P. She was a great help, and was excited to see her newest grand nephew. Did I mention what a great help she was? Since I've been in the thick of rental season at work, Kyna has been able to help Andrea a lot when I had to spend late nights at rental shows. Last night was the last one for the year, and Kyna was able to be here for all but that last one. THANKS KYNA!!

























He seems to like taking baths. Here he is relaxing in the warm water.



















I got to feed him for the first time. It was great!

























Andrea took him to get his portraits done. This is the best of the bunch.

Time to Show Him Off

Okay, it's now time to show off baby! We've shown off our cute nephews before on this blog. Now we get to show off our cute son!


Here he is in his Maemae's arms.


















Just forget you saw the pink binky in his mouth.

























Kirby and Caleb get along very well.


















Kirby loves to sniff Caleb, and then lick him. He knows that someday, Caleb will drop many pieces of food on the ground for him to eat up.



















Big Yawn!





Just think: tomorrow . . . he'll be fifteen.














Caleb has gotten back to his birth weight, and has even pushed beyond it. We have our first doctor's appointment on Wednesday, and they like to have them back to their birth weight by then, so he's doing great.

Mom and Dad are doing fine too, though this is the first time I've been coherent enough to type anything remotely intelligent (which just demonstrates how little sleep I'm actually working on here. I like to joke that you could count the number of hours of sleep we've had in the last week on one hand;). I did discover today a V-8 product called V-8 V-Fusion. I drank one at lunch, and I actually had some energy to finish off the day! I'm going to try and find some 6-packs of it somewhere and take them to work with me.

Finally Home

Caleb Jonathan Wallace came home today. He is doing very well after several eventful days in the hospital (nothing bad, but some boys go through a little more...shall we say...stress, than others ;). He is now sleeping contentedly in his Maemae's arms.

Here's how everything went down:
Monday evening, Andrea decided to do some quilting so she would be on her feet and therefore bring on more contractions. It worked, but they were weak, and went away after she went to bed. The next afternoon, she got a call from her sister-in-law, Carol, who promptly scolded her for 25 minutes for not going to the hospital after the contractions had started (Carol has had three children). In a huff, she went to the delivery room to be checked out just so she could prove Carol wrong. She called me on her way there, and told me she would probably beat me home.

I got another call an hour later telling me her water had broken! Apparently it had broken the night before. So I headed up to the hospital to meet her. On the way, the obligatory traffic accident had occurred on the bridge, so I had to try and maneuver around the backup that had spilled out onto the surface streets. I was mostly successful and managed to get to the hospital even before she was officially admitted.

Since Andrea wasn't having any contractions, labor had to be induced. She labored most of the night and into the morning, but she wasn't progressing, and every time she had a contraction, baby's heart rate would drop and not recover soon enough (we found out later that this was because he actually had a hold of his umbilical cord, and had it draped over his shoulder. Every time a contraction occurred, he would clamp down on his cord, thereby cutting off his oxygen supply). Late in the morning, the doctor decided that a C-section would be necessary, so she was taken off the labor drugs. After she got off this drug, her contractions all but went away, and baby's heart rate stabilized. They wheeled her to the operating room a couple hours later, and Caleb was born after an uncomplicated procedure. It turned out he was lodged in the birth canal in a position that wouldn't allow him to go any further. He was a big boy! as you'll see. We stayed in the hospital until this morning after several checkups.

Of course, I took pictures!

Here's our last picture of just the two of us right before she goes into the operating room.



















Here's Caleb only a couple minutes after being born. You can see how big he is!























Mom and baby.





















Thank you all for your many prayers. They were answered in ways we could not have imagined! God is good and merciful!

-The Wallace Family