playing pictorial catch-up

i know that if i try to recount the past many weeks of moving and transitions in several lengthier blogs, it just won't happen. i know because i still haven't finished posting about our time with family over Christmas. so instead, i'm just gonna give a quick overview through pictures, now that i've found my card reader. 

it started, of course, with the packing. considering the incredibly long time the movers took to pack up our stuff, we ended up with much more damage than we expected. the frame inside an arm to a couch is crunched, our desk was not properly packed and was scratched up and the base cracked, boxes with pictures in frames were labeled 'clothes' and therefore unceremoniously dropped to the floor during our unpack, and the handle to our grill was snapped off. thankfully they wrapped up my 50 cent walmart bowls half a tree's worth of paper and they arrived intact. i suppose i should be thankful they remembered not to pack the baby.

our last full day on oahu seb had the day off, and we went to the zoo, not really a highlight for us but something we knew caleb would thoroughly enjoy. and it gave him a chance for lots of daddy time before they were separated for over a week. 

we arrived at 10 pm after that incredibly long flight and i was immediately struck by the heat and humidity. i knew it would be hotter in the midwest despite all my complaints about hawaii, but i had at least expected some cool-down at night. we had a couple of days with nana and grandpa. nana had been anticipating caleb's visit for a long time and had the place all ready for him. here he is  donning seb's old train conductor hat and driving cars with grandpa.

after just a couple days at nana and grandpa's house we headed up to see yaya and 'paw-paw,' and walked into a swim meet. my brother and his girlfriend had come over to beat the heat at my parents' pool and though it was hot, i was exhausted (look at that belly i have to haul around!) and caleb was a bit timid.

paw-paw set up a little pool for him, pool-side, which was much more caleb's stride.

after some time watching the others and decided it looked fun, he gave the big pool a try with yaya, though that only lasted a minute or so before he wanted back in shallower waters.

if i'd known that was going to be my one chance, i would have gone in. little did i know the rest of the time with my parents was going to be unseasonably cool, even chilly at times. but that didn't mean we were done with water. caleb loved the waterfall and pond my dad had set up and tossing pebbles into it. my mom got him going with 'big' rocks (caleb was immediately saying 'bih, bih, bih!') and he quickly made the correlation between big rocks and big splashes. when i could take no more of guarding the dogs and cats from his love-attacks, all i had to do was take him out back and let him plunk some shiny stones. as far as he was concerned it never got old.

'driving' the car is something caleb loves and paw-paw was happy to oblige.

he's so much better about sleeping and napping in different places, and had no problem catching some zzzzz's flopped over this patch-work, dog-shaped pillow my mom got him because it reminded her of my stuffed dog 'patches' that was my best buddy when i was little. 

uncle jake never gets tired of applying his own sense of style to caleb, and it's a lot more fun now that he has more hair to work with!

after a little over a week with my folks we headed back down to reunite with seb and spend more time with grandpa and nana. much to my amazement, a play structure that seemed much too big for caleb to handle turned out to be no problem. i love this picture! he looks so pleased with himself. 

totally tickled!

we went to the museum of transportation in st louis, it was neat though a little train-heavy for my taste. caleb had no complaints. there were many types and ages of train cars represented and caleb walked through just about every one that allowed it. 

a little psychiatrist humor found among the tracks

they had a limited display of cars but what they had was pretty cool. even though it didn't look anything like a modern fire truck caleb knew right away what this one was.

we had a good time visiting family but were anxious to get started on finding a new place, so we said our goodbyes and headed down for fort campbell.

eating out is something i enjoy - until i've been doing it for lunch and dinner for over a week. still, we learned that caleb is not quite as picky as we thought he was, and that he'll even eat chicken strips, if he has something to dip them in. this was 'baby's first steak 'n shake.' he looks cute in that hat, may be a good first job for him when the time comes. that car was a HUGE hit though it did not survive the meal clean enough to be kept. you also learn when you're eating out that often where the kid-friendly places are. 

moving day, in a picture. flowers my mom sent as a housewarming gift; my ipod and player to help unpacking be a little more fun; bookends from the office packed in with kitchen goods for some reason; a pair of engraved glasses commemorating judy and leon's wedding (a white elephant gift i received in KIRKSVILLE that i had meant to get rid of a long time ago;) a wad of paper towels i had grabbed when one of the movers sliced his arm open popping a metal band around one of our crates with a crowbar; and a pile of packing paper that for reasons i still don't understand refused to fit back into the box it had come from, despite the fact that all the stuff it had wrapped was removed. 

caleb taking his first photo that wasn't a random shot of the floor. if it wasn't for the subject matter it would actually be a good picture. i also liked the chance to see how i look from caleb's point of view.

it didn't take long to get visitors. my parents drove down with seb's dad to bring us the jeep and to visit for a day. i get the feeling she was happy to see me. 

we spent some time at the park by the riverwalk in town, you can see all of us (except my dad who took the picture) from left: me, mom, caleb, seb, and seb's dad.

caleb with grandpa

yaya giving caleb yet more stone-tossing lessons

and of course, it started with boxes, and so shall it end. seb constructed a series of tunnels for caleb to crawl through with one-way passages and dead ends for caleb to hide in. 

he had SUCH  great time but eventually mommy got tired of navigating her pregnant self around and over tunnels to get from one end of the house to the other, and they had to come down. 

he is still really into a hide-and-seek phase, though he calls it 'pee-boo' for peekaboo, and i fully intend to get some video of that soon, as well as some pictures of the house once it's a little more prettified.  we're almost there, just a few odds and ends to tend to before it is fully presentable. we're so close to being DONE!