2 Halloween Parties!

We had a wonderful day before Halloween. Derrick was Dr. Pierce Payne MD, I was Anita Shott RN and Caleb was our patient--a skeleton. We got this great picture taken at Derrick's work party.

A skeleton in a graveyard. Our church Halloween party was quite the place to be too. Lots of decorations, a scavenger hunt, costume parade, potluck and trunk or treating. We left early though to get Caleb to bed.

For Derrick's work party I entered this pumpkin. If you didn't know, Microsoft makes XBox--I was catering to them. I got second place and we won a $20 gift certificate to the cafeteria on the campus. We are excited about that because the food there is amazing! Derrick and I also won a raffel so we got 2 more gift certificates to Jamba Juice and Starbucks.

These costumes were amazing! The guy on the right said he was working on them since July. Check out the back. It was really all wired up with lights and even the Ghostbusters song would play when he pressed a button.

A Happy Halloween indeed!

6 Month Photos are in!!!

Two Things

One: When Caleb was rolling around on the floor he got in the play gym. Then when he was trying to roll again his neck was hitting the piece that comes up but that didn't stop him, he kept rolling over and the whole gym came with him. He just looked up at me and gave me this look:

Two: Caleb does not like peas, plain peas at least.

Yesterday at the park...

A five year asked me if I was Caleb's mom or grandma. Wow. Anyways, here's a picture of Caleb.

So Many Milestones

I was looking at Caleb's baby calendar this morning. It's one of those where you put stickers on that have all the firsts written on them and also vacations, doctor visits, etc. As I was looking at the stickers to see if I had any new ones to put up, I realized there were three things that happened all within a week of each other.
1. Caleb is now sitting up. He can do it for a pretty long time too. He'll stay sitting until he starts reaching for something and then he falls. In this video we're singing one of Caleb's favorite songs. He also likes the song 5 Little Monkeys. As soon as I start to sing them, even if he's crying, he will just smile.

2. Caleb is now eating vegies. He's tried green beans and sweet potatoes. He really likes the sweet potatoes. The green beans he'll eat but he never really gets into them like he does the potatoes and cereals he eats.
3. Caleb fed himself a bottle. We were at our friend's house for dinner on Sunday night and Caleb was sitting in his car seat while we were eating. He started to get fussy so I gave him a bottle. He fed himself which left me to eat with our friends and Caleb stayed happy.
4. Caleb has been able to roll for a while now but this will show you how far he's come:

Caleb 6 months

Caleb had his 6 month check up appointment on Monday. He weighed 16 lbs 7 oz and was 27.5 inches tall. He went down on the weight curve so we need to feed him more. Everything else was normal. I'm excited about all the new things that he will be doing soon and a little bit sad that he won't be a little baby anymore. I think as soon as he starts moving around I'll really feel that way.
We also got his 6 month pictures taken today. I got a little preview of them and they look so cute. I can't wait to see the final product and I'll post them when I get them!

How on earth?

Who can sleep like this? Caleb does it every night.

Lovely view, I know.

So Much Cuteness!

How could I not love this giggling bundle of cuteness!

Or this talkative little man on a Tuesday morning. He loves to talk now, just like he does here.

Just for Fun

Caleb playing with his bowl and spoon after eating:

Can eyes get any bigger?

Some fun father son time before Derrick left for work:

Sing us a song you're the...

...Piano baby. This is one of Caleb's favorite things to do. We sit at the piano and he just bangs away. Whenever I try to take him away he is always straining himself to turn back to the piano. I'm glad he's liking it early on!

Teething?

I think Caleb actually might be teething now because he's been a little extra fussy lately. Derrick was watching Caleb while I was out and Derrick said that the only thing that would sooth Caleb is when he was chewing on something. When it was time for bed Derrick put Caleb down after feeding him and letting him suck on an empty bottle for a while. But when I got home Caleb was moaning in his crib. It wasn't a hard cry like, "I can't fall asleep," it was a moan like, "Help me out of this pain." So I picked him up and nursed him to sleep. I am not looking forward to more of this.
Here's a cute happy picture of him (I love his little tongue):

This video is from last Sunday morning.

A Tale of Two Babies

I didn't see this but Derrick told me about it and I thought it was so cute. Derrick loves to take Caleb and move him forward and back close to someones face because it makes Caleb smile and laugh. Derrick often does this with Caleb to me. We have some friends at church who also have a little boy, Jefferson, who is just about a month younger than Caleb. On Sunday, Derrick went over to Jefferson with Caleb and started going back and forth so that the babies faces got pretty close to each other. Both babies just started laughing. Derrick kept going and they both kept laughing and laughing. I wish I could have gotten that cute sight on video!

Swing Life Away

I just had to title this post a name of one of mine and Derrick's favorite songs :) On Saturday night we decided to go to a park with swings and see how Caleb liked it. He loved it. What baby doesn't? Here's Caleb's first time on a swing:

He was so happy:

I decided to be a kid again! I even went down one of the slides they had there :)

First Taste of Rice Cereal

Bite 1: What was that?
Bite 2: Not too bad.
Bite 3: Yumm! Give me more!
I was reading in books that the first time babies have rice cereal they might only eat a teaspoon since they are getting used to swallowing and using a spoon. Not my baby, he ate a good 4+ tablespoons! This was on September 10th, the day before his 5 month birthday.



Here is Caleb's first few bites ever of rice cereal:

Here's Caleb in his high chair. After the first feeding we've been putting him in here to eat.

During our SD Trip...

...We got really cute pics of Caleb:


...James and Caleb met for the first time

...Caleb sang to James playing the guitar
This was so funny, I heard Caleb just singing along and as soon as my camera was out he stopped singing. I would put the camera away and he'd start singing again. This happened 3 times. The last time I caught this:

...We had a fun Labor Day at the Mellor house
Swimming was so fun! This was Caleb's second time in the pool and he enjoyed it. After swimming we had a BBQ for dinner. It was fun time with family.

Stephanie and Charlotte

...We got a 4 generation picture

...Caleb witnessed an alien abduction

...Derrick flew a plane!!!

For a very early Christmas present I gave Derrick 2 flying lessons. Derrick's dream has always been to fly. One day I got one of those value packs in the mail that had a coupon for learning to fly. At first I left it out on the table to show Derrick just for a laugh. But then later that day I thought, "Wait, that would actually be really cool." I talked to my dad, who helped my brothers get flying lessons, and he said the price on the coupon I had wasn't very good. He told me the flying club down there gave 2 lessons for less than the flying club up here gave for 1. So I called The Golden State Flying Club at Gillespie Field and set up two appointments for Derrick.

The day came to go flying and Derrick loved it. When he got back he said I could have gone up with him. I had no idea so the next day I made sure to go with him. The second time Derrick went flying he did a lot of the landing and I couldn't believe how smooth it was. Derrick must be a natural.

One really cool thing was that the San Diego temple is one of the main landmarks in flying. There aren't too many things marked but it is actually marked on the flying map as "Mormon temple." When the instructor told Derrick to make sure to turn between the temple and Mt. Soledad Derrick mentioned that he got married there. The instructor said, "I've heard that's hard to do." Derrick told him it wasn't, you just had to be a member of the LDS faith and be living the standards of the church.
Along with that, I really want to remember this cool incident Derrick's Aunt Mary told us when she was driving us back from the airport after our trip. She told us that in the late 70's everyone had to cut back on electricity. Street lights were turned off and large parking lots could only have half of the lights on. With all the conserving energy the government asked the church to please keep the lights on at the Oakland temple because it was also a flying landmark. Talk about symbolism.

The above video is Derrick turning off the plane his for his first flight. Below is Derrick with his flying instructor, Glenn, up in the air.

Here's me in the back.

...Caleb was patient through the airport and past his bedtime when we headed back home

Grabbing the feet

Caleb has now been grabbing his feet for about a week or two now. He doesn't seem fascinated with them but he definitely likes them enough that when he's on his back he will usually reach for them.


Everyday I just can't believe what a cute baby I have. I love how he just looks at the camera.