10 months

one of the loves of my life has turned 10 months today.

there's just 2 more months till he's 1 year old!

and it's wiggin me out.

-he likes to eat and eat.  sometimes i feel like all i do all day is feed him.

-he has mastered the art of furniture cruising.  it's interesting to see him cruise from the couch to the end table and then to the tv stand.  he reaches out his chubby little arm till he can reach something he thinks is stable then lets go of whatever he's holding onto with his other hand...like tarzan.

-and he often feels the need to forget the fact that he has horrible balance and loves to completely let go of anything keeping him up.  and he's had many a goose egg on his little noggin lately.

-he's still awesome.

p.s. i got to see my best friend whom i haven't seen in 18 months.

so happy she's home!

makin whoopie

i don't always bake...

but when i do, it's because i'm really bored.

and since the month of love isn't over yet i thought i'd hurry and make these luxurious red velvet whoopie pies (before the mix expired, which wasn't anytime soon)

i think primary has improved my coloring inside the lines skills.

and bam, there they are.  the decadent sugar coma inducing whoopies.

these were the best of the bunch.

as i kept reusing that blueprint my pies were getting blobbier and blobbier.

so what do you do?

take pictures of the better looking ones and give them to your friends and eat the uglies.

simple. as. that.

in other news, 

i think everton's schedule is starting to shift.

he was such an excellent napper, taking 2 naps a day while sleeping all night.

BUT LATELY, when i put him down for a nap at his normal time he screams and screams.  he'll eventually scream himself to sleep, but only napping for about a half hour.

ughhhhh that's MY nap time too!

so today, not trusting him when he starts rubbing his eyes or giving me those sweet yawns, i let him tell me he's ready for a nap when he drops and gives me some Zs.

and that's what he did.

on my lap, with his booty in the air.

i took him to his crib and he slept for 2 hours.

and i got to take my nap too.

i guess it'll be 1 nap a day.

but thank freaking goodness he stills sleeps through the night.

in other OTHER news.

my bestest friend CHARLENE just got back yesterday from serving a mission in the philippines!!

AHHHHH i can't believe it's been 18 months.  i've missed her so much.  last time i saw her was right before she left for her mission and i had gotten pregnant soon after.

and when i was in the early stages of pregnancy and i was too nervous to tell anybody, she wrote me saying that she had a dream that i was pregnant!

she's such an amazing girl and i know that she has touched so many filipinos' lives.

i won't get to see her till this weekend so i'm freakin excited.  and i can't wait to hear her speak fluent tagalog.

she'll be more fluent than me that's for sure.

and everton gets to meet his auntie!

welcome home girl!

♥

p.s. my fabulous sister, kyla, will be coming to visit this weekend also.

lots of things to look forward to this weekend.

a beautiful funeral

on february 6th of this month, my friend melissa and her 2 kids (2 yr old daughter ethne and baby boy edward) were in a tragic car accident.

here's the news about the accident.
melissa is still recovering and baby edward came away from the accident with just a scratch on his head

but ethne didn't make it.

this morning we went to that sweet little girl's funeral.

i've never seen a coffin so small.

it was white and had a ton of flowers gracing the princess's coffin.

the service started out with the song, "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam."

i bawled.

i held everton as tight as i could and rocked him as the speakers then spoke about ethne's short but amazing love-filled life.

they also talked about our dear Heavenly Father's Plan of Salvation.

in our faith, we believe that when we die, we can return again to live with Heavenly Father if we had lived a righteous life.

but as for little ethne and other small children who passed away, they immediately go to Heaven.

and one day, our sweet friends, lawrence and melissa will one day be with their ethne again.

one of the speakers talked about how we're all sent here to earth with missions to complete.

and how ethne had already completed her mission.

and now she's a guardian angel for her baby brother.  

the placement of her carseat in melissa's car protected little edward.

i'm grateful to know that families can be together forever, which is the song the funeral ended with.
i cried off my makeup during the funeral, i don't know why i even bothered wearing it.

i cherish brett and everton even more now.  i try to be more patient with them and try to give them as much love as i can and as often.  life is so short.  we need to try to not let the little things bother us or we'll miss the big picture, the big picture being our love for each other.

rest in peace little ethne.

everton the wise

matchmaker matchmaker make me a match,

find me a find, catch me a catch.

also, the matchmaker teaches to get over your problems, don't go around them.

words to the wise.

my valentines

VALENTINE'S.

my month has been full of pinks, reds, glue, and chocolate.

i made these felt fortune cookies for my darling primary class.

fortune cookies with the best kind of fortune/advice for my young ones.

my valentine's subway art, no glue needed.

my fabulous wreath that was intended for LAST YEAR'S valentine's day.  but i ended up finishing it a lot later  in the year.  i loved how it turned out but i probably won't attempt anything like this again.  i most likely will never ever ever have the time like i did before i had everton.

my valentines.  

i love my 2 white boys oh so much.

as for valentine's day DAY, my day consisted of being in the kitchen the entire day and everton clinging onto my pants screaming, making me immovable or he'll fall to his face screaming even more.

and during all of that, here's what i created...

WHITE CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE.

(click here for recipe)

MmmmmmHmmmm

mine definitely didn't turn out as "hearty" as the blogger's cheesecake.

when attempting this glorious cheesecake be sure to have a fine FINE mesh strainer to filter out those pesky raspberry seeds.  the strainer i used did ok in taking out most of them but some seeds sneaked their way in.  (thanks for letting me use your strainer tati!)

my hearts came out pretty wonky and they sorta look like teeth.

for this year's valentine's we decided to stay home instead of going out.  i had gotten tired of horribly long waits, food that didn't agree with our stomachs no matter how good it was, and maybe i was a little traumatized from last year's valentine's when i was about 6-7 mos pregnant and i had thrown up IN the restaurant, not in their bathroom, THE RESTAURANT.  i know i'm not dealing with nausea right now but it overwhelmed me thinking about going out for valentine's.

i volunteered to make a huge dinner for my lover and i.

the dinner menu

-ribeye steak with a spicy rub

-red potatoes with an AWESOME herb blend

-insanely buttery green beans

-honey butter rolls

dessert menu

-chocolate covered strawberries

-and that sexy cheesecake.

oh yeah, here's the third wheel.

happy valentine's from the caldwells.

♥

world nutella day 2012

it's a real holiday.  february 5th.

nutella lovers of the world unite.

the holiday started back in 2007 but i myself am just a recent nutella lover.

and after tasting what i like to call, "chocolate butta," soon after i gave birth to my everton, i was in love.

after finding out that there's a freakin holiday dedicated to the hazelnut spread, a few friends and i saw that it would be fitting to celebrate!  but since the 5th lands on a sunday, us marmons don't really like to party it up on the sabbath day.  so saturday we partied!

we all brought some kind of dessert containing the magical ingredient.

and i made NUTELLA CHEESECAKE BROWNIES
link to recipe can be found here.

the recipe calls for 6 tablespoons of nutella on top but i thought that 6 heaping spoonfuls would be better.

now, i'm not a very good swirler, but i sure did make a beautiful nutella cheesecake mess.

nutella, get in my belly.  now.

the nutella creations, consisting of nutella lava cookies, nutella cupcakes with diabetic coma inducing nutella frosting, nutella twix bars with dark chocolate, and my lethal nutella cheesecake brownies, which ended up a goopy mess that you pretty much had to eat with a spoon.  goopy, yet delicious.

my cute friends, jill and darlene.

mah gurrrrrrl

nutella nutella nutella nutella

too much consumption of nutella may cause chocolaty fingers, a smeared face, and worst of all, nutellabetes.

please celebrate world nutella day responsibly.

9 months

9 months!

where the freak has time gone?

everton has become what my mom likes to say in filipino regarding him or me when i was a baby...
MALIKOT!

it means naughty.

he's getting into everything.  he's mastered the art of crawling after turning 8 months and he's unstoppable. 

my days consist of everton pulling himself up to the couch, him feeling confident enough to let go, resulting in him falling and bonking his head.  i then scoop him up, rub his head, tell him he's still alive, and give him lots of kisses and cuddles.

REPEAT PROCESS.

all day.

he has scrapes and bruises on his noggin, with me gettin some extra baby lovin.

i just took him to his 9 month appt today and he's now 18.4 lbs and is 27 1/2 in long.
he's still considered teeny for his age but at least he's growing somewhat!  but one thing that's a little problematic is that he's pretty low in iron.  with a small change in his diet and some drops the doc gave us, everton should be good.  i had no idea how up and down a baby's development and health can go.  but other than that, everything looks great. and for that, i'm totally thankful.
along with the checkup from the doc comes with the dreaded shots!
poor baby.  he's takes em like a man though, he'll cry for a good few minutes then brush it off.  and they gave him WOLVERINE band aids!  and i got totally jealous.

everton also helps me clean the kitchen!  

psych.  he just likes looking at the baby in the oven.

lemme tell ya, these month by month pics are getting harder and harder to do.  it's when he started to crawl and roll over i couldn't have him laying down anymore.  so since month 8 i've been having him sit up.  but even that's been complicated.  i'm starting to think about duct taping the child to the wall so he'll stay still.

here's some behind the scenes pics in our monthly photoshoot.

here's my lovely fabric background, waiting to be wrinkled and puked on.

brett's been dubbed as the baby wrangler/treat giver when a certain baby starts whining or gets tired.

everton gets treats too...

batang malikot!

wrong way buddy.

he's seriously the worst model ever.