Caleb Alan Faylor

Well, I guess since Caleb is now a month old, it's time for me to blog.

Caleb Alan Faylor was born on July 18. I will save the long version of the story for my journal and just keep it brief. I was scheduled to be induced on the 17th so we waited impatiently all day for the call... that never came. Luckily I was having pretty bad contractions so we decided to just go in at about 9:30 that night. They said they were super busy (the reason they never called) but decided to keep me there anyway. Everything went pretty smooth after that and he was born at 4:38 the next morning.  He weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 20.5 inches long.  We are very excited about this new addition to our family!

Here are some pictures:)

A Quick One While She's Away

Taleesa currently spends most of her time wrestling with a miniature human being on the other side of her belly button, so I figured I would peek my head in and drop some nuggets of interest on this ol' blog. I'll start off with a cliche: It's crazy how time flies.

Taleesa and I just celebrated our three-year anniversary a few weeks ago. We went to Vegas. I'd tell you what we did, but you know how the saying goes. We've been blessed a lot in our three years together. We have our little house that gets noisier each day. A little backyard, big enough to soon furnish a few Grandpa Faylor-esque box gardens. We've managed to make things work with school and jobs and all of that. And if you know us at all, you know how we feel about our little boy. Evan gets smarter and cuter every day. His favorite words are "ball" and "car." His vocabulary is growing and growing. We lucked out with him and decided to roll the dice again. Number Two, still nameless, will be here in just two months.

I've recently retired from the Pizza Factory after a good run of four years. It has been great for me to get reacquainted with my little family. I've been able to write for the St. George Spectrum, writing for the sports section. That has been a lot of fun. I also work in the writing/tutoring center at Dixie State College. That too has been a great experience; I've actually learned how to write in English. I'll finish school in the spring and plan to go on and get a Master's degree somewhere. Taleesa is still working at the Pizza Factory a few days a week, in order to keep us in business. She is the secretary in the young women presidency while I teach Sunday school for the 12-13 year old's. And that, my friends or my wife's friends, is what's up.

Big News

So... I'm pregnant!! Number two is on its way and will be here around July 24. Everyone has been asking if it was planned and it was. We agreed that we wanted our kids pretty close together so the plan was to start trying after the marathon. We didn't, however, realize that it would be so easy for us, but we're happy. I won't lie though, after I took the test, I cried... a lot. Not because I didn't want to be pregnant but more because I was scared. This pregnancy has already been so different from my first. I have been SO sick every second of every day. It has been really tough. I hope it means it's going to be a girl but my doctor's nurse said that she see's it all the time and it doesn't mean anything :( but we'll see. Well, we will keep you updated but don't expect any week by week pregnancy pictures of me... seriously...

This is the picture we used to tell our family the big news. We wrapped them up and gave them as Christmas presents to our parents!

Christmas 2011

For Christmas this year we went down to Bunkerville and spent it with my side of the family. It was fun to be with the whole clan and was surprisingly not too crazy. Evan was pretty fun Christmas morning. He didn't know what was going on but he loved all the toys. We had a really good Christmas and like always, I'm sad it's over...

Classic first santa picture :)

Cute little cow

Every year we act out the Nativity. It's always a mess and half the kids end of screaming by the end but it's a great tradition. In this pic we are singing "Silent Night" and I love how Jaxon has his hand over his heart!

Family PJ pic. Evan was not havin' it. It was past his bedtime.

My sisters and I

The girls with Daddy

Just us!

Evan

I just wanted to do a little update on Evan. I took some pictures to explain a bit of what he has been up to lately.

He just learned to clap, and it is the cutest thing ever. He does it so soft, it's adorable.

He is obsessed with Thomas the Train books. He wakes up in the morning or from his nap pointing to the books. It's the first thing he wants to do. I've had to hide them because I'm so tired of reading the dang things over and over. I'm really glad he's into books though.

We taught him to point to his shirt when we say "Where's the fire truck?" He is really into trucks of every kind.

I can't leave out the most important thing... So Evan has a favorite phrase. He says "What's that?" ALL day long. I've gotten to the point where I stop answering him because it gets to be too much for me, so he stopped saying it so much to me, but the second Garrett gets home, he starts back up again. Garrett is so patient and answers him every time.

Hat Buddies

The other day I was trying all day to get Evan to wear this cute hat he got for his birthday, but he was not having it. I was so sad because it was so cute. You would think he would be okay with it because he sees Garrett wearing one every single day, but he wasn't.

Anyway, when Garrett got home he took him into the bathroom in front of the mirror and showed him that if he kept the hat on he would be wearing one just like daddy was. Well after that, Evan didn't try to take the hat off again for the rest of the day. How cute is that!

Hat buddies!

I love this pic. Garrett took this, trying to be artistic.

Fall Fun

I have been feeling a little bit crafty lately, I think because I just got into pinterest, but here are a few things I've made recently.

Gotta love the block letters!

Halloween wreath

Yummy dessert. It's a chocolate chip cookie on bottom, them peanut butter, nuts, M&M's and icing on top. It was heaven!

Evan is 1!!!

I can't believe Evan is one year old! I know every mom says that but seriously, where did the time go? Having Evan in our lives this past year as been the most amazing thing. He brings so much joy and laughter into our home because he is so crazy and fun. We had his birthday party today at Garrett's dad's club house. It was quite the party. Just about all the family was there, from both sides. It's always pretty crazy when my family is there, but we love it. Evan got spoiled to death. He got tons of clothes and lots of fun toys. Here is a little update on Evan:

- is now completely off formula and bottles (Hallelujah!)

- love, love, loves his daddy. More than mommy but it's ok

- hates elephants

- is not walking yet

- has four teeth

- is terrible at taking naps

- loves Hot Wheels cars

- goes to bed at 7 and wakes up at 8 (most of the time)

- is in a forward facing car seat and LOVES it

- loves going for walks with his friend Kade

- talks constantly but it never makes any sense

- weighs 21 lbs

- wears size 3 shoes and 12mo clothes

Here are some pics. from the party:

This is a terrible picture because I waited until the table was destroyed before I remembered, but I wanted to get one of the decorations. I had a picture of Evan at every month from the past year as part of the center piece. It was cute at one point, I promise.
The cake!

This was the highlight of the party. He loved it!

Wasn't so sure about it at first...

I made his onesie to match his daddy.

He absolutely hated his party hat.

He didn't get the whole unwrapping thing.. We'll have to work on that so he will be ready for Christmas!

Halloween

This Halloween was pretty uneventful. Garrett had school so Evan and I went to our wards Trunk-or-Treat. Since I don't really want Evan to eat candy, we didn't go trick-or-treating, we just visited with or friends in the ward. When Garrett got out of class we went over to his brother's house and hung out for a while. Evan loved his costume! He was the cutest little froggy ever!!

Evan and his cousin Madden


Chillin' in the stroller on our way to the church.

Marathon and Stuff

Who us? Oh we've just been chillin'. Just doin' thangs. Taleesa's come out of retirement at the Pizza Factory--she's so thrilled to be back. Garrett (that's me--that's right baby, guest hosting like Alec Baldwin, you know--and I'm really utilizing the hyphen these days, it's kind of my thing, like dinosaurs and becoming an archaeologist was when I was seven) is working many a-job.

He is still at the Pizza Factory, he is also writing for the sports section of the Spectrum, and working a few hours in the writing center at Dixie State College.

Then there's Evan. This guy has three teeth and has maximized his scrunch face abilities. He is too lazy to walk, but can crawl up the stairs like you wouldn't believe. Well, we wouldn't be writing anything if we didn't have something to brag about, so we'll do that now.

Taleesa ran the St. George Marathon! She killed it. Garrett ran the race for his fifth time. Garrett probably would have had to walk the last fourteen miles had Taleesa not caught up to him. However, after Taleesa bolstered him for eleven miles, he had to be set free and fly home (had he stuck around, his wife would have beaten his time, as she crossed the starting line minutes after him--yes, chivalry is dead). Taleesa did really awesome for her first marathon of...we'll see...she ran through months of knee issues, and gritted through it all. We're very proud of her.

All this stuff's neat, but Evan pictures now dominate this blog, so we'll fill up the rest of this post with what the people really want to see.

WARNING: He doesn't always look this way.

I was a little hesitant to post these pictures, just because I hate looking at them, but I promised some people I would.  While Garrett and I were running the RRR, my mom was watching Evan for us and while he was there he started getting a rash.  It actually started the day we left and I told my mom to watch it because I noticed it was getting worse as the day went on. I wasn't too worried about it but by the time we were done running on Saturday it has gotten SO much worse, and kept getting worse until about Monday morning.  We took him to the doctor after the race on Saturday and they told us it was an immune reaction, which I guess is different from an allergic reaction,  from the antibiotics he was taking for an ear infection.  She said the rash was a result of his immune system going crazy and that it would probably last from 10 days to 2 weeks.  You can kind of tell my the picture, but the welts were big circles and inside the circles were either blisters or scabs.  The poor little guy looked so sad!  They didn't seem to bother him all the time, but there were times where he wouldn't stop rubbing his hands and arms on his stomach so you could tell they were really itching him. We decided to have Garrett and his dad give him a blessing on Sunday night because he looked so uncomfortable and was having a hard time sleeping. That night he slept great and woke up looking 10 times better the next morning.  It was completely gone by Tuesday. 

You can barely see them but the top of his head was bright red with blisters towards the back.

RRR

A few weeks ago, Garrett and I ran the Red Rock Relay.  It was a lot of fun.  Our team name was "Stars and Staches," and we were pretty much the coolest team there.  We all wore mustaches and dressed in red, white and blue in honor of 9/11 (the race was that weekend), and because Garrett loves America.  I do too, but not as much as he does :) He's crazy about it. Anyways... it was tons of fun but really exhausting.  We started at 8:25 Friday morning and finished at about noonish on Saturday.  The boys van was so fast that our van only got to sleep for about an hour, so we were very tired by the end. I can't wait to do it again next year!  

 We took 44th place out of 200 teams. 

 "Stars and Staches"

This is me after my first leg. I'm not exactly sure where I was running, somewhere on Cedar mountain, but it was in the middle of a thunderstorm! If you know me at all, you know that I HATE lightning.  I'm so afraid of it and I have it in my mind that getting struck my lightning is how I am going to die. I honestly though that was the end for me... but luckily it was not.    

Garrett looking very sleepy

Next up... the marathon!!! Yikes.. I'm so nervous