A funny thought

So, this is slightly funny. Rob just got the new iLife 09 software for his computer. One of the new features is face recognition. You give it three pictures, and then it is supposed to be able to find and label all the pictures with the person in it.

For our family that is a slight problem--our kids look too much alike. I mean sometimes we have to stop and think--really think about which one is the right age for that picture. The software went nuts. It couldn't handle it.

I guess that's the big disadvantage to having three cookie cutter kids.

Rob wants to show just how problematic face recognition software can be ... this is what happens when you try looking up all the photos of Rob ...

Random Questions

1--Why is it that my boys (including Rob) go through twice as many clothes as us girls? I mean on an individual basis--there are at least two Caleb outfits, two Jacob outfits and two Rob outfits to every one of mine and Beth's outfits. Explanation please.

2--Why is it that my son who doesn't talk, can say pee pee and poo poo at the most random times? Plus he giggles. He knows what he is doing. Please tell why.

3--Why is bedtime the worst time of the day? It should be a loving happy time--but it's not--it really is not. It's like we are torturing the kids by making them sleep. I'd love to sleep as much as they get to.

Gifts from Grandpa and Nana from Robert Caldwell on Vimeo.

The kids had fun opening their birthday presents from their family in Utah.

Jacob's Birthday Party

Jacob's Second Birthday Party from Robert Caldwell on Vimeo.

Visit Vimeo and view the video in HD.

Jacob's Birthday Pics

Here are more of Jacob's birthday party pictures.

Not Much to Say!

Rob will be posting birthday footage soon--hopefully. He is over there on the iMac editing it. Keeps playing a Ryan Shupe song over and over, so it should be good. This was the big birthday week. Whew! I'm glad it's over. I mean what are the chances you have two boys within a week of each other--two years apart. Next year will be worse because Jacob will get a friend party too.

Caleb had a good party. Eleven kids in the house, and craziness ensued. He had the Pinata, Batman Cake and everything else that he wanted. Unfortunately we are lacking in pictures and videos, because of a slight emergency. I feel awful that poor Meadow had an allergic reaction at our house, and ended up in the emergency room. I think she is better today.

Jacob was really talkative today. All babble of course, he talked through the family watching a movie together. We watched The Dish, a very cool Australian movie (which Rob recommends), and I was impressed that the kids sat through it. It's a grown up movie, and we'd seen it before years ago, but they liked except Jacob kept talking. But we never tell Jacob to be quiet. Any talking, anywhere is a good thing.

Beth is on the verge of losing another tooth. It will be her sixth tooth, and she will have four empty spots. Her smile is so fun right now. I'll post a picture when it happens. Or maybe Rob will. She's doing great on her reading and will read us the scriptures at night. I am so proud of her.

Sadly my laptop really did die. We were totally panicked about what to do. We don't have money for a computer right now, and kindly three people offered us their extra computers until we can go buy one. So I'm on a Mac Mini until we get our tax refund. Whew! It sounds bad that we need more than one computer, but Rob and I both do extra work stuff at night, so it isn't really a luxury.

Catch Up!

First I want to mention that I've added Rob to the blog. This is a result of him sneaking on and posting under my name. I think it will be good because he can link to his pics, which are always better, and maybe talk a bit about his stuff, and views. Our blog name is kind of cheesy, but oh well. That's us Caldwells! Maybe when Beth is a bit older we'll add her too.

So it has been a little hectic this week. First we went up to Hickory to celebrate Jacob's second birthday. Rob's promised to post pics, and a link to the pics soon, very soon. It was great. Jacob was so excited and tried to blow out his candles. He is my happy little guy who loves to cuddle and give hugs. He is super sweet, and has the best puppy dog eyes and pouty face in the world. I'm so happy that he is part of our family. He is still in speech, and I think it is helping. He's still too young to diagnose definitively, but the speech therapist has talked about the possibility of Apraxia. We'll see what happens.

Wonderful news--it snowed. Just this weekend, I was talking to Rob about how much I'd love one big snowstorm for the kids. And it happened. It's the first real snow since we've moved to Raleigh. It started snowing at midnight on Monday, and didn't stop until three or four on Tuesday. A good four inches. We had fun running around, and throwing snowballs. The snow wouldn't pack for a snowman. Beth loved just watching out of the window, when I told her we wouldn't go out for awhile. Then we had hot chocolate afterwards. You can see the video below.

This weekend is Caleb's birthday. He is celebrating Batman style, since there were no Spiderman invitations at Target. Funny thing about Caleb is he loves comic books. The ones by Marvel. They have them at the library, and he will check out a few each trip. The thing is that he won't let me read them out loud to him. He just likes to flip through them by himself.

My sad news is that my laptop's motherboard is going out, the ram that is sautered to it has gone bad. The repair would cost $700.00, and a new Mac Mini is $600.00, but we'd lose the laptop. So sad, and frustrating. I'm scared to write anything in case it freezes on me. So I've had a rough few days.

Rob got to stay home yesterday and play with the kids. He had a lot of fun. He is almost done with his video project. I am so excited. It is really good.

Well that's it for now!

Snow!!!!

The kids loved playing in the snow, but mostly they just liked brushing snow off the neighbors' cars.
To view photos from the snow day, visit our Smugmug site.

Appalachian Trail in Autumn

I'm late posting photos from my last hike, but everyone who went had a great time. The autumn leaves were amazing.
If you want to view the photos in their normal sizes, visit our smugmug gallery. Thanks to Heather Winters for taking the photos.

Overheard In Sacrament Meeting

Today Caleb was quite talkative during the Sacrament. So I tried to redirect his thoughts, and reminded him to think about Jesus.

Caleb: "Mom, I had a scary dream last night about Jesus."

Me: "What was scary about it?"

Caleb: "Jesus died for everyone, but he didn't come back to life."

Me: "That is scary."

Caleb: "It was the aliens that wouldn't let Jesus come back to life."

Rob: Shhh!

I wanted to hear the rest of the dream. Of course Caleb managed to redirect his thoughts to something much more interesting--Aliens

1'm in ur blogz, embedding my videoz

Rob here. I've hacked my way into Mim's blog (or as the 1337 speaking kidz these days would say: HaXoRed joor b0x0r, FTW!) I know all her passwords ... and until I get off my proverbial bum (cause butt is a bad word, according to 8 out of 10 kids) and start writing my own blog, I'm going to use those passwords to post my junk here (thanks Mim for being so understanding ... she's actually nowhere near right now).

So without further adieu, here are some photos from last Summer's trip to Holden beach, a vacation spot I highly recommend to anyone. I know, these photos are old. Blogs are supposed to be current. But I just found a neat new way of making slideshows and thought someone else might enjoy the little slideshow creation too.

A Peaceful Week Off!

This week has been a fun one!  We had both Beth and Rob home. The kids had fun, when they weren't too crazy. And I mean crazy. I neglected to mention in last week's post that Caleb was jumping on boxes (crazy I know) and he bit through his lip. Yup through it. Like a hole on both sides of it--you could stick something in it and it come out of his mouth type of hole. Only not really because it wasn't a huge hole. Just the size of the tooth that he bit through it with. Did I manage to gross anyone out? Turns out he didn't need stitches since it wasn't a flappy hole, and he ended up with a big fat lip. The cut is almost gone. Whew! We were saved from getting him his second set of stitches.

We went to Jumpin' Beans on Friday, because we'd promised the kids we would if they were good. They were mostly good. Here is a video--fun stuff. The video is courtesy of his Flip camera, and the song will stick in your head forever. Can't say I didn't warn you. It's by They Might Be Giants and it's the theme song for Mickey Mouse Club House.



PS Rob doesn't like the quality of this video and urges you check it out here.

Beth has cooked a lot this week--thanks to her new cookbook. She's going to start cooking Sunday dinners with me every week. We are also going to start daily and weekly chores for the kids. Hopefully this will work. I'll keep you updated.

I set my goals and I'm working on getting a schedule going. Schedules help me to be a happier person. Rob, not so much. He has committed to mopping every night! Go Rob! It's happened the last three nights--I don't know what will happen once he goes back to work though.

Fish update: we got 'em, and they are still alive. But Rob is concerned because they are not eating. He is also checking the water each night. I think the secret chemist in him is coming out. Only it is not so secret because about once a month he tells me how much he loved his chemistry classes. Why didn't he make it a career? I don't know, but I think (and hope) he's happier with the choices that he made and the life he has.

Well that's about it. I've started a new novel. Got to keep moving forward--right. I'm waiting for feedback on my novel so that I can start rewriting in the next week or two. I need a title. Sounds silly I've written the whole book and I don't have a good title.