Caleb Secrest

As I stated on Ezra's site we took a day and went to the University campus to "play". Mostly the boys ran around. Of course Caleb loves to run so he enjoyed it. When we first got there he wanted to climb the tree that we were standing by. He could not really climb it since it was huge but Dustin assisted and placed him the tree. You can see in the pictures how big the tree is but what you can't see is how high up he is. The place he is sitting is about as tall as Dustin is. At first he thought that was pretty cool but then he was not so sure and wanted to get down. I managed to get a few pics before he got too scared. It is hard to tell in the pictures but the trees were amazing!

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So we all know that Caleb learned to ride a bike last year. What I am not sure if everyone knows is that he rode it for about a week and that was it. Hills really scared him and our driveway had a bit of a slope to it. He did not know how to stop and so it freaked him out. Thus he did not ride his bike that much last year. This year we have had a couple of weeks of really nice weather so he was able to get out and play with his buddy next door, Zachary. Zachary can ride a bike really well and is a bit of a dare devil. Caleb was a bit jealous of his bike and asked if he could have a turn. (Caleb's bike was a bit small for him since he has grown so much this last year) He discovered on his friends bike that he could brake. That led Dustin and I to check out Caleb's bike a bit more. We found out that to brake he had to go back almost a full rotation before the brakes kicked in. He had no confidence at all in it, I can't blame him. So Dustin went down to the thrift store and found a great bike for an amazing deal, got some training wheels and brought it home. Caleb was very excited. Across the street from our house is a church with a big parking lot that is mostly empty in the evenings and weekends. So we took him over there and off he went. He loves it!! He has the confidence to stop now. It is really great to see him out there going for it.

Caleb and I recently discovered this website that has a bunch of things you can print out, cut, and glue together to make some fun stuff. We discovered it because a couple weeks ago it was Dinosaur week at school and for show and tell he had to bring something dinosaur related. So he wanted to find a picture on the internet that he could color and take in. Well in the search for a picture we found the website with "paper toys". It had two dinosaurs that he could make. I do not have pictures of them but they turned out pretty cool. It is amazing what you can do with paper. Anyway so we discovered that they also had cars on this website. That of course was a hit. For a week every day after school he wanted me to print him two or three, then he would color them, cut them out, and glue together. It was a great project that he could do all by himself (for most of them). So he now has a collection of paper cars along some that he has not put together yet. Along the artistic line he has also found a love of tracing. We figured out that if we taped a picture to the dining room window with a plain sheet of paper over it then he could see through it. So that was another couple weeks of after school entertainment. He has traced so many now that he has put together two coloring books of his own. Each one has probably 10 pictures in it. They are all from the Cars movie of course. I will include a picture of that soon. I have not gotten on yet. He has also really gotten good at coloring. In one of his coloring books he put together he showed me a picture that he had colored. It was only partially done but some of what was done looked like it had been printed off the computer. I am always amazed at how well he can do.

Today I decided to let the boys play with toilet paper. I accidently bought a package of single ply stuff and since it is awful I thought I would let the boys use up some. It was so cute that I had to share the pictures. Caleb thought it was one of the best ways to spend an hour on a rainy day. I gave both the boys their own roll of TP and let them go for it. Caleb quickly had it rolling. He was making 'tracks' all over the room, and I mean all over! It was quite amazing how much fun TP can be in the hands of little boys. By the time they were done there was TP covering most of the floor and on a lot of the furniture. You can click on the link to see more pics on Ezra's site.

Last week Dustin took a trip to Montana by himself to pick up his drums. He had a full drum set which he sold a year ago or so. However he kept his snare drum and symbols. Shortly after he got home he pulled out the drum for the kids to see. Both the boys loved it! Caleb remembered drumming when he was younger. The next day Dustin was scheduled to play in worship at a friends church. He has not played in the 3 years that we have lived in WA. So I took the boys to watch him practice. They loved it!! Caleb remembered again that he used to see his daddy drum all the time. At first he sat and watched them (the worship team) play. After a few minutes he decided to get some energy out. So every time Dustin would drum loud Caleb would run around the room stopping as soon as Dustin stopped drumming. When I told him that we had to leave he was very sad. It was so fun to watch the boys be so captivated by their dad. I added in a pictures of Caleb when he was a year and half old. It was his first time drumming and was so precious!