Caleb at 2 Weeks

I can't believe it, Caleb is 2 weeks old already. These last two weeks have flown by, and probably have been one of the best two weeks of my life. I am so in love with my family, I feel so blessed and thankful right now.

Anyway, for those interested, Caleb's 2 week appointment went great! He gained just under a pound and grew two inches. Our doctor really believes his birth length was probably a little inaccurate since he was a little ball. So he clocked in at 8 lbs, 6 oz and 20.5 inches. Looking mighty strong. Everything else sounded great and looked great. He is a solid eater, lover of baths, great sleeper and hates being cold. He is wide eyed when Elyse talks to him and overall, perfect.

Words Can't Describe..

...How Thankful and in Love I Am With These Three.

Celebrating Christmas

This past Christmas like all the others, came and went with a blink of an eye. We spent the past few days with Nate's parents. It was great having them here and Elyse sure loved all the attention. Overall, we spent the Christmas season by, being with family,
making a birthday cake for Jesus, and of course, eating it,
opening presents and,
playing games. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa, Elyse even got to get some game playing in this year. Puppy Bingo, highly recommend this game if you have a toddler.

Anyway, hope you all had a wonderful and memorable Christmas.

Merry Christmas

We hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Christmas! May you and your family rejoice in the day and celebrate the reason for the season.

Elyse Meets Caleb

Well we successfully have made it through one day and two nights. The nights have gone well for the most part. Caleb is a wonderful sleeper and eater and I know it has only been a few nights, but I am praying that it continues.

Anyway, we got home around 5:30 on Saturday, and Elyse couldn't have been anymore excited to meet Caleb. The video shows exactly what I mean. Hard to hear, but she kept saying "Hi", "Caleb", and "Love you". Plus look at that smile on her face :)

At the end of the previous video she was running to go the couch in order to do this:


Not only is Elyse in love with Caleb, but I think he already loves her a lot too. Every time she talks or holds him, he opens his eyes. Their interest in each other has to be the most blessed thing I have every seen.

What's In A Name?

For the most part, people pick a name for their child for one of three reasons, they like the name, its meaning and/or family significance. So it was no surprise that many people have asked us, "How did you guys come up with the name, Caleb?" In fact, I can remember them asking us the same thing with Elyse, and I had the exact same response. We chose the name because of all three reasons above. We love the name, there is family significance to the name and the most important, the meaning.

Elyse Irene: (Elyse) God is my oath, (Irene) peaceful and was Nate's grandmother's name
Caleb William: (Caleb) faithful and devoted to the Lord, (William) will to desire and protect and is Natalie's father's name

Hope to get videos up soon of Elyse meeting Caleb for the first time!

Going Home

So here's the tentative plan, we are to be dismissed around noon tomorrow. We can't wait to get Caleb home to meet Elyse! Please pray that everything goes smoothly for both him and Mariah during their checkups and dismissal tomorrow.

With that being said, we are asking that you please give us the night to get adjusted to being a family of four. We do plan on attending service on Sunday, but if you would like more time with us and Caleb please feel free to come over anytime between 3:30-6:00 on Sunday. We would also love to see you anytime Monday-Wednesday, we just ask that you call ahead during those days to double check that it works. Look forward to seeing you all and introducing you to Caleb in person.

One more picture of our precious Caleb, and yes, he is a paci guy and has his Dada's hair :)

More Pictures of Caleb

Nate and I have been so blessed to be surrounded by these amazing people! We can feel the presence of God the entire time.
Heidi (birth counselor), Rande (Mariah's mom), Nate (BF), Mariah (BM), Judy (Mariah's grandmother) and us
Caleb's birth family: Mariah, Rande, Monica, Ray and Malachi

Introducing...

Caleb William Klauser
7 lbs, 7 oz and 18.5 inches long
5:56 PM

He is absolutely perfect and such an answer to prayer. Praise God!
More pictures to come :)

December 16th

Two years ago today we were blessed with finalizing Elyse's adoption. She was officially ours forever today.

Hopefully today we will be blessed with holding our son. That's right, Mariah is in labor and we are heading out asap! Please pray for her delivery, health for her and baby as well as safe travel for us.

We now have a laptop that we are bringing with so stay tuned for pictures and name of our son :)

"The Life of an Elf" Take 3

Macy's Annual Christmas display is up for viewing again. Unfortunately it has been the same for the last three years, "The Life of an Elf". So here is a recap of our experiences of seeing it.

Take 1, 2008
No photo since Elyse was three months old and spent the entire time asleep in her car seat.

Take 2, 2009
Remember this photo? Elyse was terrified of the entire exhibit.

Take 3, 2010
As you can see, she is smiling. This year, Elyse started off timid with either wanting me to hold her or sit in her stroller. However, once we got to the bakery display with candy and food she was 100% enjoying herself and interested. Which made the experience of seeing it again all worth it.

Another reason today was so much fun is because Elyse and I saw it with some of our really good friends. Thank you ladies for joining us for a little Christmas activity.
Jenny with Aiden, us, Angela with Landon and Sarah with Mason

Happy Birthday Nate

Today marks 31 years that my husband has been alive. I am so blessed to have him in my life and I love him for so many reasons; but here in no particular order are just a few (31 to be exact).
1. unconditional love he gives me
2. a devoted father
3. puts God first
4. his servant hood
5. patient
6. amazing leader
7. thrives to succeed
8. great listener
9. provider
10. sense of humor
11. exercise companion
12. lover
13. dependable
14. honest
15. good in the kitchen
16. faithful
17. builder and fixer of our home
18. dancer
19. handsome
20. heart for adoption
21. confident
22. intelligent
23. challenges me
24. outgoing
25. courageous
26. helpful
27. gentle
28. trustworthy
29. humble
30. protector
31. compassionate

Nate, I love you so much and hope you have a Happy 31st Birthday!

Side note: computer is still down, picture and post was uploaded while at my mom's last night in order to wish my husband, a Happy 31st Birthday today!

Frustrated

Sorry to inform you family members and fellow bloggers, but our computer has crashed again. Three times in two years. Hope to get it fixed or get another one soon so we can post pictures and videos when our son arrives.

Seriously

It's bad enough that I have one love who enjoys video games, but two, seriously?!? Caught Elyse in the action of pretending to play Nate's XBOX 360.

Just A Few Tears At First

Elyse has only used a pacifier while sleeping or in the car while on long trips since she was 6 months old. Therefore, I knew when the time came where she was going to have to get rid of her pacis was not going to be easy. In fact, I just imagined the worse happening since she does not fight us or cry when it is time to go to bed or nap. With that being said, a few months ago Elyse bit through her paci, so much that we had to take scissors and cut it. I was so afraid it would break at night and she would swallow it and choke. She was then down to one and we often warned her that if she bit it too we would have to cut it and she would be all done with pacis. Well, Monday night Nate and I looked at it and it was hanging by hardly anything, so Nate asked her if she wanted to cut it. She said, "Yes" and did just so. After holding two pieces of paci in her hand she began to cry, "No cut, no cut." I grabbed her (tears filled in my eyes too) and looked at her and said, "Elyse Dada and Mama are so proud of you." Her crying instantly stopped. She then volunteered to throw the two in the garbage. We clapped our hands and gave her so much praise. She then took about an hour to fall asleep, wasn't so much crying as just needed to get use to falling asleep without it. Happy to say she slept through the night, did great at nap yesterday and went down without a problem last night. Besides a few earlier mornings than normal, so far so good. Both Nate and I are so proud of her. I don't know if having her see baby Chloe needing it showed her that babies use it or what, but her attitude towards pacis appeared to change last week. In fact, she would hold Chloe's and give it to Chloe or her doll, but would not use it herself. Positive sign in my opinion. I am aware that when baby boy comes it may result in her wanting a paci, and we won't fully object if she needs one while sleeping again. However, for now, we are hopeful that pacis are done for our little girl, who isn't so little anymore.

My Favorites of the Week

As you can see and probably guessed, my favorite pictures of the week involved only Elyse and my precious niece, Chloe. Elyse just wanted to do everything with Chloe; such things included, taking baths together, holding her, feeding her, burping her, singing to her, reading to her, and we can't forget the constant monitoring of Chloe's paci. Everyone kept saying how she really is going to be one amazing sister and big helper. So much that I might not be able to leave the room because Elyse will probably pick up her brother and put him somewhere else. With that being said, here are just a few pictures and videos that prove what I mean.

A Full House

For the past four days Nate and I had the opportunity to fill our house with people we love. This included, my brother, sister-in-law, and their beautiful and precious daughter. My uncle and aunt who drove up from Nebraska, my mom, stepdad and my stepbrother. We spent the entire time inside playing games, eating, watching football and playing with the two girls. Even though it got loud and crazy sometimes, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I LOVE having my house full of people, especially over the holidays. Nate, Elyse and I really had a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Thank you all for coming and spending the holidays with us! We love and miss you already.

Below are just a few good pictures. My favorites are still yet to come!
(picture above really gets me excited for our family pic of four soon)

Thankful For

Thanksgiving is a holiday that tends to be focused on either football, shopping the next day and/or food, instead of thanks. As I am typing that thought, I realized there is so many things I am thankful for, these are just a few...
-Jesus Christ who loves me and sacrificed His life for my sins
-An amazing, patient, leading and handsome husband that I don't ever want to be apart from
-A perfect, beautiful and precious daughter that I love unconditionally
-A little son that will soon be placed in my arms
-A supportive and loving family that's there whenever needed
-Friends that I consider family
-Good health for myself and those around me
-My house that will forever be a home
-Being able to do my dream job everyday
-Laughter, something I just don't do enough of
-Having four seasons, even if the winter season came a little faster than normal this year (coldest Thanksgiving in 21 years)

I could go on and on, but since that perfect, beautiful and precious daughter of mine is calling my name, I am going to go get my everyday morning hugs from her that I am so thankful for.

Wishing you all a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Boxes of Love

Last night Nate and I joined the rest of our bible study to serve at Boxes of Love in downtown Minneapolis (HLIC). If you have not heard of Boxes of Love, it's a Christian run service project which involves boxing up food in order to provide food for the homeless/needy for the holidays. The goal for us last night was to complete 500 boxes in an hour; but with our group's dedication and determination, plus having a lot of people there, we were done in less than 30 minutes. We all were saying how we almost spent more time in the car, than serving. We really would have enjoyed packing up a few more since we were down there. It's always great to serve, but even more fun when you do it with friends.
Back row: Tom, Nate, Joren, Jill, Angela, Sarah, and Nick
Front row: Natalie, Kristi, Kris, Stephanie and Jeremiah
Not pictured, but did serve: Jenny and Ryan

Well, since we were done early and were childless for the evening, what did us adults do? We all went back to Tom and Jenny's for drinks, desserts, laughter and some game playing. Great way to end our night, that's for sure!

Special thanks to our group for stepping up and serving last night. We had a wonderful time and hope you did too. Also, to my mom for watching Elyse so Nate and I could get out and have some grown up fun.

Proud to Represent

Elyse was super proud and happy tonight running around in her CATERPILLAR sweatshirt. It's not yellow, but she still knows what the CAT logo is and what it represents, her Dada. In her words, "Yeah, Dada makes those!"

Coupon Using

For the last few months I have really been getting into using coupons. I ordered the Sunday paper, I weekly print out coupons and am a devoted Target coupon printer. It's perfect when something is on sale, and then on top of that, you use a Target and Manufacturer coupon! I am learning to get many free things, like deodorant, medicine, lotion and even food. The reason I now have decided to do a post on coupon shopping is because of the picture below...

So all the items in the the picture represents things I would have bought and totals $110.53 if nothing was on sale and no coupon was used. The total I spent today was $32.93, I saved $77.60, 70%!!!! I know people spend $0 or $10 on bills, but for me this was a great buy. In fact, the Buffet Warmer/Serving Tray is normally priced at $49.99 alone.

Anyway, I don't think I will do many if any more posts on using coupons and I am not trying to boast in this post if that is what it appears like. All I am trying to get across is that anyone can coupon shop if I can do it. Even a little saved helps; on average I usually only save between $25-$35 a week.

If you have any suggestions or coupon comments that you think are useful, I would love to hear them.

Enjoying the Snow

Since we never made it outside yesterday we took full advantage of going out this morning. Elyse LOVED it, she was walking all over the place, wrestling with Nate, playing on her slide and of course, eating the snow. Her smiles really did make the 7.7 inches of white stuff on our ground a joyful thing.

White Thanksgiving?

Woke up to this. Weather forecast is estimating 7-9 inches by tonight.


I know it's beautiful, and actually makes me want to go decorate for Christmas, but really, we haven't even had Thanksgiving. Needless to say we have spent our morning inside the house. Elyse has had a smile on her face all morning and keeps saying, "Baby brother here it's winter time". That's because we have told her snow means winter and winter means brother. Oops, should have figured snow would make its appearance early this year. Anyway, hopefully it will stop snowing so we can go out and play after nap.