A quick hello...

Hello!  Well, around here it is the end of spring break week.  For teachers and students, this is great!  For the rest of us, well, it's just another week. :)  We wish Obama would focus on what is really important and make spring break week an official work holiday week - now that would increase his approval rating even more, right?  Ok, maybe a bad idea.

Anyway, a week ago today Caleb had tubes put in his ears.  It was a really quick procedure (officially a 'surgery').  A nurse took Caleb from our waiting room, a couple moments later we were taken to the recovery room, and right when we had just settled in they were already bringing him to us - done!  Pretty amazing how fast it was.  It all went really well and within a couple of hours he was back to his normal self - it didn't even seem to phase him.  The idea is that this will significantly decrease the ear infections he gets.  It was starting to get bad - getting ear infections without a cold, just the infection.  So we're optimistic that this will improve his overall well-being.  We seem to already see a difference in his behavior (not as cranky as often) and he hasn't pulled on his ears and said "owie" once since we got home.  That alone makes it worth it for us - no one likes to see their child hurting in any way.  Caleb has been a trooper and we're proud of the little man for hanging in there.  I'm so thankful that a little child is filled with so much grace to keep running back to parents who don't always do things right - aren't we all!?!?

We're taking this weekend off and going to have fun with some friends.  We're looking forward to a relaxing weekend.  Now, if the weather would just cooperate we'd be in perfect shape!  

Here are some pictures for you.  Love to you all!

Peace,

JJC

The fish in the doctors office - "ish, ish, ish, ish..."

Just woke up from general anesthesia - he was like, "Umm...what just happened?!"

Joye made play-doh for him.  Apparently he likes to throw it.

He's learned how to climb up and hang on...

...then he falls back on the couch and thinks it's the funniest thing ever!  This was a couple days after the tubes were put in.  We think he'll be okay. :)

Our big helper!

Hello!  We hope you are all doing well.  Things have been good for us lately.  We truly can't complain.  Life is always full of challenges but we constantly find ourselves thankful for the good people we are surrounded by.

Johnny finished his graduate work and is officially done...at least for a while. :)  He is enjoying relearning how to have a "normal" evening and has what he calls "phantom" moments where he feels like he should be working on something or reading something, but instead he can just sit on his keaster and relax!  

Joye is doing well being an amazing mother and wife!  She still works full time (well, she doesn't call it that, but she does) and manages to take care of us in the home.  She's had a couple of bouts with the crud that has been going around, but is doing better now and hoping it stays that way for a while.

Caleb is GROWING like crazy.  He is almost 21 months, wears a size 8 shoe, well over 30 pounds, and is a solid 35 inches tall - that's almost three feet people!  He is truly becoming more and more of a little boy every day learning new stuff as he explores everything.  We're t-minus three months from making the dreaded departure from the binki, but for now it is proving to be useful - at least Caleb thinks so! :)  We're close to be able to buy a video camera, so hopefully we can start capturing some classic "Caleb moments" for you all to witness for yourselves.  The kid truly is priceless quite often.  So, we're having fun watching him learn and grow and loving him all the while.  Oh, and before I make is sound too much like a fairy-tale, ya, the kid can be quite the handful sometimes.  He is definitely showing that he has a strong personality.  He test our parenting skills (or lack thereof) quite often.  But, we hear that's part of having an almost two year old.  There are more great moments that bad moments, so we're okay with where we're at right now.

Last weekend, we had a church wide local work and witness project in our neighboring community.  Part of this was getting our skate park cleaned up and ready for opening back up this spring.  Caleb showed up for a little bit and helped however he could.  Here are a few pictures of him working (sorry you can't see his face in any of these).

We love you all!  Hope to hear from you soon!

Peace,

JJC

This is my favorite one.

Still in my 20s!

Last weekend was fun!  All week we had planned on a mellow weekend - go out to dinner on Friday for my birthday, then just hang out all day on Saturday.  Well, we went out to dinner on Friday while Joye's sister Jill hung out with Caleb at home, but what I failed to realize is that my amazing wife had something more up her sleeve.  

I thought we were coming home to a quiet house, Caleb was in bed, and we'd just watch a movie or something.  I walked in to guitar hero and 16 of our really good friends who Joye had invited over for a surprise party.  I'm usually pretty good about catching Joye with stuff like this, but she totally got me this time.  I was clueless, and speechless.  Needless to say, it was a ton of fun.  It was cool to catch up with some friends I hadn't seen for a while.

One of our friends, Albre, made a really cool cake and wrote on it, "Viva La Juan."  It was very creative and very good!  Thanks Albre!  Birthdays feel different than they did when we were kids, but this one was special because I got to be with some really good friends.

Oh, and this is the last year I'll be able to say, "I'm still in my 20s!"  Ouch.  I'm getting old!

Have a great week!

Happy boy on the stairs!

And we're back!

It's been a long time since we've updated our blog, and I started to feel bad about that. So, to make up for our lack of attention to the blog, I decided to make you all a nice little video to soften your hearts a bit. :)

Life has been good for the Hampton Version 5.o's lately. We're into the full swing of 2009 and are looking at an exciting year ahead. As always, we would love your prayers, and know that you all are prayed for too!

Enjoy the video. Caleb is getting so big!

Love you all,
JJC

Merry Christmas!

Well, it's the day after Christmas and all through our house there are toys everywhere and we are pet-sitting a mouse. Actually, it is a rat.

We had a great Christmas with Family. We went to Christmas Eve lunch with my parents at "Famous Daves." The food was delicious. Then we headed to the College Church Christmas Eve service. See, here's the thing, I totally understand why they don't have childcare for this service...I mean really...who wants to watch kids on Christmas Eve. This left us with our less than calm 18 month old in the service with us. Awesome! We decided to keep a low profile and sit in the balcony. That lasted about 2 minutes. Caleb saw this as a great opportunity to throw Johnny's cell phone...luckily , it didn't quite make it to the edge of the balcony, but it did make quite a noise and a scene. Sorry, to everyone who was in the balcony that night...hopefully we did not ruin your worship. If we did, next year you should volunteer to do childcare. :) jk. After the service we went home and put Caleb to bed and watched Horton Hears a Who. Cute movie.

We woke up to lots of fresh snow on Christmas morning, it was beautiful to look at! Not so much to drive in...thank you Lord for our jeep.

Caleb slept in on Christmas morning until 8am! I told Johnny this is the last time for 15 years we will be able to sleep in on Christmas, we better enjoy it! We did our family stockings and presents. I didn't realize how much we had gotten for Caleb until he started opening it all...sheesh! He got a new tricycle thank you to Grandma and Boppa Hampton! Then we headed over to Boise to be with the Deakins family. After all, it is an even year. We had a wonderful day! Grandma and Papa spoiled Caleb with a 4-wheeler riding toy and a basketball hoop! He loves both of them! He also got a remote control car from Ava and lots of fun little stocking gifts. We spent the day eating, playing games and playing Guitar hero...which Jana rocks at! We topped the night off by watching Mama Mia! PS I always thought the "Dancing Queen" song had a line in it that said "unless you are a Nazarene". I was proven wrong last night. Whatever.

Caleb is getting to be such a fun little boy...he has ENDLESS energy and is full of wonderment over the littlest things. His new word is "snow". He and Johnny had a great time playing in the snow last week. We feel so blessed to have Caleb in our lives.

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! To all our Family who we couldn't be with, we love and missed you all!

Um, I don't think Johnny is going to ever let me update the blog again, apparently I am long-winded. Enjoy all of these pictures!

Love ya,
JJC

He LOVES bananas.

Can't you tell?

Caleb's 5 favorite things: "Mi" (Binki), Geoffry (the giraffe), "Ma" (Milk), "Nack" (Snack cup), and "nana" (Banana).

Chubby Bunnies with mini-pancakes.

"Booh, booh, booh..." All day long.

Fun in the snow!

He loves the santa hats.

Christmas morning at home - first "stocking" experience.

And wouldn't you know it - all we needed to do was buy him oranges for Christmas and he would have been perfectly content.

Notice the fist full of oranges in Caleb's right hand.

Thank you very much Grandma and Boppa Hampton!

What a deal - two stockings in one day!!

Thank you very much Grandma and Papa Deakins!

A vallient attempt at taking a "cousins" picture. By the looks of Caleb's body language, he is saying, "I gotta get out of here!"