We LOVE this winter weather!!




First time venturing out in the snow...



Snow Buddies!!!



And he's down....



Time for the sled....

 



Loving the sled!



So cold!

They went around the yard and down the hill so many times!

Time to come in...with his sidekick Barley.

SO CUTE!!!

The Playroom!!

I decided shortly after Mr. Caden's arrival that our extra room in the basement would need to be a playroom in the near future. As he got a little older, that 'future' became closer. Once we went through his first birthday and the truckload of toys he got from everyone, that 'future' became 'NOW'!! So, early November we started cleaning out that room. So much crap was in there I can't even believe it. But finally, it got cleaned out to become "the playroom."

There are still random pics on the walls that were hanging in there as storage before, and I want to add cute little stuff to the walls for Caden. But, I don't think Caden minds if the walls are decorate for now :). He loves his playroom to pieces.....and Mommy loves that we can just shut the door to it after he demolishes it three times a day :). He will spend hours in there, it's so neat to see him play and keep himself busy. My big boy!!

We spend quite a bit of our days down in the playroom, can you tell :)??

Christmas with CW

I finally got to load our pictures from Christmas. Here's Christmastime with CW in pictures :). Enjoy!

So there's a little of what December looked like with our sweet Caden Wesley. It was a holly jolly time indeed :). And now it's snowing today as I'm (finally) posting these! Yay! I love snow! I got a new camera for Christmas and as soon as I get all it's new 'stuff' loaded on the computer, I can start posting new pics on time. Crazy, huh??

Oh what a night :)

I hope I don't have you all in shock when you see I'm posting again :). I'm trying to be good, see?? Well our computer room is still out of commission so I don't have new pics for here yet, but had to share this story :).

Caden loves the bath. I mean, would take 3 baths a day if we let him. We have to keep the bathroom door shut and never dare say "bath", or he will get so excited and run to the tub.

Well anyhoo, yesterday Caden and I had quite a day. For whatever reason, he was not in a good mood and rather crazy. He wasn't listening and was frankly being a handful. At any rate, we got home from a trip to Target for a new pair of shoes for him (suddenly his were way too small), and it was time for a bath for him. I was glad because that is his "happy place" as I call it, and after he'd ran away from me at Target and had a meltdown when I put him back in the cart, we were all ready for the "happy place :)".

Well, that happy place became not so happy for this mama! I got CW in the tub, and he was doing his usual splashing and playing with toys. I am purely there as a life guard, he is in his own land when he's in the bath and has no use for me. Fine with me :). Anyhoo, I'll spare the gross details, but there was suddenly a giant friend in the tub with CW, an un-welcomed friend floating around.

I quickly grabbed CW out of the tub and dried him off. Since we hadn't washed hair/scrubbed up yet, and had been in the tub with this unwanted friend, I knew I had to get him back in the tub to get clean. So, I stood his nakey little toosh outside the tub while I drained it, cleaned it, and cleaned the toys. About that time I wondered why our stupid tub was leaking and my socks were wet....

Turns out our tub doesn't leak. Apparently CW was taking care of all bathroom duties in those 5 minutes. And, when he realized what he'd done, preceeded to stomp his feet in it and splash it on my pants. (Ya, I was in sweatpants, nothing fancy, but still...who wants that on their pants?!?!). So, at that point I began laughing so CW did as well. So, I put him back in the tub and proceeded to clean up the mess on the outside of the tub.

And, our 20 or 30 minute bath became an hour and a half process. At which point I had to get one very tired boy to bed....and then he chattered in his crib for half an hour....go figure :)!!

Always an adventure, right mommies?!?!? What on earth did I do before CW??

A new Year!

Happy New Year everyone!! I'm not going to say a word about how sorry I am it's been so long since I last posted, or how I promise to be better about posting in 2011....it seems I put that on every post and seem to not be any better. But, at any rate, I will try to get you caught up on Caden Wesley :).
I can't get to my 'main' computer right now with all my pics, as my hubby is working on wiring of some sort, but I will give you an update with a pic I have on my little laptop, and promise (maybe??) to post soon.

December seemed to be a month of lot's of changes in the world of Caden Wesley. He seemed to become more grown up this month than I can even believe, and I have to remind myself he's not even 14 mos old sometimes. Here is a brief recap of it all :).

SCHOOL. Caden started daycare the week after his birthday (in November), and he is thriving there and loves it. He just goes Tuesday's and Thursday's from 9 to 3. We feel blessed to have such a wonderful place for him to go when we cannot be with him.
DANCING. Caden and his friends dance and 'sing' at daycare a lot, and he is now a dancing fool! Anything that has a jingle in any way, even if it's just a commercial, he's spinning around and clapping.
CLAPPING. He'd been kind of clapping for a long time, but now (thanks to daycare again, probably :)), he holds his little hands up high and does 'real claps.' He is our moral support sometimes, if something is going on, he'll stand up and smile and clap, and we all know it will be okay :). Haha. He's such a joy!
THROWING BALLS. He has a little gym they go play in at daycare, and he now loves throwing balls all the time....puts his hands high above his head and tosses the ball. When he sees a ball, he get so excited!
"YA", "NO". Although he doesn't know what they mean, and they don't always make sense when he says them, whenever you ask him something or say something to him, he always has something to say back, either "Ya" or "No." It's so funny!! Now he says "Mom," "Dad", "Ya," "No."
THE DOGS AND HIM. Caden has grown extremely fond of the dogs this month. While I can't say the feelings are always mutual, Barley (suprisingly enough) seems to be the one who tolerates him best. If we tell him to "be nice" or "give them love", he bends over and lays his head on Barley's back. It's pretty adorable. He loves the pups.
SIGNING. Since he was pretty small I knew I wanted to try baby sign language with him. I figured I'd start 1 word at a time. We started signing "more" to him a few months ago, and finally in December he started doing it. Now he's signing it all the time, always hungry it seems. It's so great that he can do that, it helps a lot with communication. Now we'll have to teach him more words :).
SMACKING. In addition to doing "more," if you ask him if he's hungry/wants to eat, he'll "click" his tongue in his mouth and make a smacking noise. It's pretty funny, I don't know where he learned that.
RUNNING....FAST. Since he started walking so early, he began running lately, pretty fast actually. Do to his un-ending energy and possible speed, I'm pretty sure he could out-run me at this point!
RESPONDING. Just in the last couple of weeks Jared and I have been freaked out to realize how much he is suddenly understanding what we're saying, haha. This last week Jared had off, and one morning I whispered to CW after he got up, "Let's go wake up daddy", and he ran to our bedroom door and hit on the door and got so excited! Pretty good since usually Jared isn't home when he gets up. Or, if we tell him to go get someone in particular, or one of the dogs, he'll go get the right person. It's crazy to me!!
FEEDING HIMSELF. At daycare they work with them a lot to feed themself. While it's usually a huge disaster, with not much getting to his mouth, Caden is doing better and better :). Of course he's been feeding himself finger foods forever, but I'm talking using a spoon and giving himself applesauce, yogurt, etc. It's so funny to me...he concentrates so hard and works so hard at it, although not much gets accomplished! He seems to be usuing his left hand a lot, so maybe he'll be a lefty, who knows!
GAVE UP BOTTLE. Although I was 'freaking' about it and pretty sure it would never be so, Caden gave up his bottle in December, too. He had his last bottle December 14th. He'd been using sippies for a long time, but when I tried to give him milk in one, he'd look at me, stand up, take my hand and lead me to the fridge to show me where I could maybe find a bottle. It was funny. I was pretty sure we'd have to go to bottle rehab to get rid of it, but he did it :)! Binkies might be another story...
HOLDING HANDS. He started coming and taking my hand (or whoever's) and leading me to what he wants. It is so darn cute, it usually works to get what he wants most of the time, haha.

Well, there you have it....the LONG December updates....remember when I said it was going to be brief?!?! Haha. Told you December brought lot's of changes for Mr. CW. Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday! Love to you all! Emily

This one's for you, Shelly :)

Per Shelly's request :), and since I frequently promise to update and don't, here we go :). Caden stood in the middle of the room on Monday without holding onto anything. The standing thing is nothing new, he's been doing that a few months, but not without holding anything :). Then, he turned and walked 3 steps over to the toy he wanted!! What?!?! He's only done it a couple times since, but this mama didn't realize how NOT ready I was for my little guy to be a toddler. Yep, this cheese ball got all choked up and couldn't believe my eyes! I'm of course all for Caden advancing, and don't want him to stay an infant forever, haha, but it's still seeming too early to have my little guy starting to walk! He's crazy, did I mention that?!?
He's in love with the little Gerber (or Target brand in this family) puff snacks. I mean he would eat a whole tube of those a day if I let him. He puts about 10 in his hand at once, and I think 2 or 3 actually get in his mouth each time. The dogs are loving this snack.....they get half of it, haha.
We had a great trip to Texas with Mom and Allie to see Leslie and her family. Caden did great on the long car ride, and we had lot's of fun seeing her and her beautiful babies!
Adios.

To you dear ones who look at this blog, I am so sorry I have been so delinquent :). Caden is keeping us busy, I guess :). He is walking along everything and stands so straight and tall....any day now he will take off I'm sure. He chatters constantly, says "Daddy Daddy Daddy" when Jared gets home (Pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen). In just another week he will be 9 months old. Mom, Allie and I are talking Caden and heading to Texas the end of this week to visit Allie's dear friends Leslie and her 3 little ones. It will be an adventure!! Here are some new pics. Hope you're having a great summer!!