Hold on Tight and Enjoy the Ride!!

That's what we've done this week.......holding on tight, for sure!!  Jared unexpectedly worked 3 twelve hour overnight shifts this week, so our routine has looked a little different around here this week!  We are thankful for family close by who can help out with Caden when a change in schedule jumps up on us like that :)!! 

I'm still battling with pics from the last couple weeks, but will get them loaded soon, I promise.  Life is just so busy right now, as I know it is for everyone. 

We had Caden's 15 month checkup this week, and everything checked out a-ok of course.  He is still holding strong in the 95th percentile for his head size, haha.  He weighed in at 24 pounds 6 ounces (43rd percentile) and is 32 inches tall (69th percentile).  He is growing like a weed!  The doctor said he was exhausted just watching CW 'do his thing' in the doctor's office.  Haha, yep, that's something we here quite a bit......Does he ever slow down??    No he doesn't.

I asked the doctor about CW's sudden refusal to eat veggies, and he said it's very typical.  He said most the time a parent of a 2-year-old comes in embarassed because they can write on a sticky note everything their child will actually eat, so not much.  That made me feel better.  He said keep offering the veggies, and once they're old enough to understand they can't get up until they eat them, we can do that as well.  He had a couple tips.....get V8 Fusion juice, with a full veggie serving in it, or veggie burgers.  So, we're gonna give those a try in the mean time :).

He's doing very good at simple commands in the last couple weeks......not to make him sound like a puppy, haha.  He now responds to things like, "Go get your shoes," "Put that back please," "Sit down on your chair,", etc.  It's adorable.....not to mention handy :).   

We gave him a buzz cut again this week and it makes him look 4 years old I'm pretty sure.  He has 8 teeth that are in pretty far now, and it changes how he looks so much!  CW started more chattering again this week.....the one that sticks out to me, was him telling me to "sit."  I thought I was being a crazy mom who thinks their kid talks and they don't, but when I asked him what he said, he repeated "sit" again and patted the floor.  He was sitting on his little couch, and I'd been sitting by him on the floor earlier.  I had gotten up to go get something, and he came and got me and ran back to his couch and said that to me then, so it made sense.  Crazy!  Of course that was Monday and he hasn't said it since, so it just depends on the day whether he gets a few words out or not.

My parents had him Thursday evening while Jared tried to get some sleep and I was at work.  They'd decided that the snow/roads were bad enough that we should just leave Caden there to spend the night.  We insisted they didn't need to do that, but they insisted just the opposite, so Caden had a sleepover at Grammy and Grandpa's, and did great!  When Jared went to work at 11:00 pm I was the only one in the house all night, just me and the pups, and it was so strange!!  Don't remember the last time that happened! 

Hope everyone's having a lovely week, and like I said, I promise some pics will be posted soon.  Every time I have a minute to put them up, it doesn't cooperate and puts them in a strange order/sizes, and I get annoyed and giv

This Week.

This week seemed like a big ball of craziness in our house for some reason.

Maybe it was because it was so nice out and we spent a ton of time outside.

Or because Jared got a double ear infection & was miserable half the week.

Or because Caden started saying things like "Yes,", "Up," and "Quack, Quack" this week.

Or because I'm so behind on laundry I can barely get to my washer and dryer right now.

Or because Caden got covered in dog poop while playing in the backyard Wednesday before his dumb mom realized it wasn't just mud.

Or because either Jared or I were gone every night this week.  It's like we have joint custody of CW and had to take turns with him.....I swear we weren't both together with him for more than 10 minutes this week somehow.

Or because Jared got called into work last night from 11 to 8 a.m. after being there all day.

Nah, nothing too out of the norm here......I guess it was just a crazy week just because :).

This will sound really cheesy, but every time life gets crazy, whether it be because of the good, the bad, or the ugly, I seriously think of these lyrics from good 'ol Darius Rutcker, because I know it is SO TRUE!! 

"You're gonna miss this.  You're gonna want this back.  You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast.  These are the best ones.  So take a good look around, cuz you're gonna miss this."

I'll post some pics soon!!

All in a Day's Work

Saturday was a busy day for the work horse, Mr. CW.  Saturday morning he had to help Daddy measure and work on the current basement project.  'Current project' being replacing our inside door to our garage and all of the drywall around it that got ruined by moisture last winter.   A project indeed.

After Caden was done helping Jared, we left so that Jared could get more done without us around (Imagine that :)).  I went to brunch with my lovely one and only cousin Christina who was in town (yay!) and my sis.  While I was with them, Caden hung out with Grammy and Grandpa.  And, they went ahead and broke some child labor laws (ha!) and had him shoveling snow the whole time.  Dad has a little shovel in his car for emergencies.  I think it looks like a miniature shovel.  He gave it to Caden and threw snow on the driveway so he could shovel it off.  And Caden had a blast.  For over an hour.  And threw a fit when he had to stop and leave with me.

Then it was time for Caden to go down for what would be one of his longest naps (3.5 hours), complete with Jared and I sneaking off to the ER so he could get a few stitches in his finger he cut with a saw during Caden's nap :(. My mom snuck over to sit with CW while we went to the hospital....no, we didn't leave our son home alone. 

Caden got up from his nap and had to get back to work supervising Daddy and Grandad who were putting the door in (even with stitches you can't leave a huge opening from your house to garage with no door in winter :)), vaccum with Mommy, and entertain the dogs. 

After supper it was time for a bath and bed.  A fella who works that hard was beat and ready for some shut-eye.  And a Daddy who has to work on a big project all day and have a trip to the ER was ready for shut-eye, too :). 

I think this mommy should do the same :).

Happy Valentines Day!!

Happy Valentine's Day to this sweet little face and his wonderful Daddy!

I love you both more than you will ever know.

Eat & Explore Night

Friday night was "Eat & Explore Night" at Caden's daycare.  We invited our parents to all come too, and it was a lovely night filled with pizza, puppies, snakes, boxes to climb in, coloring, and more.

Funny story from the night....there were several big empty appliance boxes they had lined up kind of like a maze for the kids to crawl through.  They have brought boxes like that into Caden's room at daycare before and he loves playing in them.  Well Friday night he saw the boxes and went running over to them.  Rather than finding where he could get inside of them, he jumped on top of one and flattened it.......with a five-year-old boy inside of it........so that's when I pretended I didn't know who'd child he was, haha.

A little while later, he went back to the boxes and started crawling through them.  He'd been in there a while so I kneeled down to look inside and see what he was doing.  As I peeked inside the box, I saw such a cute little (maybe) 2 or 3-year-old girl with big blue eyes and blonde hair.  Adorable.  And she was laying down and crying.  But why was she crying??  OH, because my 15-month-old son was on top of her patting her face and giving her kisses.  Yep, my son.  While her parents stood outside the boxes waiting for their little cutie pie to come out of the box maze. 

So, I "casually" got CW out of the box while saying cheesy comments like, "Oh, are you kids having so much fun??"....."Look at you silly boy, what are you doing??"....trying to play it cool, you know :).  Once I got CW out and he was running around, over to the cute little puppies once again, I reached in to the little girl and made sure she was okay :).  She was just scared of Caden and the fact that she couldn't get up.  Wow, yep, that was my son, folks, thanks!!

Caden had a blast.  He got so excited in the gym where all the "Exploring" activities were that he just kept hollaring and running around as fast as he could, from one station to another.  He kept running up to other volunteers and/or kiddos and jumping into the middle of whatever they were doing.  We could have all dissappeared out of the gym and he wouldn't have noticed. 

One of the Preschool teachers stopped me to tell me that my son was "A wonderful boy who was fearless.....he wasn't scared to try anything and wasn't afraid of anyone.....and she loves it."  All the teachers, be it a Preschool teacher or whatever (Caden is still in the infant room), seemed to know his name last night.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing :)??  Ha.

Such a Boy

One of the things that has amazed me most since having Caden is the 'boy thing.'  What do I mean??  He has been all boy since the day he was born.  Grunting and tootin' his first few weeks of life.  Flipping toys over to see the nuts and bolts since he was first able to do so.  Everything has become a hammer since the day he could pick stuff up.  All boy.  And I love it :).  I could have 6 of these boy boys running around my house and be as happy as can be :).

The boy thing was very new to me.  I am one of two girls in my family.  I am 1 of 7 granddaughters.  Girls, girls girls :).  That's what we knew. And now, I feel like all I know is the boy thing :).  How funny life works out.  I adore the 'boy thing' and can't imagine life any other way.  Cracks me right up.

Caden is all about the trucks, the tools, climbing, running, throwing, cars, hats,......the boy stuff.  He is also enamored with everything that Jared and I do, and wants to do the same.  If Jared fixes a door, Caden will proceed to 'fix' the door with his tools for the next week.  If he sees me making cooking (rare, haha), he has to get a pot out of the cupboard, waits for me to give him a mixing spoon, and proceeds to 'cook' on the floor while I get supper ready. 

He watches EVERYTHING we do.  Scary??  Ya, I thought so too, haha.

Well anyhoo, now that Caden can reach in the bathroom drawers, he tries to sneak in our bathroom and take out all my junk whenever he can.  So the other day, I didn't realize that our bedroom door was open, because I always try to keep it closed, and he indeed snuck in there.

At the risk of his father having a heart attack :), I took a picture.  This is what I found:

My "All Boy" boy wearing a necklace of mine and 'drying' his hair with the straightener.  He was making a "PSHHHH" noise, like he was drying his hair like he always sees me do (he just got the wrong appliance).  I cracked up.  This will be great bribery (spelling??) some day. 


It must have been the day to crack me up, because later he put one of my "hide my greasy ponytail because I didn't wash my hair today" headbands and put it on his head!  It looked like a sweatband, like he was going to be working out.  Hillarious. 

Man, I love him...........in case I hadn't mentioned that lately.

Caden Language

A B C

We have been working on sign language for several months with Caden, as I think I mentioned before.  We have just been doing one word at a time, and once he has that down we add a new one.  So far we've taught him "more", "please", "thank you", and "bye-bye." 

He has those all down pretty well, with his own twist on a couple of them.  "More" and "Thank you" he's got mastered.  "Please" is rubbing his tummy.  For a while it was rubbing his hands together, but now it is rubbing his tummy.  We're getting closer to the circular motion on his chest that it is supposed to be.  But, it's pretty adorable and we know what he means. 

He also has some of his own lingo, too, that only a Mommy could understand :).

When he claps his hands together when he's on my lap, he wants me to sing.

When he taps my leg while I'm holding him, he wants me to bend my leg and put my foot on my knee so he can lay on it.  Complicated, huh??  One night he was being a monkey and I told him, "This is how mommy held you when you were a tiny baby", and did the leg thingie.  He thought it was a hoot and now likes to do that before he goes to bed.

If he sticks his foot in the air he wants me to pretend to eat it.  He cracks up every time.

If he goes to the bathroom door and does "Please," he wants to brush his teeth.  Like, sit in the sink and brush his teeth.  For several minutes.  Don't mess it up :).

Oh, the little quirks we figure out with these kiddos!!  Is there anything better than having a kiddo??  And knowing that you know them so well and decide what's best for them??  Sometimes it seems like a heck of a lot of pressure, haha, but most of the time, it makes life grand :).

Nighty-night.